Let's Talk About Hickory Branch

Hickory update:

I'm thinking of adding three dialogue files to this mod: 1 for the half-orc captain ("Now you die!"), one for his boss the half-orc commander ("You die now!"), and one for a generic humanoid type who will appear at the entrance to the map when you first go there ("I'm telling the big guys!") and then run off.

They will be slightly more complex than that, but not too much. Hopefully it will simply add the impression that some change in conditions has occurred because of your presence there.

Only problem is, without more complex scripting, it will still seem like vanilla temple fare: NPCs react to you once you walk up to them, but that is all.

I guess it's still better than them not reacting. Or is it? :shrug:

 

You can put lookouts in various places if you want the NPC's to react to the PC's, you assign thier mob's with scout points, and waypoint them in the direction of whoever you want dragged into the fight, they will then go hostile too, and you start wishing that damn wall of fire spell worked... :flamed:

 

Thanks guys, will ponder this stuff in my heart.

Question for engine gurus: in some recent Hickory testing I've observed that in random encounters generated by resting, NPC flee floatlines may arbitrarily fire, even though there are no NPCs around and no one is fleeing. (Looks funny to see someone pleading "Let me be! I'm leaving now!" with a giant crayfish. :icon_chuc)

I haven't had time enough to really look into this, so I don't know if it happens elsewhere or if it's just at Hickory. I know where floatlines are stored, but can anyone shed any light on what makes them fire for NPCs, and what the kaptain may have done to erroneously bring this about in HB? (I'm suspecting something similar to his skeleton key 'workarounds' here, though of course I don't really know it was his fault at all.)

Almost forgot: the floatlines are accompanied by good old Mr. Blue T portrait man, which is really pissing me off with regard to the new portraits mod. Needs to be fixed or people will think I'm a tool.

Also, has anyone seen this phenomenon elsewhere? For some reason it feels vaguely familiar to me.

 

This is why we normally set rats to 'OCF_MUTE'

if Boba Fett is turning up, though, Gaear, it means some invisible critter has spawned somewhere for some reason and then got caught up in the fight and is trying to make a run for it. Used to happen with the critter for Liv's trap, if I remember rightly, and with the 'Orb of the Moons' critter whom I hadn't set up properly (albeit that had its own portrait. Voices too )

My advice would be to take a high level ranger over there to test. When it happens, use 'track' to see what is in the area. It'll probably be something silly like 'treasure map Ted' or something.

Or - just have a look at the 'Hickory Branch' section of Random_Encounter.py and cross-reference with Description.mes to check everything that might appear, then see what shouldn't be there. Thats more scientific but less fun.

 

Okay, thanks for the infos. Will have a look. :thumbsup:

 

Hickory Branch 2.0 is coming

Update: been making great strides the last few nights with the tedious business of sectoring the new HB. (This is good 'left brain' - is that correct? - activity. You can do it while thinking about other things.) Still have to fool around with .mobs, some dialogues, the crypt, and testing. Probably won't be quite ready by next CMF update time (Sunday), but you never know.

 

Sectoring is simple, but it requires precision. I'm not really vouching for the authenticity of the left-right brain thinb btw, just remarking that there are some activities that ... well, think of an example instead: for me at least, in school, if I was working on math, I could listen to music in the background and not be distracted; but if I was working on history or something like that, background music was utterly destracting.

 

Which brings us back round to the original point. I can sector HB while pondering Basil's the Timid's manifesto on the meaninglessness of life in the 'What do you do' thread (j/k Basil ), but I could never do that while trying to write a dialogue or something like that. Or doing a soundtrack tune for that matter, unless it was in the mastering phase. :shrug:

Anyway, sectoring's near done. :thumbsup: