Have some cool ideas for Custom Games or Forge? Post them here! If you have any things you’d like to add to something that is already here go ahead! Hot topic ideas will be posted to the top! Keep it clean!
1. Buttons, Switches, Etc: The obvious uses to these are doors, but I have thought of more uses for them. Buttons seem like a complicated concept, some questions it often gets is: How would you create a wire to both of them? Would you only be able to use one button because it would otherwise affect all the other doors?
I thought of an easier way to connect items, from looking at the teleporters in reach. Have a button set as alpha, and the door set to it as well. this way you could have multiple doors and even have it connect to more than one door.
As you can see in this picture there are a few options. The first is Channel Path. Channel Path sets an E.F. item to sender, receiver, or both. An item set as sender, when activated, will only activate any other object with the same Channel, not Channel Path. An item set as receiver will only be affected by sender. An item set as both, well that’s pretty self-explanitory. This may sound confusing to some, but let me give some examples. A button by default will be a sender, so that a receiver set as alpha will receive. A door as a sender, when opened, will affect any other receivers or “boths.” However for a door to work as a sender it has to be set as both, otherwise it will never be openable by another button. This could lead to some pretty intersting results in custom games.
The second option is the channel which has already been explained. The third, fourth, and fifth options are all color options for buttons. The first is for a neutral button, or one that has not been activated. The second for a button that has been activated. The last for one that is locked.
This brings me to another topic, locked buttons. Any E.F. item can be set to a locked mode with a few options. Items such as doors, and road blocks are by default set as locked, because they are receivers and would need to be opened. Locks have a few ways of being unlocked. The first is to put a time on it so that, for example, after thirty seconds the door will open. The second is to have it open after another E.F. item is activated. The third is a bit more complicated because it uses several inputs. When three of the outputs are activated, the E.F. item will be activated. This means that an object can has a few channels. One is the original, where anything in the same channel will be activated. The other is in the advanced menu, where an objects has one output, and if the lock is set as true, can have up to 3 inputs. Other buttons can also re-lock another, allowing for an option to close a door.
A third characteristic of E.F. items is that they affect normal items, and custom game options. If an Item has a custom trait (see forge idea number 5) it can be set to be activated by an E.F. Item. It can also be said to affect the entire custom game overall.
2. Weather, Time, and Special Effects: Current ideas for effects: (May change with more suggestions.)
Time
- Day (No effects, unless different on map)
-Morning/Dawn
-Night
Weather
-Rain
-Snow
-Sunny (No effects, unless different on map)
Special
-(All previous effects)
Time effects would only affect the skybox, Weather effects would effect the screen to show snow, but only in areas where the skybox is visible, and would leave marks of whatever it has on the ground. (Ex: Snow falls on ground.) Special effects would be a screen filter. These would be separated because if you want it to be night in the skybox, but still want things visible, then the map would be bright, but the skybox would be be dark and have stars. If you want rain, then the skybox would be sunny, but there would be rain falling. If you wanted everything to be as reall as possible then you would have a night effect, a rain effect, and a purple/blue effect. Also, these, except time effects, would be customizable by range and would work the same way a hill marker does in Reach for range. The reason time effects can’t be affected by range is because it is a skybox, and will cover the whole map (that is unless 343 has the patience to do something like that). A good way that range can help is lets say I want to, for aesthetic reasons, want to make one side of blood gulch rainy, and the other snowy. Also there can only be one time and weather effect at a time.
3. Civilian Vehicles, and other aesthetic items: Yes aesthetic items are technically useless, but when you make Machinima, or want to make your map look pretty, these are simply things you want. This idea doesn’t need explanation, just a wish list: (May change with more suggestions)
Civilian Vehicles
-Civilian Warthog
-Police Car (Like in ODST)
-All Halo Reach Campaign Vehicles
-Drivable Boat
Aesthetic Items
-Computers
-TVs
- Sofas
-Chairs
-Tables
-Sinks
-Ovens
-Weapon Holders
4. Breakable Items: All items by default will be unbreakable, unless they’re something like a pallet. However items can be destroyed, broken, shattered, with options. Once the item is set to be destructible it has a certain amount of defense ranging from one to ten, one being easily destroyed, and ten being pretty buff. This could add great things to custom games, and multiplayer maps with destructible cover. (No more camping!)
