target_setobjective_amount: How should it work?

[SteveL]

Hi guys. I’m looking at some tracker issues in the hope of providing some useful patches to grayman and greebo. For this one I could do with advice from mappers who've used objectives in plenty of ways I've never thought of!

 

0003298: It is not possible to change the "amount" spawnarg for objectives during game.

 

Most objectives use an "amount" spawnarg. For example "kill 1 guard", where "1" is the amount. However, it is not possible to change that property during game. Actually you can change the spawnarg, but that does not have any impact on the functionality.

 

It would be nice to have a target_setobjectiveamount (or similar named) entity which can handle this.

Should a target_setobjective_amount give the mapper any control other than the new "amount" requirement?

 

The other objective-affecting targets (addobjectives, setobjective_state, setobjective_visibility, setobjective_component_state) don't have extra spawnargs to let the mapper control whether there's a HUD message or anything else. The one exception is setobjective_state which lets you add an "unlatch_irreversible_objectives" spawnarg so you can choose whether to undo irreversible objectives.

 

Would a target_setobjective_amount need any? I guess "unlatch_irreversible_objectives" is relevant to this one too, as the default behaviour should probably be: undo a completed objective if the required amount gets raised above what the player has achieved, except if it's an irreversible objective.

 

The lazy way to go about this kind of thing is to add a dozen spawnargs/options so every mapper has to look them up and answer the questions for themselves, but it'd be better to take the cue from the existing targets and implement just the most useful behaviour instead. Any thoughts on how it should work?

[RJFerret]

My first reaction is no. My second reaction is, if folks wanted other control they would have made a tracker feature request for it.

 

There is a lot of control in the existing system (in the UI version even) that is barely tapped by most FMs.

 

Note, that request is just for mapper convenience it sounds like, as you can already swap out the objective for a copy with different amount set.

[SteveL]

I did wonder whether it could be done just as well by swapping. I thought of suggesting a change of name spawnarg since the amount will often be embedded in the objective description, but then wondered what would be left after name and amount had been swapped. The game keeps count of how many objective-type actions the player has clocked up independent of any existing objective.

[SteveL]

My first reaction is no. My second reaction is, if folks wanted other control they would have made a tracker feature request for it.

 

There is a lot of control in the existing system (in the UI version even) that is barely tapped by most FMs.

 

Note, that request is just for mapper convenience it sounds like, as you can already swap out the objective for a copy with different amount set.

 

NB this *is* a tracker feature request of course, but I can't find an associated forum discussion. The more I think about it the more I agree that simply replacing the objective gives the mapper more control without needing a new entity. I'll keep an eye on this thread and give it a bump if necessary over the weekend to see whether anyone thinks of a use case or speaks out in its favour. If not, we can close it as "already supported".