Combat

[Dale]

Reading this with excitement and wanted to share that important information. You people are really appreciated.

[Dominus]

I've let Exult running for some hours while standing around the Monitor pub. No crash and service was always under way when I had a chance to look at it

[Francois424]

As with ale, I really appreciate the (free) work you guys are putting into exult. Thing is if we fix service/combat with weapon ranges all these fixes will find their way into U7 proper as well and not only SI... So cheers !

[Dominus]

DrCode, when/if you pursue KnightCaptains idea for pairing types of plates with tables, could you extend shape_info.txt with this? This would mean less hardcoding in Exult and easier to mod or useable for custom games.

[drcode]

This might be the first time I've looked at that file. Yes, would make sense to have a 'plates' section. The 'prep tables' and stoves should also probably go there.

[Knight Captain]

Dominus, please send him the files I sent you. I think they will help.

My si_shapes.uc file is now 1000+ lines.

[agentorangeguy]

I don't think I mentioned the details about the crash I had. The one in SI may have been a fluke but in BG it crashed in the blue boar in an unmodded game. I did cheat teleport there though if that matters. Thank you guys for getting back into it! Very exciting!

[drcode]

The crash Dominus reported on March 3 was fixed later that day, so try a more recent version. Or maybe I broke something else...

[agentorangeguy]

Ok cool, will try the latest version when I get home!

[Knight Captain]

While we're piling on DrCode, can we get competing PACE NPCs to turn around rather than endlessly Bark at each other?

[agentorangeguy]

Ok got a chance to test it in BG and noticed a few things:

I tested it in the blue boar, it seems that the barkeeps would put extra food on their plate even if the last piece of food was still there (plopping down a dessert when they haven't finished their egg yet, and so on). That seemed to be the only thing I saw show up. Otherwise, it looks great and functioning pretty well! It was cool to see them start up the stove and use the cauldrons (even if they used the sparkly frame sometimes haha). maybe have them "use" kitchen items and place them randomly on the prep tables? I saw they used the "useing something" frame but didn't place anything, not sure if that was how it was intended or just not implemented yet?

Awesome work guys!

[Gotcha!]

Oh, I hate those restaurants, where they just keep serving you course after course when you're not even finished with your current course. It's like they want you to hurry up, pay up and scram.
Et tu, Britannia?

Silliness aside, I'm so happy with you guys. Thank you.

[drcode]

Thanks for the report! I'll look for them putting food down when there's still some there, as that's not supposed to happen.

And I need to have them put items on the prep tables as they 'cook'. Currently they only pick them up, and then put them by the customers. Maybe later today.

The last major thing will be to have them clean up the tables afterwards.

[drcode]

More fiddling with the schedule, so the waiter will sometimes put food on the prep tables. Didn't see any cases of multiple food items being placed before customers, though.

[Knight Captain]

When testing Usecode changes I have run into situations where things remain broken in saved games but work fine in new ones. YMMV.

[Dominus]

Please remain on topic, even if that changed to waiter schedule

And yes, there have been cases that made us ask people to use a new game.

[drcode]

Waiters clean up plates and leftover food now. I think I'm about done, other than fixing problems you may find, and using Knight Captain's idea for setting plate shapes.

Although one more idea: When the waiter is standing at the counter after serving everyone, and one of the customers yells for more food or "Ale!", it might be cool if the waiter responds by turning towards him, and then walking there. Might not be that hard...

[agentorangeguy]

DrCode - what's next on the agenda, combat or another schedule?

[drcode]

I'll look at combat next, since that seems to get the most criticism.

[agentorangeguy]

Yaaayyyyyy! It's definitely in need of some love. The issues I've noticed is that range checks are out of whack I guess... they stand too close to each other even with ranged weaponry, where in the original they'd at least step back and then hit. Like a guy using a halberd would hit then maybe step back to the max range before swinging again, if possible. From memory at least, it seemed the ranged weaponry users like bows, crossbows and such would attempt to keep away from other npcs while attacking if possible.

[drcode]

Yes, getting each NPC to back away to his weapon's maximum range would be a good first step.

[Dominus]

And getting the original combat settings from the combat gump saved, too

[agentorangeguy]

totally! In the original it seemed to do something I guess... flank would attempt to attack the enemy from the side... defend... not sure what that did. In theory it is supposed to make them concentrate on defense more than offense, taking less damage?

[Knight Captain]

Was Defend intended to use the Protect halo button setting to determine who to protect? Perhaps to either stand in the way of ranged attacks, and attack the strongest opponent targeting the protected party member?

[agentorangeguy]

Defend had a circle with a horizontal line above it where you'd defend attacks against yourself, then there was a "defend others" where the big circle would defend a smaller circle. It was supposed to have that party member attack any others who were directly attacking the halo'd guy. In the original I remember having more than one person in a halo would crash the game for me ha

[Incriptus]

My finest memory is in the List of Fields picking the Halberd. The Pikeman would tell me it's a coward's weapon ... but by playing keepaway it was the only weapon that would let me reliably win early on.

[Gotcha!]

I share the same memory. Iolo was especially good at defeating his opponents, since he was a lot better at keeping a distance than Shamino and Dupré.
I still wonder why. It's like it was tied to intelligence?

[agentorangeguy]

Yeah the halberd was great because most of the tiem you could hit them and then move when they were still trying to close in. Not sure about Iolo, but I always kept him witht he crossbow.

[Joseph1]

I remember this as well. I would expect this to be related to dexterity. It's great to see this is being looked at!

[agentorangeguy]

I can't wait for combat to function more like the original, and maybe some added things. Worst bug in combat right now is the horrible range checking, or lack thereof, where all combat ends in a clustered mess.

Getting the combat options working again would be excellent.

[agentorangeguy]

Any progress on combat yet? Keep the dream alive!

[Knight Captain]

Engine coders are working on things, including a feature request to help create and set eggs via Usecode. No doubt this is a larger challenge that we modders are suspecting.