NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[Nightwatch]

Thank you NatVac for your kind words on the web, and you seem that you really liked that much it as you now see it worth installing Flash.
It was really difficult, I'm not a web designer or something, it must be easier of course for those guys, but I don't do the html code stuff, I just pull the tables and cells on the design page (Frontpage 2003) by brure force against the uncooperative stubborness of Frontpage, lol, very primitive on my part.

PS: We have this entry on dead_manager-script:

Code: Select all

function keep_item(npc, item)
   if npc == nil then return end
   local section = item:section()
   if always_keep_item[section] == true then --/ ïðåäìåò íå óäàëÿòü (êâåñòîâûé)
      dbg.log("drop_manager:keep_item:disbody_flg=>[0]:Êâåñòîâûé_ïðåäìåò")
      amk.save_variable("disbody_flg",0) --/ ôëàã "íå óíè÷òîæàòü òåëî"
      return true
   end

Thanks EggChen, I got the sound files. It must've taken a lot of your time in these busy times in your schedule. I've included the version named with "50" tag, volume is nicely lower on that one.


Kaidonni, have you changed anything on trader files or anything on items files, any value or name, whatever, whatsoever? I'm asking this as I've noticed that you are implementing an approach of NEWSA pricing structure on OL (that's a high compliment, as I see it ) so I thought maybe you might've changed an item in any way (or added) in NEWSA as well, you may just give a try to remember if it could be the case by any chance.


Audioave10, wow, you've got under a lot financial commitment for this mod, buddy. If you don't like to outcome of the mod, please tell me beforehand, so I should have a headstart to start running away.

Also, it's not 10 days. If I'm alive or like that, I'm hopefully releasing the mod on Friday 10 March. Just 5 days left. This may sound even better I guess.

____________

PS: All instances of version 2.4 and relevant patches are removed from download servers and support for 2.4 has finished (symbolically). A new era is about to begin.

[EggChen]

Thanks EggChen, I got the sound files. It must've taken a lot of your time in these busy times in your schedule. I've included the version named with "50" tag, volume is nicely lower on that one.

Didn't take me long once I got round to it, just needed a weekend off to sort the SDK out, seems to be working fine just now. Looking forward to a four day weekend!!

I'll have a crack at a particle for russao next, though he has gone quiet with some HD problems.

Oh, did you mean April 10th there buddy?

[Kaidonni]

Nope, changed nothing to do with Newsa at all. I only started this modding yesterday, after starting OL 2.2. Suffice it to say I was a tad bit annoyed at myself, I just wanted to play Stalker. Every game I love I do this, tweak things...

And as per the Newsa death_manager.script, I didn't notice that the one part was in there. I was looking for something exactly the same as OL 2.2. Well, we all learn one way or another *remembers the time he tried to make all Catholic factions have the ability to Crusade in Medieval 1 Total War - but didn't give Sweden Crusade units, so when a Crusade was sanctioned, the game locked up*.

[Grump642]

I never got a CTD from searching dead Hunters, only from talking to them.

[Ultradad]

I never got a CTD from searching dead Hunters, only from talking to them.

Hello there

Same as Grump642, just talking to them would CTD, thats why i hunt them all down with a passion for crashing my fave game

[fiznerpin1962]

I never got a CTD from searching dead Hunters, only from talking to them.

Hello there

Same as Grump642, just talking to them would CTD, thats why i hunt them all down with a passion for crashing my fave game

Maybe you guys talk too much, don't shoot 'em enough...

Seriously, though, same here. Talk to a hunter - see your desktop.

[Nightwatch]

Now Hunters are not causing a crash when spoken. Their dialogs changed as well. They'll be very formidable (neutral) allias against the common enemy. (many available )
-------------

EggChen
We all look for a 4 day weekend, what a great idea to implement it.
Also, yeah, I had meant 10th of April, (it seems I had got the month wrong) now corrected.

