My friend and I have spent quite a bit of time (almost 2 weeks now) on our Infection map and we're just about there, but we've run into a couple problems. The map is a linear progression map. Each section is split up by a teleporter. You run through the section, enter the teleporter, run through the next section. The goal of the humans is to reach the end of the level and enter a Falcon and fly away (in theory). So this means that if we have the zombie respawn at the beginning of the level, if a zombie is killed, he'll restart the level and basically spend the rest of the time playing catch up. I've tried to counter this by giving zombies sprint and 10 seconds of unlimited ability use after respawn. Still, that isn't gonna work. By placing spawns throughout the level, if a zombie is killed early on there is a possibility that he'll spawn at the very end of the level, once again playing catch up, but backward. This also gives him the chance to camp the Falcon and wait for the humans to show up. So what I tried to do was make the respawn points unlock after a certain time. Here's what I set: Respawn 1 Respawn Time: Never Place at Start: True Respawn 2 Respawn Time: 120 seconds Place at Start: False Respawn 3: Respawn Time: 180 seconds Place at Start: False So if a zombie is killed within the first 2 minutes, he'll respawn at section 1, which is a tiny bit behind where the humans will be at that point. 2 minutes later, he'll have the chance to respawn at section 2, which is where the humans will be around at that point, and so on. This isn't the fix I'm looking for though. The zombie can still respawn at the first respawn point 5 minutes into the game, forcing him to once again play catch up. Also, either I did something wrong, but the whole thing isn't working, since in my tests, I was able to respawn at section 3 before 180 seconds. Any ideas/fixes for this? I was given the idea for a "teleporter room" in which the zombie can essentially go to whatever area he chooses, but since Bungie decided you're only allowed to use 8 teleporters, that won't work. EDIT: If I were to spawn a building block at the 120 and 180 intervals on top of the previous respawn point, would that respawn no longer work since someone is on top/covering it? The Haven My original intention was to make the Falcon a Safe Haven and make it so the humans gained 1 point when they entered the Haven. Apparently you can't do that, since there is no option to have the Haven give you points just for entering. You need to get a kill while inside to gain a point. So, awesome, the humans get to fly around and kill 1 zombie to win. Oh wait, the Haven expires after 60 seconds. No unlimited Havens apparently. So I set up 2 Falcons. Once the 60 seconds runs out, the 2nd Falcon becomes the Haven. And then the 1st again. But while testing, I decided to fly the Falcon straight into the water and see what happens. What I got was the announcer repeating "Hill Moved" over and over again for 30 seconds. Even with the Falcon respawning immediately, he kept saying it. I ended up just making the Haven around the Falcon and making the Falcon undrivable. Now the humans have to wait around for a zombie to come and challenge them and try to get a kill inside the Haven. It's sloppy, but it's a solution. Unless someone has a better one? Really these are the only 2 problems with our map. We've been able to fix everythin by ourselves, but we aren't master Forgers yet, we don't know all the tricks. Honestly, about a month ago we tried out Halo 3 Forge for the first time and realized how amaizng it was. When Reach came out we built a test map just to see what we could do, and then started sinking our time into this one. I'd hate to give up on the map when we're so close and we've invested so much into it. Any help is appreciated. Hopefully someone actually reads this mess of text. Thanks...
For the haven part I would suggest making a hill area somewhere in the sky, so you have to get in the falcon and go to the hill to get the point. And for the spawning part, well, I have absolutely no idea.
For spawning, you could do a teleporter system, assuming you have enough. Teleporter 1 sends zombies to area 1, Teleporter 2 to area 2, etc.
Respawn Time does not affect Respawn Points, Initial Spawns, Respawn Zones, Soft Kill Boundaries, or similar objects. They will always appear at the start of the round regardless of their Respawn Time. What you could do is prioritize the spawns and, as you said, block older ones. Wrap all Respawn Points in a single Neutral Respawn Zone. Now, add successive Respawn Zone, Weaks to each Zombie spawn hive. So if you have X spawn hives, then the Zombie spawn hive at the start would get X Weaks, the next spawn hive would get X-1 Weaks, ..., and the last spawn hive would get 0 Weaks. This will make it so that the spawn hives closer to the beginning are more likely to be used. Then, delay-spawn blocks to cover the earlier Zombie spawns. So after, say, 50 seconds, the Zombie beginning spawns are blocked, and the game will use the next-most-likely spawn. There is one issue with this, though. Other factors influence the spawning algorithm -- dead teammates, for example. It is theoretically possible for these factors to accumulate enough to overpower one or two Weaks, which would cause the Zombies to spawn ahead. Multiplying the Weaks could help (beginning gets 0, next gets 2, after gets 4, ..., Xth gets 2X) but I don't know for sure. EDIT: The Neutral Respawn Zone is absolutely necessary. Zones all affect the probability that a given Respawn Point will be used. The effect of two Weaks, however, will not stack unless they are inside of a normal Zone. Normal + Normal = Normal Weak + Weak = Weak Normal + Weak + Weak > Normal + Weak Normal + Weak + Weak + Weak > Normal + Weak + Weak
Just wanted to add one thing to what DavidJCobb said - one thing you can do is have only initial spawns for the zombie team at the start of the map, and then team-specific respawn points elsewhere. I'm doing this on a minigame map that I'm currently working on and for my purposes it gets the job done - the defending team starts in the same place as the attacking team, but once they die they respawn in the mid-point of the map and can try to intercept the attackers as they drive through. That really just creates two separate spawn areas though, and it sounds like you need multiple.
For the Heaven problem, it'S only that you placed only one Heaven on your map so when the Heaven move, it cannot move to any other Heaven since you placed only 1, so you have to place another Heaven somewhere on your map., or at the exact same place, but you need a minimum of 2 Heaven on your map if you do not want the Hill Moved message over and over.
As for difficulties when ending the game... This will obviously depend on your map size, but a carefully-set-up network of explosives that connect to each part of the map, and that may only be detonated from the Haven, could work. Enter Haven, shoot Coil, blow up whole map, kill Zombies, get points, game ends.