Castle Paradox

Master K · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:03 am Post subject: Party Plight

So, heres my problem.

I'm going to have an optional hero available. This hero has no significance to the story, except for battling. This hero is not human, more or less a pet. I don't want him to be able to be put anywhere but the fourth slot, that way slots 3 and up can be used for talking heroes. I don't want this pet to be able to be in slots 2, 3 or be leader.

Its really tough and confusing for me, but I do want it in my game. How could I switch it out in significant plot places, but yet have the choice to add him to battle for a boss battle, then have him taken out after battle and replaced with a plot significant hero?

mswguest · Guest

In custom, under Edit General Game Data, Preference Bitsets, there is a bitset you want: "Locked Heroes Can't Be Reordered". Then whenever the 'pet' is in the party, lock it. This will take care of any places where the 'pet' is handled by scripts (plot points).

On the other hand, if you want the player to have the option to put the pet in the party, but ONLY in the 4th slot (don't forget this is slot 3, since slot 0 is the leader's slot), then we will have to get clever. I'm envisioning something along the following lines:

*The normal party menu is not used for the 'pet', ever
*Thus, the pet is always locked
*A separate menu entry (this will require customizing the main menu) allows the player to 'activate/deactivate' the pet
*If the pet is currently in the party, this new menu entry simply removes it
*If the pet is not currently in the party, this new menu entry asks the player which hero he would like to remove to allow the pet in, and leads to a script that:
1)checks to make sure that the player is not trying to swap out a truly locked hero
2)swaps the pet and the hero chosen by the player to be swapped out
3)swaps the pet and whatever hero is in the 4th slot

There may be more to this that I'm not thinking of at the moment, but that would be the gist of it. Does this sound like what you want? If so, we can help you accomplish it.

If this seems overly complicated, there is a less polished alternative. You could simply have a script that runs any time the menu closes, checks to see if the pet is in the party, and if so swaps it into the 4th slot. The thing about this is that the player will be able to freely move the pet wherever he likes without knowing that it will be swapped to the 4th slot; also, it may be confusing to the player if the silent swap changes the order of his other characters (although we can probably think of a way to avoid that, if we're clever).

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:52 pm Post subject:

Msw's suggestions are good.
To avoid confusion, remember that the slots are numbered like this:

0
1
2
3

Master K · Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:40 pm Post subject:

Ah, so the pet gets put into the third slot, and then locked. That way, heroes can be reordered, but not into the third slot. Perfect.

mswguest · Guest

Okay, here we go:

step 1 - write, compile, and import the script "Add or Remove Pet", described below
step 2 - new menu item on main menu, named "Add/Remove Pet" or something similar
step 3 - have this new "Add/Remove Pet" menu item set to call the script "Add or Remove Pet", and also close the menu when selected (I think)

Here's the script, with some comments to help understand what's going on:

TMC · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 8:38 pm Post subject:

There's no command to check whether a hero is locked. That ought to be added.

The last part of that script should read:

mswguest · Guest

Just out of curiosity, can you explain to me why you changed the swapping at the end of the script? I don't understand why my way would ever fail.

TMC · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 5:55 am Post subject:

After the first swap the PET slot contains the hero that you're trying to swap out. So the second swap swaps it back in, in slot 3.
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mswguest · Guest

Right, PET hold the pet's original spot and doesn't get updated after the first swap. I'm an idiot.

Master K · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 8:55 pm Post subject:

Tested the original pet script. It seemed to work...but, I would rather it swap out hero 3 automatically. I tested it with just the pet and a hero, and if theres only one party member, you have to pick the other. Glitchy!

Also, when adding the pet for the first time, how shall I make sure it goes to the fourth slot and stays there?

And, for important plot parts, how would I switch out heroes for plot relevant heroes, like in VoM?

Finally, How would I bring up the team menu at plot relevant points, and make sure when the hero uses one menu, the plot doesn't continue until all menu functions are done? For example, the team screen is two options. One is the actuall team screen, the other activates the pet. How would I resolve that plight?

mswguest · Guest

Another quick reply.

You should use TMC's version of the script; he had already noticed possible bugs with mine, AND he takes care of your cases with less than a full party by skipping the "pick hero" part if there's already room in the party.

When adding the pet for the first time, simply:

mswguest · Guest

As for your final question, you do have access to the command "wait for menu (menu handle)", that works like so: