Archive: 12 posts

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As I slowly make my way from amateur creator to mediocre creator (AND BEYOND!) I find myself having a ton of questions. Most of the time I can figure stuff out on my own, and that's how i prefer it, as solving these logic problems is really rewarding. But I do find myself getting stumped quite a bit. So in an effort to not crud up this forum with multiple posts, i figured i would just make one post for me to drop my questions into and if any of you would be so kind to help me that would be great. And in turn, i'll take what i learn to help others. Also, i can (and will!) take videos and pictures if that will help you help me! Or help me help you. It's crappy quality from my iphone, but it might help. So, as of right now I am working on a very basic top-down tower defense level. I'm not sure if I am even going to publish it when it's done, this is more an exercise for me to get a complete understanding of getting the basics of all these pieces working. As of now what I have working is: Emitter emits 20 "creeps" They follow a predetermined path, and when 20 of them hit the base at the end the game ends. Each creep killed gives a player 10 points. I have a controlinator on an arrow to give it a bit of a PC interface. As of now L2 starts the wave, x drops the one tower type I have created. I do not have a way to delete towers that are spawned at this point (and I have no idea how that would even be done). The money system works. 100 points to drop a tower, 100 points is deducted. Though sometimes it deducts 100 points and a tower isn't dropped. This is something i will continue to troubleshoot. The main things I am trying to figure out right this second (if any of yall have an ideas) are: 1. How do I make a tower that the projectiles hone in on the creeps? I have never done this and I keep trying stuff with the movers but i havent gotten it yet. 2. I am using a selector for the first time and I don't really get it. Im using it to control when each wave comes. Here's a picture of what i have so far http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/famousmortimer/lbp2.jpg What im trying to accomplish is that the top one only takes a L2 (that's what the purple-ish wire is) push to go. Wave 2 takes the counter to be up to 20 and a push of L2 to go. The counter is incremented by a tag sensor right outside the front door, so it knows when 20 creeps has passed. There is also a counter down at the bottom of the circuit board set to 20 to move it to the next selector input. Now, having never used a selector, this makes sense to me. But in practice when i go to play mode (or just unpause it for that matter) it just shoots creeps out nonstop. What am I missing? If you need more pictures or explanations of what i have up, i will gladly do it. Thanks so much for any help any of you can give.

2011-02-23 21:41:00 Author: Unknown User

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The selector doesn't have an "off" position naturally. one of its outputs is always active. to turn it off you could do one of a few things. You could either put it on a microchip and have the chip be activated by something, you could have it have one extra output than you need and have it switch to that output in between waves, or you could wire each output into an AND gate, where the other input of the gate will be something that determines when a wave starts (like the input from L2). off the top of my head, the best way to do what you're trying to do would be to have L2 trigger something that both sends a quick input to the selector's toggle, and turns on a timer that feeds into the AND gates that I just mentioned. as far as your first question, there's a follower mover that does exactly what you want. play around with the speed and awareness radii to get it to behave exactly how you want it to.

2011-02-23 21:52:00 Author: Speed Racer Posts: 156

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OK - Well not entirely sure I understand what you are trying to achieve here, but I can tell you that way you are using the Selector is suspect. The Cycle input at the bottom does not control the "input" but the "output". So if it is hit only once (as an un-reset counter will do) it will move it forward only once. But it does not matter if you are now pressing L2, because it already outputting at node 2. The thing to remember with selectors is that one of the nodes is always active. So by cycling it once, you've set the 2nd node ON, regardless of what is coming in as input on that node. Now... if you were to trigger another cycle, or reset the logic that feeds into node 1 of the selector, then it would change. I would suggest that the selector needs to come earlier in the logic )before the AND gate). So once you've moved ahead to node 2, the output of node 2 must be AND'ed with the L2 or with the counter? But, as I said... I'm not sure I fully understand your goal here. Anyway... I hope this helps.

2011-02-23 21:59:00 Author: v0rtex Posts: 1878

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Both of you actually helped quite a bit. I guess the main thing I didn't know was that the selector is "always on." That will change how i go at this quite a bit. Thanks a ton guys. I appreciate it.

