reality bites  
 the problem  
   solutions?  
  the scripts   
  the .zip file  


prefabs
'office'
[email protected]

 There's something I noticed while playing AvP2, single player, as a 
marine: you end up walking some dark hallways that have all these steaming
pipes on either side. That's good; it maintains a tense atmosphere. 
However the steam poures from only one hole. You can shoot your whole ammo
clip at one of these pipes and nothing will happen. No extra holes, no extra
steam. Like they're bullet-proof!
 I liked FarCry; if you were shooting at a wall that had a bright light
behind it, these nice cones of lights would appear.

 Now I know it's hard to do the light trick in AvP2, but the steam pipes
surely can be improoved.
 Do define the problem, what you have to do is to create steam that shoots
from the general area of a pipe that took some damage.

 I ended up with this:
   

   

  - one steam object

  - one TranslucentWorldModel that takes the actual
    damage and starts the steam


 Now there's little to talk about some actual scripting here; however, some
settings for these objects might help you to create something similar.
 First, the steam object:
  

  

  This is the steam object;

  Remember the name! This
 object will be the target
 for an 'ON' message.

  You can choose in what
 game-type this will appear.

  We need this one to shoot
 steam for ever after being
 started. So, Lifetime = -1
 and StartActive = False. 
 We'll start it with the 'ON'
 message.


  Now you can turn/rotate
 the prefab (both TWM and
 steam object) anyway you
 want, but the steam will
 always shoot in the
 direction pointed by the
 steam's blue vector.

  So, this settings are
 critical to determine
 where the steam object
 will actually shoot.
  

 The settings for the TWM-binded brush are as follow:

 

  First, VISIBLE = FALSE, because it'll be pretty dumb to see some plates
 hanging from a pipe.
  The damage behavior is set by 'DamageProperties' and by 'DebrisType'. In
 our case, 'DebrisType' = 'None'; remember? it doesn't exist so it must not
 create debries.
  As for DamageProperties, first make sure the TWM can be destroyed, by
 setting the 'NeverDestroy' flag to FALSE.
  Set the ammount of damage you like; my advice is to keep it low, so it'll
 be destroyed even by pistol shots.
  The 'DeathTriggerTarget' and 'DeathTriggerMessage' are the fields we're
 interested in; we'll set the first to the steam's name and the second one
 to 'ON'. I'm affraid that although the fields are filled separatly, THE
 PREFAB IS NOT COPY-PASTE COMPLIANT.

  Now all you have to do is copy-paste the prefab, do the adequate changes
 in the 'DamageProperties' section and 'coat' the pipe with them:

	   
	   



  One minor sugestion: make the steam objects point in slightly different
 directions; it'll look stupid, not bad, stupid, to have all the steam 
 objects shoot in exactly the same direction. So, when copy-pasting this
 prefab, remember to alter the rotation of the steam object. That, and
 changing the 'DamageProperties' so that PlateX will turn on HoleSteamX.
  As always, the .zip file. Besides the .ed file, it'll also contain this
 page, just in case you want to modify it and need assistance.