Deactivating Timers

[Gambit21]

OK, a sort of basic question, but in all my missions I've just never need to utilize this tactic...just not part of my workflow.

However I'm in a situation where I need to disable some logic trees, even if they get an input. I need them only active under certain conditions.

I basically need some gateways.

 

So, if I deactivate a timer or group of timers at Mission Begin, they WILL NOT fire even if then receive an input unless I ACTIVATE them first correct?

 

Dumb question I know, I've just never done this.

[SYN_Vander]

Correct.

[Sketch]

Concure... A timer MCU can act like a Boolean gate. If it's disabled, it won't pass any inputs. If it's enabled, it will pass inputs.

[Gambit21]

You guys rock - thanks.

[Habu]

I'll add one more question.

 

A timer which receive a deactivate command is frozen or reset ?

 

[JimTM]

18 minutes ago, Habu said:

I'll add one more question.

 

A timer which receive a deactivate command is frozen or reset ?

 

 

The timer is frozen until it is activated again, at which point it resumes the countdown.

[Habu]

Thx Jim.I thought it changed, that's why i ask. ?

Edited September 4, 2019 by Habu

[JimTM]

6 minutes ago, Habu said:

Thx Jim.I thought it changed, that's why i ask. ?

 

I'm not sure if it's changed as I have not tested it lately.

[WWSitttingDuck]

 

any chance counters would serve you better here?

 

set a counter to 2

If this happens (what might trigger the timer in the first place but linked to the counter)

AND this happens (what you called certain conditions are met)

counter goes off triggering the timer

[JimTM]

22 minutes ago, WWSitttingDuck said:

 

any chance counters would serve you better here?

 

set a counter to 2

If this happens (what might trigger the timer in the first place but linked to the counter)

AND this happens (what you called certain conditions are met)

counter goes off triggering the timer

 

I'm not sure exactly what Habu wants to do, but there is a use case for pausing a timer shown on pg. 143 of the editor manual. The timers shown by label A in the screenshots can be started and stopped repeatedly to accumulate the flag capture time for each side.

[Habu]

I used it for recon mission. To complete the mission, the Recon plane must stay in the recon area a time i set.

i have some timer link to a complex triger. as soon the Recon plane is in the area ot the recon, the timer is on, and as soon the plane is outside the aera, the timer is deactivate. The first time i use that was a few years ago. The timer which were decativated were frozen, but after a patch, the timer was reset and not frozen.

 

 

[Alonzo]

A few tricks I use on Combat Box:

• If you want some logic to switch off forever, use a Deactivate MCU to disable the timers. For example I have AI flying around, if enough players log into the server a counter fires to a deactivate, and it disables a whole load of individual timers that were being used to spawn AI.
• If you want a sequence of things to happen, try using a series of Counter MCUs with 1, 2, 3 (etc) as the counter setting. I use this to easily activate logic in a 1-2-3 order. For example on one mission there is a series of 3 trains that are spawned. The first one is activated after a '1' counter, the second after a '2' counter, etc. When a mission event occurs and I want the 'next' train to spawn, I fire an event at all 3 counters. Then the correct train spawns each time. Counters are nice because (by default) once they have fired once they will not fire again, so it doesn't hurt to send too many events to them.
• Counter reset logic with MCU SetValue seems to work well. I have several missions where I set a counter back to zero, rather than needing to know whether it fired or not.