Duck and Cover

Alright, I should be getting some more spare time in the near future, and I know you guys have some questions to ask. This is your thread to do so. Fire away, and I'll try and get some answers for you. Don't get too carried away though...

I don 't suppose you could get hold of a 'known FO:T bugs' list for us???

I'm sure our resident Map Rats have a whole bunch of very detailed questions.....

WB Section8!

Well, you don't have to ask me twice. Here are some questions I have:

1. Is there any way to rig up a drug to knock a target out? (This would be very handy in kidnapping cases. :twisted: )
2. I'm very curious about the Car vehicle type. Is there any chance that the sprite for it will be released? I noticed that the hit locations are listed in the combat.txt, but it doesn't show up as a race in the entity editor. Was it implemented?
3. Is there any way to change the date in the game, or is it hard-coded?

Any help is (of course) appreciated,

OTB

Just wondering if we can get ahold of any unused sprites that may be available from Tactics or Tactics 2? Or maybe tiles?

*coughTileEditorandSpriteEditorcough*

And a fixed version of the male Reaver Huge sprite.

And a patch to fix all the bugs in the game (or just the AI -> Human -> AI bug and the Make Picture bug in the editor).

Oh, and a/the tile and sprite editor(s).

We have a "Known FOT Bugs" thread on the FOT forum, so if you would be so kind as to have a looksie at it...

Did I mention having the tile and sprite editors?

But mostly, I just want world peace and good will toward everybody (not to mention the tile editor!)

Do you have any idea on how shadows are added to a sprite definition? With Domin's Sprite editor, we can create scenery sprites but they are not able to cast shadows. I understand there is a separate alpha channel required but am not sure how to create that in Photoshop.

Also if you could find out how to make certain areas of the world map impasseable by using channels in the original graphics, that would be very useful. For example you could not cross directly over Lake Michigan in the original world map.

Could you share some info on the process of creating character sprites ?Meaning the dimensions before creating the sprite(I don't suppose the relevant dimensions of the Scorpion compared to the humans are random-do you have some kind of math model to form this?) and if you can use it without it being hardcoded?
No, I'm not talking about modifying existing graphics, just want to experiment with a recent idea I had, so I'm clarifying this to avoid events of the past.

I too would like to know if there is any effective way to switch an actor from a player controlled player index to a computer controlled player index which will not result in the actor in question becoming immobile/unresponsive/buggy.

I would also like to know if there is any functional usage for the script condition "Skill Use Occurred," or for the script action "Player Move State - Follow." I have never been able to make these script triggers work. If they are broken, it would be a relief just to "officially" know that they are in fact broken so I won't spend any more time attempting to try new variations on them.

I think everyone would also benefit if you could elaborate on whether or not there are any classes of actors (apart from switches and doors of course) to which the "object script state" triggers may be successfully applied.

I would also be interested in hearing whether the checkable/uncheckable "Broken" modifier field which is present for all types of entities in the Entity Editor has any application outside of the known uses we have found for it in weapon and vehicle entities.

I'm sure that we all understand how limited your time must be, Section 8, and since you're offering your professional help here in your spare time even partial answers or guidance on any of the questions raised by myself or other mappers in this thread will be much appreciated.


Endocore

endocore wrote: I think everyone would also benefit if you could elaborate on whether or not there are any classes of actors (apart from switches and doors of course) to which the "object script state" triggers may be successfully applied.

Well, things like mines and other "traps" type of entity (plastique, remote bombs) can be affected be the O.S.S. action. When the "script state" box is marked (via trigger), the explosive in question will go off.

I'm not sure, but I think you can also use O.S.S. to open/close chests and lockers and such.

And of course, you can have the O.S.S. of a bomb/container trigger something to happen. For an example, fire up my DD Ch5 map and go to the crate at the base of the stairs near the start of the map. You get a little surprise (provided the Deathclaws up in the bridge haven't been killed/activated yet).

Okay, let's consolidate/expound. You can use Object Script State Triggers with the following entity classes:

• Containers (provided that they are not "Always Open")
• Doors (to open/close only; unlocking requires the Lock/Unlock Door trigger)
• Lights
• Switches
• Traps

I'm curious to see if it will work w/Radiation entities, so I'm going to equip a recruit w/a Geiger Counter and experiment this morning. I'll post the results w/the results of the anaesthetic experiment.

