Bt Builder

[sombunall]

Is anybody else here starved for btbuilder content?

[dulsi]

BTBuilder is your baby, Dulsi. If you want to follow the BTCS ordering, it will only take a few seconds to rename them. Some will be missing, though, but I can fill the empty holes later. Just tell me what you want and I'll update the sounds folder on my shared DIR accordingly.

I like to keep BTCS's ordering. If you get me an updated sound folder I'll see about getting a new version out. Hopefully with apport arcane. With luck sombunall will like the update.

[Methuselas]

BTBuilder is your baby, Dulsi. If you want to follow the BTCS ordering, it will only take a few seconds to rename them. Some will be missing, though, but I can fill the empty holes later. Just tell me what you want and I'll update the sounds folder on my shared DIR accordingly.

I like to keep BTCS's ordering. If you get me an updated sound folder I'll see about getting a new version out. Hopefully with apport arcane. With luck sombunall will like the update.

Okay. I'll have them updated, by the end of the day. I do hope you'll have some goodies for me, as well. ;P


Oh, one more thing. Do you want to use the new renders I did, to begin replacing the original 48 slots? If so, I'll add a 320 DIR to my shared folder, so you can add them, as well.

[dulsi]

Okay. I'll have them updated, by the end of the day. I do hope you'll have some goodies for me, as well. ;P

I've been debating your skill check request. I could easily put in a skill check where anyone passing is success. I'm just not sure that is a good option. I suppose it might work for something like a spot check. I've been debating putting in a select person command. At which point you could have "selected person make skill check" command.

Oh, one more thing. Do you want to use the new renders I did, to begin replacing the original 48 slots? If so, I'll add a 320 DIR to my shared folder, so you can add them, as well.

I'm not supporting your _<qualifier> yet but I fine with the others.

[Methuselas]

Sounds are updated. Pictures will have to wait.

[Methuselas]

I've been debating your skill check request. I could easily put in a skill check where anyone passing is success. I'm just not sure that is a good option. I suppose it might work for something like a spot check. I've been debating putting in a select person command. At which point you could have "selected person make skill check" command.

On the subject of this, would it actually specify which character achieved a success? As it stands, if it did, this would work for me in the interim. I just wanted to be able to create a Scouting skill, that I could use to "hide" specials that could only be located, if you got a successful skill check. So, if you had 3 characters with Scouting and Dulsi succeeded, would the engine say:

"Dulsi has detected something unusual."

Then, since the check was successful, I could add a "Do you wish to search?" conditional and proceed from there.

[dulsi]

BTBuilder doesn't recognize Skills that have a rank of 0. It crashes the Engine. So, I need that, as well.

Hmm... Is that currently a problem? I tested it and wasn't able to make it crash. If you set the skill to rank 0 and don't have an improve or purchase, it will remove the skill (so you can make a chronomancer that loses all previous spells). Skill ranks of 0 with an improve increase as expected in my build. I don't think these features are that new.

Oh, Dulsi, is there ANY, possible way we can have the item types saved out in a file called "itemtypes.xml" or something, so we can just make the additional types we need? I really want to get away from the "hand weapon only" problem. It just seems to me that if the default items followed the same numbering scheme, we could strip them from being hard coded and have them read from an external file, that would allow us to create the items we need.

"hand weapon only" problem?

[caars]

Is anybody else here starved for btbuilder content?

Contrary to what it may look like, I haven't vanished off the face of the Earth.

It's been a very hectic semester, but I hope to have a reasonably robust scenario ready be early summer. Nothing spectacular but hopefully fun to play and something I can expand on later.

By way of explanation, I'm actually working on two scenarios. One is shorter and simpler and more akin to "D&D using the BTCS engine" (so to speak) - I haven't gotten overly fancy with the scripts. The second one is much larger and more ambitious, and intended to be much more like the classic BT games. That's the one where I've really got some pretty complex scripts.

In both cases I think one of the major sources of delay is my insistence that I cram into each dungeon level everything I intend to be there. I've decided to move away from that - get the basic plot elements in place (along with, obviously, monsters and treasure) so there is something to play, and then go in later and put all the special "tweaks" that are intended to make the dungeon levels more engaging (i.e. "flavor" encounters and the like).

For the time being I'm mostly focused on the "simpler" of the two scenarios; I've really come to the conclusion that to really get anywhere is the second, more complex one I'm going to need for the editor to remember previous lines of code and what the variables were set to (so that rather than clicking on a command in the editor and having to basically enter in everything from scratch - including the command itself, I can click on a command and "tweak" its values from, say, the previous dungeon - e.g. "Oh okay, in the previous dungeon level this chest gave our a Mthr Sword with a blades trap that did 12 points of damage and no special. In this level I'm going to make it give out an Admt Sword with a gas cloud that does 20 damage and poisons the party"). The reason for this is that the editor doesn't usually "wrap" commands, so in a lot of cases the part of the command that is off the edge of the editor window I can't see at all, so I have no idea what I programmed into the special (which, of course, makes it hard to have any kind of continuity between dungeon levels - I have no idea if I'm making what the special gives or does incrementally better than in the previous level, the same, a whole lot better or worse, etc.).

I think dulsi mentioned that at least some of that functionality will be in the next released build of BT builder, so I'm waiting for that for my more complex scenario.

But generally the specials in the "simple" scenario are short and simple enough that I can see most of the values in the commands in the special, which makes it much easier to work on that one right now.

So, anyway, that's what I'm up to! I'm still here! I promise!

[Methuselas]

Hmm... Is that currently a problem? I tested it and wasn't able to make it crash. If you set the skill to rank 0 and don't have an improve or purchase, it will remove the skill (so you can make a chronomancer that loses all previous spells). Skill ranks of 0 with an improve increase as expected in my build. I don't think these features are that new.

