Battlezone Forums

Is it possible to enable the game to instantly remove pilots from the world when they die, rather than remain in the world in the 'dead' state while the animation plays and then playing the explosion?

The reason I ask is because I would like my pilots to explode much like vehicles (minus the crashing mesh of course), and would rather they just die instantly. I have created quite a few detail gibs etc, so it would be nice!

If the game code doesn't allow it, I wonder if a modified version of N1's Replace On Death would allow it. I'm working on cooking up a demo of Serenesis IM (Infantry Matches), and incoporating some of the things youve seen so far. I've got a monumental stockpile of models to finish up!

Just a complete guess but does it depend at all on the existence and length of a death animation?

Well, i removed the death animation and re-built the pilots mesh without one, but when killed he just sits there in limbo without any animation playing and is finally removed.

Ill try changing the number of frames to 1 and seeing if that works, thats near-enough instant for me i think

EDIT: Nope, doesn't work. There must be some sort of hard-coded timer. Thats a bummer. Does replace-on-death work as soon as an object is flagged as 'dead/dying' or only when its removed from the world?

Test it?

was hoping you could answer

Actually, what would be handy is a blank mission .dll that does nothing other than loop those handy pieces of code you've written (attacher, replace on death, spawn around, aIUnit etc)

Dammit, turns out it doesn't work for pilots at all...

Would it be feasible to compile a .dll that would replace a pilot when its health reaches 0 or a value below it? Bonus points for allowing the replaceWith object to change depending on what ordnance/weapon shot it... e.g.:


[replaceOnDeath]
replaceWith = "PilotExplosionGibs.odf"

ifKilledWith1 = "ordnance.odf" (or weapon.odf)
replaceWith1 = "PilotExplosionLargeWeapon.odf"
ifKilledWith2 = "ordnance2.odf"
replaceWith2 = "PilotExplosionSmallWeapon.odf"

separateReplacementIfSniped = true/false
snipedReplaceWith = "PilotHeadshotAnimation.odf"

would that sort of thing work/be feasible even?

Pilots must not follow normal DLL pathways like other objects. Perhaps need to hook the pilot death functions that are TMK used for human players.

In Battlezone 1 pilots blow up into chunks, and a little cut scene shows up how they died for everyone to see. They don't just lay down and lamely bleed.

Killer AK wrote:They don't just lay down and lamely bleed.

They do in TRO.

If you snipe them in BZ1, they do.

Yeah, thats what I'd like to resolve. Same for Soldier Deathmatch, Unfortunately pilots don't see to be able to display damageEffects either.

Code has a 3 second delay on death for animations. Not adjustable, so far.

-- GSH

Would it be reasonable to request that said delay is exposed to ODF? I'd like to get pilots 'explosions' as diverse as vehicle ones but within reason of course, although damage_effects would be handy too

TJ - you know where to request bugs/features.

-- GSH

Filed a report on bugzilla, strange getting used to that program...