Making soul crystals with scripted items.
| Author | Topic: Making soul crystals with scripted items. |
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Warrior
Member # 1016
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written Tuesday, August 26 2003 16:41
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I have a suggestion to anybody who may be lucky enough to beta test the game. Try writing a script to implement an item like a soul crystal. The player would first aquire an empty soul crystal for thier inventory. When they use the crystal on a monster it would look at what number that monster occupies in the scenarios monster list and then store that number in the quantity used to hold the objects charges or quantity. An empty soul crystal would have 0 stored in this number. Next time the player uses the crystal it would would then create a copy of the monster occupying the corresponding slot number on the monster list. Additionaly the script could check the character's mage spell skill and level to see if they are succesful in capturing or summoning a creature. If they succeed then the game can check there magic points available and subtract an apropriate number. If Spiderweb makes this script common to the Avernum engine then the player would be able to carry thier soul crystals over to other scenarios, but the crystal would have to be emptied everytime the player started a different scenerio, since diferent scenerios would most likely have diferent monsters. This would then also allow the characters to carry multiple soul crystals with a diferent monster in each of them. Examining the soul crystal could tell you if it has a creature trapped inside and what type of creature it is. Posts: 141 | Registered: Saturday, April 20 2002 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2238
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written Tuesday, August 26 2003 16:48
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This man's a thinker! Why didn't I think of this? Oh yea... I'm too busy. But still... -------------------- DEMON PLAY, DEMON OUT! Posts: 1582 | Registered: Wednesday, November 13 2002 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 3421
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written Thursday, September 4 2003 03:03
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You watched too many pokemon serial but quite nice idea. One minus whit the deleting captured monsters before next scrnario. The monster can be valuble whit it's power when the other have other powers ou nevermind it's dizzy. -------------------- Always keep an eye on blank card... Posts: 2 | Registered: Tuesday, September 2 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Thursday, September 4 2003 07:50
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Soul crystals aren't from Pokémon, actually. They're straight from the Avernum games. The idea is good, but there is one problem. Jeff doesn't want to program a way to target monsters with anything but looking and spells. It seems to me that it wouldn't be too hard to adapt the code, but Jeff won't. —Alorael, who also isn't sure if there will be any good way to have scripts call a monster using a variable instead of a straight number. But with that a workaround could probably be devised. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 1016
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written Friday, September 5 2003 14:51
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So scripts won't be able to allow the player to target a creature? That's to bad. The reason for clearing the soul crystals when the player leaves the scenerio is because the crystal would only store the monster slot number, since this would probably be the easiest way to implement it. And it is very likely that the slots would contain diferent monsters in diferent scenerios. For example in one scenerio slot #37 may contain a feild mouse with 2 hitpoints and no special traits, but in another scenerio it may contain an arch demon with 900 hit points that is immune to all attacks and does 300 points long range damage to each enemy. Posts: 141 | Registered: Saturday, April 20 2002 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Friday, September 5 2003 17:04
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So you capture the field mouse, and summon the demon in the next scenario? Cool, but you'd sure need to time it right. You don't want to capture an arch demon, then release it as a last measure in a tough battle, and find... *squeak* :D Anyway, yeah, this sort of thing should be avoided. But couldn't the monster stats be saved in the save file? As far as I know, items (without custom graphics) can be transferred, even if the item number is something completely different. So why not monsters? Maybe ask Jeff with a pretty please? :D -------------------- Encyclopaedia • Archives • Members • RSS [Topic / Forum] • Blog • Polaris • NaNoWriMo Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. I have a love of woodwind instruments. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 1823
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written Sunday, September 7 2003 11:50
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I think scripts will be erased from items at the end of scenarios anyway, so clearing the number won't be neccessary. As a way around the targetting - I have a feeling that scripts may be able to see what monsters are in the vicinity (I remember seeing something like this in some of the geneforge scripts). What could be done, therefore, would be to get the numbers of nearby monsters, and then randomly select one. -------------------- Riot Shields Voodoo Economics It's just business Cattle prods And the IMF I trust I can rely on your vote Posts: 530 | Registered: Sunday, September 1 2002 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 1016
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written Sunday, September 7 2003 16:48
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quote:That's why I suggest making them a common item in Avernum. I assume that other common items like the Orb of Thralni, and maybe mind crystals would be scripted, and they would probably keep thier script between scenerios. Then again I have no idea how scripted items will work or if any of the common items will be scripted or not. Posts: 141 | Registered: Saturday, April 20 2002 07:00 |