-------
Guys,
I've finished the installer after fighting with it for hours (I had lost the original template of it during the Vista problem which ruined my PC). I noticed that the problem had been caused by ZoneAlarm (no surprise there), and once it was shot down, Inno worked OK. I've tested it with dummy folders and files. Logic is correct, 4 choice system is working.
Today and tomorrow, I'm very busy with work, barely time to eat and sleep, but on Wednesday I'll run it with the real files and Thursday/Friday will be uploaded hopefully. It's a very large setup, so I'm allowing a two days cushion as the last time it had taken about this much to upload it to Filefront after several tries.

[Grump642]

I never got a CTD from searching dead Hunters, only from talking to them.

Hello there

Same as Grump642, just talking to them would CTD, thats why i hunt them all down with a passion for crashing my fave game

Maybe you guys talk too much, don't shoot 'em enough...

Seriously, though, same here. Talk to a hunter - see your desktop.

Last play-through, I hunted them like vermin. This time, I have left them alone. But I am running short of enemies!! So..

[Grump642]

Took a job from Bartender. "Kill the Stalker". He was in Cordon, so away I went. Killed him under the little bridge(plus his friend) and went to Rookietown. All was fine till I saw Fanatic. He went red. Damn, he was hard to kill!! Even ole Sid was showing red. I was just doing my job!!! Jeez, had to get Sid to reset Loner's. Did get good money for Fanatic's minigun tho!

[NatVac]

Ah, the npc and the item are different in that keep_item() function, folks. Try with both lines that check for nil, one for the npc and one for the item passed in.

Grump642, Sid and Fanatic might be hostile for a different reason, but my first guess: Members of the same camp or gulag (group) seem to know about the deaths of their fellows, no matter where they are.

[DARK TEMPLAR]

Waiting, still waiting, waiting for the time

[Kaidonni]

NatVac, if it isn't too much to ask, could you give a quick example of how the entry in death_manager.script should look if I add the extra section in? Thanks.

By the way, I'm going to do a test this afternoon on the CTD issue. I know V2.4 is no longer supported because V3.0 is out soon, but if it makes any difference, I think that it's best I do a little experimenting and report back whether the CTD happens each time I check a dead NPC (saving AFTER killing them, might I add), or if it is only sometimes (just to make sure my memory isn't faulty, which it...what's that word, the other one, that has an 'i' in it, but not a 't,' it's a letter quite close to 't' in the alphabet? ).

[Grump642]

NatVac, I understand that, but I would have expected ALL the stalkers there to turn red. Instead, it was only Fanatic and Sid. The rest stayed neutral. Made no sense to me.

[Kaidonni]

Okay, after killing everyone in Cordon and a fair amount of them in the Garbage, I have had no CTD. Granted, this time I have gone with an installation straight from install to 1.0004, no interim patching, so my problems could have been the patching I did. But, every last body of a NPC (haven't done the mutants) has been fine. Don't really know what to think. Will try some more at another point, gonna wipe out everyone at the Duty HQ, maybe go back to Cordon and retry on the NPCs there, maybe mutants too. But it was only NPCs it happened on anyway before, so maybe I've fixed it *touch wood*. This, of course, is just to be on the safe side when V3.0 comes out.

I sort of...for my experiment...well...upped the trader values so that when you sell, you can sell for a heck of a lot. Got the meanest, baddest weapons possible, and set about some fun.

[NatVac]

Kaidonni, this is what I meant:

Code: Select all

function keep_item(npc, item)
   if item==nil or alife():object(item:id())==nil then return end
   if npc == nil then return end
   local section = item:section()

That still might not work, but it is something that exists in the AIPack for some reason -- probably to handle grenades or other items that have been deleted.

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Grump642, that is strange. One possible cause: Group is different from faction, and the group that exists near Fanatic/Sid is not associated with them -- but the dude near the bridge was. Or perhaps Sid/Fanatic were marginal on their goodwill with you for other killings or incidental damage.

Some background for the curious: As I understand it, there are three different sets of values relating to goodwill/relation: individual, group (usually in lairs, gulag, camps) and faction (loners, Freedom, Duty, ecologists, bandits, mercenaries, military, Monolith, etc.).

