Temprary Hypergate Access through Outfit

Hello, I do not know if this has been done before, but I am trying to create an outfit for EVN (106 for Win) which would allow temporary access to the hypergate network.
I would like to have 4 new outfits, a lifetime pass, a 4 day pass, 1 month pass, and a 1 year pass.

I'm pretty new to this, and dont really understand how to work with the cron and mission
resources.
I think I understand how to make a purchased outfit disabled after a certain time, however I do not know how to make an outfit grant hypergate access. How would I go about this?

ASH

In other words, i need to know what to put in the 'On Purchase' box in the outfit for it to set the correct bit, which goes in the 'Enable On' box in the cron. Then i need to figure out what to put in the 'On Start' box for the cron to activate the gate network.
I already have "K147" inthe 'On Start' box, to display the correct Rank, and "L147 D444" in the 'On End' box to remove the rank, and the outfit.

This post has been edited by ZX99 - ASH : 25 May 2005 - 03:33 PM

It appears that Nova uses a rank to (dis)allow hypergate access in Nova. The hypergates have their own government, and each one is set so as not to allow the player to land, ever. The Sigma missions then set a rank that gives the player the ability to always land at that government's spobs, regardless of legal status.

So, if you use the outfits to grant a rank and start a cron that, upon ending, deactivates the rank and/or removes the outfit. There are a few different things you can play around with to make it work exactly how you want, but I think the easiest, if not only, way to do the whole hypergate thing is with ranks.

Edit: After reading your edit, perhaps something like this:

For the Cron, id whatever:

Duration: However long you want it to last
EnableOn: Whatever bit the outfit sets when purchased.
OnStart: KXXX, to set the rank that you want it to set.
OnEnd: LXXX DXXX !BXXX, to remove the rank and the outfit, as well as clear the bit that the outfit granted.

For the Outfit, id whatever:

OnPurchase: BXXX, which matches the EnableOn field for your cron. Just find and use an mission bit that's not being used by something else.

I'm not certain if the outfit's OnSell field evaluates when a cron removes an outfit. If it does, you could put the !BXXX into the outfit's OnSell, just to help keep things organized.

This post has been edited by GutlessWonder : 25 May 2005 - 03:43 PM

One of the first plugs I wrote was a hypergate access plug. There may be a better way to do it, by I accomplished it by modifying the spob resources in the appropriate systems to allow me to always "land", allowing access to the gate.

It's not an outfit, but you could use misn and cron resources to accoplish what you're trying to do. (I'm a little shaky on that myself, so I'll leave that advice to someone else)

An upside to modifying the spobs individually is that you can be selective. For example you could enable someone to activate the Tichel hypergate, but only allow a jump to the Aurora system.

Food for thought. Sounds like a cool plug though, Good Luck!

P.S. Something just occured to me. I remember seeing a plug on the add-ons page that created a hypergate access "outfit". Buy the item, you had access, sell it, lose access. You could always look into how that plug was created for inspiration.

I checked out that plugin, couldnt get it to expand correctly on my wintel box
I have the ability to make an outfit that works thatway however Buy it, hypergate access, sell it, no access.
What I need to figure out is how to make an outfit activate a cron, then I should be set

ZX99 - ASH, on May 25 2005, 01:45 PM, said:

In other words, i need to know what to put in the 'On Purchase' box in the outfit for it to set the correct bit, which goes in the 'Enable On' box in the cron. Then i need to figure out what to put in the 'On Start' box for the cron to activate the gate network.
I already have "K147" inthe 'On Start' box, to display the correct Rank, and "L147 D444" in the 'On End' box to remove the rank, and the outfit.View Post

You don't need to put anything in the oütf's OnPurchase field- all you need to do is put O444 in the EnableOn field of the crön. Also, your K147 will immediately activate the hypergate network.

Edwards

Edwards, on May 25 2005, 01:59 PM, said:

You don't need to put anything in the oütf's OnPurchase field- all you need to do is put O444 in the EnableOn field of the crön. Also, your K147 will immediately activate the hypergate network.

Edwards
View Post

Cool. I can get it to activate the cron
Now i have "D444 L147" in OnEnd to delete the outfit, and disable the rank, but the rank does not go away (the outfit does)
However, if i sell the outfit, the rank goes away (i have L147 in OnSell)
How do i get it to disable the rank?

