Calls that we wish existed

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AuthorTopic: Calls that we wish existed
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #0
Not sure what good it would do, but I thought it might be constructive/fun to mention all the calls that we wish that BoA had that it doesn't have. I personally want a force_start_year call to set the year (for historical or futuristic scenarios). It would be the companion of force_start_day, which does exist.

There's also a thread going about item descriptions, something like an it_description call.

Any more thoughts?

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
BANNED
Member # 4
Profile Homepage #1
void set_year(short year);

I'd also like to see customizable scenario icons.

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Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
The Establishment
Member # 6
Profile #2
I asked for something like this during beta and it was turned down. Fortunately you can turn of dates all together.

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Your flower power is no match for my glower power!
Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #3
Was there any reason given for the call being turned down? Seems like such a simple thing to implement, code-wise....

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Triad Mage
Member # 7
Profile Homepage #4
I asked for it during beta too :P

But turning them off is the best alternate solution.

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"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander
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Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy
Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet
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You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse!
Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00
BANNED
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My next question is, how? And another call...

void set_town_training(short can_train);

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Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 455
Profile #6
What's wrong with void turn_off_training(0)? (That's not a rhetorical question.)

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Forgive them, for they are young and rich and white.
Posts: 265 | Registered: Saturday, December 29 2001 08:00
BANNED
Member # 4
Profile Homepage #7
Oh hey, you're right- I didn't see that node. Thanks.

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Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Triad Mage
Member # 7
Profile Homepage #8
force_start_day(-1);

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"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander
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Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy
Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet
====
You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse!
Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #9
From Walker White's post:

short get_energy(short which_char)

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Apprentice
Member # 4127
Profile #10
Oh dear Lord. Where do I begin? Okay, here is a list, some of which I have already sent to Jeff.

The Easy Ones (If Jeff did what I think he did)
deduct_char_ap(short which_char, short amount) so items can manually deduct AP (and fix the 219 feature).equip_item_in_slot(short which_char, short which_item, short which_slot), so I can manually equip items in my creatures.set_char_memory_cell(short which_char, short which_cell). This would greatly improve message communication. We can already do this for terrain, why not characters?Missile animations for SFX. We can do booms and sparkles and effects. Why not missiles?A call to manually identify an item so that I am not forced to use shops.]The Hard Ones (I am dreaming)Get calls for every item ability (what's its damage, type, etc...)Get calls for determining a creature's special attacks.Path finding calls: Is there a path on the ground from A to B?
Compute this without actually moving a character.A dialog box for numeric input. Dear lord what I could do with this (I cast clairvoyance on square x=13, y =2).There is also the issue of string handling (being able to glue strings together and then like for better print_str() output). I have made some suggestions to Jeff about this, and he is thinking about it. However, my suggestion on strings is a major overhaul and if we pressure him to do a lot of calls, it will not happen.

[ Sunday, April 04, 2004 12:07: Message edited by: Walker White ]
Posts: 48 | Registered: Saturday, March 20 2004 08:00
Warrior
Member # 1505
Profile #11
There is a set_creature_memory_cell() call; page 25 of the appendices.

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-Newtfeet
Posts: 151 | Registered: Saturday, July 13 2002 07:00
Apprentice
Member # 4127
Profile #12
quote:
Originally written by Newtfeet:

There is a set_creature_memory_cell() call; page 25 of the appendices.
Well I'll be. Okay, that's one off the list. I swear, sometimes I cannot find these calls in the documentation (this is the second time this forum has shown me wrong). Does anyone else find the organization weird?

[ Sunday, April 04, 2004 16:07: Message edited by: Walker White ]
Posts: 48 | Registered: Saturday, March 20 2004 08:00
Warrior
Member # 1505
Profile #13
Not really. Sometimes you just have to poke around a lot.

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-Newtfeet
Posts: 151 | Registered: Saturday, July 13 2002 07:00
Triad Mage
Member # 7
Profile Homepage #14
Using Preview in 10.3, you can search through the PDFs easily to find calls. It's invaluable.

