Xoid

A highly unintelligent thing to say, '1337 h4x0r'. If you tacked onto the end of your post something like: "But apart from it being illegal, if Spiderweb doesn't make any money, you won't see another Avernum. Period.", it might not have seemed like you were advocating software piracy. As your post stands now, however, is another story.

Please refrain from double posting, triple posting too, for what it's worth.

I've often gotten CPU usage at around 97-99% when using any Spiderweb game that came after Avernum 2, including the A4 demo I fleeting tried out. I'll use an example where I can actually remember the details: Blades of Avernum slowed down to less than snail's pace when an NPC was trying to return to their starting position and couldn't. CPU load went from almost nothing (20~%) to almost everything (97-99%). Regardless of whether this is an issue with Jeff's code, or the OS itself, It would be nice if he done a little experimenting and tried to find a work-around of some sort. Personally, seeing some of his source from the BoA Editor, I'd be inclined to say that it is an issue with Jeff's code in general. While it might work fine in most circumstances, truly well written code can almost always compensate for an OS's deficiencies.

Quote: Originally written by Thuryl: I don't know where you got the impression that PCX is the native format for Macs. The native metafile format for Macs pre-OS X is PICT, and post-OS X is PDF. Neither is a particularly great choice for putting images on the web. Oops... that is what happens when I write something late at night and only give it a once over. I'll be correcting it to read *.pict by the time you read this. What's this about *.pdf being the post-OS X metafile format? That is a format intended for cross-platform documents, not mere images. Doesn't OS X have any adopted/native image format? Quote: Originally written by When in the course of Nathan Ashby: Also, gif is apparently a proprietary, patented format that png (as an open-source format) is supposed to replace. However, when I looked it up on Wikipedia just now, I read that the gif patent expires on August 11 this year. About the *.gif format being patented: it is the compression algorithm that is the source of all legal troubles with that dinosaur. This site has an excellent overview of the whole debacle that is the *.gif format.

I feel like Johnny-come-lately, but I'll point a few things out while they're still somewhat relevant: @ Niemand: you might like to provide a *.zip of the source if you wouldn't mind seeing someone port your utilities. Alternatively you could just use *.zip format - it shouldn't be too hard for Mac Users to find a program for openning a *.zip. That may sound a little selfish of me, but most programs I've seen that can open a *.zip are a <1Mb download. Most programs I've seen that can open a *.sit are a >10Mb download. I'd prefer not downloading the bloated monstrosity that is Stuffit or its competitors if at all possible. @ Webmasters: when making a web page, please be conscientious of modem users by using the 'right' image format for each particular image. An incomplete list of common image formats & some basic Info on them: *.bmp - Windows's native format, it's inefficient but can have high levels of detail. *.pict - Macintosh's former native format, it's inefficient but can have high levels of detail. *.jpg - Lossy compression format, often causes image quality to drop significantly when used on images with large areas of the exact same colour. Use *.jpg's for pictures with many different colours. *.png - A format with support for transparency and excellent compression for images with large areas of the exact same colour. *.gif - A format with support for transparency and animation. Limited to 8 bit colour.

@Thralni (Or anyone else interested in another way of achieving the same thing): If for some reason you absolutely do not want to use hidden groups, you could always use this instead: Code: place_monster((userx - 1),(usery - 2),16,0);n = char_on_spot(userx - 1,usery - 2);put_boom_on_char(n,5,0);set_attitude(n,3);run_animation_sound(61); Ideally, you would check to make sure that "userx - 1,usery - 2" is empty first. I'll leave that as an exercise for other people to play with. 'Cause I couldn't be bothered right now.

Considering the fact that I've rewritten the door.txt repeatedly, noticed BASE_TRAP_XP and couldn't find its documentation at the time, I really should have brought it up. Sorry about my lack of vigilance.

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: To reinforce this: I have never written a town script (or a creature script or anything else) from scratch. I always copy from Jeff's code and then delete what I don't wont. With other games I write pretty much everything from scratch - I don't care if I'm reinventing the wheel if I can do it better. (I'm not stupid: if someone does write code that is functionally equivalent or close to what I've already got, I'll use it.) I have written a couple of scripts from scratch, but I rarely do it anymore. I've written about a half dozen mostly from scratch. I only do either of the former when it's easier to write from scratch than to adapt someone else's work. Quote: Originally written by Not Why: The docs are just there to make you suffer. Ripping off someone else's code is much easier and less buggy. Frankly, someone with serious knowledge of Avernumscript and plenty of time needs to rewrite the documentation. It's not like Jeff is going to actually proof read the documentation he wrote.

