How to use Require/Contribute flags

I think the title explains itself. I've always been intimidated by that nasty, 8x8 grid, seperated into 4x4 squares. How the heck does it work?

Moreover, I'll explain the specific issue for me at hand: I want an outfit that prevents the player from buying another (i.e., a ship can only have one reactor, not two different types).

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Contrib/Require won't do that for you. You'll need to set an NCB on purchase and clear it when sold and then have the mutually exclusive outfits only available when that bit is cleared.

Think of Contrib/Require as "You must have this (contribute) to get that (require)". This means that your combined Contribute grid must match all the boxes that are set in the Require grid for the item in question.

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Quote

Originally posted by Slagblah:
You'll need to set an NCB on purchase and clear it when sold and then have the mutually exclusive outfits only available when that bit is cleared.

You're probably better off using an empty outfit for availability testing. This way, you don't have to worry about NCB's not getting unset when the player switches ships.

That aside, I agree with the above post.

Edit: I use EVNEW, which has a different set up for the flags, so I can't be much help there...
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(This message has been edited by slouch (edited 07-12-2004).)

If the 8x8 grid intimidates you, you might consider downloading Arturo's NovaTools v1.0.1. It changes that 8x8 grid:

  A B C D E F G H
1 O O O O O O O O
2 O O O O O O O O
3 O O O O O O O O
4 O O O O O O O O
5 O O O O O O O O
6 O O O O O O O O
7 O O O O O O O O
8 O O O O O O O O

into a more logical layout:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
8 O O O O O O O O
4 O O O O O O O O
2 O O O O O O O O
1 O O O O O O O O

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
8 O O O O O O O O
4 O O O O O O O O
2 O O O O O O O O
1 O O O O O O O O

Of course, you may not understand what makes it more logical right at the moment. I don't feel like explaining it right now due to...tiredness...agh...caffeine...won't...work...
anymore...too...much...sleep...deprivation...Submits and goes to bed

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Where can I download that new version?

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Quote

Originally posted by slouch:
You're probably better off using an empty outfit for availability testing. This way, you don't have to worry about NCB's not getting unset when the player switches ships.

Eh, it's not clear to me how that helps... care to explain? It isn't obvious to me how that works...

Quote

Originally posted by Slagblah:
Think of Contrib/Require as "You must have this (contribute) to get that (require)". This means that your combined Contribute grid must match all the boxes that are set in the Require grid for the item in question.

So, just to clarify... In order for an outfit with, for the sake of simplicity, Require bit X1 and X2 needed, those simply must be set by another outfit's (or other outfits') contribute fields. Also, if X3 was set by another outfit's contribute field, it wouldn't make a difference, right? It would make sense to me...

Arion, just use the plug-in search engine in my sig. It's on the add-ons page somewhere.

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(This message has been edited by Phyvo (edited 07-13-2004).)

A simple example:

outf 128 = Reactor 1, Availability = !o130, On Purchase = g130, On Sell = d130
outf 129 = Reactor 2, Availability = !o130, On Purchase = g130, On Sell = d130
outf 130 = Reactor Indicator, "invisible" (Tech level that no spob has, can't be sold, no LC names, etc), no Mod Types, NOT persistent.

With a set up something like this, you will limit the player to only be able to buy one reactor type outfit. I suggested using an outfit rather than an NCB because if/when the player acquires a new ship, the NCB wouldn't be cleared unless all ship types have !bxxx in their On Retire field. It just seems easier and more reliable to have it as an outfit which will not be transferred to the player's newly acquired ship. (Which, if not cleared, would lead to the player not being able to purchase a reactor for their new ship).

Also, down the road, you may want to have certain ship types come stock with reactors, or some ships be able to have more than one reactor. This method could be adapted to do this, where an NCB based indicator would not.

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Thanks. That's exactly what I wanted to know. 😃

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Quote

Originally posted by slouch:
**A simple example:

outf 128 = Reactor 1, Availability = !o130, On Purchase = g130, On Sell = d130
outf 129 = Reactor 2, Availability = !o130, On Purchase = g130, On Sell = d130
outf 130 = Reactor Indicator, "invisible" (Tech level that no spob has, can't be sold, no LC names, etc), no Mod Types, NOT persistent.
**

Or you could Simply check for the presence of a reactor before making any available:

outf 128 = Reactor 1, Availability = (!o129) & (!o130)
outf 129 = Reactor 2, Availability = (!o128) & (!o130)
outf 130 = Reactor 3, Availability = (!o128) & (!o129)
(Set the maximim purchase to 1 for each)

...to have each reactor only available once and not if another reactor is already purchased.

This also allows you to allow for multiple reactors of the same type by setting the max purchase to more than one, but not to mix and match diffenent reactors.

Yep, there's definitely more than one way to skin a cat. It all depends on your scenario, and what you want it to do...

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Quote

Originally posted by Phyvo:
**Arion, just use the plug-in search engine in my sig. It's on the add-ons page somewhere.
**

Doesn't work, if I enter “tools”, it only gives me a single file, a plugin made “using NovaTools”.

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“It is interesting that well-protected secrets and complicated puzzles are often solved faster than easy ones. Why? Because the better a secret is protected and the more complicated a puzzle is, the more thinkers it attracts.” - me
(url="http://"http://starlightdev.freewebpage.org")STARLIGHT DEVELOPMENT(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Arion:
**Doesn't work, if I enter “tools”, it only gives me a single file, a plugin made “using NovaTools”.
**

Just go to the utilities section. It's fairly recent so it should be near the top.

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