2011-02-23 22:05:00 Author: Unknown User

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I have a controlinator on an arrow to give it a bit of a PC interface. As of now L2 starts the wave, x drops the one tower type I have created. I do not have a way to delete towers that are spawned at this point (and I have no idea how that would even be done). QUOTE WARS !!!! Wait no, this isn't a quote war, I'm actually trying to help. ****, it's been a while since I've quote-fought on a forum. Anyway, here is a way to delete towers. Modifications : - On the tower : a tag sensor with an area the size of your tower (no more !) linked to a destructor. - On the arrow : R1 (or any key you want) destroys the arrow and spawns a dollar-shaped, controlinator-controlled curser. Put some kind of dot-shaped matter at the top of the dollar sign, and a tag key on it (corresponding to the tag sensor mentioned above). Link the X button of your controlinator to that tag key. What is supposed to happen is that when pressing the X button of your dollar-shaped cursor when the dot at the top is hovering a tower, the tag key will be enabled, activating immediately the tag sensor, destroying the tower. Press R1 again to switch back to the normal cursor. Bonus : to make it practical, you need to make the dollar sign appear where the arrow disapeared. Create a small 0% visibility hologram, controlled by the same controllinator than your arrow and (with a copy of the mover you put on your arrow). Put a chip on it, and put your emiters on that chip. Have the emiters spawn the cursors right next to the hologram. This way, you'll actually control both the invisible hologram and the arrow (or dollar), making them move in parallel, but in-game you will only see the arrow. And since it is the hologram's chip that spawns the arrow and dollar-sign, the position will always be identical no matter where you destroyed your arrow. That position being : next to the hologram. I'll let you sort out the actual logic behind the spawn/destruction of the cursors, but if you need help just ask. The money system works. 100 points to drop a tower, 100 points is deducted. Though sometimes it deducts 100 points and a tower isn't dropped. This is something i will continue to troubleshoot. The reason behind it is easy. When you try to drop something but it doesn't have the space to fully land (=> something is in the way), the emitor does nothing. But since you linked the point-losing action to the button, which doesn't require space, the point loss still occurs. How to solve it isn't simple though. On each tower you have to put a tag key (the same one), let's say you name it "Tower presence". Put a copy of this tag key on every tower you will emit. On your arrow, put a tag sensor named "Tower presence" (with a detection area slightly bigger than the size of one tower) with an inverted output. What will happen is that when the tag key isn't around, the tag sensor will be activated. And when the tag key is under the tag sensor (meaning there is a tower nearby), the output will be disabled. The output shall be tied to a chip containing your "Buy tower" logic : emit tower, substract 100 points. This way, when a tower (tweak this for any obstacle, not just a tower ) is near your arrow, you won't be able to attempt to drop the tower. Move in an empty space, and the buying function reactivates. 2. I am using a selector for the first time and I don't really get it. Im using it to control when each wave comes. Play the in-game tutorial concerning selectors. It will help. However, here is the right logic to adopt : - Selector has as many outputs as there are waves. Each output is linked to a single emitor (for each single wave). 10 waves mean 10 outputs mean 10 emitors. - L2 shall be linked to the input BELOW the selector. I call it the "NEEEEEEEEEXT !" input. That's whas it does, actually : it switches the active output to the next one. You can leave the inputs on the left totally empty. Here's what happens : - Wave 1 starts. Emitor tied to output 1 emits 20 creeps. - You press L2. The active output switches to the next output, the second one. - Wave 2 starts. Emitor tied to output 2 emits 20 creeps. - You press L2. The active output switches to the next output, the third one. - Wave 3 starts. Emitor tied to output 3 emits 20 creeps. And so on... The last thing missing here is how to prevent the player from starting the next wave before the 20 creeps have been sent. Instead of linking directly L2 to the "Next" input of the selector, link it to an AND gate with 2 inputs. Tie the output of this AND gate to the "Next" input. What about the other input of the AND gate then ? Let's say the emitor takes 20 seconds to spawn all the creeps. We need to disable the L2 key for 21 seconds to make it neat. Here is the logic behind disabling they key. It took me at least 10 minutes to make it work. You could blindly copy it, but I'll try to explain as clearly as I can : http://i.imgur.com/MVfSB.jpg Between the controlinator on the left and the selector on the right, there 4 four logic elements. They are : Above, the 21-second timer. Set to "Start countdown" (starts at 0.0). Resets itself. Middle-left, a 0.1-second timer. Set to "Start countdown" (starts at 0.0). Resets itself. Middle-right, a 0-1 counter thing. Don't know the official English name. Starts at 1 (not at 0 !). Reset by the middle-left timer. The AND gate. The "Next" input therefore needs both the counter to 1 AND the player pressing L2 to work. The counter is reset to 0 exactly 0.1s after the player presses L2 (if you discard this 0.1s-timer, the whole scheme doesn't work because you need to to things in a certain order, and delaying is that timer's job). Which means that after 0.1s, in other words immediatly, the "Next" input can't be activated by just pressing L2. L2 also starts the big timer, set to 21 seconds. 21 seconds after pressing L2, the timer's output will be active, increasing the counter from 0 to 1 - making the AND gate active again. Both timers reset themselves. Note : I haven't tested any of the above (except the L2 disabling method, which works perfectly). All I've said here is pure theory, but I'm confident this will work.

