Your browser does not seem to support JavaScript. As a result, your viewing experience will be diminished, and you have been placed in read-only mode.
Please download a browser that supports JavaScript, or enable it if it's disabled (i.e. NoScript).
I'm in the planning stages of a plug right now, and one of the sets of missions requires that the pilot get his/her ship blown out from under him/her (resulting in mission failure). How would I go about killing the player without actually killing the player, and still have him/her fail the mission? While I could do it in text, that would get rather boring, and I'd much prefer having the player fight a losing battle and hear the red alert klaxons as the ship breaks up. Any ideas?
Matrix
------------------ "Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."
Give the player an escape pod - so when they fight this battle they loose and get killed. Some one rescues the escape pod, then as you have failed the mission all you need is a NCB in the fail mission text expression box and you will be laughing.
You fight, you die, pod gets rescued, you fail the mission, as you fail it, another one starts and continues the story. All very exciting and reletivly easy to carry out.
Make sure you give the player an auto eject as well as an escape pod, as he may well not know to use it, and when it does get used, they might quit the player and start again - hence turning the master plan around. Technically if you give the player an escape pod as well as an auto-eject they should be landed on a new planet before they can say "Jease I just got killed so quickly and now I've got an escape podf which I never had before". ------------------ The galaxy is about to become apocalyptic: (url="http://"http://3114.spyw.com")3114:A Nova TC(/url)
(This message has been edited by thedecline (edited 04-13-2003).)
Another alternative is to give the player an escape ship (think comara viper minus the blasters) that has a lousy cloak -- but a good enough one to keep the badguys away from him. And put a note in your readme about the mission -- enough to keep the player from restarting the mission, but not enough to give anything interesting away.
------------------ Suddenly, the little scoutship disappeared and then reappeared right behind the alien warfleet. The gravitic ship's captain hailed the armada. "You are going to be destroyed, but I will give you a choice as to how you want to spend eternity: big pieces, little pieces, or quarks?" Dead silence. "Quarks it is, then."
Yeah, don't forget to tell them to cloak.
------------------ Moderator- (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=9&SUBMIT;=Go&mrxak;=cool")EV Developer's Corner(/url) | (url="http://"http://forums.evula.com/viewforum.php?f=18")mrxak's Assorted Webspace Forum(/url) | (url="http://"http://forums.evula.com/viewforum.php?f=48")Starcraft Forum(/url) | | (url="http://"http://directory.perfectparadox.com/profile.php?id=00008")My Profile(/url) (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/search.cgi?action=intro")Search First(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/003091.html")Need Testers?(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/003196.html")Need Developers?(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.com/survival_guide/")EV/O/N Survival Guide(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/evn/addons.html")Nova Addons(/url) | (url="http://"http://w00tware.ev-nova.net/")NovaTools(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number;=31&SUBMIT;=Go")Bomb's Plug-in Guide(/url) (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/mrxak/")mrxak's Assorted Webspace(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl/TheChallenge102.sea.bin?path=evn/plugins&file;=TheChallenge102.sea.bin")The Challenge v1.0.2(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/mrxak/Haikus/haikuarchive.html")The Haiku Archive(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/mrxak/EV/N/mbspt/mbspt.html")mrxak's Big Secret Plug-in/Tutorial(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/postdisplay.cgi?forum=Forum10&topic;=007599-2&whichpost;=mrxak11-06-200203:22PM")mrxak?(/url) < . . . . . >
That might be possible, but that would also give away the fact that they'd have to fail. Hmm... Is it possible to make the escape ship invincible? Maybe a pilotable escape pod?
(This message has been edited by what_is_the_matrix (edited 04-13-2003).)
Quote
Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: **That might be possible, but that would also give away the fact that they'd have to fail. Hmm... Is it possible to make the escape ship invincible? Maybe a pilotable escape pod?
**
Anything is possible.
------------------ (url="http://"http://www.warsmith.org")The Warsmith(/url) A Journey Into the Stars: (url="http://"http://www.battlereports.com/viewreports.php?reportnum=4948")Part One,(/url) (url="http://"http://www.battlereports.com/viewreports.php?reportnum=5433")Part Two,(/url) (url="http://"http://www.battlereports.com/viewreports.php?reportnum=5447")Part Three,(/url) More to come soon! Thi...thi...this cheesecake had like... a chocolate crust and some chocolate in the cheesecake filling and like some dark chocolate shavings on top and then you take a bite and you're like "Hey, this is all chocolate, there's no cheescake here" and then you get this big burst of cheesecakey flavory goodness and then you die because after that there's no point in living any more because you've pretty much peaked.
If anything were possible, then I would be able to make a mission where the player's ship blows up and a dialog box says something like "Well Ensign, if this weren't a simulation, you would be dead." I'd also be able to assign certain weapons to certain exit points to make ships in my plug more true to what I want them to be. I think I'll be able to finesse a bunch of the cool things that I want to be able to do, but it's the dying that I really want to be able to do. Oh well, I guess I'll figure it out. This doesn't mean that I'll stop taking suggestions, tho.
Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix: **If anything were possible, then I would be able to make a mission where the player's ship blows up and a dialog box says something like "Well Ensign, if this weren't a simulation, you would be dead." I'd also be able to assign certain weapons to certain exit points to make ships in my plug more true to what I want them to be. I think I'll be able to finesse a bunch of the cool things that I want to be able to do, but it's the dying that I really want to be able to do. Oh well, I guess I'll figure it out. This doesn't mean that I'll stop taking suggestions, tho.
If you die, does the onFail field get evaluated? Make a quick test mission to test this. If so, you can use that field to start a new mission (the dialog box) and also to give them a new ship and/or move them to a different system of your choice.
