Upcoming System Changes

Author	Topic: Upcoming System Changes
Spidweb Board Administrator Member # 1	written Wednesday, April 14 2004 14:17 Profile Homepage #0 Just some notes about what is going in when Windows Blades is out (and a Mac update is released to match it). Please do not start incorporating these new calls yet. Wait until you're developing with the new version of the editor. I'll be adding get_energy and all calls missing from the old version. The game should correctly end a player's turn in combat when he/she uses a custom ability that drains action points. I am adding advanced string building calls. Here is the current text that will go into the docs: String Manipulation Calls These calls are designed to give the scenario designer a lot more control over the text displayed to the player. They’re a little complicated, but much more powerful. Blades of Avernum maintains a string buffer. It is a 255 character long chunk of text in memory. You can clear this buffer, append chunks of text to it, and then dump the buffer into a string variable. For example, here is a bit of code. string sample_string clear_buffer(); // empties out the string buffer. append_string("Hello, "); // puts this text into the buffer append_string("friend."); // adds this text to the end of the buffer get_buffer_text(sample_string); // the buffer is copied into string variable sample_string print_str(sample_string); // prints "Hello, friend." to the text area void append_char_name(short which_char) – Appends the name of the character which_char to the end of the string buffer. void append_number(short num) – Appends the number num to the end of the string buffer. void append_string(string source_string) – Appends the text source_string to the end of the string buffer. If the result would be longer than 255 characters, the text is truncated. void clear_buffer() – Empties the text buffer. Sets it to a blank string. void get_buffer_text(string dest_string) – Dest_string must be a string variable. Copies the text in the buffer into dest_string. -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Newtfeet Warrior Member # 1505	written Wednesday, April 14 2004 14:58 Profile #1 Cool; the missing link. Probably a dumb question, but can you then change dialogue nodes with this? -------------------- -Newtfeet Posts: 151 | Registered: Saturday, July 13 2002 07:00
spyderbytes Shock Trooper Member # 4180	written Wednesday, April 14 2004 15:10 Profile #2 As we say here in the South *clears throat*, YEEEEEEEEEHAWWWW! :D I'm especially looking forward to the string manipulation calls. In addition to the intended purpose, I've wished for the capability append_number() will give to simplify debugging. ;) And I think I've made my views on the need for append_char_name() clear already. :rolleyes: -spyderybtes -------------------- -spyderbytes Posts: 200 | Registered: Wednesday, March 31 2004 08:00
Spidweb Board Administrator Member # 1	written Wednesday, April 14 2004 15:13 Profile Homepage #3 " Probably a dumb question, but can you then change dialogue nodes with this?" Sort of. Remember, you can set dialogue with the message_dialog call. That's sort of what you'll need to do. - Jeff -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Abu Dhabi Warrior Member # 1451	written Wednesday, April 14 2004 22:50 Profile Homepage #4 hmmm. how about some balancing the spell power? i dont have a mac but i seen people complain about underpowered magic. -------------------- I am pleased to make contact with your entities. Posts: 123 | Registered: Sunday, July 7 2002 07:00
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Wednesday, April 14 2004 23:34 Profile Homepage #5 I think it's pretty balanced as is, although it'd be nice if Bolt of Fire and Ice Lances improved a little more at higher levels; once one has Lightning Spray and Fireblast, the lesser attack spells aren't very useful. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Eldiran Shock Trooper Member # 4154	written Friday, April 16 2004 12:15 Profile #6 No item descriptions, still? Blarg. Ah, well, at least the string calls are extremely powerful and useful. -------------------- You're a moron if you think I'm not. Posts: 213 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00
Daravon Warrior Member # 720	written Friday, April 16 2004 16:10 Profile #7 I miss item decriptions... :( -------------------- -Daravon Posts: 104 | Registered: Friday, March 8 2002 08:00