I actually "remedied" this by making the spawn area for the player much bigger. That way I got the boffs to spawn in 100% of the time... though they pretty much immediately get lost/fall through the stage when combat starts, lol.

I think that they have plenty of room to spawn, but they are inside a radius of 4 pattern enhancers. That could be it! I'll try to space the pattern enhancers farther apart. If that works, it would be so awesome. Thanks RE.

Edit: did not work. But, it gives me a theory. Eventually, in the place where they do spawn, it becomes a very tight transporter room. I can see the transporter props load quickly on the map before they disappear, so maybe that is what is causing it, even though they are not set to be immediately visible. Since their geometry loads, it's too tight for the spawn point? I'll try moving the spawn out of the area where the transporter pad eventually occupies.

edit edit: and no, significantly moving the spawn did not work. they are still spawn way off in the holodeck set.

Update: Well, because my BOs are not spawning in the published version, I made changes to the mission. Now it involves the captain going it alone and meeting up with his BOs at the spot in the holodeck where they magically appear. It works for the story, but I can imagine many cases where the revisions would be impossible, especially if the map had combat on it.

The only thing that I can really conclude is that this must have something to do with the publishing pathing. Maybe my setup is just too elaborate as far as environmental changes, so the BOs are pushed to a simpler part of the map.

i had a similar problem in the spotlighted "meduca" series, sometimes my boffs would spawn into the floor, i would set a way point close to them and they were able to finally jump out

UPDATE!

I've been working on this issue, trying to figure it out, and we have!

It's kind of a bad news/good news thing.

First a brief explanation of how the pathing system works:

• The pathing info for a map (beacons) are calculated based on the spawn point on the map.
• Usually, this is just on the ground, wherever you place the spawn point.
• If you create a custom interior using an exterior map, by laying down platforms and building blocks, etc, it will create pathing info on that.
• HOWEVER, if objects are set to have their visibility toggled, they will be ignored when pathing is calculated.
  • This is required so that NPCs don't try to walk through an object that is made invisible later, for instance.

The behavior of the Bridge Officers in this mission is caused because the floor that Kirk has them spawning on is set to be invisible at a later time. Since the floor's visibility is toggled, the pathing is calculated at the spawn point, with the Y value corresponding to the nearest non-toggled place: the ground way way way below. (Sorry if I'm explaining too much of the behind-the-scenes stuff, Kirk.)


So that's the technical information. Now, what this means for you.

If you want the mission to work as you'd expect it, you could place your two floors at basically the same place, as long as they don't have much depth. Have the toggled one be the second floor, not the one you start at, and have it just ever so slightly higher than what you spawn at. (Hope that makes sense!) I haven't tested this myself yet, but it would probably work.

That being said, what Kirk has found is a great way to prevent the player's bridge officers from accompanying the player. So... woo!

Basically what you have to do is place a floor that turns invisible at some point in your mission. It can be upon completion of the final objective on that map, and it would work ok. On that floor, make sure you've got at least a couple "rooms"--one where you want the mission to take place, and one where you want the bridge officers to be. In the bridge officer room, leave one of the walls open. (I.e. don't put a wall there.)


Hope my explanation has helped.

Well, now that we know what's going there it makes a lot of sense.

I love the irony though of now having a near surefire way of removing a boff team. It feels very Cave Johnson and Aperture Science.

"Sorry investors, as it turns out bombarding someones skin with highly energized anti-protons does not remove unsightly blemishes.

However, we are happy to announce our new Portable Death Ray; guaranteed to leave nothing left of the unfortunate recipient but fillings!"

ah, thanks! that was a very helpful explanation Zero!

Very interesting. This seems to explain why boffs almost always get lost on Conjoined.

Unfortunately, given the toggling visibility is pretty key on that map, I guess this means it can't really be 'fixed' by me without negating the key feature. But now I know what the issue is, maybe I can 'suggest' the crew stay behind on some stable geometry and avoid pathing altogether.

Just so I understand this... you're saying that BO's will not cross over any object that is set to become invisible? Or that they won't spawn on top of one? Or both?

The way I read it is that the map is pathed so that Boffs will attempt to walk THROUGH them.