pers and alwaysPers questions

I thought I'd ask here before experimenting in the hope that someone had already tried what I'm thinking about:

If I understand correctly, pers resources can be "killed" (made to stop appearing in the galaxy) by destroying them, and if they don't have an escape pod (or don't behave as though they hav an escape pod).

If this is true, what happens if a syst alwaysPers points to a "dead" pers? Does the alwaysPers override the live/dead status of the pers and plop them in no matter what?

The reason I ask is I'm interested in making a "ship testing arena" where I can see how two (or more) defined ship types duke it out under AI control. This way I can balance ship power. For this to work, though, a pers appearing via the alwaysPers needs to not appear if the pers has been killed.

Anyone have input?

-STH

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përs don't dispear if they don't use an escape pod

They live on

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Quote

Originally posted by OctoberFost:
**përs don't dispear if they don't use an escape pod

They live on
**

Are you sure? The EVO Bible says "When ships are created, there is a 5% chance that a specific AI-person will also be created. (obviously, as AI-people are killed off, they cease to appear in the game.)"

I suppose this could be another part of the Bible that's not 100% accurate, but the pilot file has 512 (I don't know how to refer to them: variables? flags? anyway, they are of type "short" and consist of 4 hex letters) thingies that define whether each pers is active or not. Whether active has to do with misns or whether it defines "alive" vs "dead", I don't know. Also, I'm not sure why they are short and not boolean. If it were simply a matter of alive vs dead, a 1 or 0 would do (boolean vs short). It's not storing pers grudges, either, because they have their own 512 flags elsewhere in the pilot file. Maybe 0 for pers not used, 1 for alive, 2 for dead? (similar to the exploration flags (also short) in res 128 where 0=unexplored, 1=visited system, and 2=visited and landed?) I don't know. Sigh.

Oh well. I guess tests are in order.

Of course if mburch happens to read this, he might be able to supply an answer (but would he?).

Thanks, though.

-STH

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How do you get a përs to definitely appear in a system?

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"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." -Mel Brooks

Supposedly, you put the id i one of the 'always pers' fields under syst, but ive tried with no success.

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They have good fish on
Dispa Prime

What 'always pers' field?

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"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." -Mel Brooks

Quote

Originally posted by Arada Pilot:
**Supposedly, you put the id i one of the 'always pers' fields under syst, but ive tried with no success.
**

It works for me. Did you put the id of the Syst in the LinkSyst field in the Pers resource? That's what I did - put the Pers id in the AlwaysPers field in the Syst resource and the Syst id in the LinkSyst field in the Pers resource - and it works flawlessly.

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Jon Potter
Thank you for your cooperation. Good night.

yes, but i want the ship to also appear in other systems sometimes, and always in one. i guess its impossible. thanks for the tip.

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They have good fish on
Dispa Prime (p.s.: hint for upcoming plug)
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