DF-21 Forums

[Patrick Haslow]

This is in response to something Matt H asked me a while ago.

In the original game, Kyle's gear is removed by the JABSHIP level (something probably hardcoded in DF). In that level, retrieving the object with LOGIC: GEAR, gives him back all of the stuff he spent the rest of the play session acquiring. We were wondering if there was a time limit, if the player had to retrieve the GEAR within the JABSHIP level, or if it carried on limitless through other levels. The answer is this: Kyle can lose his gear when any JABSHIP named level is started, and he it can be withheld until after several levels later if necessary, when he can retrieve a placed "GEAR" object.

Just something I was curious about, as it was never used in that alternate way until The Dark Tide III.

[Geoffrey S]

That's right. I'm using that trick at the moment to withhold Kyle's pistol from the player in my levels, since it's damage and rate of fire don't suit the mission.

[The MAZZTer]

I've never seen it used that way.. best thing would be to whip up a test set of levels.

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[Geoffrey S]

Before I forget, always remember that the gear item works differently on the Mac and PC. On the PC, the gear from earlier missions (before jabship) merges with what you've collected since you lost your gear, but on the Mac it replaces it; this means that if for instance you need a key to get into a room with the gear and you pick up the gear, your inventory will be replaced and you'll no longer have the key to get back out of the room. Something like this happened in Boba Fett's Revenge, I think.

[Patrick Haslow]

Hmm. That's good to know. Luckily, that won't be a problem with my particular level design.

[Lionel Fouillen]

[Patrick Haslow]

Okay, it appears I was wrong about how the GEAR logic works. If the player retrieves it after JABSHIP.LEV, then the previously acquired gear is gone and grabbing the object does absolutely nothing. Boo hoo!

[Patrick Haslow]

I am such a doofus. I just remembered that the logic is actually "PILE".

[Fenwar]

Those crazy game developers and their rhyming gags eh.

So it does work after all then?

[Patrick Haslow]

Whoops. I forgot to clarify. No, it doesn't work either way. I just figured out a trick to roughly simulate Kyle getting his gear back. Stack a bunch of the pile fmes in the same spot, giving different item logics to each one. They all get added to inventory at exactly the same time, but the message, "YOUR GEAR" never appears.

[Tom Manning]

Couldn't you place something in that group of items that kyle only gets one time in the level, ex. a thermal detonator, and change the text file for that item to read "YOUR GEAR" and make that the highest priority message of the group of items so that that message is the one to appear?

_________________
Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King

[Patrick Haslow]

I think Matt and I discussed that. But how to set the priority?

[Barry Brien]

The higher the listing in text.msg then the higher priority. You'll notice that text.msg is divided into different lists. The first one being something similar to this:

100: headlight on
101: headwave on
102: etc...

Messages such as 'headlight on' appear in the first list. These kind of messages automatically overwrite any other messages that text.msg may be displaying. For example of you have a text trigger displaying message 600, then if you turn on your headlight, your message will be replaced with 'headlight on'.
The way to give priority to messages is to add them to the first list in text.msg

[Tom Manning]

I thought there was a 1-10 or 1-9 scale somewhere in the labeling that determines which is a higher priority. I just can't remember if one is more important that 9 or the other way around.

_________________
Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King

[The MAZZTer]

I think lower numbers are higher priority.

I guess then that order in the text file is a secondary priority indicator? (I always wondered what happened when two messages had the same numeric priority)

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