Is there any way of detecting when a point_energy_ball_launcher expires or is removed?

The standard point_energy_ball_launcher logic has a 12 second life, and sets its min life to 6 when it goes through a portal. I want to track the ball and only spawn a new one once the last one is gone. But I can't figure out what the call back for that would be.

If you follow the ball launcher here, a new ball shouldn't be launched before the previous one has gone.

???

That tutorial says nothing about relaunching the ball from the launcher, or triggering the launcher once the ball goes away. It only describes how to set up and animate the launcher and catcher, and how the catcher can detect when it gets the ball.

What am I missing there?

That's the tutorial I used, and the ball relaunches for me when the first ball goes away. Try it.

So I did the first part of the tutorial to set up the launcher, and it doesn't spawn a ball. It does nothing. And I don't see anything in the second part of the tutorial dealing with the catcher that has anything to do with the launcher or triggering it.

Using the valve tutorial how did you control the triggering of the launcher?

try changing the ball count to 1

Doomsday192 wrote:
try changing the ball count to 1

Just tried it, no difference. No balls are spawned.

There doesn't seem to be anything in Valve's tutorial that triggers the ball to launch. I'm working my way through the rest of the tutorial now in case there's some hidden command in there that does the trick.

well, these are the settings i use in my ball launchers, see how they differ from yours:

I use 12 and 6 for the durations, but otherwise it's the same.

How do you trigger your launcher? Logic_auto? Logic_relay+timer? Or does it just automatically happen for your launcher?

Just Enable the launcher and it will launch balls until it is Disabled.

Remmiz wrote:
Just Enable the launcher and it will launch balls until it is Disabled.

Yes! Thank you! It spawns! That's the step not included in the tutorial!

Added a logic_auto to the map and Enable the "ball" entity.

And yes, the ball auto respawns when the previous one decays now.

Thanks!

And I think we need to revise our ball launcher tutorial to include some of this info.

hmmmmmm, i dont use a logic_auto at all, the launchers just work for me

Doomsday192 wrote:
hmmmmmm, i dont use a logic_auto at all, the launchers just work for me

Frowns. Looks closely at the entity

Ahhhhh.... It's in the flags of the ball entity. Start Inactive is checked by default.

Unchecked that, and the ball auto spawns at map start.

We still need to update our tutorial... And maybe the Valve one as well.