------------------ "Damn, everybody wants something up their ass today! Yeah, I'm cool like that." - forge
What I would do is at the start of the mission grant the player an escape pod and an auto eject system (I'd also give them a lethal bomb to make sure they died and didn't try to restart, but that's just me. I like multiple redundancies). Then, in the mission OnFail (or OnAbort - I forget which one get's executed when you die) have a NCB set.
In the escape pod description (as in "you spend two weeks floating through space before you are picked up by a passing trader"), put a NCB test in. If the NCB from the mission is not set, display "You spend two weeks...". If it is set, display "Well, if that was a real mission, you'd be dead! Lucky it was just a simulation!".
You could also have a cron activated by the same bit which in turn changes the player's ship so they don't get whatever ship 128 is (unless that's what you want).
------------------ Life has no script writers!
Funny you bring this up, because this is exactly the first mission in Starfleet Adventures -- the Kobayashi Maru Scenario -- and I've played around with this exact thing already.
Originally posted by Russell Quintero: **If you die, does the onFail field get evaluated? **
Yes, but the OnFail text doesn't show up.
Here's what I ended up doing:
You start out over Earth in a shuttle. As soon as you land, the mďsn starts, placing you in a Constitution class ship in another system. There, the përs of the Kobayashi Maru hails you and asks for assistance. As soon as you dock with it, Klingon ships show up and blow the bejeezus out of you. All ships have an escape shuttle and autoeject, so once the ship blows up, an ncb in the OnFail field transports the shuttle back to the Sol system, where, once you land, you're given your mission debriefing from another mďsn and put in your real first command.
I wasn't happy about the landing-to-get-the-mission-debrief thing working, but unfortunately it's the only way I can get the OnFail text to actually work.
------------------ Starfleet Adventures: A Star Trek TC for EVN (url="http://"http://www.ev-nova.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=145") Discussion Board (/url) Starfleet Adventures (url="http://"http://www.ev-nova.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=71")Progress Log(/url) It is better to feed the goat than it is today.
Originally posted by UncleTwitchy: **Funny you bring this up, because this is exactly the first mission in Starfleet Adventures -- the Kobayashi Maru Scenario -- and I've played around with this exact thing already.
Hmm... When I actually get the free time to work on plugin making, rather than just a minute here and there to scribble notes, I'll try that out. Thanks Twitchy.
My pleasure -- and if you come up with a better way to implement it, or can get the OnFail text thing to work, let me know as well.
Originally posted by UncleTwitchy: **
But can't you just use the escape pod text? I'm going to have a play with this. I'll post my result tomorrow...
Well, sure -- if, every time the player gets his ship and escape ship blown up, you want to refer back to that specific mission.
Originally posted by UncleTwitchy: **My pleasure -- and if you come up with a better way to implement it, or can get the OnFail text thing to work, let me know as well.
Would it be possible to have an additional mission running behind the Kobayashi Maru scenario that doesn't show up in the "I" menu and when the Maru scenario fails, it causes the invisible mission to fail making that OnFail text to show?
Okay. Check (url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/newkongindustries/escape.html")this(/url) out (the page will pop up saying it can't find the file, but just click in the nav bar and hit enter and it should work. I hope)
You can except a mission from any bar that send 20 Ravens up against you. Once you're destroyed, you get a mesage saying "lucky that was a training mission". If you eject any time outside of the mission, you get the normal escape text.
I used the {Bxxx "s1" "s2"} command in the escape pod text (decs 13999), and set a mission bit when accepting the mission.
It looks like the onFail field (or onAbort - I couldn't be bother to work out which one it actually was) doesn't get evaulated until after the escape text is displayed, so the mission bit needs to be set in the onAccept field and cleared on the onFail field.
From my understanding of the issue, this seems to be exactly what everyone wants. Does it help?
(EDIT: Fixed the link. It should now bring up a page where the PlugIn can be downloaded from. If that still fails, please email me and I'll forward you a copy)
(This message has been edited by simon (edited 04-16-2003).)
Originally posted by simon: **Okay. Check this out (the page will pop up saying it can't find the file, but just click in the nav bar and hit enter and it should work. I hope)
You can except a mission from any bar that send 20 Ravens up against you. Once you're destroyed, you get a mesage saying "lucky that was a training mission". If you eject any time outside of the mission, you get the normal escape text. **
It is good that you you provide us with practical examples. But dont you think 20 Ravens makes us crash? What about those of us that dont have the newest iMacs with G4 and 512 MB of RAM? I would like to try it, but I guess a 350 Mhz G3 cant handle it. Im planning to upgrade it with 128 MB of RAM though, so I can get 192 MB of RAM. Besides, the amount of Mantas exceed the 64 ship limit by twice. 120 Mantas, so most will just not be shown.
------------------ I am eager to try to ansver mission questions
To be honest, I hadn't even thought of that. I tend to figure that if it works on my G3 powerbook, it will work on anything other people use. I used 20 Ravens so the player would die quickly, but if 20 will cause you a problem, it's not hard to change. The manner of death is unimportant in this example.
When I was testing it, I died long before any other ships were launched...
I just get "Sorry" pages from Yahoo/Geocities when I try to download this, even if I do the usual tricks. Feh.
It seems like I may have to reveal my secrets about training missions...
Alright, now remember that QT and I may be crafting a plug using some of this stuff. But I figure that it's unlikely enough that I can tell you.
After having read Ender's Game , I realized that the Battleroom could be roughly duplicated in EVN using gravity shear, assigned ships, and some serious missionwork. Now, we never got far enough to figure out how to kill the player, but we did figure out how to set up training missions -- ones that would drive the most advanced Nova players crazy trying to figure out how to succeed.
Interested?