In my testing, if you have a Job that has ALL skills set to 0, it crashes the Engine. If a Skill has a rank of 0, with an improved increase/purchase, the Review Board will only increase jobs that already have a rank of 1, due to how the Review Board.xml is. It won't allow you to purchase a skill at a rank of 1.

"hand weapon only" problem?

Yeah, I want to be able to define items. So, instead of hand weapon, you have Axe, Dagger, Sword. Instead of Bow/Arrow, you can have Crossbow/Bolt or Sling/Stone. Basically all the original BTCS items are defined, as they are currently, in an xml, instead of hard-coded. Then, we can add additional items after those, that we've defined.

[dulsi]

In my testing, if you have a Job that has ALL skills set to 0, it crashes the Engine. If a Skill has a rank of 0, with an improved increase/purchase, the Review Board will only increase jobs that already have a rank of 1, due to how the Review Board.xml is. It won't allow you to purchase a skill at a rank of 1.

In my testing it worked fine. If you can create a file that crashes btbuilder, send it over to me.

Yeah, I want to be able to define items. So, instead of hand weapon, you have Axe, Dagger, Sword. Instead of Bow/Arrow, you can have Crossbow/Bolt or Sling/Stone. Basically all the original BTCS items are defined, as they are currently, in an xml, instead of hard-coded. Then, we can add additional items after those, that we've defined.

Ok. That involves a little more work. Right now when you equip a hand weapon, it unequips any other hand weapon you have equipped. If you separate them to Axe, Dagger, etc. it needs to know that they are all hand weapons. I do want to add support for that. That way you can find a sword and need to get it identified.

I've put out a new release. Unfortunately I wasn't able to throw in a skill check conditional. Since caars is waiting for a new release I decided to not wait. In my haste I also forgot to mention the teleport spell in the release notes. I also never got back to fixing the teleport screen to display zero for the starting values nor prevent it from being cast in combat.

Save and attack rate bonus spells support not stacking bonuses. Caster only area effect added. Add tags to monsters and allow attack spells to only effect some types. Add line wrapping to specials and remember previous values when editing an existing command. Map editor has a coordinate system on the screen (max of 99 displayed). Add some sounds for the play sound special. Allow selecting a map location from through the user interface.

[caars]

Just got 5.1 downloaded and took it for a spin.

Spells that are supposed to be caster-only changed to caster-only? Check.

Tagged all of my undead and undead and demons as demons. Make HOWA only affect undead. And DMBA and DMST only affect demons. Check.

(Heck, now that I'm thinking about it, I could probably even flag spellcasters and such and create something resembling mage malestrom...)

Playing around also made me think of something that I hope would be a very minor, easy addition - we've got basic monster tags and the ability to have an attack spell only affect things with a particular tag. Would it be hard to also add a separate "doesn't effect" parameter that, if set, causes the spell to affect everything *but* something with this tag? (For example, I could use that to make it so that STTO can't affect things made of rock, and can flag monsters as "ice", "fire", "electrical" and so forth, and make it so that certain spells logically can't hurt them...)

APAR is now a teleport spell. Check.

And best of all I can now see what all of my over-complicated scripts are actually doing - and can tweak them to match new dungeon levels very easily. I can see what exactly my chests are giving out, what traps are on them, what my freestanding traps actually do!

Kudos and thanks dulsi! Huge QOL update for the editor for me!

[sombunall]

I was reading all the updates on btbuilder and I was like he did that?... he did that?!He did that?!?! Oh my god! LOL. We got just about everything we asked for.

I could use that to make it so that STTO can't affect things made of rock, and can flag monsters as "ice", "fire", "electrical" and so forth, and make it so that certain spells logically can't hurt them...)

That would actually make it more like Runesword 2 where you had a rock paper scissors thing for weapons and spells. It was a percentage but I think just yes or no might be good enough. That was a great feature of that game and I miss it. I would love this feature too.

Now I have to try not to get too obsessed... I wonder when I'll find time to check out all this treasure.

THANKS DULSI!

[dulsi]

I was reading all the updates on btbuilder and I was like he did that?... he did that?!He did that?!?! Oh my god! LOL. We got just about everything we asked for.

That was the point. You guys are making games. I want to do what I can to support that. (I feel bad that I couldn't get some changes Methuselas requested in.)

I could use that to make it so that STTO can't affect things made of rock, and can flag monsters as "ice", "fire", "electrical" and so forth, and make it so that certain spells logically can't hurt them...)

I've been thinking I might implement that with exclamation point. If you have all monsters tagged "ice", you could create a spell that affects "!ice". I haven't implemented that yet. (I suggest not using exclamation point in monster tags since those work if I add special processing to the exclamation point.) Would that work for you?

[caars]

I had time to think about it, and although "Doesn't Effect" functionality for spells would certainly make things easier, it is very possible to replicate the effect just using the current tag system in part because you can give monsters as many tags as you like:

In practice, I'd use "codes" to keep things from getting really tedious:

A = Vulnerable to fire
B = Vulnerable to cold
C = Vulnerable to electricity
D = Made from flesh (can be turned to stone)
E = Living (can be killed by death magic)

etc...

Generally a "normal" living flesh and blood monster would be given all of those tags.

Something immune to fire (like a fire giant) would be missing tag A.

Something that couldn't be turned to stone (i.e. golem) would be missing tag D.

And all fire spells (like DRBR) would only affect things with the A tag. STTO would only affect things with the D tag. DEST only things with E, and so on.

[sombunall]

Would that work for you?

Yes, that way we can educate people about programming when they ask what an exclamation point means when it comes in front of a word.