I'm running through an old RPG of mine and ridding it of as many wait blocks as i can. I am currently confused on the consept of Death counters.
Can some one set me in the right direction as a bigginer. Plz post a link to some old posts or give me somthing to work off of. I'm a fast learner so any marreral you offer i can use. ty

Well, I'm not sure how much help I can be but the way I use death counters as timers for certain triggers to work in a timed way for like when I need a scene or something. I don't know the exact specifics, but I'm sure someone around here does about how fast death counters go. But since I just mess around with it a lot I just guess an amount that seems about right and test it out, so with hyper triggers i usually space like 50 deaths inbetween dialogue. Here's an example of one of the first scenes in one of the maps i'm making.

First I tell when the timer to go, in this case at the very beginning since switches start out cleared


To stop an infinite number of adds so the previous trigger ends


Then do whatever you want on certain deaths of the timer


So since I set the limit at 600 deaths I can keep setting up dialogue or whatever else I need a timer for up to that number. With hyper triggers, I usually space 50ish deaths which gives a good amount of time for the previous dialogue to be read. So it depends on how fast you want these actions to happen and whatnot.

That's as easy as I can explain it.

Ok, thats gives me a good start. Now, i'll get a lil more indepth. i do have hypertriggers running. Now can some one show me a sceen trigger. lets say when a player comes to a door. the trigger will send transmitions from a rine at the dorr saying "it's locked" "give me a minutes to open it" "there. it's opened" then have 3 sound wave (beeps) go off. and finaly the door opens.

The general rule is: Everytime you would normally use a wait you split your trigger actions at that place. Have the 2nd part of the actions in a trigger that checks for the desired dc value to achieve the same effect as a wait.

I usually make a group of triggers like this:
Door open counter:
When Current Player has suffered at least 1 deaths of Door DC -> Add 1 to Door DC for Current Player

Door open init:
Conditions:
Current Player brings 1 men to 'door'
Actions:
Display "Text 1"
Play wav "beep"
Set Door DC for All Players to 1

Door open 1:
Conditions:
Current Player has suffered 240 deaths of Door DC
Actions:
Display "Text 2"
Play wav "beep"

Door open end:
Conditions:
Current Player has suffered 480 deaths of Door DC
Actions:
Display "Text 3"
Play wav "beep"
Set Door DC for Current Player to 0

By adding more conditions you can reuse the door DC for any number of things (more doors, computers, etc.).

Alternately, I like to have my death counters start at their maximum value and run to 0. Maybe I'm just weird, but I would do it like so:

Coditions:
Player has at least 1 Death
Actions:
Subtract 1 death

Conditions:
Player brings 1 unit to Door Location
Actions:
Send Transmission "w/e"
Set Deaths to 12*(However many seconds you need)

The only reason I do it this way I suppose is that the death counter can't run into infinity, and it makes more sense to me since it's "counting down" instead of up, but really it works the same

http://Falkoner.CoW.GooglePages.com/Death_Counts.html

Teh win?

There are other alternatives to death counters, given that you somehow ran out of death counters o_O... for example, you could have a location and create and remove burrowed units. The concept is the same as death counters, but slightly more work and you're taking up a location instead of a unit.

And falk, when are you going to change that glow effect on your tutorial >___< kills me eyes T_T

creating units will decrease the unit limit and it can create lags... (at least scrolling lag over that ground)

Remember to use DC (death counts) from units who are not supposed to be killed for that player. (e.g.: powerups, unused buildings, mineral fields, vespin geysir, critters, ...)

Ahli's right, though still, if you are to run out death counters (I'm sure you'd have to try to do that), using units sparingly (i.e. for the amounts of missions) should be OK. Though it's probably still to be using DC's, at leaast you know there are other options, albiet (I don't even know if I'm using this word write) not as efficient.

Even if you do run out of units, you can use high amounts like 1000-1500, and stuff.

If you read my tutorial, you'd realize that it's hardly likely that you would run out of death counts as you have over 1600 different possibilities to use as death counts.

Ok guys. I'm still haveing truble lol can someoen tell me what action to use to show leader board on the "death counter unit" i'm useing so i can monitor it?

There is none, just set up triggers to detect numbers, and display a message.

ah ok. i figured out the consept of DCs. ^_^

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 30 2007, 2:01 am by shadow.wraith.

If you want a visualization of the internal calculations you do with the DC, you can use the Custom Score.
Every time you modify the DC make the same changes to Custom Score. Unfortunately there's no leader board on deaths directly.