Many have wondered how to have more than two special ship dudes in missions and make them each a seperate ship class. Well, I came up with a scheme recently that should work perfectly—in other words, it will avoid all loopholes that may confuse the user.

To start, you'll need to make a dude for each ship type. Then create as many missions as necessary to contain all your dudes. Make them all invisible. Give one of them an offer and/not brief text (if in the MC, give it a resource name, too), but nothing else. Then create a mission that is visible and has a quick text (and resource name, of course), but nothing else. It's just there so that should the user pull up the MI dialog, they'll still see the "one" mission. Now go back to your other missions and in each one's OnShipDone field, set it to abort itself and set an available ncb. Make a cron (yes, a cron) that only activates itself when all the "dude" mission's ncb's have been set. Make the cron run no matter when you get all the bits set, and have it run both OnStart and OnEnd at the same time. In the OnStart field (see Azratax2's post), make it activate one last mission. Give this mission a ReturnStel, a ReturnText, the payment, and, if necessary, have it set the bit(s) for the plot string it's involved in. Also have it abort the mission that has the quick text in its OnSuccess field. Now, just set the mission with the quick text to abort all the other missions, including the ones with the dudes and the one with the payment, in the OnAbort field, and you're set!

Note: Technically, you could save a mission and have the mission with the quick text have a dude and set an ncb in its OnShipDone field, but unless you have 1000 missions because of my method and need space for just one more (as if that's likely), it doesn't really make a difference.

I would be intersted in hearing feedback, or if someone has a different method. If someone doesn't, then I must be the all-time god of intertwining (anybody have a better word? :p) missions, ncb's, and crons.

(For those with no sense of humor, that was a joke.)

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.

(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 11-10-2003).)

(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 11-11-2003).)

(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 11-11-2003).)

There goes a future mrxak challenge...
Anyways, Good job orca!
Next problem is to get a missile that has an animation (spďn resources don't support it, and shän resources are limited to the shďp resources). D'o!

~Dimpfinator

------------------

Not to rain on your parade, but this was the first thing that I thought of when I saw the "invisible mission" flag when the Nova Bible came out. Did it really not occur to anyone else until now?

Quote

Next problem is to get a missile that has an animation (spďn resources don't support it, and shän resources are limited to the shďp resources). D'o!

And the answer to this dilemma would be to use Eugene Chin's (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004783.html")missile hack(/url) with a series of, say, five or ten different types of missile in rotation that each use a different frame in the animation.

-reg

------------------
"As a rule we believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if only we could."
~ William James

(This message has been edited by Regulus (edited 11-10-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Regulus:
**Not to rain on your parade, but this was the first thing that I thought of when I saw the "invisible mission" flag when the Nova Bible came out. Did it really not occur to anyone else until now?

And the answer to this dilemma would be to use Eugene Chin's missile hack with a series of, say, five or ten different types of missile in rotation that each use a different frame in the animation.

-reg

**

Parade raining: Not only that, but this is practically done in the stock scenario. Only difference is that they didnt use it for two shipgoals and a cron (just for extra ships). This, i am sad to say, is already known. NOTE: As I found a while ago, crons do Funky things when you set PreHoldoff Duration and Post holdoff to 0. (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004765.html#")http://www.ambrosias...ML/004765.html#(/url)
Better put everything in OnStart.

Animated weapons.
Mabey*. Depends on if Nova is smart enough to look at Sublimits when submuning A->B->C-?A instead of just A->A. If not, then you have a projectile that goes on until it hits something, or you fire so many of them that the submunition limiting effect comes into play and makes them start failing to submunition, or max shots on screen is reached, in which case God (and maybe Matt) knows what happens. In any case, someone wanting to do this should make sure Nova looks at sublimits when submuning A->B->C->A before releasing a plug that would do this. Course, any plugin maker who is half-assed enough to not check this before releasing it should be dragged out and shot.
-Az

*Yes, Mabey, not Maybe! Everyone else is spelling it wrong, not me damnit! I refuse to accept that it is spelled maybe!

------------------

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-10-2003).)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-10-2003).)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-10-2003).)

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-10-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Regulus:
**Not to rain on your parade, but this was the first thing that I thought of when I saw the "invisible mission" flag when the Nova Bible came out. Did it really not occur to anyone else until now?

**

Actually, not really. It was the same with me. The difference is that I shared my method with others should they need it, rather than keeping it to myself. Yes, this ruins the feeling from developers that play of "whoa! How'd they do that?", but they'd probably look at the resources and figure it out anyway.

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**Not only that, but this is practically done in the stock scenario. Only difference is that they didnt use it for two shipgoals and a cron (just for extra ships). This, i am sad to say, is already known.

**

Ah, but it gets more complicated when you need all of them set to have a ship goal.

The point of this board, by the way, was not to provide a method of having more than two dudes with a ship goal—that's common knowledge. The point of this board was to show how you can allow the user to get the effect that they're doing only one mission, avoiding any loopholes that may make your average user wonder, "what the hell is up with that?".

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**NOTE: As I found a while ago, crons do Funky things when you set PreHoldoff Duration and Post holdoff to 0.http://www.ambrosias...ML/004765.html#
Better put everything in OnStart.

**

I'll keep that in mind...at least some criticism I got was constructive...
(that was not meant to be entirely serious)

On a better note...

Quote

Originally posted by Dimpfinator:
**There goes a future mrxak challenge...
Anyways, good job orca!

