Preface:
This idea is one of many spawned from my thinking about ns_eis (click link to view)

Problem:
I keep running to the problem of having a sound that only one team can hear, a trigger_once or trigger_multiple that only one team sets off, or func_breakable that only one team can damage. Currently there is no flag or parameter in any of the HL2 default entities to do this. It’s every player or none.

Solution:

• Entities that affect one team only (as a flag, or setting?)
• Entities that affect a particular class, a few classes, not a particular class, or not a few classes

Pro’s:

• allows mappers to be more creative in design
• allows for events that make the map feel more responsive to what’s happening in the game
• allows for things that can scare the player
• allows the mapper to create new tactical shortcuts
• etc. (use your imagination!)
• Supports what Max said in a podcast (in reference to decoda) about having better tools allows you to make better creations

Con’s:

• crappy maps made by lazy or inept mappers can make some poorly designed features that could be unbalancing (but then that’s nothing we haven’t already solved in NS by not hosting such maps on content servers or putting them in a server’s map rotation)
• requires creating a new forge game data file script (like you wouldn’t have to do that anyways for a whole new mod)

Note: This particular feature is important. This is not something that is "just cool", NS2 really does need this feature available to mappers, at least acknowledged before the NS2TR release, please. <-- *worried*

More support.

Although I guess the welder does do this to a certain extent, I can see the possibilities if this was implemented in a much broader and general sense.

It's being neglected because I don't have any cool pictures or videos to illustrate the idea here.

What do you mean by "in a much broader and general sense"?

I'm not 100% sure.

The big issue is that as it stand now, the welder is kind of an accessory. It can give minor advantages on some maps, decent ones in other (double vents in veil), and of course are a necessity for long engagements and heavies (assuming they get used).

However, there's not a whole lot of the change the environment as you go kind of mentality. Some interesting ideas have been new buildings, but I'm not a huge fan of blockades in my close quarters fps/rts. They work for games like Empires where the large rolling levels and far distance bombardments do lend themselves to barricade placement, and give a lot of variety on how you can effectively place them.

Fundamentally I'd like to see the welder be utilized more. Perhaps instead of one-time weldables, there are places that can be welded on, then welded off, repeat as necessary. Or a stronger role for the welder, such as weighing you down (slower ms) or some other detriment but using a welder you build faster as well as the usual goodies. In general I feel the welder is an underused feature for map makers, and would like to see less of only a few, very important weldable and more dynamic slight advantage weldables, reversible would be even better.

Mapping question: could you play the sound only in an area? That would make the most sense to me. Only players near laser drilling hear the laser when you turn it on to create a connecting hallway.

Yes. There's a variable for the distance from the entity that you can hear the sound. I believe they made it better in HL2 so it doesn't glitch quite as much, like through walls randomly or sometimes warping to another part of the map.

There is also the possibility of more global sounds, which is what's used in ns_tanith. The shaking, though, is a weird trick, and I don't think that can be localized.

I don't see any reason for an entity to affect a particular class, not to mention this would be less intuitive than the simple xeno/human divide (i.e. it makes more sense that something would trigger for an Alien versus a Human than an Onos versus a Gorge).

On the other hand, a trigger that affects Aliens/Marines/both teams would be incredibly handy.

I don't understand why you wouldn't see a reason.

Ok, say a mapper wants to make a bridge or some other surface only deform under the weight of the Onos, but only has the ability to pick from Kharaa/Human? That's just one possible use, the idea is to be able to have tools a mapper can more easily mold a place to their vision for a fun place for the Marines and Kharaa to square off, why wouldn't some situations have a map react differently to a skulk or onos or regular armor or heavy armor?

Another mapping question: What entity properties are available to the mapper in Source? Can you make a weight limit for a bridge and use the assigned weights for heavy/onos for physics calculations?

filter_activator_team

Heh, good catch. Just shows how much of a mapping noob I still am.

I kinda like the idea of only activating to a class, but that might be a little harder to get going. Depends on how stuff is coded, i.e. is the Gorge an Alien with different equipment flags?

See if filter_activator_class will test for player classes.

A mapper could just as easily do this by making a vent along the side of the bridge.

I'm talking primarily about how intuitive it is for players. If you make a bridge in a map, to a new player this is an invitation for them to cross, no matter what class they are. Bridges that suddenly collapse are only likely to piss players off because they will lose their 75 res Onos to some mapper's idiot joke of a 'design feature'.

I can't think of many scenarios where you could make it intuitive for the player and keep with the NS setting (i.e. a 'no Onos' sign does not keep with the setting). Therefore as a preventitive measure to stop bad mappers from creating frustrating maps, I would prefer class-based triggers never to see the light of day.

P.S. The example is flawed because you would have a bridge that could be taken down by Aliens to deny Marine access, but only by sacrificing an Onos. How would you put the bridge back up? Sounds a bit crap to me.

I didn't say collapse, I said deform. Big difference.

Besides, I would leave that up the mapper to decide - surely if a mapper wants to close one avenue, who is to say they wouldn't have a reason for that?

I actually thought of this when watching this at the 2:00 mark, the ground deforms in Source, as the voice explains, "So with characters who react emotionally and are so expressive, we need a world that is similarly flexible and interactive. The world of Half Life 2 is very dynamic, any surface can have its displacement map altered dynamicly along with its *not sure what is said there*" :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHH5L39YtDE

So I was just thinking along the lines of, isn't it possible on some surfaces, a mapper might want a Onos and its weight to cause "foot" prints to form in the surface it is walking on, and change the map subtlely as I suggest or drastically, as you suggest, collapsing the surface all together?

Hmm, what about vents? What if you could make them collapse if anything heavier then a skulk/lerk got into them?

Perhaps a mapper would want objects, such as a door or drop ramp bridge, to react differently to a regular Marine or a Heavy Armor Exoskeleton wearing Marine. Maybe that Onos doesn't climb ladders anymore, but the map changes to suit his needs by a part of the map revealing itself as a path because of the nature of the Onos' impact on the enviroment. Maybe that wall can be destroyed, but it takes an Onos to do it, being bumped by any other life form just isn't going to cut it.

Surely there are yet more things mappers can do with such a tool then even I can think of, where they get to define interaction with their map based on more then just welder/no welder, or as has been suggested, which side they are on.

If a map is bad, good players won't play it - I think that's the best litmus test for mapping, rather than creating arbitrary limitations before a mapper incriminates himself.

Fair enough, but this is about helping mappers create more creative maps. You don't trust the community to choose the better maps that are made?