TC is on hold until I figure this out.

Alright... I want to take advantage (and heavily rely on) Nova's branching storylines... so here's a mission that's integral to the future development.

As a young UROS military draftee, you're one of the lucky ones- you get to be a pilot in the most powerful space navy in human history.
You are flying your UROS interceptor, and finally are getting to see real combat after doing message deliveries for what seems like an eternity.

This is your third time going after a rogue "pirate" trader, and so far most have simply paid their taxes. It's more fun when they don't and you get to show off the power of your awesome ship.
(shame none live to tell about it.)

On a seemingly normal mission, you're sent to a fringe planet in northern UROS space to deal with another "pirate".
Upon entering, you notice several derelict vessels. Apparently a comet just passed through the system, damaging most of the ships in system beyond repair, and knocking out communications with the planet below.

You quickly find your target however- the S.S. Houndstooth.
It seems to be functional but before you can open communications with you, it contacts YOU.

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

Okay, that's the basics of the mission descs for the mission if anyone is interested

I'm wanting you to recieve the mission to destroy the ship, but when you get there and open hail it offers YOU a choice instead of the other way around.

The captain basically begs for his life, and mentions that his cargo holds are full of cargo, but he has no cash to give you.
His hyperdrive engine is also broken, and doesn't have the money to get it repaired on the planet below.
He wants you to repair his ship and escort him to the next planet, where he will gladly pay you.

I was tried making the mission a "locate ship" mission and let the mission be offered by him but for some reason it doesn't want to work.
Any ideas

Hmm... how exactly is the mission not working? I need more details to help. You don't need to tell me anything about the story, just how the mission works.

This post has been edited by darthkev : 08 March 2010 - 10:13 PM

QUOTE (darthkev @ Mar 9 2010, 03:12 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hmm... how exactly is the mission not working? I need more details to help. You don't need to tell me anything about the story, just how the mission works.

Well before I figured this workaround out, the ship would appear but not offer the choice.

I think I figured it out a way to do it.
It requires 2 missions...
1 mission, is the "go find and destroy ship X"

2nd mission is offered from the ship, and on completion, aborts the first and sets all the bits the first one would set, plus 1 or 2 for the branching storyline.

DRAWBACKS:
First mission doesn't actually point to a pers...
I could be wrong, but it looks like you can only chose a dude type as a target in a destroy mission. You can give it a string for the name for it to look like a pers though.
Missions can only be offered by pers ships. That's the problem.
If a player saw the target and automatically killed it without responding to the hail, neither mission would be completed. I suppose the pers ship could have an ondestroy that allowed the next mission to start.. but that seems clunky.

The only work around for it to appear correctly is to make the first mission point to a ship that's NOT the actual target, since a mission can't point to a pers.
(ie mission says to go find the S.S. Houndstooth, but the coding for the mission is pointing to a ship that's in the system the houndstooth is set to appear in.

Is there an easier way to do this

This post has been edited by REDchigh : 08 March 2010 - 11:38 PM

Yes there is. One of the possible objectives for players regarding special ships is 'Disable'. Since the ship starts disabled, this would be fairly easy to implement. Here's a rundown:

Mission 1: Player must go find S.S. Houndstooth and disable it. Ship is already disabled, so ShipDone is triggered. Set in the OnShipDone field Ayyy Sxxx where xxx is the ID for Mission 2 and yyy is the ID for Mission 1.

Mission 2: Does whatever it's supposed to do. The brief text would be the communication from the disabled vessel.

The only possible flaw is if you planned for the player to be able to have a choice in accepting or rejecting the next mission. If there's supposed to be a choice, this method won't work properly. Also, I haven't tested this yet, so there could be some obscene flaw in the engine that might prevent it from working. Still, it's better than nothing.

QUOTE (darthkev @ Mar 9 2010, 08:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes there is. One of the possible objectives for players regarding special ships is 'Disable'. Since the ship starts disabled, this would be fairly easy to implement. Here's a rundown:

Mission 1: Player must go find S.S. Houndstooth and disable it. Ship is already disabled, so ShipDone is triggered. Set in the OnShipDone field Ayyy Sxxx where xxx is the ID for Mission 2 and yyy is the ID for Mission 1.

Mission 2: Does whatever it's supposed to do. The brief text would be the communication from the disabled vessel.

The only possible flaw is if you planned for the player to be able to have a choice in accepting or rejecting the next mission. If there's supposed to be a choice, this method won't work properly. Also, I haven't tested this yet, so there could be some obscene flaw in the engine that might prevent it from working. Still, it's better than nothing.

Well it does have to be a choice... but I found a small workaround on that too...
(the first mission is "destroy target ship" so I need to make sure the first mission passes if the player kills the ship)

The message from the captain works normally, then there's something kind of like a narrative to explain what your two choices are. The button on the bottom says "I've Decided."
And then you either kill them, or escort them.
If you fail the escort mission, it sets the same bits as if you'd killed the ship... or if you kill the ship halfway to the planet because you get bored.
(UROS is bloodthirsty, and it doesn't take long for it to rub off on you. Even though I am trying to make it as EVO-like as possible

Wait... if the other choice is escorting the guy, how could the player possibly kill him? The only way that's possible is if the S.S. Houndstooth doesn't protect he player, and that could make it harder on the player if a fight breaks out somewhere.

QUOTE (darthkev @ Mar 9 2010, 07:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wait... if the other choice is escorting the guy, how could the player possibly kill him? The only way that's possible is if the S.S. Houndstooth doesn't protect he player, and that could make it harder on the player if a fight breaks out somewhere.

Well he will probably protect the player, but its mostly so if you fail it, the first one passes.

There will be some mercenaries in the system and the UROS interceptor is actually quite powerful (compared to the pirates) so the player could probably protect him regardless

This post has been edited by REDchigh : 09 March 2010 - 03:19 PM