[CF-Devel] Scripting notes/questions

[Yann Chachkoff]

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     ===== Original Message From Mark Wedel <
      
      mwedel at scruz.net
      
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      Really meant to send this to the dev list, and not the cvs list.
     
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     ----- Forwarded Message -----
     
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     From: 
      
      crossfire-cvs-admin at lists.sourceforge.net
      
      
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     To:  <
      
      crossfire-cvs at lists.sourceforge.net
      
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     Subject: RE: [Crossfire-cvs] CVS: crossfire/lib artifacts,1.34,1.35
     
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      A few questions on the scripts below (now I haven't looked at the code
     
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     a lot, so these questions may be able to get answered easily).  But just
     
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     bringing this in a more forward form may also help others develope scripts.
     
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      In the case of the weapon - it would seem that if your lucky,
     
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     it may be mulitple +10 bonuses and thus could be a very good weapon?
     
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     Now I do notice there is equal chance for the weapon to get worse - I'm
     
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     just saying theoretical here.
     
     Yes, that's 100% true. That's why it is a somewhat "chaotic" item. That is not 
really a problem - the weapon can loose bonuses very quickly, so it is 
somewhat risky to use it, even if it has got lots of +10 bonuses.

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      Also, does the actual setting function do sanity checking on values?
     
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     For example, if your weapon does dam 5, and you attack and it happens
     
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     to take the first one and does dam -5, will the code say 'negative values
     
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     for damage are not valid', or would it set the damage to -5, which
     
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     would basically ammount to healing?
     
     I didn't included such checking. That's why the weapon is "chaotic" - You can 
sometimes "heal" your opponent instead of hitting it ! Now, you can of course 
check the damage value by yourself in the script - You just need to test the 
damage value with an if statement like (if (< (get-damage weapon) 10) ...)

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     For the ring, I notce several lines like:
     
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      +                     (set-wis (who-am-I) (- (get-dex (who-am-I)) 1))
     
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      Is that intentional that it is doing a get_dex and then a set_wis on
     
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     that value (if so, why it is doing that could perhaps be explained).
     
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     That was not intentional at first. You may replace the get-dex statements by 
corresponding get-wis, get-int, ... I didn't noticed it but since it doesn't 
hurt, no one sent me a bug report about it until now...

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      Third, what I would really like to see an example of (if it doesn't exist
     
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     already) is a npc character that actually has state.
     
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     Right now, the npc's handling matches a specific message with a specific
     
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     word.  I imagine the scriptfire stuff can do that also.
     
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      But what I would like to see is something like:
     
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     npc: I have a tale to tell.  Do you want to here it?
     
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     player: yes
     
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     npc: blah blah blah.  Should I continue?
     
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     player: yes
     
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     npc: more blah blah blah
     
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      IMO, this is one of the things that is lacking in the current
     
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     message handling.  Talking with npc's can be very difficult, because
     
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     it doesn't have any state, so you need the precise keyword.  In the
     
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     above example, more complex language can also be done - maybe after
     
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     the npc says something, there are 3 followup questions the character
     
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     could ask, but if the player doesn't use any of the proper keywords,
     
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     the npc can then return with either some clue that helps the player
     
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     carry the conversation on, or continues on with a default thread and
     
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     the player misses the two other branches of the conversation unless
     
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     they return.
     
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      Also, if not already done, I think having some small number of
     
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     variables that the script can set/read which are only used for scripts
     
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     could be useful (maybe 3 ints and 3 string pointers?)  To do state
     
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     above, you need such a variable, and re-using some 'unused' variable
     
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     otherwise in the object structure seems like a bad idea from past
     
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     experience).  Perhaps in fact, all the scripting related stuff should
     
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     be in its own structure which the object structure includes (sort of
     
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     like what is done with the stats structure) - this just addes some
     
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     cleanliness and compartmentilization.  It also means that if we are
     
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     paranoid about space, that could in fact be a pointer, and only alloc
     
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     after the first referance to a script comes from the load file (since
     
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     a lot of objects probably won't contain scripts, this could add up to
     
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     some savings).
     
     Yeah, I like that idea of structures. I'll implement that now. For the 
loading/saving of states, you currently have to use the force archetype. I 
admit that it is not a clean way to do it, but I didn't included local vars 
until now to limit memory consumption (I'll not tell you who said me that it 
would consume too much memory - I didn't wanted to polemicate about this).

Another addition I am currently testing: Implementing spells with scripts 
(using cast metamagical of xxx, where xxx is a name identifying the script 
executed).

Chachkoff Y.

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