Yikes... I suppose I'll have to be more careful in the future. In the mean time, I'm going to see what happens if I Sxxx an invisible, auto aborting mission into the "On Start" field of the char resource I'm using. Hopeful that'll display the offer text of the mission after the player leaves the introduction screen and before {G "he" "she"} enters {G "his" "her"} ship.
Gah, these desc resources are driving me insane. You can tell, can't you? :ninja:
@jacabyte, on Jun 2 2008, 03:47 AM, said in Introduction Text Woes:
With or without spaces?
That's weird, though. The cutoff point is taking out other bits of text in the desc that I can see with EVNEW. There does appear to be a point where it crashes but the cutoff point is dead set at 8095 characters. And Pace managed to get a desc into Arpia II that was 8900 characters long. (I just looked it up.) With or without spaces, that's longer than this alleged limit. What gives?
Is it possible you have just under 100 newlines? Because on Windows newlines are \r\n, while on Macs they're just \r, and on Unix they're just \n.....
@archon, on Jun 2 2008, 11:54 AM, said in Introduction Text Woes:
Is this limit universal (ALL text boxes) or just introduction text? I could have sworn something in Anathema had a greater character count than that. Maybe I split it up.
The longest 2 descs in the Anathema Ch. 2 "Anathema Data" file (#4943 & #4949) each have a size of 6817 as reported by ResEdit and Rezilla, which should mean they have 6817 - 37 = 6780 characters according to Guy's calculation. Word, though, says 6724 for each -- a difference of 93 bytes.
In my own 'lil project, meanwhile, the longest desc has 6794 characters but a size of 7268, for a whopping difference of 474. Return characters may be a factor -- my desc is in verse (thanks to Exxxxxx and Hxxxxxx), so it has a huge number of 'em. All my work is on a Mac, though.
ResEdit lets you sort resources by size; Rezilla shows you the sizes but, as far as I could find, doesn't let you sort 'em. It's hardly critical, but since a number of us seem to have at least come close to bumping up against the desc size limit, it sure would be nice if MissionComputer was able to perform a check for this issue. 
@dr--trowel, on Jun 2 2008, 01:33 PM, said in Introduction Text Woes:
It's hardly critical, but since a number of us seem to have at least come close to bumping up against the desc size limit, it sure would be nice if MissionComputer was able to perform a check for this issue.
MissionComputer's dësc editor already displays the exact length immediately below the text - is this not sufficient?
@david-arthur, on Jun 2 2008, 02:03 PM, said in Introduction Text Woes:
MissionComputer's dësc editor already displays the exact length immediately below the text - is this not sufficient?
Heh. Didn't notice that. Very useful. In related news regarding my inattention to detail, I've realized that line breaks certainly should impact maximum allowable length. Just because they're non-printing characters, that doesn't mean that they don't use memory. Of course.
Word is a tool for communication with humans rather than machines. MC's character count matches TextWrangler's (7231 for my desc), is 37 less than the resource size as Guy said it should be, and is much more apropos.
@jacabyte, on Jun 3 2008, 03:06 AM, said in Introduction Text Woes:
Yikes... I suppose I'll have to be more careful in the future. In the mean time, I'm going to see what happens if I Sxxx an invisible, auto aborting mission into the "On Start" field of the char resource I'm using. Hopeful that'll display the offer text of the mission after the player leaves the introduction screen and before {G "he" "she"} enters {G "his" "her"} ship.
Gah, these desc resources are driving me insane. You can tell, can't you? :ninja:
Use the offer and the brief (make it non-refusable), rather than an intro text, to avoid any sort of delay or something between them.
That doesn't work for some reason: it skips the offer text and goes straight to the briefing desc, while the player is still at the main menu. It doesn't work or look right... Right now the best I can do is make it an invisible, non refusable mission that is granted to the player when they land on Colosseum station. Hopefully every player will land their first...
This post has been edited by JacaByte : 02 June 2008 - 04:30 PM
What about either:
A ship either starts out in the system or jumps in after a delay, observing gives the second text
OR
Make an invisible nebula (if that's possible) that kicks off the second part under "on explore."
OR
If you can't get it all in one fell swoop, you can make a 1-day crön that kicks off the text when it ends (I assume it would appear at the main menu screen if it ran on start). That way, whether the player lands on Colosseum Station first or goes off and does his/her own thing, they'll still see the text. Of course, this provides a new problem: they won't see the text until after they leave the station, so you'd also have to make the crön set a bit that allows the plot missions to begin (so they won't get the first mission before the text is done).
Also, if you use the last method, you would have to use two missions (since the crön firing will just give the briefing text, not the offer text), but that's easy to do with an auto-abort/grant mission. It's not a huge continuity breach to have the player fly around for a second before getting the intro text. I mean, how many movies start out with a wall of text (well, aside from Star Wars). There's usually something flashy before the stage is set.
This post has been edited by Archon : 02 June 2008 - 04:50 PM
If it shows while on the main menu, use a PICT intro first.
Doesn't OnExplore execute every time the pilot file is loaded?
@nonconventionally-creative, on Jun 2 2008, 06:24 PM, said in Introduction Text Woes:
Doesn't OnExplore execute every time the pilot file is loaded?
According to the Nova Bible:
Note that this field is handled a little differently from other control bit set expressions in Nova, because the explored state of the nebulae isn't saved from game to game; rather, it is recalculated every time based on the systems the player has explored. As a result, this expression may get evaluated multiple times, so you shouldn't use the random operator or any operators which do anything but set or clear control bits here.
Yes! I found a way to get two descs to appear seamlessly to the player by putting one half into the desc shown by on the introduction by the char resource and the other in the "on ship done" field of the misn resource that's activated by the char. It works exactly the way I want it to; after you click "okay" on the first text box it displays the second one almost without delay. Only one thing appears and that's the interface bar; everything else remains black.
I used a special ship whose goal is to be observed to display the second desc, for the record. So if you want to split up an introduction, use a mission that's activated by the char resource to put a special ship in the system the player is going to drop out in and then put the ID of a desc in the "on ship done" field.
You can also display two more descs if you tell the player to land and give the player mission cargo, so you can use both the "cargo unloading" desc and the "on mission complete" desc.
Thanks for all your help, guys. 
This post has been edited by JacaByte : 02 June 2008 - 07:50 PM
