Random Encounters & Tagged Items Questions

[PaladinHeart]

I've been thinking about this and I can't sleep so I figured I might as well post something about it.

Is it possible to place entities in a random encounter map that will appear there every time?

Like let's say you make a basic shack and put a box in it with 5 bullets in the box. Will that box have those same 5 bullets in it every time that map is loaded?

Okay now let's say you put a trigger in the map to make different boxes available (like say you have a random trigger open a random door for the player). Is that trigger going to fire off every time an encounter on that particular map happens?

I think this would be very handy for providing particular random loot and it would be especially handy for me so does anyone know if this works or not?

Oh I'm also wondering about something else. I know you can have an item tagged and have it operate a trigger but is there any way to destroy that item once the trigger has been activated? For instance lets say I want the player to give 3 NPC's the same item and then I want the items to disappear. Can I have a particular trigger destroy those items or would I have to have the trigger disable those 3 NPC's to get rid of the items permanently? Ugh... I wish the FOT editor wasn't so fickle.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Any changes you make to the actual landscape maps should show up whenever the engine uses that map for an RE. As long as the triggers are preserved they should fire again and again.

The trouble with three items with the same tagname is the game doesn't like multiple tagnames except for counting items as a condition. The only way I can think of to remove an item is to use the give command and that only works from pc - npc or vice versa. Probably using clones is the best way to go about it, have two copies of the same npc. When one has the tagged item deactivate it and activate the copy that has an empty inventory.

Or depending on what the item (and how the campaign is set up) is make the npc a quartermaster and use the quartermaster system to remove the item permanently or if you've given the items tag names in the level editor, giving the items to the QM will remove the tagnames.

[PaladinHeart]

Using the quartermaster's inventory system sounds promising. Using this couldn't I technically have it set up such that if a player gives an item to the NPC the NPC then discards their inventory and replaces it with a specific set of items baed on what you gave them?

Ooh! The possibilities. Crafting new items anyone?

Tagged names put on items with the item editor remain though, correct? So this way I could actually have it set up that if the NPC receives a tagnamed cockroach guts then the next time you talk to them they'll have a tagnamed radaway? Which could in turn be resold to a different NPC and they'd make Rad-X with it?

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Tagnames in the entity editor will not get stripped, but I'm not sure that the QM's list would fire the has tagged item condition. It strips the tagname because I think it effectively destroys the item and replaces it with one fresh from the ent file at least that's the only way I can see how all QMs can have the same stuff (unless you use triggers to remove items.)

You might have to use a speech occurred trigger and then the give command to give it to the QM that way it would go into their inventory, and disapear, but then you run into the multiple tagname problems.

[PaladinHeart]

But if the entity file itself had the tagname then wouldn't it possibly make the trigger go off? Hmm.. I think I see what you're saying. The quartermaster list is like an inventory from the game itself and the chracter doesn't actually own the item? Thus the trigger wouldn't go off.

Ugh.. this game has so many issues and flaws with the editor.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I've just tried it on my test map, made someone a QM and traded a tagged item with them, there no response to the has items tagged condition, sorry.

Ugh.. this game has so many issues and flaws with the editor.

Flaws and issues, or more likely you're trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[PaladinHeart]

Flaws and issues, or more likely you're trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

I guess you could say that.

I guess I'll have to to go with my idea of using the random encounters for making items. This way the player can give an item to the NPC, the NPC can be disabled via a trigger and then a door opens with the items inside.

Anyway I'm hoping this would happen every time the random encounter map would load.

And thanks for testing that out for me.

If the random encounter idea doesn't pan out then I'm going to have to ditch the idea of making radaway with cockroach guts and just have them simply heal radiation poison directly when eaten. Heh...

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Before I ditched my PA maps to the graveyard I was going to have making stuff by using the drugs system.

For example you want to make a poison antidote, make the radscorpion tail a drink/drug give it a chem value (you might have to lose one of the chem types) but no positive/negative effects. Do the same for the other item, the give both tagnames. Then have some triggers, the first one fires if the player has one item equipped, and sets a variable to true, likewise for the second object. Then the other triggers fires if the variables are true and the player has a certain chem level (by using the items). Then the action would be to add the required item, a bottle of poison antidote to the QM list.

You can make it more complex with a condition to count the appropriate skill, and you can have enhancers like a chemistry set which would be needed to be equipped at the same time (you can have two different has item equipped conditions, the game doesn't differentiate between the active and inactive slots).

[PaladinHeart]

Ahh. Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the idea. This would make for a very interesting combination system. :-D

I'll put in a lab or something for the player in the late game portions.

Should I also use this method to combine key items and make quest items? I have this one long quest where the player must find a bunch of various parts and it would be interesting if the player had to actually make the item themselves using all the various pieces they have to find.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I suppose it depends on the item and what the parts are and whether the player would need any equipment to make the item.

For something mechanical I would of used repair items. In a workshop you'd find an old bit of machinery, it would need to be repaired and would need an repair item, the parts would be the repair item and tool kit. To stop people from just using a super tool kit you'd use the both items equipped at once conditions. Then when the machinery is repaired you'd have the finished product moved to the player's inventory via the give command from a hidden entity. Or just move the items to the ground from off screen.

If you have more than two parts you could have several machines, using the first two parts would give you the repair item for the next machine. Combine that with another quest part to 'repair' the next machine would then give you either the next repair item or the target item.

Obviously you wouldn't say the player was repairing items, but that they'd need to use the machinery and parts to manufacture items.

[PaladinHeart]

Interesting. The items I was going to have the player find could actually consist of large machines that you have to use another object on that you find somewhere else. This would add a level of difficulty if the object is in a radiated place and you have to actually come back later once you've found the repair object.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I was thinking more along the lines of the 'parts' being raw materials and blue prints. With the materials being the repair item and then the blue prints being a one use repair kit entity. But whatever works with your plot.

Thinking about it if you made the machinery an vehicle and set up a death trap to hurt it (when the player isn't there) you could have it manufacture several items since you can keep using copies of the same repair object on it's target item IIRC.

Edit.

You could even have a small factory, but some of the machinery would be switches not vehicles and perhaps since blue prints don't just disappear into thin air make the blue prints the key for the switch. So you'd feed the raw materials into the machine by using the repair object to repair your 'vehicle'. Then you'd enter the plans into the computer, by using your blueprint 'key' on the console and that would create your item or part (which could be used the sameway in a different part of the factory).

[PaladinHeart]

I suppose it would actually be possible to use different tagnamed entities and several identically tag named items on them to manufacture the same item multiple times. Maybe have the machine break irreperably after that?

Nothing should last forever in the wasteland anyways.

Actually I'm considering not even having drugs such as mentats, etc.. in my campaign. I could use several of your ideas to make items.

I'm wondering though if I should just simplify things and make cockroach guts heal a bit of life and also heal radiation. I think it would be more interesting though if you had to make your own antidotes and radaway early in the game.

However I have also considered maybe having an NPC sell a ton of radaway and such once the PC brings them a few quest items. This would be a good way to get it in the later parts of the game.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

For getting an npc to make radaway use the drug idea on the QM, that would solve the problem of removing the items and tagged items not triggering in the QM's list. You'd just need one set of triggers to count the QM's chem level and add the finished radaway to their inventory. If you preserved the trigger probably by the time you'd gone away and explored a bit they're chem level would of worn off. Though I'm not sure how that works, I know that timers will keep on ticking unless you stop them, even if you leave the map and come back.