Aelran, assuming I did have a good way of doing it (probably what Requiem was saying), does your idea entail moving the player to correct the problem? This is indeed technically doable, but with a set of systems as large as SS, it's not doable due to resource limitations. You need AT LEAST 1 mission per inhabited system * the number of places it can possibly be. For SS, that works out to over 500. I think I'd probably need 2 missions to make it all work right, and that puts us over the resource cap.

But if you have a better idea, please, out with it man!

Hmm... what about a series of invisible, non-refusable, auto-aborting, 100% random missions available from the main spaceport which use the Nxxx operator in the On Abort set string? The idea being that the availability of these missions would follow the same NCB pattern of the syst revolution crons*, and the Nxxx operator would correspond accordingly. Since missions won't actually auto-abort until the player takes off, if the player quits the game, then restarts, the auto-abort should be the first evaluation that the game makes when entering their ship.

You may also need to play with the spob govts and class values to make sure that only a single mission of this type is needed for all spobs which appear in the same syst. It would still require 1 mission per inhabited syst. (If it works at all). Food for thought.

• edit - Since I don't know exactly how your crons are set up, it is probably better for me say "follow syst visibility", here.

This post has been edited by slouch : 09 November 2004 - 11:51 AM

Hmm, you may be onto something there, slouch... That's a really ingenious way of doing it, after a fashion. Unfortunately, it's still resource-prohibitive, SS simply has too many missions and inhabited systems (and it doesn't really have that many inhabited systems). Only problem is that auto-aborting missions end immediately- as in while you're still on the planet. But if you gave the mission a time limit of 1 and used the OnFail string, you'd be set. Still, resource prohibitive in this case.

Or, in the readme, say, "If you are trying to get somwhere, do not exit Nova until you get there!" Then, for the planets moving to their original spots to make sense, make a cron somhow advance the game days every time the player restarts Nova.

That would be unbearably cheezy, at least to me. If it can't be done invisibly then it hasn't really been done! And it would make no sence to advance the clock every time, the scenario is intimately tied to the time.

I've almost considered implementing a kind of "Warp Zone" where you can take a wormhole to where you are supposed to be, but I feel that too is too cheesy, and ripe for abuse. Again, invisibility is the key. If it frustrates (potentially or otherwise) the user, it's gone.

Right now, I don't think there's anything that would be frustrating to use that I've added in, except POSSIBLY the fact that you can not really know your final speed until after you buy an outfit, without some mental calculations.

Whoops, that was supposed to be a joke... Forgot my smiley... I'll just post it here.

Too bad... The rotating systs was going to be a cool idea. The only way that I can think of requires at least one mission for every syst, and that's too big....Or maybe a cron for each syst, but since the story is time based, I'm guessing you have a lot as it is...

Masamune, on Nov 10 2004, 02:54 AM, said:

Aelran, assuming I did have a good way of doing it (probably what Requiem was saying), does your idea entail moving the player to correct the problem? This is indeed technically doable, but with a set of systems as large as SS, it's not doable due to resource limitations. You need AT LEAST 1 mission per inhabited system * the number of places it can possibly be. For SS, that works out to over 500. I think I'd probably need 2 missions to make it all work right, and that puts us over the resource cap.

But if you have a better idea, please, out with it man!
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I was actually considering sending the player to the next system, then to the next, then to the next... of course, Nova might choke, or do something else strange, but it could conceivably remove the multiplication.

Im sorry, im not entirely clear on this.

Could you please describe in detail all of the behaviors you want for this rotating system idea?

Ill be able to add decent constructive advice if you give me a good idea of what you want.