OK...

Licenses in my plugin expire after a period of time. I have this set up as: Buy license- activate crön- crön expires and (assuming the player still has the licensed thing) activates second crön and deletes license and grants a license (expiring) and activates mďsn (else it expires with nothing further)- crön expires and aborts mďsn, starting another hidden mďsn with a scan mask set to mark the license as illegal, requiring another to be bought to clear the silent mďsn with the bad scan mask and make the player legal again, also deleting the license (expiring) oütf and replacing it with a license (expired) oütf.

The first mďsn is a përs ship that I intend to appear in any s˙st of the gövt in question or it's allies. It offers the mďsn that gives the player either the option to buy a new license (onAccept) or disregard this notice (onRefusal- at which point it aborts and starts the bad scan mask mďsn). The second is totally invisible, existing only to give the bad scan mask to the players's ship, and it aborts when either the players' illegal item is sold or the player buys a new license.

My question is this: Do I need to set up this përs to appear in each and every s˙st of that gövt and it's allies when the proper bits are set (visibleOn), or will the mission being started (and, as it is only offered from the përs ship, who does the little hail thingy at the bottom of the screen and offers when the player hails, the përs cannot be hit by nor hit the player) automatically create the përs in the appropriate places when the mďsn activates? I don't have the two years of game time right now to test it myself and find out, all of my computer time right now is development and minimal testing to make sure that it all works! (I work two full time jobs).

If anyone has any help or advice, I would really appreciate it! Thanks

Rik

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

Wow, that's a little hard to follow, but I can say a couple of things. Firstly, a mission offered from a pers will be shown when you communicate with the pers (when you hit y) - the hail strings at the bottom of the screen aren't related to the mission. Secondly, the mission is started after you accept it from the pers - if you force the mission to start by other means then the pers probably won't appear at all.

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"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." — Douglas Adams

In this case the mission is started directly by the expiration of the cron... s1033 is evaluated in the onend ...d539&g540;&!2980&!2979&!2999&s1033.; See: License (expiring) is removed and license (expired) is granted (d539 g540). Some bits are cleared (!2980 !2979 !2999) and the mission is started (s1033). This is from the cron.

So since the mission is started automatically by the cron do I need to put the pers in each and every system by hand or do I need to let the misn do it's work by itself? Should I just set another bit that makes a pers active, who can then offer the mission?

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

The latter sounds best, but why do you want a pers to start the mission?

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"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." — Douglas Adams

The pers is like a cop or whatnot (in a hurry here) who tells you that your license has expired and offers to renew it (onAccept in the misn) or you don't have to (onRefusal). Otherwise the misn never would come up, as it is set to be offered from a pers ship.

I'm just asking if the pers ship needs to be set up to appear in each system or will the misn activation create it where it's nneeded?

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

A mission won't force a pers to appear; you'll have to go the route of putting the pers in the appropriate systs, and controlling it's appearance via a ncb.

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Quote

Originally posted by rmx256:
**The pers is like a cop or whatnot (in a hurry here) who tells you that your license has expired and offers to renew it (onAccept in the misn) or you don't have to (onRefusal). Otherwise the misn never would come up, as it is set to be offered from a pers ship.
**

But it would only be offered when you hail the ship. If you didn't hail it then you could just keep the license (expiring) forever. Why not have a cop that shows up on the next planet you land at?

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"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." — Douglas Adams

Quote

Originally posted by Guy:
the hail strings at the bottom of the screen aren't related to the mission.

What?I don't think you thought that statement through well enough. The hail quote can be related to the mission if he chooses, and just for the record, Matt Burch has done this in the original EV. It just doesn't have to be realted to the mission.

Quote

But it would only be offered when you hail the ship. If you didn't hail it then you could just keep the license (expiring) forever. Why not have a cop that shows up on the next planet you land at?

That isn't necessary—set him to try and kill you. Will perses still offer a mission if they hate you?

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who have friends.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
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(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 05-07-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**What?I don't think you thought that statement through well enough. The hail quote can be related to the mission if he chooses, and just for the record, Matt Burch has done this in the original EV. It just doesn't have to be realted to the mission.
**

It's only related by content. What I meant is that the hail quote isn't the pers offering a mission - that doesn't actually happen until you communicate with it.

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**That isn't necessary—set him to try and kill you. Will perses still offer a mission if they hate you?
**

What does it matter? You'll still have to hail the pers to be offered the mission whether he hates you or not.

