Drop Spawning

To set up a drop spawn, change the weapon's physics to fixed, and then raise it 6 coordinates off the ground. Let Go of the weapon in the air, then change it back to normal physics.

 

I think he meant Initial Ordnance drop.

Initial Ordnance drop means the drop will be announced to everyone when it appears with a waypoint, you can set the respawn time of it, but you can't set it not to place at start.
Additionally, Initial Ordnance drops don't cost any budget and there's almost no limit to it.

But if you're gonna have a load of weapons in a small(ish) area, please don't use the drops for everything as the waypoints do tend to become annoying to some people when they're all around you.

 

If so, you and him are both a bit confused on this terminology. I'm no expert on Drop Spawning weaponry, but what ends up happeining is the weapon spawns just like Paints said, falls to the ground, and rests there until de-spawn or pick-up. This is advantageous because if someone picks of a spawned weapon, it wont spawn again until after its used up. With drop spawning, it spawns evert 'x' seconds.

But like I said, I'm pretty unfamiliar with it. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on something.

Also, thanks for that description, Paints. I've never understood how to set these up.

 

Paints is right about to set it up. The whole purpose for drop spawning is that the weapon will spawn on every (x) seconds like audience said. This way you can time the spawns in game. If the weapon is set up for 90 sec respawn, you know every mite and a half the weapon is going to respawn guaranteed. It's a competitive thing.

 

So I just set up some maps with this type of spawning (thanks again for that description, Paints), and I noticed that the weapons don't spawn initially. Is there a way to fix that, or will they just always show up for the first time after their spawn times?

 

Why would you drop spawn initial ordnance? That's not what I meant at all.

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Hmm. That sounds odd. Well I'm not sure what the de-spawn timer is for Halo 4. Maybe they're disappearing right away before you even can get to them. I don't know. I'd have to check it out in forge.

 

I could invite you to a forge later if you'll be on. I'm not sure what's happening, but they are doing just as I said- spawning only after x seconds (x being their spawn time).

 

They should spawn at start like normal. Two things -

1. Are you sure they didn't despawn before you got to them? In Reach, if you drop-spawned a weapon it would despawn after a fixed amount of time, if no one picked it up; I think it was about 40 seconds or something. I'm not sure how long this timer would be in Halo 4, but I know weapons that are dropped by players despawn a lot faster. You might want to go into theater and watch one, and see how long it takes to despawn if you don't touch it. If the despawning is as fast as I think it might be, drop-spawning might be a dead technique now. If the timer is REALLY short, it might even be spawning and despawning before you appear on the map (during the 10-second lead-in period, essentially).

2. When you placed it initially, you had it set to fixed, then changed it to normal physics with it not moving - right? If it never comes to rest, the map won't save its position because it doesn't know where to save it.

I'm guessing #1 is your issue though.

 

this could lead to a large despawn discussion... umm without going to ofar OT, can anyone shed light on how the game decides to despawn something?

if I spawn a bunch of crates and they move in some way, sometimes they despawn very fast, and sometimes they take a while... what gives?

 

I would think so. And if it can be confirmed that the despawn timer is a problem, we need to mention that in the dust-up threads. It was officially recommended (though not required) to try drop-spawning; if it doesn't work any more, or is inconsistent in any way, it would clearly be better to just do regular spawning.

 

I'm going to look at it again, but I'm pretty sure something's funky with teh drop spawn system itself.

 

Google magic

If this guy is to be trusted, quick despawning is the problem. Actually, if he's right about how weapon despawning works in this game, this is A. really interesting knowledge all forgers should know, and B. incredibly dumb game programming. I understand why they'd use a proximity despawn system for dead bodies and maybe scenery objects, but weapons..?

 

Well, I'll be making my weapons spawn normally now. Thanks for the info, Nutty.

 

I'm as certain as I can be, without actually being able to find it, that this was pretty much explicitly stated by 343. It may have been a QnA section in a bulletin, or perhaps a forum post, since I'm pretty sure it was a response to a question. I remember them saying that it's influenced by player proximity and line of sight, though obviously the former is more influential based on the link's description. It is indeed ludicrous.

It also seems to have different weightings for different weapons. I often notice that I die with Sniper and DMR, and when I get back to my body my DMR is still there but my Sniper is gone. It's infuriating.

 

YOU FIND THAT MAN! I mean, that bulletin! I'd like to read the official explanation.

This is really something title-update-worthy, IMO. I can understand that they might need to respond to the addition of personal ordnance and loadouts by despawning all weapons a little faster. But this system is really awful, competitively speaking. It allows power weapons to exist or not exist on the map based on factors that are essentially random and uncontrollable, no matter how skilled and aware you are. It also means sometimes you'll get ammo off dropped weapons, or trade out your BR for a DMR, while other times you'll walk through a warzone with empty guns and not be able to find a single weapon to refill from or swap out for. How is that good for the game?

I really never cared about drop-spawning or static timers. It's nice for MLG play but for most Halo players it's no big deal. But this despawning thing... ugh. Well at least I have an explanation for it now, because it's been puzzling me in nearly every game of Halo 4 I've played.

 

I believe it's a general performance thing, though I agree that it really needs addressing. I find that weapon despawning and lack of Xs are the two most consistent niggles I have with the game. Neither are catastrophic but both just bug the hell out of me.

 

Funny enough, I've gotten used to lack of Xs, but I still find myself saying, "...on my X."

 

It seems that there's a rather large chance that drop-spawned weapons despawn at thirteen seconds, if nobody is near them. If someone is standing "close" to them they'll stay spawned indefinitely. This obviously creates a few problems for competitive weapon spawning systems, since drop spawning was the go-to for competitive maps.

Drop spawns could still be used, in game, but it would be largely up to the forgers discretion. They're probably going to be largely useless.