P.S. thanks everyone for the quick help !

ASH

Ok, I got it working Perfectly

The outfits dissapear at the correct time, and access is disabled at that time.
Once it is polished (readme file, prices set high, descriptions added, graphics, and if I can figure it out, a message that says when it has been deactivated) I will submit to add on page, until then the basic version (windows) is available by request @ AndrewASheridan@gmail.com (once i get home from work in 10 hours)

Thank you everybody for helping out, i will be sure to add all of you to the readme as i could not have done this alone.

ASH

PS sorry about the slightly confusing postings, i need to be more acreful with my edits/replys

Beta Version for 106 EVN win.

This post has been edited by ZX99 - ASH : 25 May 2005 - 04:39 PM

Sweeet. You have an awesome avatar, btw.

EDIT: I ported a quick mac version of that plug, to let the mac users have a go at it. Didn't change anything else: Right-Click and Save

This post has been edited by Hamster : 25 May 2005 - 05:06 PM

Make sure you cant sell the outfit. Otherwise, you buy the one year pass, then six months later you sell it, and buy a fresh one. This one should last a full year, but it only lasts 6 months (since the cron doesnt get reset.)

Just a thought. Also, make sure that if you have a 6 month and buy a one day pass, the end o fthe one day doesnt cancel the rest of the six month (without even properly removing the outfit). Duplicate ranks will solve this, or just forbidding buying/selling permits while you own one already.

NebuchadnezzaR, on May 25 2005, 08:52 PM, said:

Make sure you cant sell the outfit. Otherwise, you buy the one year pass, then six months later you sell it, and buy a fresh one. This one should last a full year, but it only lasts 6 months (since the cron doesnt get reset.)

Just a thought. Also, make sure that if you have a 6 month and buy a one day pass, the end o fthe one day doesnt cancel the rest of the six month (without even properly removing the outfit). Duplicate ranks will solve this, or just forbidding buying/selling permits while you own one already.
View Post

I've got another method that would solve at least some of those problems, although it's a bit more complicated (it requires no ranks, however):

Start by noticing that the gövt resource has a "Require" field- if you set a bit in it, the player needs to have something that contributes that bit in order to land on one of that gövt's spöbs. Also notice that all of the hypergates have a gövt of 183 (Hypergate), and no other spöb uses that gövt.

Now, change gövt 183 so that it has a Require bit set that is unused elsewhere (you can find a list of used Contribute/Require bits here). Then, have each of your hypergate passes Contribute that bit. Poof. You can only access the hypergates when that bit is set (you also need to change ränk 147 (Have Hypergate Access) so that it contributes that bit as well). Also, you'll probably need to change the existing hypergates to have a MinCool of - 32767, rather than the current ( + )32767.

You can use the same crön to remove the pass, just remove all references to the ränk operators.

Also, if you're willing to use up some of the 16 active mission slots, you could change the timer from a crön to a mďsn (using the time limit), and solve the first problem Neb pointed out).

Edwards

PS. Do the umlauts (ö, etc.) appear as funny characters on Windows?

Edwards, on May 25 2005, 08:35 PM, said:

PS. Do the umlauts (ö, etc.) appear as funny characters on Windows?
View Post

No, they look correct, however you cant hit option/alt/shift combinations to get spectical characters, its some funky code, so i dont bother.

Ill work on that other stuff this evening, see what i can do with it.

ASH

Here is version 0.6 of HyperGate Pass for win.

I need help with three things:
-making it impossible to buy more than one Pass at a time.
-some graphics for the outfit boxes - nothing fancy, just licenses with the correct text.
-a message that will display when the pass expires

Any Ideas?

EDIT: Hamster, could you post a mac version of this for me, and then again when 1.0 is out?

This post has been edited by ZX99 - ASH : 26 May 2005 - 04:25 PM

I don't use windows, but I'm assuming this is the same for both platforms:

by setting a bit in the "flags" section of the outfit resource, you can prevent any higher numbered outfits of the same dispweight from being available at the time.

I didn't word that as well as I could have, but I think it's what you're looking for. The reference is on page 36 of the Nova Bible.

OK, ignore that last post. That would prevent more than one from being available for sale, not keep more than one from being bought. Sorry. My bad.

