How to make a Respawn room

PREREQUISITES

- Basic level construction and entity knowledge
- WorldCraft 2.1 knowledge

INTRODUCTION

**NOTE** This tutorial was written using version 1.0i of the TFC Game Data file

This tutorial will cover how to make a typical respawn/re-supply room.  Since you can do so many things with the TFC entities, you are not limited to making respawn rooms of this nature...this is just the most common respawn room you see in maps.  This tutorial (and example map) will only create respawn rooms for two teams (red and blue).  If you want to add additional teams to your map, simply follow the steps outlined in this tutorial for each additional team you want to add.

GETTING STARTED

The first step is to physically create the architecture for this map.  Since we are just covering respawn rooms in this tutorial, all I've done is created one large room with two smaller rooms inside.  The large room is basically our entire map, and the two smaller rooms inside will act as the respawn rooms for the Red and Blue team.  Feel free to create this area as you see fit, but please follow a few guidelines:

- Give yourself enough space to work with...remember we are making respawn rooms.
- Put some lights in your map so you can see.
- Cut a doorway into each of the smaller rooms...we will be adding doors to the respawn rooms later.

Here is how I have created my basic area:

Now that we've got our area physically ready, it's time to add a few initial entities.

- The first thing we are going to add to our map is an info_player_start entity.  The info_player_start will act as a 'vantage' point for players who join the map.  Since players first joining the map have not chosen their team or player class yet, they need this neutral start point to be able to see the map.   Generally, this info_player_start is placed somewhere between two bases (in a 2fort type map) or in some other interesting position.

For this example, I have placed the info_player_start between the two respawn rooms, and off to the side:

- The second entity we are going to add is an info_tfdetect.   The info_tfdetect is VERY important!  It is the entity which actually makes your map a TFC map.  If you don't include one in your map, your map will not register as a TFC map...also remember to include only one in each map.  The info_tfdetect entity actually deserves it's own tutorial, so I am not going to be explaining all the different fields and things you can setup with info_tfdetect.  For the sake of this tutorial, we are going to use the default information in the info_tfdetect.   To place it in your map, simply click on the 'Entity Tool' and select info_tfdetect from the list of entities.  Place it somewhere inside your map...it doesn't matter where you place it, but like all entities, DO NOT place it in the void!

As I stated, the default information in the info_tfdetect will work fine for most TFC maps, and thus we do not need to change any of it's properties.

ADDING THE SPAWN POINTS

Adding spawn points in TFC is actually quite similar to adding spawn points in any other type of Half-Life map...with the exception of a few extra steps.

In the example map we've made so far, we have two small rooms which will act as the spawn room for the appropriate team.  For this tutorial, I'm going to make the room to the north, the Red respawn room...the room to the south will be for the Blue team.

- Click the 'Entity Tool' and select info_player_teamspawn from the list of entities.  Place the entity somewhere inside the room designated for the Red team (north room).  Repeat the procedure and place another info_player_teamspawn in your map, but this time in the room designated for the Blue team (south room).

You've now got the physical spawn points set for each time.  In order to make the teams respawn in their appropriate respawn room, we have to change a value in the info_player_teamspawn.

- Select the info_player_teamspawn in the Red team's room.  Right click the entity and select 'properties' from the list.

- Click on 'Team' in the Attribute list and then select 'Red' from the drop-box.  Notice the drop-box contains all the team possibilities (including one called 'Any').  This is the attribute that controls what team will spawn from this info_player_teamspawn.  Close the entity properties box.

- Do the same above procedure for the info_player_teamspawn located in the Blue team's respawn room, but select 'Blue' from the 'Team' drop-box.

Technically, you are done!  The map is now setup so that players of Red and Blue team only respawn in their respective respawn rooms.  There are a number of different attributes you can set with the info_player_teamspawn (restricting a certain player class to that spawn point, giving a certain goal when a player spawns, even removing the spawn point), but we will leave those for future tutorials.

Now that we control how players and teams respawn in our map, let's make it feel like a REAL respawn room!

ADDING ITEMS TO THE RESPAWN ROOM

Respawn rooms generally also act as re-supply rooms for a team.  For that reason, we are going to add some handy items to our respawn room.

