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All fields in Easy Edit are duplicated in other, more detailed
sections.
Appearance and Sounds:
- This is a number corresponding to a Collection in the Shapes files, from 0 to 31.
- Possible crashes: Illegal collection number. first of all, collections go from 0 to 31. Secondly, not all collections are usable as animated graphics. Collections 0, 17-21, and 27-30 has no Sequences and cannot be used for Monsters.
- This is a number corresponding to a Color Table, in the specified Collection. The maximum range is from 0 to 7, but most collections have fewer.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Illegal color table number. Make sure the selected color table is defined in the selected collection.
- These numbers correspond to sequences defined in the Collection.
- Hit: Played when the monster is shot. If this is set to -1 the monster will shrug off incoming fire. If the monster falls off a ledge this animation will "pause" until the monster lands.
- Hard Dying: Played when the monster is killed by a projectile that does specific damage types. If this field is set to -1 the monster will always die softly. If this field and Soft Dying are both -1 the monster will freeze when killed and become incapable of attacking.
- Soft dying: Played when the monster is killed by a projectile that does specific damage types. If this field is set to -1 the monster will always die hard. If this field and Hard Dying are both -1 the monster will freeze when killed and become incapable of attacking.
- Hard dead: Used for the monster's corpse after it is killed by a projectile that does specific damage types. If this field is set to -1 the monster will vanish when killed.
- Soft dead: Used for the monster's corpse after it is killed by a projectile that does specific damage types. If this field is set to -1 the monster will vanish when killed.
- Stationary: Played when the monster is not moving. If this sequence is animated, the first frame will be displayed while the monster is "asleep". When the monster is awake but not moving horizontally (flying up and down, blocked by other character) the idle sequence will play.[HAS]
- Moving: Played when the monster is moving. This may be the same as Stationary. If the monster falls off a ledge this animation will "pause" until the monster lands.
- Teleport in: Played when the monster teleports in. Exactly how this interacts with the Sequence specified and the rest of the Monster record is a bit unclear (to me at least 8( ), so your best bet for making teleporting monsters is to duplicate as much as you can of a monster whose teleporting works.
- Teleport out: Played when the monster teleports out. Exactly how this interacts with the Sequence specified and the rest of the Monster record is a bit unclear (to me at least 8( ), so your best bet for making teleporting monsters is to duplicate as much as you can of a monster whose teleporting works.
- Melee attack: Played when the monster launches its melee attack.
- Ranged attack: Played when the monster launches its ranged attack.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Illegal sequence number. Make sure the selected sequence is defined within the selected Collection. If the Movement or Idle sequences are set to -1 MI will crash.
- These sounds correspond to sounds in the Sound file. They have been hard-coded as menu items so selecting a legal sound is easier. Select "None" at the top of the list for the event in question to be silent.
- Activation: Played when the monster is activated. If the monster teleports in this sound will be played slightly before it actually appears.
- Friendly activation: Played when a monster decides to attack a friend.
- Clear: Played by a monster when its line of sight is blocked by another character (usually the player).
- Kill: Played when a monster kills an enemy.
- Apology: Played when a monster accidentally shoots a friend.
- Friendly fire: Played when a monster is shot by a friend.
- Flaming: Played when a monster is killed by specific damage types. This will be ignored if the monster does not have Dies in Flames checked.
- Random: Played every so often while the monster is activated.
- See also:
- This number controls how often a monster plays its random sound. Legal values are powers of 2 minus 1 (0,1,3,7,15,31). Other values have not been checked.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Illegal number. I don't know for certain whether entering a number that isn't (2^n)-1 will crash MI but it will probably cause strange behavior.
- This number is used to distort the monster's sound. 1 is normal, .5 is half pitch/speed, etc. This can be overridden by flags in the Sound itself though.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Illegal number. This should be from (but not down to) 0 and through 1 or 2. Very high or negative numbers will probably crash and/or sound stupid.
Combat Settings:
- This number controls how often the monster attacks, measured in ticks. This number will be shifted up or down by MI if the Is Alien flag is checked.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Illegal number. A negative number will probably crash, but in the other direction I've gone over 10,000 with no problems.
These next fields are duplicated for Melee and Ranged attacks.
- This is the Projectile launched when the monster performs this attack. Select "None" to disable this attack class (giving the monster only 1 attack, which it uses at all ranges.)
- See also:
- This is the number of times a monster will attack each time. The time between attacks is controlled by the running time of the corresponding Sequence.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Negative numbers will probably cause strange behavior.
- This is angular error applied to a monster's shot each attack. This value can be affected or overriden by the error field in the Projectile. Note that Bungie's circles are 512 degrees.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: The maximum value here is probably 256, but this has not been tested.
