Modding Megalo in Forge

[Guest]

Several days ago, Cosmic Lightning and 7ime discovered that the incident trigger executes in Forge variants. After experimenting with this, I'm going to have to admit that they made a rather significant discovery. Since the Incident trigger is new to Halo 4, 343i probably forgot to make this trigger not execute in Forge variants. That being said, this "small" mistake is enough to greatly improve the Forge system.

Using the teleporter_used incident, I was able to make the Monitor invincible in Forge which would be extremely helpful to Forgers especially when used in conjunction with gametypes with the "Invincibility/No Death Barriers" system. I tried to simulate an OnTick trigger by submitting an incident in a recursive loop but since Megalo isn't run on a separate thread, it freezes the game.

Currently, I have my eyes on devices which can be animated (i.e. sentry turrets) thanks to the numerous device-related incidents available which might come in handy for a pseudo-OnTick trigger. I don't have much time these days to get a good look at it any time soon, hence this thread. Hopefully, someone else can figure out a way to make a piece of code execute repeatedly somehow. It can be very tricky especially with the limited amount of incidents available but I believe it's not impossible, so I strongly encourage the community to experiment with Forge variants.

In order to share Forge-based gametypes, you will need to share a film clip of the gametype. People who watch the film clip should have the modified Forge gametype appear in their temporary history.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that even without the OnTick trigger, you can still do pretty cool stuff like mass move, etc.

Here's the tutorial by Cosmic:

Oddly enough, actvate triggers, subroutines, & branches under it will function as well. to convert your variant to work in forge is a 3 step simple process.

Grab your variant, change both engine-types to Sandbox,

&

right above the game variant, add

<Sandbox flags="2" editMode="0" respawnTime="5">

<EditorTraits>

</EditorTraits>

</Sandbox>

It will now run under forge, but only things in the IncidentTrigger will run.

Great way to test things out though. Object filters will run through as well, set them up, hit new roun, ureka, done. I kinda hoped for instant action, but nope.

Note I'm using ksoft.tool 1.4, newest ksoft.tool to do this.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Matt
forgot to add something

[Cosmic lightning 74]

Also note I did not play around with the editor traits much, but I'm certain decompiling Party Night Forge Slayer will get you fun stuff for the editor.

 

Anyway, awesome job on Invincible Monitor, I'd never would of thought of using the action you used, really, I would of literally tried doing ObjectSetInvincible repeatedly.

[Teancum 221]

Matt can you attach a modified film here that we can use?

[haloman30 30]

Yeah, like Teancum said, can you put a clip here so we can download it? 

[Guest]

I've been busy but I'll try to get something up soon, but you all should be able to make one easily. By the way, I don't think you need a film clip to upload it to your fileshare. It won't show up in other people's temporary history normally but it will if they create and watch a clip of the film.

[7ime 104]

Here's a simple clip of a simple slayer gametype with a teleporter_used incident to turn people invincible; you will need to go through a teleporter to become invincible.

[Guest]

Here's a simple clip of a simple slayer gametype with a teleporter_used incident to turn people invincible; you will need to go through a teleporter to become invincible.

Thanks man! Btw, you don't have to use any incident at all. I put the invincibility code in the incident trigger without checking for any incident.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Matt

[Guest]

[Cosmic lightning 74]

 

Good Job Matt

 

It is nice for the invincibility, but in some maps you can't spawn items as they will despawn. oh well, good screenshot stuff. 

 

Well, actually it is kinda handy. 

 

Me and NumbSkull found some nice out of bound area's you can forge on and items will not despawn in harvest & outcast. Testing other area's as well, if you want to join, you all are more then welcome to. 

Edited February 4, 2014 by Cosmic lightning

[oVR 11]

Whats the status of the mass moving of objects in forge?

[Teancum 221]

That'd be cool, but you'd have to set labels to Megalo-link stuff, which I don't think you can change at runtime (during gameplay).As far as forging goes you're still limited by what Forge allows. This is primarily useful for forging in death zones and the like.

[Cosmic lightning 74]

That'd be cool, but you'd have to set labels to Megalo-link stuff, which I don't think you can change at runtime (during gameplay).As far as forging goes you're still limited by what Forge allows. This is primarily useful for forging in death zones and the like.

 

I think he was referring to the mass move by using the map variant, not forge itself all though I'd love to have a select all on the halo 5 & hit move by coordinates, if they did that, I might buy the next gen console, might. 

[Guest]

I'm not really making any gametypes or working on any Halo modding tool at the moment. One can iterate through each object (no filter is necessary) spawning a flag in a certain direction relative to the object storing its reference to an object member variable, and be sure to set it to invincible immediately after spawn so it'll work outside barriers. Then move each object to its flag marker deleting the marker after the operation is completed.