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"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander
====
Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy
Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet
====
You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse!
Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #15
quote:
Does anyone else find the organization weird?
Yes. Things that I think should be in the appendices are in the regular docs and vice-versa. Also it has taken quite a bit of getting used to the format just so that I can find calls, which I still often fail at doing. I do searches, but I don't always know what the call is, so I have to search by topic ("Hmm, is it in dialog, or advanced dialog, or cut scens, or..."), which is really difficult.

I am trying to learn by baby steps, one call at a time.

I agree that a numeric input would be great.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Triad Mage
Member # 7
Profile Homepage #16
For creature AI scripts - several calls that would be able to control where the creature moves, get the next move of the creature, tell it to acquire a next move randomly, etc.

It's possible now, but only with horrible, horrible workarounds.

Also, the ability to block a space only to one character or group.

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"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander
====
Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy
Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet
====
You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse!
Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00
Apprentice
Member # 4127
Profile #17
quote:
Originally written by Drakefyre:

For creature AI scripts - several calls that would be able to control where the creature moves, get the next move of the creature, tell it to acquire a next move randomly, etc.

It's possible now, but only with horrible, horrible workarounds.

What are you asking for here? Are you wanting the creature script to be called in the middle of movement and tell you the next square in the path computed by the path-finding algorithm? Or is it something else? Because the former would be really expensive.

quote:

Also, the ability to block a space only to one character or group.

That will almost certainly break the path-finding algorithms; badly. Yeah, it would be great, but I doubt we will ever see that.
Posts: 48 | Registered: Saturday, March 20 2004 08:00
Triad Mage
Member # 7
Profile Homepage #18
That's exactly what I want, and I know that it's likely that it will never happen.

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"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander
====
Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy
Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet
====
You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse!
Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00
Apprentice
Member # 4127
Profile #19
Thought of two more:

item_uses_in_slot(short which_char, short which_slot); and item_uses_on_loc(short loc_x, short loc_y). Returns the number of charges of the requisite specific item (not an item type).alter_item_uses_in_slot(short which_char, short which_slot, short amount); and alter_item_uses_on_loc(short loc_x, short loc_y, short amount). Recharges or drains item.EDIT: I just realized that there can be multiple items on a space. So only the item_uses_in_slot() [there can only be one wand in a slot] will work for these calls. The location ones are right out.

[ Tuesday, April 06, 2004 15:02: Message edited by: Walker White ]
Posts: 48 | Registered: Saturday, March 20 2004 08:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 4180
Profile #20
has_item_of_variety(short which_variety, short take_item)

Just like has_item_of_class, but works with variety (food, armor, weapon, object, etc.).

-spyderbytes

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-spyderbytes
Posts: 200 | Registered: Wednesday, March 31 2004 08:00
Apprentice
Member # 4127
Profile #21
Yet another that just occurred to me:

crumble_terrain(short loc_x, short loc_y)

This is the analogue of flip_terrain() except that it uses the crumble counterpart instead of the swap counterpart.

I just figured how to make radio-detonated plastique and it might be nice to be able to blast walls as well as monsters with it.

[ Tuesday, April 06, 2004 16:43: Message edited by: Walker White ]
Posts: 48 | Registered: Saturday, March 20 2004 08:00
Warrior
Member # 1016
Profile #22
I wish there was an option to set the color adjustment for floors and terrain in a particular town, Kind of like in Geneforge 2 where the Crystal mine was tinted. I also like the idea of being able to get how many charges an item has and being able to change the number of charges to your desire.
Posts: 141 | Registered: Saturday, April 20 2002 07:00
Warrior
Member # 1505
Profile #23
You can already do the first thing. Just create a custom floor/terrain and set its tint. Just use it in that dungeon. And you can remove charges from an item; you just can't add or check how many. Actually, I think you can check how many...

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-Newtfeet
Posts: 151 | Registered: Saturday, July 13 2002 07:00
Triad Mage
Member # 7
Profile Homepage #24
has_num_of_item(item) will return the number of charges.

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"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander
====
Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy
Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet
====
You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse!
Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00

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