I've got an issue with my mission I was hoping you guys could give me a hand on.

I have several instances where the player will enter a map and go straight into combat. They're designed like this because the mission has the players boarding an enemy ship.

While I do this on purpose but it does cause a problem. Some reviewers complained about being dropped straight into combat and having them or their boffs knocked out before they even get a chance to do anything.

To give the player time to prepare I put a pop up dialogue with at least two entries for each instance. I would then hook up an invisible wall to disappear on the last dialogue. This sort of helped because now at least the player gets to load the map before fighting, but now they've got a dialogue box (the last one) up in their face when the fight starts.

I've thought about using reach markers that are 1mm in front of the player but on two of the maps they're almost on top of the enemy contacts. I could try moving them farther away but on one map I'm using the small Klingon Bridge and there is no room at all anywhere on the map.

So my question: Is there a more elegant way of delaying the start of combat?

Thanks

Try using "This Component Complete" or "Component Complete". I do so in some of my dialogue-heavy fights.

Edit: Just make the wall disappear when it or another invisible object are completed (if you have several walls, hook them up to one object, ofc).

This means the player has to actively interact with an object right?

They won't be able to go from, Spawn => Dialogue => End Dialogue => Wall drops => Combat starts, which is my goal



I'm fine with accepting if this isn't possible as well.

Well, it's the most reliable way - and the only one I've found to work flawlessly in my mission, Exploratory Crisis

there is a trigger that states when dialogue reached. I haven't been able to make it work myself, but perhaps something could be tried with that to drop the wall? Or put the circle that shows where they target people over the spawn point, but manually move every character a bit back, so when the person beams in, everyone is targetting them and rushing towards them, but you get chance to do things? I've tried this with my mission, and it generally works, although if they are around a corner, they will usually just walk into the wall. But moving them a little down a corridor could help. Not sure on the bridge though, if that is cramped.

The stupid thing about Dialogue Reached is that it happens when you get to the dialogue it gets triggered, so when you reach the last dialogue box the walls drop and fighting starts. There needs to be one for "Dialogue Ended".

Use component complete on the dialogue, that is basically what you're looking for. It will trigger as soon as they close the dialogue, and at that point the invisible wall will drop.

You're definitely right to want to trigger the combat rather than just having it start when the map loads.

You sir are my hero

A gentleman and a scholar. You don't know how much time I've spent banging my head on my table trying to figure this out.

May all your missions be forever 5 starred.

This works. This is how I handled Lang's attack on map 4 of "Three Degrees of Separation", where the character attacks you straight out of the slot as you enter the map.