Prefabs and workarounds obsoleted by Mapbase

This article is supposed to list common prefabs and workarounds that have been changed or obsoleted by Mapbase. This article exists to help mappers know about and understand the new features instead of going through existing workarounds.

AddOutput-related

AddOutput (an existing input) is normally used for adding outputs, but it's also capable of setting any keyvalue after the entity has spawned. This is used to change several keyvalues that could not be changed manually by other means after spawning.

Mapbase adds corresponding inputs to some keyvalues, meaning AddOutput wouldn't need to be used in those cases anymore, but not every keyvalue has a corresponding input and AddOutput should continue to be standard practice. In fact, using AddOutput has been made more flexible thanks to the new logic_format entity, which allows the key and value to be set independently.

Entity/Entities	KeyValue	New Input(s)	Details
All Entities	spawnflags	AddSpawnFlags, RemoveSpawnFlags	Sets an entity's spawnflags.
All Entities	rendermode	SetRenderMode	Sets an entity's render mode.
All Entities	renderfx	SetRenderFX	Sets an entity's render FX.
All Entities	effects	AddEffects, RemoveEffects	Sets an entity's effect flags.
All NPCs	hintgroup	SetHintGroup	Sets an NPC's hint group. This was also possible through the existing ai_changehintgroup entity.
npc_combine_s	numgrenades	SetGrenades, AddGrenades	Sets a soldier's number of grenades.
npc_combine_s	tacticalvariant	SetTacticalVariant	Sets a soldier's tactical variant.

(todo)

Triggers and entity finders

Some cases call for some really complicated trigger logic when it comes to finding a certain entity/number of entities under specific criteria.

Mapbase adds two new entities designed to find other entities:

• point_entity_finder - An entity designed by Valve and introduced in Left 4 Dead designed to find a single entity in a level, using a filter and a variety of search methods with a reference entity (e.g. nearest to the reference entity). It was ported to Mapbase via the Alien Swarm SDK.
• point_advanced_finder - An entity unique to Mapbase which performs more complicated and advanced finding functions or criteria compared to point_entity_finder, including a specific number of entities, a delay in between outputs fired, etc.

Both of these entities have their own benefits and limitations.