quake2 - misc_viper, misc_bigviper, misc_strogg_ship

The misc_viper, and misc_strogg_ship are those space ships that you see in some of the id levels that fly through the sky every once in awhile. There are a few of them that you can see on the very first level. They are very simple to use in a level and look real cool. The misc_bigviper is the ship model that you can see in the quake2 intro that can be placed in a level but acts very differently then the other ship entities. It does absolutly nothing at all! How do I make the damn things? There is minimum of 4 entities that must be used to get these ships flying. They are some sort of trigger to start the ships movement, the ship, the starting path_corner, and the ending path_corner. There can be more path_corners in between the first and the last one for a more detailed flying path but only 2 are required. The misc_viper and misc_strogg_ship are used in a very similar way to a func_train. The first thing you must do is pick the ship you wish to use. You can place the ship entity anywhere in the level because it will automatically appear at the first path_corner. The second thing you need to do is to make the beginning and ending path_corners and any number of ones in between. This will be the actual path the ships will follow when triggered. Each path_corner must target the next. You should also give the ship a target to the first path_corner. So if the first path_corner has a targetname of p1 then the ship entity will have a target of p1. If you want the ship to keep going forever then you will need to set the teleport spawnflag for the last path_corner and set the target of the last path_corner back to the first path_corner. This will actually teleport the ship back to the area of the first path_corner and create the appearance of multiple ships. Pretty cool. The last thing you need to do to get the ship to actually work is to create a trigger of some sort to turn the ship on. If you want it to start when the level starts then you should use a trigger_always. So what this means you have to give the ship a targetname then give the trigger that will be used to turn the ship on a target key value pair equal to the targetname of the ship. That's all there is to the misc_viper and misc_strogg_ship. Key Value Pairs speed Speed is the speed that the ship will travel. angle angle determines the direction the ship will face. This should be set to the direction the ship will travel or it will look strange. Misc_bigviper The only one left is the misc_bigviper. Which is the easiest of all of them. This entity does nothing. All it is is the ship model that was used in the quake2 intro. Just place it in the level wherever you want it and thats it. It is HUGE though so make sure you have enough room. If you are having problems then be sure to download the [example .map] which contains examples of all these ships. As always if you have any other questions please post them in the discussion board. Return to Tutorials Page...