XML questions and answers

[Cinth]

Q: Anyone have a good method to combine all of the xml docs into a single searchable offline document that is easily updated?
Q: Are death animations changeable?
Q: Should a modding forum be established?

No.
Should be, but going by the Wiki, it would be a pain in the ...
I already emailed Chris about a modding subforum. 

[Misery]

The wiki is a hideous exploded mess;  I know I wouldnt want to try to put that thing together.

[Cinth]

It's not helpful at all.  I'm having better luck using existing stuff as templates to modify.

Still a royal pain trying to find everything you need to adjust for systems.

[ptarth]

Q: Method for system to have a chance to fire?
Q: Method to move system to location in room? Right now the best idea I have is to create an invisible invulnerable entity to move to a location given a bullet pattern, but I don't have example code for it...
Q: Apply gravity effect to an entity?

[Cinth]

Q: Method for system to have a chance to fire?

A: Use two bullet patterns. One is the real deal.  The other spawns an invisible shot that just fizzles.  Chance to fire = 1 real / # fakes

special_bullet_patterns="Realdealpattern, Junkpattern,Junkpattern"


Did I do good?

[ptarth]

That works for shots, but not for systems that act on events. In this case I want to have a chance to summon another guy on death.

[Cinth]

on_death_transforms_into  using the same principal  as the bullet patterns?


Gravity stuff:

Spoiler for Hiden:

gravity_pull_per_second, gravity_falloff_per_unit_distance (both floats, optional)

    so if you had values of 100 and 0.2, then it would exert a pull on something up to 500 units away, where that pull is 20 at 400 distance, 40 at 300, 60 at 200, 80 at 100, etc

gravity_affects_shots, gravity_affects_ships , shot_gravity_affects_friendlies (all bools, optional)

    you need to set either shots or ships for it to do anything; always affects enemies, but only friendlies if you set that flag

gravity_has_repelling_effect (bool, optional)

    makes the entity's gravity pull do a repulsion instea

[keith.lamothe]

That works for shots, but not for systems that act on events. In this case I want to have a chance to summon another guy on death.

give the entity a system with:
- only_fires_on_death=true
- effect
-- timing=OnUse
-- type=SpawnEnemy
-- chance_out_of_100_to_happen=(whatever)

[Misery]

You can give systems a random chance of activating?

....huh.

[keith.lamothe]

You can give systems a random chance of activating?

....huh.

You can give the individual effect nodes a random chance of doing something. Which isn't quite the same thing. But still useful.

[ptarth]

gravity_affects_ships ... of course. Thanks. It is possible that I was having too many overlaping gravity effects and that was affecting things. It would be nice to have a nonlinear gravity function, but this works.
effects ... these guys give me a bit of a headache honestly. Using them to add and remove systems from other entities to create timing events... Or using it to add a weapon system to another entity (or to take that weapon away).

Thank you, Misery, Keith, and Cinth (reverse alphabetic order, no favoritism implied)

Mechanics have been added to the Invader Boss, I'm not good enough to test Misery mode balance.
New miniboss/boss is about half done. I really like him/her/it. I was trying to make a miniboss, but my playtester informed me I was making a boss.
Control over image rotation of a shot rotating around a pivot point is proving awkward. I finally got shot_is_not_stopped_by_hitting="true" to make the shots no collide, I'm not sure what the other tags like Self_NotDestroyedOnCollisionWithShip do then.

[Cinth]

All I did was use a spaghetti test using stuff from the wiki    I have no idea what I'm doing   

[Dominus Arbitrationis]

I already emailed Chris about a modding subforum. 

I went ahead and made it since the game does have an emphasis on the whole modability thing.

[Cinth]

I already emailed Chris about a modding subforum. 

I went ahead and made it since the game does have an emphasis on the whole modability thing.

  Chris will probably see my mail in a few weeks, once he gets time to sift through his inbox.

[ptarth]

Controlling Enemy Movement
This is one of the things that we've all wanted to use (precise boss movement controls), but no one has gotten to work quite right yet.

The only code I've seen is from Dayton.

Code: [Select]

  <system name="MagneticPersonalitySystem"
          category="DirectUseSystem"
          firing_timing="Never"
          image_name="Invisible"
          display_name="Magnetic Personality" description="Nothing will be barred from you."
          >
    <effect timing="OnRoomSwitch" targeting="AllAutoPickups" type="StartMovementDrivingPattern" related_pattern="MagneticPattern"/>
    <effect timing="OnRoomSwitch" targeting="AllAutoPickups" type="CopyModifiersToWorldToAffect">
      <modifier type="IgnoresCollisionWithNonWallTerrain"/>
      <modifier type="IgnoresCollisionWithWallTerrain"/>
    </effect>
  </system>


  <bullet_pattern name="MagneticPattern">
    <bullet speed="100" angle="0" shot_type="Invisible" never_collides_with_terrain="true">
      <loop iterations="-1">
        <wait time="0.01" />
        <change relative="ToPlayer" angle="0" speed="100" time="0.0001"/>
      </loop>
    </bullet>
  </bullet_pattern>
 
I've tried many things to get it to work, but I haven't managed yet. Here is my latest failure.

Code: [Select]

  <system name="BossTrainSystem"
category="DirectUseSystem"
fire_rate="1"
firing_timing="AllTheTime"
image_name="MolarBlue"
special_bullet_patterns="BossTrainPattern"
>
<effect timing="OnUse" targetting="Self" type="StartMovementDrivingPattern" related_pattern="BossTrainPattern"/>
  </system>

    <bullet_pattern name="BossTrainPattern">
<bullet speed="200" angle="180" shot_type="HexishellEmblazonedYellow" relative="true">
    <loop iterations="-1">
<change angle="90" speed="100" time="0.5"/>
<wait time="1" />
</loop>
</bullet>
  </bullet_pattern>

Ideas? Answers?