This is a bug that I experienced more often that I would have liked. It had to do with using the boat at Dhonal's Keep that goes to the first island. For some reason or another, (after doing something stupid, usually) I'd load the autosave (it autosaves when you use the boat) and start travelling around Dhonal's Island. I would get the map for Greenwood Isle. The same thing happens if you load the autosave for travelling from any of the boats, and then leave the zone via land. You can work around it by avoiding the autosave slot if you see a boat in the picture OR click where the zone's icon would be. The second method is a pain in the arse.

It has been a couple of months since I even looked at a Geneforge game, so I can't remember everything off the top of my head. But, for what it's worth... It's all a balancing act really. For a Agent or Shaper, you'd want something different. I have the impression you are using a guardian though. There is a late to really-late game puresteel weapon that hits harder than the guardian claymore or a puresteel blade. Has some sort of stat boosting effect as well. I can't remember what its name was. IIRC, you can only get it as a Taker, and you have to get stat drained by the creation that gives it to you. I agree with Dikiyoba on the pure damage output - I always had slightly higher damage output from the puresteel blade. But (my recollection is not perfect here) if the guardian claymore adds strength to your creations as well, and you actually have a powerful creation, then the claymore's stat boosts pay off.

After a heavily extended gaming spree that consisted of six FPSs, four RPGs and two RTS games... I'm back. Sorry, but I felt that 12 games to completion (playing every class, side and strategy - at maximum difficulty) in three weeks earns me bragging rights. It also proves that I have no life. One thing I could never in school was meet a deadline. It appears I still can't. I'm starting work again on this project. ETA for v1.0.2 is TBD. Ugh... too many acronyms. As for the moment, I'm off for a sugar-fix. I'm sure my pixie sticks are somewhere around here...

I use MSPaint for the fine details, and Irfanview for resampling, format conversion, editing the palette, etc. For freeware that is under a meg, Irfanview ain't bad by any stretch of the imagination.

Because Jeff uses a Mac. And whilst more people worldwide use Windows instead of Mac, most of Spiderweb's dedicated fanbase comes from the Macintosh community.

Finalising documentation, fixing up an errant script or two, and v1.0.2 will be ready. Not a whole lot of changes. More details may be supplied if pressed for them. Otherwise, I'll be playing Deus Ex for a week or so. Which basically translates to: I'm delaying the release just to spite you. Or I'm lazy. Take your pick.

Sensical, i.e, making sense.

Quote: Originally written by MagmaDragoon: And I never bring them with me! Usually I release all the equipment in a chest. I never sell something that can be used (in fact, I have 230 Steel Javelins and 120 thorns; never used, and all the potions, the spores, the... in fact -again- I never use all kind of equipment: I'm fool, true?) I call it packratter's syndrome. I suffer from it too, I had a complete collection of a full suit of every armour type, weapon, artifact, clothing, and ingredient in Morrowind. Needed a house mod to store all that crap. The layout was similar to Hawke's Manse IIRC. Hmmm.

Yup.

Late again. And Khoth said it better too.

"Sacrifice" should've been "sacrifices", "writed" should've been "write", "do" should've been "does" but you were mostly correct. 150 Living tools? How the... what the... bah, I'll just say I'm flabbergasted and leave it at that. Fourth edit in under four minutes. I need a hobby.

Quote: Originally written by Thralni, chicken god prophet: ...I saw this expression in the docs: % ...what exactly does it do? That is the modulo. You use it when you want to divide something and get the remainder. Quote: Originally written by Thralni, chicken god prophet: ...when I divide, does the program automatically round off...? Yes, division in Avernumscript automatically rounds things off. Quote: Originally written by Thralni, chicken god prophet: You see, the main thing is, I think, that when I use ticks, the number is almost always far to big for the SDF. I'm trying to find a way to reduce the amount of ticks, without recking the whole scenario, but that it does fit in the SDF. If there are any suggestion, please! I';m running low on energy. You can try using multiple SDFs, use one to store thousands, one to store hundreds, etc. You would need to use both the / and the % operators to prevent losing ticks. It would be a cumbersome method, but would be less of a kludge than the other idea I had - don't ask about it, I've actually already forgotten it. Quote: Originally written by Thralni, chicken god prophet: ...How about longs? Are you mad? It's summer! Oh, wait, you're one of them northern hemisphere types, ain't ya?