- This is the maximum range at which the monster is willing to launch this attack. The projectile's range settings should be taken into consideration when setting this value.
- See also:
- This is identical to the Sequence for the corresponding attack specified in the Sequence IDs
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Illegal sequence ID.
- These numbers control the location of the projectile relative to the monster that fires it. Ideally, this would be placed so that the shot seems to come from the monster's weapon. It doesn't matter if this location is inside the monster's shape, a projectile can't hit the monster that fired it. These fields have been misnamed by Bungie. Increasing Dz will move the shot up. Increasing Dy will move the shot to the monster's right. Dx will move the shot forwards. If the shot ends up outside the map the monster will be unable to fire.
- See also:
Shrapnel Radius
- This is the blast radius of a monster's death. Set this to -1 to turn off shrapnel. Shrapnel will not be launched unless the monster plays its Hard Death sequence, and the Hard Death sequence must have a keyframe.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the damage type used for the monster's shrapnel.
- See also:
- If this flag is checked, the monster's shrapnel damage will be scaled up or down by MI depending on the difficulty level. The exact factor is not known.
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- This number is the minimum amount of damage the monster's shrapnel will do. If this is set to a negative number the monster's explosion will actually add health to its target (this has been used to implement health canisters in M1).
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- A random factor between 0 and this number will be added to the Base Damage when the monster explodes. If this is 0 then the monster does exactly the same damage each time.
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- Unclear. Should probably be 1 for exploding monsters and 0 for everyhting else.
- See also:
- The Range Impact Effect is played when the monster is shot with a projectile whose Bleeding Projectile flag is set. The Melee Impact is probably played when the monster is shot with a projectile whose Melee Projectile flag is set.
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Physical Constants:
- The monster's health. When this is 0 the monster bites the dust. Note that the health is only checked when the monster takes damage, a monster with 0 or negative health will be perfectly fine until it takes any damage.
- This is 1/2 the monster's width. Monsters in Marathon are cylindrical. This is not related to the width of the graphic used, but ideally would prevent a giant monster from getting into tiny rooms.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the monster's height. Monsters in Marathon are cylindrical. This is not related to the height of the graphic used, but ideally would prevent a giant monster from getting into tiny rooms.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the monster's normal moving velocity. It can be pushed higher than this by projectile impacts.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the monster's maximum falling velocity.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the monster's downward acceleration. A negative number will probably make the monster fly up to the cieling when knocked off a ledge, but I haven't tested this.
- See also:
- This is the height of the maximum downward fall the monster is willing to take. Set this to 0 to keep him on a ledge.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the height of the maximum upward step (or climb) the monster is willing to make. Set this to 0 to keep him in a pit. This is not constrained by the usual laws of physics, so a monster is perfectly capable of climbing a 20-foot cliff if this value is high enough,
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the factor by which damage from a projectile is transferred into the monster's motion. A factor of 1 means full transfer, .5 means half transfer, 0 means immovable, etc. Note that projectile damage is on the same scale as monster speed, so a monster that takes 50 damage with an EVS of 1 will start moving at 50. Also note that the player's EVS is kept in his Monster record and not Physics. also note that not all damage types have the same "punch factor", which seems to have the same behavior as EVS but is stored in the MI app and are apparently uneditable [HAS] One final note: Marathon seems to add damage seperately as magnitude and direction, not as true vector math. Also monsters don't decelerate (significantly) until they hit the ground. This means that a monster that gets blasted into the air and then takes several hits in a row from different directions will end up being flung in the direction of the last hit at a truly incredible speed. I've thrown monsters several dozen yards at least, and once when I tore up a Mother of All Cyborgs with rapid rockets I had him jammed in a corner, against the cieling, for at least a minute.
- This is the height that a monster prefers to fly at. It will bounce up to this height when activated and try to stay there as much as possible. If it enters a room with a low cieling it will bang against the cieling until it escapes.
- See also:
- This is the probability that a monster will open a door. The exact numbers are not known, but it seems to follow the same pattern as the Random Sound Mask. Best bet is to copy the number from a monster that already uses the desired door behavior.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Possibly numbers not (2^n)-1.
- This is the maximum range at which the monster can see the player. This is not related to the light intensity of the intervening polygons.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the maximum range at which the monster can see an Invisible character [Jason Harper]. It is not related to the light intensity of the intervening polygons.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- This is the maximum number of polygons through which the monster can detect the player, assuming he is within the monster's Visual Range (or Dark Visual Range if he's invisible) It also seems to affect maneuverability, a Hunter with intelligence 8 will turn very quickly if the player goes behind him but a Flick'ta of intelligence 2 will continue going the wrong way for somewhat longer. I haven't had much success with values above 8, but that should be enough for any reasonable map. The rules/patterns by which a monster searches polygons are not completely clear, but Hastur's Workshop has some advice on affecting map design.