[Teancum 221]

Hmm, this could easily be set up to spawn non-forgable items if I just stuck in my Machinima code and modified it slightly. I might have to do that. I bet people would love to forge with the skinned weapons, some effects, flags, etc. And I wonder if I could clone objects? Sometimes you run out of what you need and just want a couple more of an object type. Probably not, though. I'm pretty sure you need a valid tag name to create an object.

 

Hmmm, I know forge pieces aren't in the MOTL, but do they have a valid tag name somewhere else in the .map?

[Cosmic lightning 74]

Hmm, this could easily be set up to spawn non-forgable items if I just stuck in my Machinima code and modified it slightly. I might have to do that. I bet people would love to forge with the skinned weapons, some effects, flags, etc. And I wonder if I could clone objects? Sometimes you run out of what you need and just want a couple more of an object type. Probably not, though. I'm pretty sure you need a valid tag name to create an object.

 

Hmmm, I know forge pieces aren't in the MOTL, but do they have a valid tag name somewhere else in the .map?

I do remember that I set up object/attach feature in it to test it & loaded it, had to start new round to have it load up stuff if that helps any. 

[OrangeMohawk 407]

Hmmm, I know forge pieces aren't in the MOTL, but do they have a valid tag name somewhere else in the .map?

Items on the forge palette are found in the SCNR tag, just search for "Sandbox Palette". Since they are not listed in MOTL, I don't think you can use CreateObject to spawn them, but maybe there's a way to duplicate existing items? That's beyond my knowledge of megalo.

[Cosmic lightning 74]

Items on the forge palette are found in the SCNR tag, just search for "Sandbox Palette". Since they are not listed in MOTL, I don't think you can use CreateObject to spawn them, but maybe there's a way to duplicate existing items? That's beyond my knowledge of megalo.

You know, I just got an idea. Can you use a jtag & spawn an item in a forge then decode the game-type? Quite literally we just decoded basic editing & it has the sandbox part on it. So if you spawned an thing while in forge on a jtag & saved it as its own game-type, would that allow us to see the sandbox mysteries some more?

[Teancum 221]

You know, I just got an idea. Can you use a jtag & spawn an item in a forge then decode the game-type? Quite literally we just decoded basic editing & it has the sandbox part on it. So if you spawned an thing while in forge on a jtag & saved it as its own game-type, would that allow us to see the sandbox mysteries some more?

No, because forging is not run via megalo. It's all handled by the core game engine.

[Cosmic lightning 74]

No, because forging is not run via megalo. It's all handled by the core game engine.

I meant use the jtag to do what you were thinking. bet that would be easier. Also why does it need a sandbox in the first place in order for it to work, its beyond me but it req it. So it has to have some reason for it to be there. 

[AMD 885]

You know, I just got an idea. Can you use a jtag & spawn an item in a forge then decode the game-type? Quite literally we just decoded basic editing & it has the sandbox part on it. So if you spawned an thing while in forge on a jtag & saved it as its own game-type, would that allow us to see the sandbox mysteries some more?

 

There isn't anything more to decode. If you're referring to the actual forge map format, Matt and I figured it out a while ago but we don't really have the time to do anything with it.

[Cosmic lightning 74]

There isn't anything more to decode. If you're referring to the actual forge map format, Matt and I figured it out a while ago but we don't really have the time to do anything with it.

 

That is what I was referring to & could you & matt give the stuff you know to someone who does have time for it. I don't but I'm certain others on here do it. 

[OrangeMohawk 407]

That is what I was referring to & could you & matt give the stuff you know to someone who does have time for it. I don't but I'm certain others on here do it. 

I'm pretty sure most of those on the site with enough programming experience to handle that are busy with either school or their own projects right now. AMD and Matt will get to it when they have time. It is finals time for college students after all.

[Cosmic lightning 74]

I'm pretty sure most of those on the site with enough programming experience to handle that are busy with either school or their own projects right now. AMD and Matt will get to it when they have time. It is finals time for college students after all.

but you never really know, someone on here might have time. Who knows who though.  

[Guest]

I'll post the file structure sometime later today if I can find it.

EDIT: Found it! I'm working on a blog post and hopefully will be finished by the end of this week.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Matt

[Teancum 221]

Thanks much, Matt. Also, is it cool with you if I modify your "Forgealo" gametype to allow for spawning of non-forgable items (flags, etc)? I think between invincibility and getting the forge objects you normally can't a lot of dynamic can be added to some of these maps. Using the effects and the flag alone would make a huge difference.