Random Musings

Allright, so I've got a very tentative idea for a TC floating around in my head. And with this I got an idea on how to missions(namely the accepting of them) in a much more believeable way. But I'm not sure if the engine could handle what I want it to do.

Basically what I want to do is have a few missions that all would appear to be the same when browsing the BB. But I want only 1 of the missions to appear at once. That's easy enough to do, just randomize a bit or two and tweek the availBits and viola! But instead of just having 1 available and that's it, I want which one is available to change day to day.

Practicle example:
1.You complete a previous mission and are told to keep checking with your contacts on Sol.
2.The Sol BB now always has a mission called "Check with contacts"
3.There is a 90% the mission will result in you being told your contacts have no info yet.
4.The other 10% of the time however, the mission results in you being told more stuff and sent off on an actual mission.
5.None of the "Check with contacts" missions appear past that point.

Now, to clarify. I don't want it time based unless I have to. I want it to go back to the 90% mission if you miss the day the 10% mission showed up. I always want at least 1 of the mission available, but never more than 1 at a time. It should also be possible to have the 90% mission and 2 different 5% missions, in other words lots of different possible outcomes.

I'm hope that wasn't too confusing and sorry for the rambling. Thanks in advance.

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Hmmm, tricky. Well, you could do it so that when you accpet it, it randomly chooses one of two (or possibly more) options so that you either recieve the info or you get the mission where you didn't get the info. I can't remember what the 'randomly' bit is but it is in the Nova Bible. Hope I helped in some way.

Good luck
-Starbridge42

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You can indeed use the random function to do exactly this. This will involve at least 5 missions and 3 bits, all only available if the original mission was completed.

Have an autoaborting mission #1 be available 100% of the time in the spaceport, and make it invisible. In the OnAbort field, have " r(s misn2 , s misn3 ) ". Missions #2 and #3 are both autoaborting invisible missions, with an availibility of 0%. In mission #2, have the OnAbort field be "r(b (bit2) , b (bit3) )", and mission (#3)'s OnAbort will be merely "b (bit3) ". The above missions will need to have bit 1 (set by the mission before these) set.

For the fourth mission, the "Mission available" mission, have the Availibility field be "b (bit1) & b (bit2) ". This will give it a 25 percent chance of being active. The last mission will need it's availability to be "b (bit1) & b (bit3) ". This will be the "Not available" mission, which will be available otherwise.

This will always set either bit 2 or 3, so it will always show one of those two missions, but never both at once.

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Eat blazing electric death!

Quote

Originally posted by Ernimtir:
**I'm not sure if the engine could handle what I want it to do.

Basically what I want to do is have a few missions that all would appear to be the same when browsing the BB. But I want only 1 of the missions to appear at once. That's easy enough to do, just randomize a bit or two and tweek the availBits and viola! But instead of just having 1 available and that's it, I want which one is available to change day to day.
**

Getting your missions to be mutually exclusive is easy - proper use of a setting and testing availability NCBs takes care of that.
Getting all the missions to have the same identifier in the Mission BB is also easily accomplished by naming all the resources the same.
Getting the probability of appearance of the missions is easy - set 1 @ 90% and the other 2 @ 10%.

The possible problem arises with getting the appearances to be re-evaluated from day-to-day. This is a possible problem because I’m not sure exactly when the mission NCB Availability(test) is evaluated. When you enter the s˙st? When you land on the AvailStel? When you “enter” the AvailLoc?

If the mission availability evaluation occurs when you enter the s˙st, your proposal is obviously in trouble.
If the evaluation occurs upon landing on the AvailStel then you’re OK.
If the evaluation happens every time you enter the AvailLoc (ie.-when you select “Missions” while landed), then you’re in trouble again.

You’ll have to do some testing to determine just which of these three situations the game-engine actually adheres to.

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Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**You can indeed use the random function to do exactly this. This will involve at least 5 missions and 3 bits, all only available if the original mission was completed.

Have an autoaborting mission #1 be available 100% of the time in the spaceport, and make it invisible. In the OnAbort field, have " r(s misn2 , s misn3 ) ". Missions #2 and #3 are both autoaborting invisible missions, with an availibility of 0%. In mission #2, have the OnAbort field be "r(b (bit2) , b (bit3) )", and mission (#3)'s OnAbort will be merely "b (bit3) ". The above missions will need to have bit 1 (set by the mission before these) set.

For the fourth mission, the "Mission available" mission, have the Availibility field be "b (bit1) & b (bit2) ". This will give it a 25 percent chance of being active. The last mission will need it's availability to be "b (bit1) & b (bit3) ". This will be the "Not available" mission, which will be available otherwise.

This will always set either bit 2 or 3, so it will always show one of those two missions, but never both at once.

**

Thanks for all the thoughts everyone. They're all good ideas but this one just seems cleanest. I'll have to use this a bit more sparingly than I had originally hoped, it's that or limit the plug with about 200 missions...

Anyway, thanks for the answers, don't expect the TC anytime soon. At least not until next summer, if it ever gets done. And if anyone else wants it, the idea is free for you to use in you plug.

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I actually use a similar format in my Gundam TC, only it is slightly different. What I do is make Mission #1 always available, and it will set randomly from 4 bits every time you land. I use this for randomized dëscs, so you don't always see the exact same text every time you take a mission. It can be modified for your use, just play around with the idea a bit. 😉

Good luck!

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Quote

Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**I actually use a similar format in my Gundam TC, only it is slightly different. What I do is make Mission #1 always available, and it will set randomly from 4 bits every time you land. I use this for randomized dëscs, so you don't always see the exact same text every time you take a mission. It can be modified for your use, just play around with the idea a bit.;)

Good luck!

**

I also do that for Starfleet Adventures, too, for planetary survey missions -- that way, I'm allowed to have "random" events for when you land on a planet (and that way there's a chance that the species you encounter is run by a giant computer that you can then destroy).

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