Radiation Experiment Result:

It seems that Radiation cannot be toggled on/off w/the OSS trigger. I had radiation entities w/tag names, and when the even that was supposed to toggle them occured and other results occured, the area they were in was still radioactive. I also had a trigger set up under "before_first_tick" to toggle them to the opposite state, so regardless of whether ticked/checked represents on or off there should have been a change.

Oh well, this would have been handy for cases like the players triggering a meltdown or leak in a reactor, or having them proceed through an area they just set off a pocket nuke in. It can still be accomplished via "Move Entity" triggers, but that's a lot more scripting intensive than simply toggling the Script State.

OTB

OK, from the top I guess

I don 't suppose you could get hold of a 'known FO:T bugs' list for us???

No can do on that one. Most of our Tactics stuff is on backup these days, we need the server space for other projects. Can we get a sticky thread on here? Or jus use the one in the FOT forum.

Is there any way to rig up a drug to knock a target out? (This would be very handy in kidnapping cases.

Can't apply a drug using triggers, but you might be able to rig a trap that does stun damage (I can't remember the effects of stun off-hand, but I _think_ it knocks people out.

I'm very curious about the Car vehicle type. Is there any chance that the sprite for it will be released? I noticed that the hit locations are listed in the combat.txt, but it doesn't show up as a race in the entity editor. Was it implemented?

The car from memory was an old taxi cab circa 1950s. It was never implemented, but was on the cards for Tactics 2.

Is there any way to change the date in the game, or is it hard-coded?

I've asked around, and no-one seems to know for sure, but if I were a betting man, I'd have my money on it being hard-coded.

Just wondering if we can get ahold of any unused sprites that may be available from Tactics or Tactics 2? Or maybe tiles?

I'd like to release them or at least show some off, but IIRC they belong to Interplay officially, and 14 degrees east is no more, so I don't know who I'd need to ask.

*coughTileEditorandSpriteEditorcough*

Another no can do. As I've said before, I'd love to see them released, but the engine is being used for another game, so we can't release them. :/

And a fixed version of the male Reaver Huge sprite.

This is a possibility, but I make no promises.

And a patch to fix all the bugs in the game (or just the AI -> Human -> AI bug and the Make Picture bug in the editor).

You already know the answer to that one.

We have a "Known FOT Bugs" thread on the FOT forum, so if you would be so kind as to have a looksie at it...

I'll have a look through it, but I can't really go through and make bug fixes.

Do you have any idea on how shadows are added to a sprite definition? With Domin's Sprite editor, we can create scenery sprites but they are not able to cast shadows. I understand there is a separate alpha channel required but am not sure how to create that in Photoshop.

Shadows are rendered as part of the sprite, and use alpha mapping. If you want to add an alpha channel in photoshop, go to Channels and add a new one. You should then have RGB channels and an alpha channel. Paint in your shadows with a darkish grey.

Also if you could find out how to make certain areas of the world map impasseable by using channels in the original graphics, that would be very useful. For example you could not cross directly over Lake Michigan in the original world map.

I'll have a talk to Lakin who (from memory) did the world map. I'm not sure how it works myself.

Could you share some info on the process of creating character sprites ?Meaning the dimensions before creating the sprite(I don't suppose the relevant dimensions of the Scorpion compared to the humans are random-do you have some kind of math model to form this?) and if you can use it without it being hardcoded?

Bounding Boxes were done after the characters were built, and most of our scale is done through 3DSMAX. We have a bunch of scale guides for tiles and characters, but we could change bounding boxes at will in the sprite editor. None of them are hardcoded.

I too would like to know if there is any effective way to switch an actor from a player controlled player index to a computer controlled player index which will not result in the actor in question becoming immobile/unresponsive/buggy.

As far as I know, there isn't a workaround, and if there is it's definitely not an easy one.