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"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." — Douglas Adams

I have the pers offering the mission because I don't want to force the player into getting the new license. Legality and law are very importaint concepts in this plug- the concept of 'Ma'at'- it's an Egyptian thing, like the rest of the plugin- and legality and law are inherently based off personal choice, not being forced to do something.. I went ahead and modified the pers to appear only when the license is in it's 'expiring' phase, and not to appear otherwise, even when it has gone into the 'expired' phase.

When it's 'expiring', the pers appears and hails whenever the player is in a system that the pers will appear in, at the bottom of the screen. Like "Ahoy there <PNN>, I need to talk to you!" or something along those lines. When the player chooses to do so, the misn activates, givintg the player the option of buying a new license or refusing to do so. When the new license is granted, the misn autoaborts after getting rid of the (expiring) and granting a new license, resetting the appropriate crons. If the player refuses, then an (expired) license is granted and (expiring) is removed. (expiring) is still legal, but (expired) is not, and when (expired) is granted a silent misn is started that exists simply to give the player a bad scan mask, which exists untill the player buys a new license, even if he gets rid of the offending outfits.

I think I have this figured out now, thanks for the input!

Rik

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

I was just looking over this topic, and noticed something.

Quote

Originally posted by rmx256:
**... Some bits are cleared (!2980 !2979 !2999)...
**

Shouldn't there be a 'b' between the '!' and the bit numbers? e.g.:
!b2980 !b2979 !b2999
instead of
!2980 !2979 !2999

I may be picking nits, but if they appear in your plug-in as they do in your post, you would have been in for a fit of frustration over this.

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"... Look, I designed the Cloak-Hunting Missile. I know everything there is to know about it, so I know exactly what I'm doing..."
"MISSILE SELF-DESTRUCT ACTIVATED: 5... 4... 3..."
"... Of course, I could be wrong..." - Me.

Quote

Originally posted by rmx256:
**I have the pers offering the mission because I don't want to force the player into getting the new license. Legality and law are very importaint concepts in this plug- the concept of 'Ma'at'- it's an Egyptian thing, like the rest of the plugin- and legality and law are inherently based off personal choice, not being forced to do something.. I went ahead and modified the pers to appear only when the license is in it's 'expiring' phase, and not to appear otherwise, even when it has gone into the 'expired' phase.

When it's 'expiring', the pers appears and hails whenever the player is in a system that the pers will appear in, at the bottom of the screen. Like "Ahoy there <PNN>, I need to talk to you!" or something along those lines. When the player chooses to do so, the misn activates, givintg the player the option of buying a new license or refusing to do so. When the new license is granted, the misn autoaborts after getting rid of the (expiring) and granting a new license, resetting the appropriate crons. If the player refuses, then an (expired) license is granted and (expiring) is removed. (expiring) is still legal, but (expired) is not, and when (expired) is granted a silent misn is started that exists simply to give the player a bad scan mask, which exists untill the player buys a new license, even if he gets rid of the offending outfits.

I think I have this figured out now, thanks for the input!

Rik
**

I see what you mean, but you're also giving the player the option of ignoring it completely - keeping his expiring license forever and still staying legal. If you made the mission pop up when you land on a planet then you would still have the option to refuse the mission and gain the illegal expired version.

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"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." — Douglas Adams

Quote

Originally posted by Guy:
I see what you mean, but you're also giving the player the option of ignoring it completely - keeping his expiring license forever and still staying legal. If you made the mission pop up when you land on a planet then you would still have the option to refuse the mission and gain the illegal expired version.(/B)

I would suggest that it defaulted to being lost, but that would mean that the option of choosing not to keep it is pointless. An officer on the ground is best, and can appear at any spob.

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who have friends.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/search.html")Add-ons Search Engine(/url)

The license (expiring) only lasts 60 days-

activates second crön and deletes license and grants a license (expiring) and activates
mďsn (else it expires with nothing further)- crön expires and aborts mďsn, starting
another hidden mďsn with a scan mask set to mark the license as illegal, requiring another
to be bought to clear the silent mďsn with the bad scan mask and make the player legal
again, also deleting the license (expiring) oütf and replacing it with a license (expired)
oütf.

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.

Ah, I see now. I'm sure it will be fine.

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"The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%." — Douglas Adams

Thanks, Eugene Chin, the whole plugin was riddled with those errors and that has solved a whole lot of problems...

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Drinking causes hangovers.
I will uphold Ma'at.
Shemsu Hor.