- See also:
- Possible crashes: Probably negative numbers.
- If this is not "none", the monster will drop an item of the specified type upon dying. If the monster suffered a Hard Death the item will not be dropped.
- If this is not "none", the monster will create this effect when killed and falling.
- See also:
Behavior Settings:
- Monsters in Marathon belong to classes, this is how other monsters can tell them apart. The class names have no connection to the names of the slots in the PM.
- See also:
- These checkboxes correspond to classes of monsters. If another monster is a member of a class checked here, it will be ignored by this monster even if the other monster shoots this one. If a class is not checked in either Friends or Enemies the monster will ignore that class unless it is shot by a member.
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- These checkboxes correspond to classes of monsters. If another monster is a member of a class checked here, it will be immediately attacked by this monster. If a class is not checked in either Friends or Enemies the monster will ignore that class unless it is shot by a member.
- See also:
- If this flag is checked, the monster will try to stay above the floor at its Hover Height. It will descend to attack an enemy or enter a low corridor if necessary.
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- If this flag is checked, MI will make the monster harder on high difficulties and easier on low difficulties. This usually involves manipulating the monster's Attack Frequency, as well as switching Majors for Minors and vice versa.
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- These flags allow a monster to have "harder" and "easier" versions for different difficulties. On high difficulties, some Minors will be replaced with Majors and on low some Majors will be replaced with Minors. Apparently, the switch is performed by jumping forward or backward 1 slot in Anvil, so a bad choice of Majors or Minors can place a completely different monster in the level (interesting possibilities...)
- See also:
- Marathon can also adjust difficulty by removing a fraction of the monsters. Checking this flag will prevent MI from removing any ocurrences of this monster.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster is able to leave the ground but prefers to stay on it. It will also float above liquids.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster cannot launch any attacks. Also, both of the monster's Attack Types should be "None".
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will prefer to stay up on a ledge and fire down rather than approach an enemy. If it does not have a line of sight it will jump down and give chase.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will randomly launch either its melee or range attack.
- If this flag is checked, the monster will be a dark shadow, as if it had picked up 1 Invisibility powerup.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will be a light shadow, as if it had picked up 2 Invisibility powerups.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will try to touch an enemy and explode (die hard.) This is stupid unless the monster has some shrapnel damage.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster can be driven mad with pain, at which point it starts attacking randomly without checking the target's class.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will be drawn at 125% normal size. This does not affect its physical dimensions.
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- If this is not checked, the monster will "pause" on the first frame of its dying sequence until its body hits the ground, then it will finish the sequence. If this is checked, the monsters will loop its soft death sequence until it hits the ground, then play its hard death sequence. [HAS]
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will fire 2 shots at once, at + and - Dy.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will explode in a giant flash when suffering hard death. This is visible and audible everywhere on the level.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will never turn around, fire, and turn back. It will pretty much stay in the direction it fired in for a short time.
- If this flag is checked, the monster will play the global "flaming death" sequence and its Flaming sound when killed by certain damage types.
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will hold its position and keep firing while it has line-of-sight to an enemy. If it is blocked by other monsters (but not if it's blocked by map geometry), it will move to get a clear shot without firing [Mike Forman].
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will be drawn at 25% of normal size. This doesn't affect its dimensions. Turn this on for the Bobs and raise their sound pitch to 2 for munchkins!
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- If this flag is checked, the monster will attack instantly upon being activated. Normally, it will wait for one attack delay before firing.
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- These flags affect the monster's willingness to enter media types. For best results the monster should be immune to any media type he's not afraid of.
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- If checked, the monster will be able to teleport into a flooded polygon.
Immunities and Weaknesses:
Immunities and Weaknesses/Damage Types
- These flags control the monster's response to different damage types. If an Immunity flag is checked, the monster will take no damage from that projectile type. If a Weakness flag is checked, the monster will take double damage from that projectile, and that damage type will always cause hard death. The individual damage types mostly affect how the screen flashes when the player takes a hit, but some have different properties:
- Explosion, Crushing, and Hulk Slap will cause hard death.
- Crushing will also play the target's Flaming sound.
- Flame, Lava, Alien Projectile, and Flick'ta Glob will play the target's Flaming sound and play the global "flaming death" sequence if the target has "Dies in flames" checked.
- Energy Drain will not flash the screen, and also cannot kill the target, it just goes into negative health.
- Oxygen Drain will theoretically drain the player's oxygen, but this is untested.
- Absorbed will play the Super Shield "bwup" sound when hitting a player.
- Suffocation will play the "uhuhAAAAAhuhuh" gasping sound when hitting the player. Contrary to popular belief, this damage type can affect monsters.
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