Actor

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

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

Defines the given tile number as an actor, enabling hardcoded actor behavior, attributes and allowing code to be written for sprites of that tile number.

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

The token actor specifies the start of an actor code block, while enda marks the end of the block.

actor MYACTOR
  [...]
enda

useractor notenemy MYACTOR2
  [...]
enda

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 the addition of useractor, the old actor command is deprecated and remains for compatibility reasons. Using actor is identical to useractor except that it always uses the "notenemy" type.

Example:

define MYACTOR 3585

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

To reuse code between actors, see also: state.

Parameters

All parameters after <picnum> are optional, and receive a default value of 0 if left undefined.

<type>	Defines the actor's hardcoded behavior type. Only used by useractor.
<picnum>	Either a define label, or the tile number as a constant. Identifies the tile to be defined as actor.
[strength]	Defines the initial health of the actor.
[action]	Defines the initial action an actor uses when activated.
[move]	Defines the initial move of the actor when activated.
[moveflag]...	A sequence of bit flags that specifies which hard-coded movement behavior to use, see moveflags.

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. Generally used for interactive objects.
1	enemy	SFLAG_BADGUY	Enables hard-coded enemy 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.