**

Thanks. I spent about an hour pacing back and forth through my room and consulting the Bible to perfect this (when I should have been working on my project for school, of course :))...I kept encountering problems, but this final "version" should be loophole-free.

It'd be interesting to see an example of this at work (mostly to see if it works like it should). Pity I still have two damned lawn mowings left... :mad:

(edit: fixed quote)

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.

(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 11-10-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Regulus:
**And the answer to this dilemma would be to use Eugene Chin's missile hack with a series of, say, five or ten different types of missile in rotation that each use a different frame in the animation.
**

I know about that, but the problem then is that it has infinite turning. Not good.

~Dimpfinator

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by Dimpfinator:
**I know about that, but the problem then is that it has infinite turning. Not good.

~Dimpfinator

**

Yeah...too bad you can't make a kamakazie fighter that goes out without you telling it to...

Matt needs to implement a wëan resource.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.

Quote

Originally posted by Dimpfinator:
**I know about that, but the problem then is that it has infinite turning. Not good.

~Dimpfinator

**

What if you has subtheta 0 and unchecked fire at nearest targets? Would it keep hunting the origional target, or lose it's lock at first submun?

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**It'd be interesting to see an example of this at work (mostly to see if it works like it should). Pity I still have two damned lawn mowings left...:mad:

**

Have you tried sneaking some fertilizer onto the lawn? Or mabey killing it with some nasty poison so they would hire you to help replant the lawn after half of it mysteriously died?

-Az

------------------

(This message has been edited by Azratax2 (edited 11-11-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**Have you tried sneaking some fertilizer onto the lawn? Or mabey killing it with some nasty poison so they would hire you to help replant the lawn after half of it mysteriously died?

-Az

**

Well, my dad says that the lawn needs mowing today. Yay!

He also says that if I make up enough work, I get a Frappuchino...

Mocha Coconut or Chocolate Brownie? Another eternal question...

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.

I'm not exactly sure how the SubTheta works (never really used it before), but now may be the time to learn. I have another question: How would you make a missile that detonates with a sound that isn't one of the official game sounds without replacing them, and still having the missile do damage to the intended target. It's easy to do this without the damage, but doing the damage is the trick. I tried doing it with a submunition, but you can't tell it to submunition right before it hits though.

As soon as I find time, I'll test your idea, Aztrax2.

~Dimpfinator

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by Dimpfinator:
**I'm not exactly sure how the SubTheta works (never really used it before), but now may be the time to learn. I have another question: How would you make a missile that detonates with a sound that isn't one of the official game sounds without replacing them, and still having the missile do damage to the intended target. It's easy to do this without the damage, but doing the damage is the trick. I tried doing it with a submunition, but you can't tell it to submunition right before it hits though.

As soon as I find time, I'll test your idea, Aztrax2.

~Dimpfinator

**

Without an official game sound, and without replacing one...wha?

Oh, and could you test my method while you're at it? I'd love to do it myself, but...

By the way, I do intend on implementing this in my project. Hopefully, others will as well, but we can't always count on hope.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.

(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 11-12-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**Without an official game sound, and without replacing one...wha?

Oh, and could you test my method while you're at it? I'd love to do it myself, but...

By the way, I do intend on implementing this in my project. Hopefully, others will as well, but we can't always count on hope.

**

Quote

Originally posted by me:
**How would you make a missile that detonates with a sound that isn't one of the official game sounds without replacing them, and still having the missile do damage to the intended target. It's easy to do this without the damage, but doing the damage is the trick. I tried doing it with a submunition, but you can't tell it to submunition right before it hits though.
**

I meant doing something along the lines of making say, a Fusion Pulse that didn't make a nova sound when it hit (the medium explosion snd), but would make a sound like say, one of meowx's missile hits from Magma, or something like that, without actually replacing the medium explosion sound. Am I making more sense???

I may be able to test your idea also orca, but it's doubtful. I'm in the middle of a plugin that could be calling for the submunition trick, but probably not yours. I depends on what happens this week. It's possible.

~Dimpfinator

------------------

Not difficult. Note the "ExplodType" field in the wëap resource. Just point this to a custom bööm resource that in turn points to your new sound.

-reg

------------------
"As a rule we believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if only we could."
~ William James

Quote

Originally posted by Dimpfinator:
**I'm not exactly sure how the SubTheta works (never really used it before), but now may be the time to learn. I have another question: How would you make a missile that detonates with a sound that isn't one of the official game sounds without replacing them, and still having the missile do damage to the intended target. It's easy to do this without the damage, but doing the damage is the trick. I tried doing it with a submunition, but you can't tell it to submunition right before it hits though.

As soon as I find time, I'll test your idea, Aztrax2.

~Dimpfinator

**

Subtheta is the maximum difference in degrees between the direction of the origional projectile and that of the submunition. Actual angle is randomly generated between these.
Regulus is correct on sound issue to my knowledge.
-Az

------------------
It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Azratax2:
**Subtheta is the maximum difference in degrees between the direction of the origional projectile and that of the submunition. Actual angle is randomly generated between these.
Regulus is correct on sound issue to my knowledge.
-Az

**

Thanks. It's (obviously) been a while since I reviewed the EVN bible. Perhaps it's time I did that again. I haven't really done much plug work since EVO, but I've started up again. Unfortunately, the current plugin that I'm working on doesn't really call for really any resources outside the original ones from EV (weap, outf, ship, spin, desc.) Time to expand my horizons...

~Dimpfinator

------------------
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.