Pause system using Game and Pause groups, "only one event" fires upon un-pause?

I've been using a manual pause system for my game where all the game events go in a Game group and all of the pause toggle events go in a Pause group. When the game is paused, the Game group is disabled, and when it's unpaused, it's re-enabled. This works well since only sub-groups that were enabled are re-enabled. Unfortunately, I've noticed that "only one action when event loops" is triggered each time the game is unpaused, as are "on group activated" which makes it difficult to keep track of certain in-game sequences that rely on things happening only once when a group is enabled as part of the game (not from unpausing). Is there a way around this without setting a second set of flags that toggle off once an "only one event" action is run?

I get around this by having a lot of groups.

The main group has the on group activation event in it and at the end of those events it deactivates itself and activates the next group that has no activation events in it.

For the most part I try to avoid - only one action when event loops - as it can have unintended consequences in a variety of ways. I would set a flag or a value. I do have a group of events that triggers when a game returns from paused, where it tests the state of a bunch of values and continues from there, I have no better solution.

Thanks, yeah I often deactivate state groups but sometimes I needed them open and it didn’t occur to me they’d get reactivated if the parent group or parent parent group was deactivated then reactivated. I also expected “only one” to be consistent over groups, so that’s quite unexpected to me.

Well, I’ve at least got “run once” for one-shot “on group activation” tricks, but some of these are going to be unpleasant to fix. I did use a flag toggle for one of them where I had two flags:

(Only one event if) If distance from enemy is less than ** and flag 0 is off and flag 1 is off: turn flag 0 on and flag 1 on, shoot player
If flag 0 is on and flag 1 is on, flag 0 off

Something like that, but a simpler and more robust method would be much appreciated so I can quickly change out any bugs that pop up during extending pause testing!

Yes, a selective pause system is definitely needed - it doesn't seem like Fusion was ever developed with a custom pause in mind - it's missing a lot of features that other software have in.

You could turn the flags on at your end of pause event so that the shoot player event doesn't immediately trigger - assuming that turning them off again will be after the shoot event in the event lists.

Another trick I have is to reactivate things half a second later (I mainly use that to eliminate the click to end the pause from triggering an action in the game).

Trick two - I use a pause control value and everything can only trigger if pause control = 0. Pause sets it to 1, and it's only reset after a second or so when returning from pause.

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Originally Posted by Janette5

Yes, a selective pause system is definitely needed - it doesn't seem like Fusion was ever developed with a custom pause in mind - it's missing a lot of features that other software have in.

You could turn the flags on at your end of pause event so that the shoot player event doesn't immediately trigger - assuming that turning them off again will be after the shoot event in the event lists.

Another trick I have is to reactivate things half a second later (I mainly use that to eliminate the click to end the pause from triggering an action in the game).

Trick two - I use a pause control value and everything can only trigger if pause control = 0. Pause sets it to 1, and it's only reset after a second or so when returning from pause.

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I did try setting a special pause that went on during pause, then turned off at the end of the fist frame and all events "on group" and "only one" events would be checked against it, but I could never get the order right no matter what I tried, and it just kept turning off too early. A timer of 1 or 10 milliseconds might also work, but I tend to try and avoid timer events if possible, although in this situation it would probably be preferential.

Any ideas how to best force a flag off reliably one frame after unpausing so I can check against it for any actions that re-trigger?

I'm not sure what you're asking - you want the flag to go off after 1 frame, or stay off for 1 frame?

I've attached an example - it still works if you change the timer to trigger after 1 - 60th of a second, but even a little slower the player won't see any difference.

I don't think there's a reliability issue with flags in Fusion - perhaps something else is triggering or changing it later on in the frame which might be why you're seeing it as unreliable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Janette5

I'm not sure what you're asking - you want the flag to go off after 1 frame, or stay off for 1 frame?

I've attached an example - it still works if you change the timer to trigger after 1 - 60th of a second, but even a little slower the player won't see any difference.

I don't think there's a reliability issue with flags in Fusion - perhaps something else is triggering or changing it later on in the frame which might be why you're seeing it as unreliable.

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Thanks, I appreciate the example, I'll double check my events to see what's causing it, I know toggle can sometimes do some unexpected things, so I'll have a good look. Thanks again!

Ahh, now I know what wasn't working:
Attachment 27842
Attachment 27843

Unfortunately, it will still play the sample, it'll just be delayed by 1 frame. I can't think of a way of being able to test for "only once when loops" only once, other than replacing them all with "run event once" but that would be only be good for events that should never run twice.

At some point is paused ticked is going to equal 0 and you're not providing for that.

So it will add 1 while it is negative and then stop at zero. Your next step is to test it when it equals 1 and I don't see where it's going to go from 0 to 1 (unless that's just not part of your screenshot).

From my understanding - the code that you have written will cause Fusion to play a sound once every frame loop. From what you're explaining you don't want Fusion to do that - but that's more or less what you've programmed.

If you want the sound to trigger on an action then you can change it to:

User Shoots

Set Sound = 1

If sound = 1

Play sample
Set sound = 0

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Janette5

At some point is paused ticked is going to equal 0 and you're not providing for that.

So it will add 1 while it is negative and then stop at zero. Your next step is to test it when it equals 1 and I don't see where it's going to go from 0 to 1 (unless that's just not part of your screenshot).

From my understanding - the code that you have written will cause Fusion to play a sound once every frame loop. From what you're explaining you don't want Fusion to do that - but that's more or less what you've programmed.

If you want the sound to trigger on an action then you can change it to:

User Shoots

Set Sound = 1

If sound = 1

Play sample
Set sound = 0

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I guess what I'm looking for is a way of testing "only one event" against the paused state, but really what I need to do is have an object full of unique flags for every "only one event" event, set on the first time and check each time if it's on or not to really guarantee it won't run again (or use "run only once" if it truly only needs to run once).

It sounds to me like you're using a different feature - Fusion has the built-in feature that it will stop doing something if there was no trigger, or in some cases "only one event" will not run again until there is a trigger. (It's why I avoid using that command.) It sounds like you're getting that scenario - where you're using "only one event" to make something not happen until that trigger. But the pause - activate / deactivate is interfering with that.

If you're not using the built-in pause then as you say, you'd have to set flags or values to control it yourself - unless you have a moving object or action that you can control or test against rather than flags i.e. if the object hasn't moved.