**NOTE**  In the following examples, I am going to be focusing just on the Red team's respawn room.  To create the same items in the Blue team's room, simply follow the same procedures, but use 'Blue' as the team's designator for the item.

HEALTH KITS

- Click the 'Entity Tool' and select item_healthkit   from the entity list.

- Place it somewhere in Red team's respawn room, and bring up the properties for the entity.

- Click on 'Team' in the Attributes list and then select 'Red' from the drop-box.

ARMOR

- Click the 'Entity Tool' and select item_armor3 from the entity list.

- Place it somewhere in Red team's respawn room, and bring up the properties for the entity.

- Click on 'Team' in the Attributes list and then select 'Red' from the drop-box.

By default, the item_armor3 respawns 5 seconds after being picked up.  If you want to change this to a higher or lower amount of time, change the value for the 'Wait' Attribute.

AMMO PACKS

- Click the 'Entity Tool' and select info_tfgoal from the entity list.

- Place it somewhere in Red team's respawn room, and bring up the properties for the entity.

There are a number of values to change in this entity to make it an ammo pack.  The following will list the 'Attribute' and what value you should give it:

- "Sound Path/name.wav" - 'weapons/scock1.wav' (sound it makes when picked up)
- "Model Path/name.mdl" - 'models/backpack.mdl' (what the ammo pack will look like)
- "Add/Subtract shells" - '50'
- "Add/Subtract nails" - '50'
- "Add/Subtract rockets" - '20'
- "Add/Subtract cells" - '50'
- "Add/Subtract health" - '20'
- "Team" - 'Red'
- "Wait" - '5'
- "Goal Activation bitfields" - '1'
- "Goal Effects bitfields" - '1'

In the above list, the 'Add/Subtract' attributes designate how much ammo of that type is in each ammo pack.  The 'Wait' attribute controls the respawn delay after the ammo pack is picked up.

Those are the most common items you find in a respawn room.  In the above example I placed only one of each in my map, however you would more than likely want to add quite a few more if this was a real map we were making.  As in all things, use your best judgement when deciding the amount of items to add to your respawn room.   Also note that we made all the items have 'Red' as their team value.  This makes it so the items can only be picked up and used by members of the Red team...using 'Blue' for a team value would make the items usable only by the Blue team...understand?   Having items usable by only a certain team is a personal decision you have to make.   If you choose not to do things this way, and want any team to use any items on the map, change the 'Team' attribute in all the items to 'Any'

ADDING TEAM SPECIFIC DOORS

Another thing most respawn rooms have are doors which can only be opened by a certain team.  These are an important part of respawn rooms because they curb 'respawn camping'.  'Respawn camping' is the act of hanging out in the enemies respawn room and killing people as soon as they respawn...a cheap ploy. 

- If you haven't already cut out a doorway for your respawn rooms, do that now.  The type and style of the door used is entirely up to you, so once you have a cut out for the doorway, select a texture for your door brush.

- Create a door brush for the Red team's respawn room and position it as you would any regular door.

- With the door brush selected, click the 'To Entity' button, and select func_door from the entity list.

- Setup all the typical door values.  For the 'Delay before close' attribute, you may want to use a smaller number than the default (4).   Having a smaller number for that value will make it more difficult for a member of the enemy team to enter your respawn room before your door closes.

- Click on 'Team' in the Attributes list and then select 'Red' from the drop-box.

The door to the Red team's respawn room will now only open for members of the red team!  To do the same thing for the Blue team's respawn room, follow the above procedure, but change the 'Team' attribute to 'Blue'

SUMMARY

You have now made a typical respawn room!  For time and space reasons, there are a couple things I left out of the 'typical' respawn room...those being turrets and grenade packs.  Both play an important role in respawn/re-supply rooms, and will be included in a future tutorial.

When making respawn rooms for a map, there are a couple important things to remember:

- Make multiple respawn rooms.  Of course this all depends on your design and concept, but generally having more than one respawn room for a team is a good idea.
- Create multiple info_player_teamspawns.  In the tutorial we created only one per team, but in a real map environment you would want to create multiple info_player_teamspawns in each respawn room.

EXAMPLE MAP

- evilchild