Thread: Continuous Horde in Campaign

I'm trying to get a continuous horde into my map. It isn't the finale, but I want the horde to continue attacking until the survivors make it to the safehouse, ending the level.

Some of the things that I've tried so far, is just having multiple PanicEvents being triggered by my logic relay at different time intervals, but for some reason, it didn't obey those time intervals, and instead of having a new one every 30 seconds, it did so about every minute and a half. Another thing I tried is having trigger_once regions trigger hordes, but those didn't work at all. What I really want is for zombies to continuously spawn until they reach the saferoom, much like what happens during finale or during survival, though without tanks.

Is this possible in L4D1? If so how?

Originally Posted by DannBo

I'm trying to get a continuous horde into my map. It isn't the finale, but I want the horde to continue attacking until the survivors make it to the safehouse, ending the level.

Some of the things that I've tried so far, is just having multiple PanicEvents being triggered by my logic relay at different time intervals, but for some reason, it didn't obey those time intervals, and instead of having a new one every 30 seconds, it did so about every minute and a half. Another thing I tried is having trigger_once regions trigger hordes, but those didn't work at all. What I really want is for zombies to continuously spawn until they reach the saferoom, much like what happens during finale or during survival, though without tanks.

Is this possible in L4D1? If so how?

Yes, this is possible, but it's not very intuitive. You see, the director has a hard-wired control over panic events--they can't occur sooner than 90 seconds after one another. So, you have to get around that.

What you'll need is a logic_timer, an info_zombie_spawn (or several, actually), and a logic_relay. Here's the setup: put the info_zombie_spawn entities somewhere out of sight, but where the zombies they spawn can still reach the survivors. Use maybe 4-6 of them. Set the logic_timer to use a low retrigger number (every 1-5 seconds), and add an output to the info_zombie_spawns (you can give them all the same name) to spawn a zombie "OnTimer." Make sure the logic_timer starts disabled.

Now, have whatever starts the panic event also enable the logic_timer (via the logic_relay, though I guess the relay isn't absolutely necessary). That way, more and more CI will spawn, even when the panic waves are dying off. You'll have to be careful, though, and playtest until you find the right settings for how often (and how many) zombies will spawn.

Thanks! I'll have to try this out. I assume this has been tested successfully?

Yes. I and others have used it quite successfully. A very good example is in the second map of the "Detour Ahead" custom campaign.

Detour Ahead

Ah that works wonderfully! Thank you!

No problem. Glad to help.