If only there was something like "deny" which worked with the contribute field and wouldn't let you buy something if you had that bit.

ZX99 - ASH, on May 26 2005, 03:22 PM, said:

I need help with three things:
-making it impossible to buy more than one Pass at a time.View Post

This part's easy. In each pass's OnPurchase field, add "Bxxx" (any unused bit will do, and it should be the same one for all of them). Next, put "!Bxxx" in each pass's Availability (if there are other bits in the Availability expression, enclose them in parentheses and add " & Bxxx" to the end). Finally, add "!Bxxx" to the OnSell field of each pass, and to the OnEnd field of each crön.

ZX99 - ASH, on May 26 2005, 03:22 PM, said:

-some graphics for the outfit boxes - nothing fancy, just licenses with the correct text.View Post

Using EVNEW, export a license from Nova Graphics 1, open it in your favorite graphics editor, and spend a while carefully changing the text. It might work to export all of the licenses, and copy and paste letters (but watch out for the changing sizes...).

ZX99 - ASH, on May 26 2005, 03:22 PM, said:

-a message that will display when the pass expiresView Post

This should be fairly simple with an auto-aborting mission. You would Sxxx it in the OnEnd field of each crön, and cause one of the dëscs to appear. I'm not sure if any dëscs appear automatically, but you could use the FailText and give it a time limit of 1 (the message would then appear the day after the pass expires).
To solve that, you could rearrange quite a bit of your plug- move the K147 to the OnPurchase field of each pass, set the PreHoldoff for each crön to the length it should last minus 1, put the Sxxx in theOnStart field, and set the Duration to 1. This would align the expiration message with the actual expiration of the pass.

Or make one mission for each pass, each having a time limit as long as the pass's duration. This would actually remove the need for cröns, but it would also take up one of the 16 active mission slots (each pass would Sxxx its mission, the mission's OnStart would be "K147", and its OnFail would be whatever is in the pass's crön's OnEnd field). This would also solve the problem with selling and then re-purchasing passes, if you put Axxx in each pass's OnSell field.

Edwards

Edwards, on May 26 2005, 10:58 PM, said:

This should be fairly simple with an auto-aborting mission. You would Sxxx it in the OnEnd field of each crön, and cause one of the dëscs to appear. I'm not sure if any dëscs appear automatically, but you could use the FailText and give it a time limit of 1 (the message would then appear the day after the pass expires).
To solve that, you could rearrange quite a bit of your plug- move the K147 to the OnPurchase field of each pass, set the PreHoldoff for each crön to the length it should last minus 1, put the Sxxx in theOnStart field, and set the Duration to 1. This would align the expiration message with the actual expiration of the pass.
Edwards
View Post

Or, just put Qxxx in the onend field, where str# xxx contains any number of messages, one of which would then be selected randomly and displayed at the bottom of the screen when the timer runs out. Its unfortunately rather easy to go unnoticed.

I just had a wierdassed idea.... could you do all the counting with outfits? So you could buy 2 year passes at once, actually granting twelve each of outfit xxx, and a cron that runs every month, but only on the first of each month, to remove one of outfit xxx. If you need, you can make a mission that runs whenever you have none of this outfit, but technically just using the contribute bit as has been suggested would be enough.

Minor question: If you have an outfit set to show up in ranks, does it also show the number? You could make "14 months of hypergate access" show up in your honors, or possibly the outfits, but thats less fun.

It could also be done with any unit of time, i suppose. A cron with a preholdoff that always runs automatically. It would take an outfit away every some set number of days. I dont think making each outfit last only a day is a good idea, though, but only because of the size of the onbuy field of the actuall pass outfit. 256 charachters... do the division thine self.

Hmm(dot dot dot) much to think about and play with here (dot dot dot)

1 Thing I have a problem with, the graphics.

I tried what you suggested, pulling out license picts to Photoshop them, and it looked horrible :mad:

So (dot dot dot) anyone got a buspass/subway pass etc that they could scan in, shrink down and zap to me? Something single color, with big text would be swell.

thanks all
ASH

The Final version, two or three days in the making, should be available on the AddOn page in 2-3days

This post has been edited by ZX99 - ASH : 27 May 2005 - 03:35 AM