[psychonic]

I don't know much about mapping, and maybe they can store custom keys/values for use only in the map's own logic. Those indeed wouldn't show in a datamap dump. Additionally, not all compiled-in keys are mapped directly to variables and thus, would also not show up. The GetKeyValue/[Set]KeyValue baseentity functions special-cases many key names (as derived entities can also do).

You don't need an extension to call GetKeyValue. A BaseEntity SDKCall in an SM plugin would work fine.

This could also easily be added to SM itself as well if someone wants to do a Pull Request. GetKeyValue is exposed on the IServerTools interface, not requiring gamedata.

[friagram]

You can create any keyvalue you like in hammer by disabling the smart editor.
Possibly with addoutput, entities could make them as well, or at least set them? I did not try.
I never bothered to look and see if they are actually accessable in game. I know that entity classnames that are invalid get filtered out, and most datamap values that aren't used by the entity get reset/zeroed out pretty often (every frame?).

[Powerlord]

Originally Posted by psychonic I don't know much about mapping, and maybe they can store custom keys/values for use only in the map's own logic.

Originally Posted by friagram You can create any keyvalue you like in hammer by disabling the smart editor. Possibly with addoutput, entities could make them as well, or at least set them? I did not try. I never bothered to look and see if they are actually accessable in game. I know that entity classnames that are invalid get filtered out, and most datamap values that aren't used by the entity get reset/zeroed out pretty often (every frame?).

I'll be totally honest here and say I haven't tried it.

However, glancing at the Source SDK code, the things that appear in the Hammer editor have backing fields in the class linked to the entity. They (and DataMaps) appear to be created using macros to link them to (already existing) backing fields. (Netprops have something similar, but the backing variables are declared as being a netprop on creation)

The point being that they work because they already have storage in the C++ code.

[friagram]

Yes, and when you check for errors it'll cry if the entity doesn't "support" that keyvalue...
Though sometimes it does... Common one is like angles on keyframe_rope, or hammerid on entities from decompiled maps, obviously hammerid and angles are valid. It likely only supports the values that are coded to work there

[Spirrwell]

Ah, the game I'm working with is Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II. I was hoping that I could make the gamemode feel less artificial (yeah, that word kind of makes no sense in this context anyway) by avoiding a reliance on SM menus and the like.

I looked at the code myself as well:

for ( datamap_t *dmap = GetDataDescMap(); dmap != NULL; dmap = dmap->baseMap )
	{
		if ( ::ExtractKeyvalue( this, dmap->dataDesc, dmap->dataNumFields, szKeyName, szValue, iMaxLen ) )
			return true;
	}
#endif

	return false;

It doesn't seem possible. Oh well. I learned a lot about finding virtual offsets and whatnot thanks to this, so at least I learned something.