Chainspawning without use of HEK or importing anything

[Kavawuvi 7,026]

Since I've just modified Sparky's plugin to have the value changeable from within Eschaton instead of a hex editor, I've redone the tutorial.

Tools required:

• Eschaton with modified Sparky's effe plugin (see downloads on the bottom of the post)

Open your map in Eschaton and go to weapons\frag grenade\effects\explosion

 

Go to Reflexives -> Events -> Event 1 -> Reflexives -> Parts and you'll see there are seven Parts. Each Parts is something that's created by the explosion.

For Parts 1-6, change the tag to the objects that you want to spawn at: Parts # -> Dependencies -> Tag. The order typically does not matter, but they are created in sequential order. If you hate the dependency swapper in the meta editor, use the reference swapper and swap the first six items instead.

Next, for Parts 1-6, you must have Halo know that we are spawning an object, or else it'll try to use it as a damage tag or a particle control tag or a light tag and very likely crash. Go to Parts # -> Enum32 -> Type and change to Object.

 

 

I wrote a tutorial on how to do it using both Eschaton + Hex Editor Tutorial, without the plugin:

 

Today, we're going to modify the frag grenade to spawn all 6 vehicles.

Tools required:

• Eschaton
• a hex editor

Open your map in Eschaton, navigate to effe->weapons\frag grenade\effects\explosion

Go into the reference swapper.

All of the items before the particle at the bottom is what is created during the explosion. Swap them with your desired objects.

Open your map in a hex editor. Go to the location of the very first dependency of this effect (you can find these dependencies under reference swapper), as long as it's not a particle tag.

The four bytes BEFORE the dependency tells Halo what type of object this is. Currently, Halo will try to read this tag as a jpt! (!tpj) tag. We want to tell Halo that this is not a damage tag, but an object (obje) tag, so replace !tpj with ejbo.

Repeat for the five objects that were swapped. Save. Done!

 

 

Effect plugin (Eschaton): effe.ent.zip

[Takka 13,377]

Any effect that supports garbage tags will support this sort of chainspawn without any hex editing. Also, if you're just looking to chainspawn projectiles, there's also a couple other stock effects that support direct projectile references.

These tags are uncommon and only exist in campaign maps though, so this method you've provided is still useful for MD users. Thanks for sharing it. =]

[Kavawuvi 7,026]

I was just revealing something that's missing in the plugins.

Edited February 16, 2014 by 002

[WaeV 5,049]

The four bytes before the dependency tells Halo what type of object this is.

Did not know this. That's useful!

[Kavawuvi 7,026]

I could modify Sparky's effe plugin so you can do all of this inside of Eschaton for full control over your effe tags.

[WaeV 5,049]

I could modify Sparky's effe plugin so you can do all of this inside of Eschaton for full control over your effe tags.

How would you expose changing the expected type? A 4-character ascii block, or an enum, or something?

[Kavawuvi 7,026]

How would you expose changing the expected type? A 4-character ascii block, or an enum, or something?

32-bit enumerator would be the easiest. Tag classes are basically 32-bit integers.

edit: Here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30298900/000Release/effe.ent.zip (link broken; plugin was reuploaded in topic OP)

Edited September 2, 2015 by 002

[Inigo Montoya 241]

Very nice Very nice.

[Kavawuvi 7,026]

Here's an example of how not to chainspawn:

Edited February 16, 2014 by 002

[Inigo Montoya 241]

I like this, pretty useful. And thank you for the plugin, I'm sure it's appreciated, you should put it in the first post however so future readers have everything right there.