DC Tutorial: How to create a combat event

[Funky Dynamite]

Originally Posted by manikus So, after quest 3 has done it's thing, the events at the end should not fire? I will suggest to you what I have suggested to SilentThief, to make a flow chart of the complicated event chains. I admit that I am having a hard time comprehending exactly what you are trying to do. (And when you are trying to do it.) I feel like the advice I'm giving isn't helpful because I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish. Don't give up. We'll get this figured out. I need you to spell exactly what you are trying to do, and if you can add some graphics, that might help me, too.

ok, I'll try that, but it'll be a bit before I can do it, stay tuned....

[SilentThief]

Might I make a suggestion? There is some confusion within the logic that can make things a little hairy in the designing; and it comes into play off the "event doesn't happen" trigger.

I haven't tried to test this out much but if you had a list of events "A happens once, B happens if A does not; C happens if B does not; D happens if C does not" you should have them fire off every other one. I don't believe this is the case, tho (can't remember testing this...)
What I suggest is to set up a quest and use the quest stages. Just to review, the quest stages happen in numbered stages, 3 after 2 after 1. If you wanted a jump to a particular number (for your nighttime events, for example) use utilities to set the quest number to a different number (like all your night events start at step 100 and count up from there). If you wanted this to ever happen again just re-start the quest (and of course the player has to step into that spot again ). If you didn't want this to happen until something sets it up, set the events on quest stage at step 2 (and chain if event happens), and set it up (begin the quest) on the quest when ready from step 1. This might give you more control over what you are trying to accomplish.

Utilities gives us great control over the quest stages, and chaining from the quest stages gives us better control over timing and functionality of quests. But it does take practice. I had the original FRUA (without the bugfix so all my NPCs ran from combat), and I've played around with the logic for some years and I wouldn't call myself an expert, just familiar with it a bit. Who knows, you play around with it (like the ppl who've come up with these tricks) and mebbe you'll show us something new, too.

-ST

[SilentThief]

Er, to clairify; this quest would be just for you (mod designer) in locating where and when in the event chain you want to go. It wouldn't be a quest that is "given" per se' to the player, more just as a pointer in a chain.

like this:
(you give the players the ability to meet an NPC, go to a school and train, or whatever the complex chain is about and THIS SETS UP THE QUEST STAGE 1 [automatic, no question, NOT COMPLETE] for the chain)

player goes to the location of the complex chain and it fires of on quest stage 2 [again auto,no Q, not done]
CHAIN IF EVENT HAPPENS
do whatever (if event happens)
do whatever (if event happens)

finish out event chain

players return after a totally different quest to do something else OR you looped the chain

this time (regardless of where but on the "main" chain not on a conditional branch) with quest stage 3

do whatever (if event happens)
do whatever (if event happens)

BUT, if you wanted to change the course of this, you could put somewhere else a utility to "store value in" the quest and the value could be like 100 or 1000 and that signals to go to a different set of events that ONLY fire off if the quest stage fires off as long as you use the trigger "chain if event happens". Thus the quest stage sets the event to happen or not to happen.

With this style, there really isn't any branching just a whole lot of events that get skipped over if they aren't the proper number. Oh, and this is perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind: when setting this up, since you don't want to have ALL the events fire off have them numbered backwards OR don't increment them on the same spot as the events in the complex chain OR (perhaps the best solution) skip numbers and assign them to the next number when whatever other quest is done. The reason for this warning and these suggestions is this: if you set up events to fire off quest stage 2, then quest stage 3 then quest 4; you just upped the stage to 3 (and then 4) so ALL sets of events will happen!

Hopefully this helps, sorry I prolly shoulda quoted your example and copied it within my example but hopefully this will work for what you want
-ST

[Funky Dynamite]

Thanks ST,
To be honest I did not understand some of your explaination though, I haven't worked with logic at all. But I'll sit down and reread through it when I have a bit more time. (Or I can just copy it into Notepad.)
Anyway, here's what want to happen:

=Party walks into town. =
="NPC escort quest" ends. =

(I thought it would be nice to give the party a chance to explore the town a bit. So....)

=If it's daytime, no quest in progress, -if- they go they go to the mayor's house, he has a short conversation with them.=

=Once the party goes to the inn, they get a room, rest, and after they rest....=
="Town under siege" quest begins=

(Within the quest the party has to save the inn, go to the local temple, whatnot. Those events are easy, they work with no problem.
The problems are with....)

=During the "Town under siege" quest the party has to go to the mayor's house.=
=They have a conservation with a bad guy, blah blah....=
=Battle happens=
=Short conversation (#2) with the Mayor.=
=Rest.=
=Then I have a quest that the party has to go to the inn and accept their reward.=

(Though now that I think about it, I could do away with that last quest and just have the party receive their reward at the mayor's house, couldn't I...?)

(Anyway, here's where the problem is: Right now how I have it, the quest events fire perfectly. Unfortunately, if the party didn't visit the Mayor -before- the "Town under siege" quest started. The events that make up the -first- conversation with the Mayor fire directly after when the "Town under siege" quest events.

What I want to do:

After the quest, if it's daytime of course, and if they haven't done it before, I want the party to have the option to have "Conversation #1" with Mayor.)

Is that clearer? Or are my communication skills not cutting the mustard again?
And what do you guys need to see? Because the event chain in the Mayor's house take up about two screens, and I would hate to bombard you guys with that many screenshots.... :/

[manikus]

Check and see if there is an option for the event (1st mayor converstaion) to fire if quest x (where x is the town under siege quest) is not in progress. This might mean that you need to use an utility event here, I'm not sure. I know this could be done in FRUA, so it should be doable in DC.

I hope this works. I've got my fingers crossed.

[Funky Dynamite]

Is "Quest not present in party" it?

[manikus]

I believe that would be the one...unless it also counts completed quests and then I'm thinking of something else.

[SilentThief]

Yes, that is the trigger. I believe (altho I don't know at this time) that it does count completed quests as present in party

-ST

[Funky Dynamite]

Okay, cool....
Sorry about my absence of late, my life's been hell lately...money problems...mother-in-law was in town. Not that my mother-in-law's visit was hell, she (and her idiot boyfriend) kept us busy.
I'll try to do better....

[manikus]

No problems. Just glad you came back to us. In case you haven't noticed, we're having a contest for choosing the default design. This would be a perfect chance to show us all what you're learning.