I have an spawner AI who spawns after the player touches a trigger. After he spawns, I want to him to shoot his weapon.

Problem:
However, I'm given the following error message: "not an actor".
Here is my script:

rpg()
{

rpg_guy = getent("rpg_guy1","targetname");
rpg_guy shoot();

}

Obviously, the game will not accept spawner entities as actors. I've never fully understood what a spawner is or how it all works.

How can I have the actor shoot using the proper syntax?

edited on Jul. 3, 2012 07:14 pm by MidnightMan21

Add this line somewhere in the main function after the maps\_load::main();

getent("rpg_guy1","targetname") thread add_spawn_function( ::rpg);

(Above line must be called before the actual actor is spawned)

and then rpg function looks like this

rpg()
{
self shoot();
}

Hope it works

Thank you! I'll try this.

If you don't mind, can you explain why this works?
What exactly does 'add_spawn_function' do?
When should I use it?

It seems to work.

Thank you very much! :)

Anything that spawns from this spawner will run this function.
As I understand, spawner is just an entity on map. It is used to spawn an actor(the actual guy that will run and shoot).
So when you use getent, this refers to a static spawner, not an actor spawned from it.
Without add_spawn_function, your code must look like this

rpg()
{
rpg_spawner = getent("rpg_guy1","targetname");
rpg_guy = rpg_spawner stalingradSpawn();
rpg_guy shoot();
}

rpg_guy = rpg_spawner stalingradSpawn();
This line tells that rpg_guy is an actor spawned from rgp_spawner spawner entity.

Basically you have to spawn all actors manually and make references to them.
But with add_spawn_function, game waits until actors from that spawner has spawned
and then runs given function on them.

This function is very useful with vehicle actors who get spawned automatically with vehicle or if you want
to spawn actors via spawn trigger(like youre doing now). IW has used this function a lot in their scripts.

Oh, I see!

I find the explanation of the why's and how's of it extremely useful, so I know when to use it properly in the future.

Thank you very much, I really appreciate it!