Actor

actor <picnum> [strength] [action] [move] [moveflag 1] [...] [moveflag N]

useractor <type> <picnum> [strength] [action] [move] [moveflag 1] [...] [moveflag N]

Defines parameters for in-game sprites, and allows code to be written for sprites of the specific tile number.

The token enda marks the end of the actor.

actor MYACTOR
  [...]
enda

useractor notenemy MYACTOR2
  [...]
enda

Loosely speaking, "actors" are sprites that run code in game, such as enemies, breakable objects, etc.

When defined with actor or useractor, the sprites will execute their code once every tic, except for dormant enemies. Actors or dormant actors will have a statnum of 1 and 2 respectively.

Prior to v1.4, only tile numbers hard-coded to execute script would work with the actor command. After v1.4 new actors could be defined, and the useractor command was added which allowed actors to be defined as specific types for hard-coded behavior.

With useractor, the old actor command is deprecated. Using actor is identical to useractor except it's always "notenemy" type.

Example:

define MYACTOR 3585

useractor notenemy MYACTOR 0
  ifpdistl 1024 
  { 
    palfrom 32 0 16 0 
  }
enda

See also state.

Parameters

All parameters after <picnum> are optional.

<type>	is the actor type for special behavior. Only used by useractor.
<picnum>	You can either input a defined name, or the tile number directly.
<strength>	is the health of the actor.
<action>	is the intial action an actor uses.
<move>	is the initial move of the actor.
<moveflag>	is a sequence of parameters that specify certain hard-coded movement behavior.

Types

The type is technically a bitfield, though "3" is invalid. It is generally either "enemy", "enemystayput", or "notenemy".

Value	DEFS.CON label	gameflags	Description
0	notenemy	(None)	Default. Code begins executing at the start of a level.
1	enemy	SFLAG_BADGUY	Enables hard-coded behavior. Code only begins executing upon player sight.
2	enemystayput	SFLAG_BADGUY SFLAG_BADGUYSTAYPUT	Same as "enemy" plus the actor will not leave the sector it is placed in.
4	(None)	SFLAG_ROTFIXED	The actor's position in rotating sectors is calculated without rounding errors.