I would also like to know if there is any functional usage for the script condition "Skill Use Occurred," or for the script action "Player Move State - Follow." I have never been able to make these script triggers work. If they are broken, it would be a relief just to "officially" know that they are in fact broken so I won't spend any more time attempting to try new variations on them.

Skill Use Occured was used in our original tutorial missions, and it worked then, but I can't guarantee it hasn't been broken in the meantime. As far as Player Move State - Follow, I can't remember anywhere we used it and I have a strong feeling it's unsupported.

I think everyone would also benefit if you could elaborate on whether or not there are any classes of actors (apart from switches and doors of course) to which the "object script state" triggers may be successfully applied.

There's a few.

* Traps
* Containers
* Lights
* Anything preceded with "State" (ie state breakable, state scenery)

I would also be interested in hearing whether the checkable/uncheckable "Broken" modifier field which is present for all types of entities in the Entity Editor has any application outside of the known uses we have found for it in weapon and vehicle entities.

I never used the broken field, so I don't really know much about it. You guys have probably got more of an idea.

Most of those answers are short and sweet, so if you want me to expound an anything, let me know.

Awesome Gareth, thanks for checking on those things, I'm sure we'll be adding to the list so stay tuned!

Thanks a ton for looking into all of this stuff, Section8!

Section8 wrote:Can we get a sticky thread on here? Or jus use the one in the FOT forum.

Done. The thread is "stickied".

Section8 wrote: Can't apply a drug using triggers, but you might be able to rig a trap that does stun damage (I can't remember the effects of stun off-hand, but I _think_ it knocks people out.

We've come up w/a work-around for it, because it seems that it can't be done any other way. "Stun" special damage doesn't knock the target out, but rather discomfits it, e.g. the Pac Bot's weapon or the Spasm Gun.

Section8 wrote:The car from memory was an old taxi cab circa 1950s. It was never implemented, but was on the cards for Tactics 2.

Ah well, it would have been cool as hell to have gotten a hold of this. I suspected that the car was what you described it as because of this in FO: Warfare:



Considering the prefab named "Snake" and this car, I'd say that there are some of you that have taken a liking to Escape from New York.

Section8 wrote:I've asked around, and no-one seems to know for sure, but if I were a betting man, I'd have my money on it [the in-game date] being hard-coded.

I was afraid of that. Guess I'll have to settle for a blurb in the ReadMe explaining the year and/or something in the campaign intro.

Thanks again for your input and time!

Cheers,

OTB

Wow... thanks for the responses, S8. We're all much obliged.

I've another question: Does the game not like more than one Speech Event as a condition for a trigger? In my current map, I've got some slaves that need rescuing. So, I made 8 speech nodes with thier matching speech events (one for each slave), and my trigger is as follows:

CONDITION:
Speech event Slave_Free_A Occurred
Speech event Slave_Free_B Occurred
Speech event Slave_Free_C Occurred
Speech event Slave_Free_D Occurred
Speech event Slave_Free_E Occurred
Speech event Slave_Free_F Occurred
Speech event Slave_Free_G Occurred
Speech event Slave_Free_H Occurred

ACTION:
Complete objective OBJ01
Blah blah blah
blah blah
blah

When all 8 speech events occurr, the actions don't go off. And YES, I'm sure I don't have any typos or anything (copy/paste is a wonderful thing )

Have I discovered yet another bug, or am I not doing something I should be? I've used Speech Event X Occurred before sans problems, but never multiple speech events in one condition (or even a different condition as well as a speech event, for that matter)

I hope you fellers over at Microforte have all these bugs straigntened out for the next recipient of the Phoenix engine (FOT's engine is called the Phoenix engine, right? :oops: ).

I'd like to join everyone else in thanking you, Section 8, for your responses to these long-standing mysteries of the FOT Editors, even if your answers aren't all that encouraging from a standpoint of solving the matters. I certainly appreciate your help nonetheless.

Max-Violence wrote:
I've another question: Does the game not like more than one Speech Event as a condition for a trigger?

Perhaps you've already done this, but did you try slapping a blocking modifier on all of your Actions? I've often found that triggers with complex conditions can be transformed from broken to working perfectly just by adding this modifier to each action.

Endocore

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to reply to all of our questions.

