Jailbreak 2004c: Bug fixes we've got already, so what about features?

[tarquin]

Door Close, perhaps little more than a "it might be interesting if", but when playing jailbreak, you've usually got a few defenders standing around guarding the door, someone comes in, initiates jailbreak, teleports back (if the mutator is active), and those who are in jail are now free. But what if, in addition to the jailbreak token, there was another token, close by, which would close the doors? If left unattended, a team would never truly be jailed, because they could escape the moment they were locked in, but if attended well - one might be able to close the doors before all of the inmates escaped.
Problem being that this would require editing of the maps to create this new token, but still - something to think about.

I can see two ways of getting round the problem of having to change maps to put a Closer in.

Method 1: The Toggle: If you touch your OWN release switch, then it locks the enemy jail. So for example, an enemy comes up to the switch you're defending and manages to reach it. You kill them, run over to the switch, and your jail is locked again. If you're fast enough you'll manage to keep some prisoners in. This just means that each release switch is made into a toggle, where one team can open it and the other can close it.

Method 2: One at a time: only the release switches of one team can be active at any one time. Activating a Red release switch immediately causes any currently active blue release switch to lock again. Example: you're on red, and invading the enemy base. You hear that the enemy has just released their team. If you get to the switch in time, you not only release your team, you shut the enemy back in jail too.

I'm not sure how easy these would be implement, as, IIRC, the release switch code is pretty much designed to be automatic once it's started a release. Mych can tell us if it's feasible...
However, I think both could have their merits -- at least, if one's easy to implement, so is the other.

 

[gunhero]

So to some it up about the door close idea

basically if blue releases the jail at a red lock

the red person kills the person who saved the blue quickly and the red player hits his own lock and keeps the remaining players in


=great idea

 

[citrusmirakel]

Method 2: One at a time: only the release switches of one team can be active at any one time. Activating a Red release switch immediately causes any currently active blue release switch to lock again. Example: you're on red, and invading the enemy base. You hear that the enemy has just released their team. If you get to the switch in time, you not only release your team, you shut the enemy back in jail too

That's pretty good too. Although, to make this work to satasfaction, I think you'd need the mutator giving the option to extend the jail release time a few seconds, or the feature would be moot.

 

[Trueblood]

I think the idea is okay, but its making alot of things complicated
Fiddling about with the lock and door is just asking for trouble! Lets keep release and alt-escape simple.
So if your in jail, Stop whining and do your time

 

[tarquin]

I think the idea is okay, but its making alot of things complicated
Fiddling about with the lock and door is just asking for trouble! Lets keep release and alt-escape simple.

Bear in mind that this would be just an Add-on that people can choose to enable iif they wish. Basic Jailbreak gameplay would stay the same.

It's nice to be able to play around with the rules sometimes!

 

[ZedMaestro]

Why not make an addon that switches the jails around too, like the X-Maps for UTJB, except via an addon rather than a new map?

The more the better

 

[tarquin]

That shouldn't be too hard to do... call it "X-Switch" maybe.

 

[mrloper]

i think closing the door by pressing any button is a bad idea. this only brings more button camping. and in small maps, u will get the problem that the peeps will walk over the button every time, so it opens close opens close opens close, and nobody will ever escape

 

[Birelli]

The cutting off of releases thing is technically impossible without new maps AFAIK. You would actually have to close the door early, and Jailbreak doesn't actually control the door. It tells it to open, and then monitors it to see when it closes (it sends out an event when it has closed). The actual time the door is open is governed by the settings for the actual door mover.

To flip the jails would you just need to switch the TeamNumber of the PlayerStarts in each jail? It seems like it'd only be useful on a map-by-map basis though, if you dislike half of the maps' jail setups then you'd just dislike the other half after switching.

 

[tarquin]

Hmm... that's true. Bugger!
You'd have to find some way of forcing the mover to close prematurely. Not sure if that can be done.

 

[citrusmirakel]

The cutting off of releases thing is technically impossible without new maps AFAIK. You would actually have to close the door early, and Jailbreak doesn't actually control the door. It tells it to open, and then monitors it to see when it closes (it sends out an event when it has closed). The actual time the door is open is governed by the settings for the actual door mover.

I'm still a little confused by this explanation - I've certainly had times when I've screwed around in jail and ended up having the door slammed in my face, and conversely - times when I've initiated jailbreak, been fragged and sent to jail, and immediately escaped because the door was still open.

You're saying the duration of time the door is open is a localized setting in each individual map? Because if that's the case, wouldn't a universal override of said time frame be fairly simple?

 

[Birelli]

Every door mover in every map has its own settings for how long it stays open. As far as I know there is no way to tell a mover to do some arbitrary thing (like immediately go to key 0). You can trigger a mover and that's about it. In the case of the typical jail door triggering causes the door to open for a set amount of time (whatever the mapper set it to), it then closes after that amount of time. None of that really leaves room for closing the door prematurely.

 

[ZedMaestro]

About "X-Switch"... maybe it could come with a map-list configuration in the Addon Options. It would be like the usual maplist selection, and you move across maps which you would want the X-Switch addon active for.

Therefore, the admin can decide what maps this addon should affect.

Sorted

 

[A Jailbreak fan]

Let's release this and get the blood flowing to new jailbreak players.

 

[Mychaeel]

Yes! Let's release this already!

...
...

Hmm. Can't release ideas? Need to be implemented first? Drat, I knew I had forgotten something vital.

 

[tarquin]

As far as I know there is no way to tell a mover to do some arbitrary thing (like immediately go to key 0). You can trigger a mover and that's about it.

I can see two ways round this.

One is to replace the jaildoor movers with a custom class mover... but I have no idea whether that's possible in-game, and what would happen to things like static mesh lighting.

Another is to change the way we implement the idea -- instead of locking down the door, wait till it shuts of its own accord, and then teleport the escaped players back to jail. But I don't think this would be very stisfying form a gameplay point of view.

 

[Mychaeel]

Well --

Jailbreak keeps a list of the movers it has detected to be part of the jail door in JBInfoJail (the ListMover array in TInfoRelease).

Just now, it only uses those references to monitor jail doors for when they close.

On the other hand, if that list of movers was made accessible to an add-on, it could probably implement some sort of "hack" which sets StayOpenTime (of those Movers whose current state is derived from OpenTimedMover, e.g. TriggerOpenTimed) to something very large, and, when the movers are to be closed again, just performs a Goto('Close') to cut short their staying open.

 

[tarquin]

interesting...

(of those Movers whose current state is derived from OpenTimedMover, e.g. TriggerOpenTimed)

If the jail doors aren't in a state that can be hacked like that, then at map start the Add-on could display a message that says 'sorry, this map is not compatible with the Thingy Add-on'.

 

[Trueblood]

Hows that spray paint idea coming Mych? I found that idea one of the most promising

 

[Mychaeel]

Indeed, though I'd expect any jail door movers to be TriggerOpenTimed (unless they're triggered by other jail door movers, but in that case, their behavior would be implicitly modified by modifying the TriggerOpenTimed ones').