Re: What were the chances of this happening anyway?

In reply to my own post this time, here's a slight update.

First off, after having become acquainted with the level editor and haivng learned how to set up a computer hack like this one, I now know just how easily this could be fixed.  Every computer hack, when you're setting it up, has outputs on various events that can do whatever you need them to do.

Since Alien Swarm was released just so the modding community could have fun with it, there's a version of Landing Bay that's loadable in Hammer.  Loading it up and looking at the hack's trigger, it's supposed to trigger the spawn to break down the door when the hack starts.  So, what I guess happened is: since the hack started up complete, none of the OnComputerHackStarted outputs fired, and none of the other outputs cause enemies to spawn.  No enemies spawned, nobody to break down the door.

However, there are other events where the spawn that breaks down the door could be enabled.  OnComputerHackCompleted jumps out as being suitable at first, but it's probably a bit late to spawn them, since the door does take a while to knock down and we want the players to have some sense of urgency.  OnComputerDataDownloaded is much too late, if they spawned then, the players would have to stand around and wait for the door to be knocked down.  It should be set to OnComputerActivated, and maybe increase the delay from 5 seconds to 7 to account for the computer starting up to give it about the same amount of time in the end.

Yet another solution involves changing the door itself.  As it exists in the level, it's nonfunctional and not welded.  If we change both of those, so that the door can open if triggered and make it welded, players can still get through if this ever happens again.  To prevent the obvious speedrun exploit, the door's Total Seal Time could be jacked up from the default 10 seconds, and the door set to be fully welded.  This will make it take a while to unweld the door.  The exact amount of time required would need some research.  Figure out how long it takes the chainsaw to break down a default health door and go from there.  The door out of the room on the other side would need to be locked until the OnComputerDataDownloaded output of the computer hack fires.  I'm unsure as to whether or not it's locked in the first place (it's been a while since I chainsawed the door down to check).

There's something that bugs me about this though.  Looking at the outputs on the computer hack trigger, there's a broken one set for OnComputerDataDownloaded with a target of AfterHackSpawnTrigger.  This trigger doesn't appear to exist in the level.  Was this broken output originally meant to be in the level to prevent this "mystery case" from messing up the game?

The other update is to correct the data needed to calculate the probability of this happening.  I forgot to mention that for the hack to complete, all of the columns need to be moving the same direction.  So the new situation is that the hack starts up with all four ones aligned AND moving the same direction.  Basically it adds an extra bit's worth of complexity to each column.

I've noticed it start up with two of them aligned every now and then, and three fairly rarely.

One thing's for sure: The odds of anyone at Valve reading this: zero.