In the C/C++ programming language there are differences between a short integer and a long integer. In Avernumscript there are no long integers. The keywords "int" and "short" are synonymous, but "int" is two characters shorter. If you are die hard on trying to reduce a script's file size, decalare number variables as ints rather than shorts. Shorts are also something you can wear. For more information, see verse 3 of revelations, or consult your dentist.

Items have a description. Read the description. If it says "When worn, you have a 4% attack penalty in combat." then wearing it will make you encumbered. The same goes for anything with an attack penalty greater than 4%. If you wearing any armour, helmet, golden pantaloons, etc, that would encumber a character with the minimum possible stats, you will be unable to cast a spell more powerful than slow without having the Natural Mage character trait. Encumbrance also affects the number of action points you get. I'm fairly certain that the attack penalty (and the action point penalty if you are encumbered enough) can be reduced with the right skills. A mage without the Natural Mage character trait will still be unable to cast anything more powerful than slow, regardless.

If you are asking about what number a SDF is referenced by: you can have SDFs ranging from 0,0 to 299,29. If you are asking what is the largest number that can be stored? Then I'm not sure. It would most likely be a byte (0-255), a short integer (0-65535), or a long integer (0-4294967295). (The numbers used in ranges are assuming they are unsigned, of course.) I would say that anything under 100 would be a safe bet though.

Quote: Originally written by Thralni, chicken god prophet: aha, okay, thanks. I'll try it. jesus bok, these command lines are really complicated. I guess that when you work mwith them for quite some time, you et to understand them, just like Avernumscript. They're not complicated really. They're just not visual. But not every one is good at working with slabs of text. I always thought that there were multiple types of intelligences; mathematical/logical, audio/visual, sort of like that. I remember reading about it somewhere too... Quote: Originally written by Khoth: About spaces in filenames - I can't test it in Windows, so would you mind letting me know whether it works if you put the paths in quotes? I thought I was clear on that, but re-reading my post it's obvious I wasn't. Sorry. To answer your question: adding quotes does not help. Tested with cmd.exe - the command prompt from the start menu. Alint does not support spaces in paths. I also tested with ye olde command.com - neither command.com or Alint supports spaces in paths. Fourty Ninth Edit: Corrected a misattribution. Argh. I should re-read everything I've posted, I've probably unintentionally insinuated that the moderators wear dresses or something.

[sarcasm] Ah, how quaint. We have children of the GUI era on the boards. Isn't that positively delightful? [/sarcasm] A "how to" on using the command line variant of Alint under Windows XP: Note 1: The process is extremely similar no matter what variant of Windows you are using. Note 2: You can run the *.exe from wherever you extracted it, just expect to type giant amounts of text. You should extract Alint to BoA's data folder - it will shorten the amount you have to type. Note 3: Alint does not understand path names with spaces in them. To get around this limitation, take the directory's name (e.g. "My Documents") and type in the first six letters, a tilde and a 1. (e.g. "MyDocu~1"). In most cases this will work. On rare occasions (like when you have directories with similar names and have been deleting and/or reorganising them), replace the 1 with another number. You will have have to guess what number the directory has. Extract alint to a folder of your choosing. Find out where your scenario is located. Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt Type in the following, replacing %path_to_alint% with wherever you extracted Alint to. Then press enter. Code: CD\%path_to_alint% - OR - CD %path_to_alint% Note: With "CD ", %path to alint% is the path to alint from whatever directory the command prompt is already in. With "CD\", %path to alint% is the full path to alint. Type in the following, replacing %scenario_path% with wherever your scenario is located, and replacing %script_name% with whatever your script is named. You may opt to use "*" - the wildcard, which will match anything. Then press enter. Code: alint %scenario_path%\%script_name%.txt Example 1 Code: cd\docume~1\clint\mydocu~1\mydown~1\alint(~1alint E:\progra~1\spider~2\avernu~1\blades~1\data\A2Temp\guard.txt Example 2 Code: cd mydocu~1\mydown~1\alint(~1alint E:\progra~1\spider~2\avernu~1\blades~1\data\A2Temp\*.txt Example 3 Code: cd mydocu~1\mydown~1\alint(~1alint E:\progra~1\spider~2\avernu~1\blades~1\blades~1\asmall\*.* Edit: Made it a bit purtier. Not by much y'all understan'? Uh... What I meant to write was: If you see an ampersand followed by nbsp; anywhere - then your browser sucks.