SCRIPTS LOCKDOWN
From today, I am forcing myself to make sure I add another line of code to critical scripts to ensure I do not break existing code that module one relies upon. This should, in theory, mean there should be no further "breaking" of module one. I know I have said this kind of thing before, but sometimes I thought the change I was making was insignificant. How wrong I can be! As a lesson learned, adding any new code to existing scripts will now be properly segregated from module one.
AREA DEVELOPMENT
Much of the last fortnight has been to do with continued area building for the module two, especially for those areas related to the main quest. It was during this time when I discovered an issue with "rope" in the game. Rope is used for some situations and so has extra associated scripts. However, it also has an "item placeable" object associated with it, which means a new placeable is created when it is dropped. The problem was, however, is that once dropped, I could no longer pick it up. This led me to a fix for v1.10E. When I went to test the rope fix in module one, that is when I discovered the On Area Enter issue ... which led to the essential update I speak of in the introduction.
It was during this time that I also discovered playing more than one sound at the same time could potentially cause an issue by only playing one of the sounds. This was also fixed in the latest campaign release.
NEW PLACEABLE BOARD
During my area building, I was reminded of some games that show a profile map of an environment, where the different vertical levels of said environment are shown in relationship to one another. I think of games System Shock 2 and more lately, Prey. As the layout of the environment I am currently working on is a bit different to the standard "one level directly on top of another", I thought I would also provide a map showing the unusual vertical layout for the player.
My first attempt was to use the "painting" model, which I am familiar with already. However, the model was too small to present the picture I had prepared. Therefore, I decided to look for another existing model that was bigger to do the job. I eventually opted for the arcane chalk board, but transferring my image to that turned out to be more tricky than I thought it would be.
On my first attempt, the image wrapped around so that it did not show correctly. Eventually, I was able to see that the original image did the same, and that if I wanted to present an image unwrapped, then it needed some alterations, which finally worked after some experimentation. However, this led to a second issue ... the text was mirrored and on the wrong side. Thankfully, simply inverting all the images related to the arcane board and the text in my own image sorted the issue. The screen shot of the final result is this weeks screen shot.
PC BACKGROUND CONVERSATION NODES
I also worked on more conversations, and was reminded how each main PC in a game could potentially come with a character background feat/trait. For example, you have the bully, or the lady's man, etc. Not every player may select one, but for those that did, I thought it would be good to try to include some conversation options that helped to reflect their PC background choice. These conversation options would sit alongside any others that the conversation required and I hope would add flavour and encourage the player to play their role-play their PC character background role more. I ended up having to write a new script for the conversation node checks, and discovered the farmer trait to be incorrectly present in the official nwscript file. It has been fixed with my own script that simply uses basic number integers.
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| A Profile Map of the Citadel |
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