Hackswitches

Hackswitches are an important component of Arganium. They guard Core Challenges and are unable to be activated by Control, only by Marines. When Marines activate Hackswitches it unlocks Core Challenges, clearing the way for Control to complete them. When a Hackswitch is activated though it ALSO begins spawning enemies from that Area's Enemy Spawners until the Core Challenge is completed!

Level Editing

Hackswitches rely on appropriate action specials attached to a switch in each Area. The switch may be unique for every map but for Marines' sanity should all look identical and unique to everything else in the level. Hackswitches are switches in all regards but do not need to be attached to anything else. There should always be precisely one Hackswitch per Area. Without it the game cannot continue, though positioning of it is entirely up to the level designer.

To make a Hackswitch, simply create a switch texture on a wall, then assign it an action of either Script Execute or ACS_Execute depending on the map type. For Script Number to execute, use 1 and for Argument 1 put in the number of the Area it is located in. Naturally you will wish to set the trigger for this action to, "Player presses use."

Script Control

The script, script number 1 in arganium.pk3's arganium.o, is very simple and requires one argument, the Area it is located in. It is activated automatically after set up when a Marine presses the Hackswitch and presents a message onto the screen. This will be interpreted by the server code to unlock that Area's Core Challenges.

Usage Examples

Marines press use on Hackswitch in Area 1.

A message appears onscreen and in the server log of, "Area 1 Hackswitch activated!"

Marines press use on Hackswitch in Area 5.

A message appears onscreen and in the server log of, "Area 5 Hackswitch activated!"