2011-02-23 23:17:00 Author: Unknown User

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Holy moly, thanks! I do, though, have the tag/inverted tag thing going on my towers right now as I was having the problem of being able to put towers right on top of each other. Another forum-goer here taught me that. So now I can't put towers on top of each other (and I also put the tags on my path so I can't build on my path). So all of that works perfectly, in those situations when I hit X it won't build anything and it won't subtract the cost. But sometimes I'll try to build something in the middle of nowhere, there's no tags around at all to stop it, and it will subtract the money but not make the tower. Also, your logic for shutting down the L2 button is completely genius. My idea (and tell me if it will work or not) is to have a tag sensor (that each creep triggers)right where they spawn. So then to spawn the next wave there is an AND gate that needs the L2 button and the 20 ticks from the counter. So far I've only done two waves... but it worked from going from one to two. One issue I am running into now, and it's a COMPLETELY newb problem and it's just driving me batpoop crazy is that my emitters won't go on/off anymore. I have no idea what the heck I did, or maybe they never did and Ive just been staring at logic pieces for so long that im losing my mind. But what I mean is that earlier today I hit L2 once and the first wave started. 1 creep every 1 second until 20 creeps came out. It was perfect. Now, for some odd reason, I need to hold down L2 the entire time or the creeps stop coming out. I have no idea what i changed. The emitter is set to "On/off" and not "Emit once" so it's not that. But this happened after getting rid of the selector all together. Now that i better understand them, i think that problem will solve itself. But I am curious just because it's making me crazy. But when I: 1. Make an emitter, set it to 1 second, 20 max, 20 max at once, infinite life span, input = on/off 2. Hook L2 on the controlinator right up to it. ...shouldn't hitting L2 turn it on and then it will run on its own until all 20 things are emitted? Or am i crazy for thinking I did that in the past?

2011-02-24 00:16:00 Author: Unknown User

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Hey, just a little tip; you don't need to use your camera to take pics. Instead, take an in game pic and upload it. Then you can post it here from lbp.me! Much easier, and much higher quality!

2011-02-24 00:46:00 Author: Yofig Posts: 288

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Heh, good thinking. I do take gameplay pics that way, but didn't even think of it when i took that one. New question... is there any way to have a counter go to higher than 100? I am using the counter function in determining when it's ok to start the next wave (it counts the creeps spawned)... and i obviously want to go higher than 100. Trying to think of a way of daisy chaining them but im coming up with nothing. Just realized i could use one counter to basically divide the next. Like, have it output ever 2, then make my original counter to 10 instead of 20. Quick question about an AND gate though, if anyone knows... If my two inputs for the AND gate are a counter output (ie the counter hits it set mark) and a button press, will the counter output turn on it's half of the AND gate for good? Or would the button press have to coincide with the exact timing of it to work?

2011-02-24 02:44:00 Author: Unknown User

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If the counter isn't set to reset itself then yes.

2011-02-24 03:06:00 Author: Yofig Posts: 288

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The counter is set to reset itself. So that means the AND gate is fairly worthless for me, right?

2011-02-24 03:21:00 Author: Unknown User

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Pretty much.

2011-02-24 03:41:00 Author: Yofig Posts: 288

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Even though you are the bearer of bad news, i thank you Well i solved that by having the output of the AND gate be the resetter of the counter. I have an all new problem though that seems to be a glitch or i'm overlooking something extremely newbish. My pointer has an emitter. It's only function right now is 1 tower type, which is emitted by hitting the X button. I have the inverted tag checks and whatnot, so I can't build on top of my other towers or in the road. But for some reason that I cannot figure out, I am not able to build more than 3 towers. The emitter is set to 100 max, 100 at once. So I have no idea why its stopping at 3. Each tower does have several emitters on it though. Is there is a limit in the game how many emitters can be on the screen at once? Maybe I'm hitting that?

2011-02-24 03:54:00 Author: Unknown User

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