Draw a trigger box

Reviewed

A trigger box is an invisible volume. Anyone standing in it, or pressing use inside it, sets off whatever is bound to it.

In the menus: ESC → Design → Trigger Boxes

A map holds 16 boxes. The 1. STATUS band picks the one you are editing and colours all sixteen by state:

  • green is live
  • yellow is drawn but disarmed or unbound
  • dark is a free slot.

A suffix carries the behaviour, so 7u* is box 7, live, tripped by use, and remembering who has been in.

Drawing a box

Select a free slot, then DRAW BOX.

Two presses make one box: the first anchors a corner, the second sends it, with a wireframe following your cursor in between.

Use TAB to reach Yaw and the other controls. Turn Yaw before the second press to rotate the box around its centre.

To change an existing box, select its occupied slot and press DRAW BOX. Draw both corners again. This redraws its shape and behaviour in the same slot and keeps its camera, animation and cue bindings.

Setting what trips a box

The 2. BEHAVIOUR band is four controls:

  • Fires: every time, once per player, or once ever
  • By: walking in, or pressing use
  • Wait: the gap before an every-time box may go again. The panel offers the 1.5-second default, then 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 20 seconds
  • Usable: opens Rank, Skill / gate and Minimum level, saved together with APPLY

Both requirements must be met. Rank 1 is highest, so rank N admits ranks 1 to N. Gated boxes require a logged-in active character.

Skills use that character’s trained level. Academia cannot replace another skill. Force Sense checks do not need Sense switched on.

The 3. BINDINGS band can attach a camera, animations and stored cues. See control an animation from a trigger box for the animation controls.

Managing and removing boxes

The 4. MANAGE band acts on the selected box.

MAKE LIVE arms the selected box. ARM ALL arms the set. Anyone already inside a newly armed walk-in box trips it on the next frame, so stage the set cold before showtime.

DISARM blocks every fire from the selected box until you make it live again. The console-only reset clears what a box remembers, stops a cue sequence in progress and removes persistent effects that its cues created. It keeps the box, its bindings and its current armed or disarmed state.

Resetting an XP-paying box keeps its payout history. The same character cannot collect a once-only award again.

Prefer the console?

The bare form captures a corner at your feet, filling corner 1 then corner 2. Give both outright with /trigger drawbox <x1> <y1> <z1> <x2> <y2> <z2> [mode] [activation].

/trigger <box> set <mode 0-2> <activation 0-1>
/trigger <box> mode <always|playeronce|once>
/trigger <box> activation <entry|use>
/trigger <box> usable <everyone|1-8> [<gate> <level>]
/trigger <box> cooldown <seconds>
/trigger <box> arm|disarm
/trigger <box> reset
/trigger removebox <box|all>
/trigger boxes <on|off>

Gates are none, force, diplomacy, artisan, tech, firstaid, academia, scout and vehicles. Use /trigger 3 usable everyone tech 2 for Tech 2 or higher. Successful requirement changes print nothing. Omitting the gate keeps its current requirement. none 0 clears it.

The console accepts fractional cooldowns up to 60 seconds. cooldown 0 restores the 1.5-second default. The cooldown belongs to the whole box. A Use box also fires only once for each press.

/trigger on its own lists every volume, its centre, what it holds and how it fires:

/trigger help fetches the help block. A bare /trigger prints the listing above instead.