The attitude that an NPC has toward you is an algebraic sum of these values. Below -400, you are enemy. Above 500 means friend. The limits: -3000, +1000 for the faction, but only -1000, +1000 for the individual.* Cf. gamedata\config\creatures\game_relations.ltx.

Lairs are based on group assignments instead of proximity. One example of this is that you can turn the border Freedomers friendly by defending the border against the Monolith, but Cap usually stays neutral until the faction itself goes green. (Of course there are exceptions, like healing Cap or shooting the dudes that specifically hit him.)

Skull's group is also an example: If they turn enemies for any reason against you where you didn't fire the first shot (unprovoked attack does a lot more damage to your relationship with Duty than hurting folks already in battle mode), then you can shoot at them with impunity, as hurting enemies does not affect faction relationship at all. From game_relations.ltx:

Code: Select all

free_friend_attack_goodwill         = -2500
free_neutral_attack_goodwill      = -1000
free_enemy_attack_goodwill         = 0

danger_friend_attack_goodwill      = -200
danger_neutral_attack_goodwill      = -200
danger_enemy_attack_goodwill      = 0

One can see from the above the various ways in which helping Freedom dealing with Skull's group affects your relationship with Duty.

Another example is Pavlik. If you shoot him before he turns enemy, you incur the wrath of Freedom. Once he programmatically turns red on the mini-map display (or disappears), you will suffer no loss of goodwill with Freedom to take him down.

Hurting a non-enemy member of a group or faction normally affects your goodwill with the group/faction if they are aware that it was you (e.g., the guy you shot saw or heard you before he died, or his buddy saw/heard you).

Finally, you can be neutral with an individual in a group of friends, probably due to collateral damage. Or, for that matter, enemies in a group of neutrals...

__________
*This is why you can drop a medkit to heal an enemy with code to set him to friend status, but he remains enemy due to the vastly greater negative faction contribution.

Without the letter R, friends would be fiends.

[Grump642]

Another fine lesson, NatVac. I should have killed that guy without him seeing me. Then all would have been fine?

[Nightwatch]

Hi Guys, I'm back after being held captive by the work for two days straight

Thanks NatVac for your great help, another round of many, each of which is no nothing other than a very valuable teaching lesson indeed.


Kaidonni, I'm happy to hear that this round of your game is going well after the reinstallation. While you are doing a great work to getting bottom of the things and testing (which seemed to have paid off now) it seems that you will also end up to be one of the biggest killers ever lived in the Zone, lol. You seem to have killed everyone and everything. Is it a Roman doctrine, or something.

I should have killed that guy without him seeing me. Then all would have been fine?

Yes, Grump642, then he wouldn't be able to sing and we wouldn't be in this jail now. LOL. Sorry, I couldn't help attemping to crack a joke here, it was a so much inviting note.

[audioave10]

I'm beginning to wonder what NatVac's "day job" is. Teacher?,
Technical instructor?, Author? or are you just a deeply analytical
hobbyist? Please give us a hint!
Yours truly,
your nosey-net-neighbors
sorry to hijack your thread...Nightwatch.

[Kaidonni]

Nightwatch, I only do what I do because I must. Need to check every dead body in the experiment. Will probably do some more today, but not much more. Maybe everyone at the Bar, then I'll head back to Cordon. I am running on the theory that, the more dead NPCs there are, the more likely I am to experience the CTD if it is still there. If I don't experience it at all, then I need not worry so much for when I play V3.0, but if it is still there, I can always try the scripting lines NatVac mentioned. I plan to prevent any CTD from getting in the way of V3.0 (especially since I've waited so long).

Heh, that smiley made me think of the first Terminator. You can just imagine it now, the part where Arny drives the truck into the police station. Replace police station with CTD, and truck with that minigun Wolf had and the weapon, that Sid sells at the start after the first mission, (the onethat fires those missiles). Can't remember the names...