Section8 wrote: I'd like to release them(unused sprites) or at least show some off, but IIRC they belong to Interplay officially, and 14 degrees east is no more, so I don't know who I'd need to ask.

Perhaps Ed Orman could know? OTB, do you think you can get/know any Iplayer's e-mail we could ask about this? It would be the next best thing to releasing the Sprite editor.

We have a bunch of scale guides for tiles and characters, but we could change bounding boxes at will in the sprite editor. None of them are hardcoded.

Could you direct us to a link were these scale guides are displayed? This kind of info could eventually be very handy, if/when we can do new animations and import them on Spray. I would like to know that I can create even a static image of a human and knowing the exact proportions, making it look the proper way on Spray/Game.

Max-Violence wrote:I've another question: Does the game not like more than one Speech Event as a condition for a trigger? In my current map, I've got some slaves that need rescuing. So, I made 8 speech nodes with thier matching speech events...

I would recommend having each "Speech Occured" trip a mission variable. Then use the variables as conditions for your other trigger.

Flamescreen wrote:Perhaps Ed Orman [w]ould know [about getting FoT2 tiles released]? OTB, do you think you can get/know any Iplayer's e-mail we could ask about this? It would be the next best thing to releasing the Sprite editor.

Ed Orman doesn't work for MF anymore, so he might be "out of the loop" on this, but I could email him regarding this. Another choice would be Chris Avellone at Black Isle. I seriously doubt that they we can get permission for this, though. FoT2 was cancelled, true, but if I know corporations, they're more likely to sit on this stuff in the eventuality that FoT2 becomes a reality in the future. (In other words, they'd be giving up potential earnings.) I can try though, if you'd like.

OTB

Incase your time is limited, I shall ask my question, then commence with the ramblings: the Twich Gamer perk is already present in the code and can be added in the editor. Other than causeing a '!Twich!' to appear above your head every so often, does it do anything else?
If you have the time, I wouldn't mind knowing it's original perpose. All I can find is mention of Pipboy games.

I just wanted to say thanks for your help in this community. Fallout: Tactics seems to be a very stuggling game, as it let down more than a few people. I, for one, beleive that the community can make something more out of this than it currently is.

Don't get me wrong, I found the game very enjoyable, but it lacked the flavor of the other Fallouts. As the community expands, and more talent seeps into it, I'm sure more and more items will come up that will assist us.
The next person who picks this up off the bargain rack could be the person who makes Spray work for human forms, or gives the community a great workaround in the editors.

I need to thank you once more, for attempting to get us some extra and unused sprites. Even if they are not obtained, I'm sure there isn't a person here who isn't very greatful. Personally, if you manage to obtain these I'll become polytheistic and put you up there with Star Wars. No, I'm not trying to suck up.

Whelp, Endocore, adding Blocking to all the actions didn't do a thing. I had to re-vamp a total of 3 triggers to revolve around variables instead of the Speech Events.

Now I've another Q:

I put the item name_'s and desc_'s in the items.txt and the character name_'s and desc_'s in the characters.txt. I put the files in my Max-V/core/locale/game/ folder, run the game with the custom shortcut... and the stuff doesn't show in the next map (Rebellion3)! They display in RB1 and RB2, but only because I have the entries in the speech file. I merely copy/pasted the things from it to the generic .txt's (of which were already in my custom locale/game folder). I did this because I thought it silly to have the same character and item names/desc's in every single speech file of the entire campaign. Imagine if the core campaign was like that...

And YES, I'm sure there are no typos in the generic .txt's.

Well, I'm confused.

Max-Violence wrote:I put the files in my Max-V/core/locale/game/ folder...

I don't see why you use a "core" folder within your directory. When I set up my custom directory I simply set up a directory tree that was identical to the core, except that "core" was replaced by "OTB". So instead of "OTB/core/locale/game" I have "OTB/locale/game". I've never had any of the problems that you guys seem to be plagued with.

BTW, another ENT type that can be used in conjunction with the Object Script State trigger is Alarms. You can either have alarm script states as part of the conditions of triggers, or you can have an action toggle the object script state. (Great for runners using speech...)

OTB