Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 32

Help with Directives

Hi

Working on mission 2...The mission is basiclly done. The problem is, the directive sexp's are wrong. First of all i see all the directives at the begining, which spoils the mission. Are the directives suppose to follow the events? or can they be added at the end after all the events have been coded?

Why are all of them shown at once?
And why some of them dont blink off once the event is done?

Flounder

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Vancouver, WA, United States
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Have you taken a look at the Extended Walkthrough for FRED2? Yeah, I know it's for FreeSpace 2 and not TBP, but it's still useful.

If you want a directive to appear in the Directives Box after an event, chain it after that event.

Events that are ship specific will usually not appear until after that ship has entered the mission. If you have something like "Destroy Pisces" as a directive that is visible at the beginning of the mission when Pisces hasn't came in yet, then you probably didn't code the event correctly.

If they Directives don't show that they've been completed or failed at the end of the mission, and you think they should be, then something probably got b0rk3d here too. Directives show as completed (blue) when the first argument of the "when" SEXP in that event returns as true.

For example:

<Event Name>
when
is-destroyed-delay
0
Arianya's Fire
do-nothing

This event would become true when the first argument of the conditional "when" has been fulfilled. In this case, it is when the ship Arianya's Fire has been eliminated. If that ship was able to jump out of the mission before being neutralized, this directive would turn up red in the box.

As for chained directives, they can be used to tell the player to do something after a ship or other objective(s) have entered the mission instead of appearing in the Directives Box immediately after they warp in. Good for providing precise instructions or providing a more interactive mission.

Last edited by Slasher on 02-24-2002 at 08:50 PM

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Registered: Jan 2001
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...oh yeah...and...head over to the VBB and read this tip of the week thread, if it is still avaible...you can learn a lot of things over there.

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Registered: Jul 2000
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Yeah, it and the walkthrough should be required reading.

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Registered: Jan 2001
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Also examine [V]'s missions...

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HAMLET RULEZ!!

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Command deck of EAS Janus
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Well Slasher said it, read FRED2 tutorial from data\freddocs\ and directives will come seen in event:

d01
-is-destroyed-delay
--Taurus
--0

<directive text>

If Taurus wing arrives in middle of mission, the directive will come seen when they arrive.

Best way to learn is look to others mission, so like Black Sheep said check others mission's....

__________________
"Losing your temper is sign of worries or panic"
-Shogun Tokugawa

Aku. Soku. Zan.
-The wolves of Mibu, Shinsen gumi

Creator of [URL=http://www.hot.ee/miburo1]Tale of EAS Janus[/URL] campaign
Also leader of [URL=http://www.hot.ee/honorofomega/]Honor of Omega[/URL] campaign
FREDer and general errant boy of mighty [URL=http://http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/mindgames/]Mind Games[/URL], which power no-one can escape. There is always a first time.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Directives

Thanks for your help. But i think my message wasn't clear enough:

The problem isn't with setting up directives. The problem is that once i enter the mission ALL directives are shown, even for events which haven't happend yet. As i recall thats not how it suppose to be.
My event "tree" structure has all directives listed in the end, does that have any thing to do with it?

I have skimmed the FRED walkthrough and Lady Rose's walkthrough. Havn't had much luck in finding specific answers to the above issue.

Thanks again

Flounder

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: The Cold Northland!
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For stuff like wings, the directive should not appear before the wing arrives. If it does, then there may be a strange problem with the mission.

Other directives....I like to tie them to another event.

For instance.

>>Event1
has-arrived-delay
Hyperion
30

>>Event 2
is-subsystem-scanned
comms
0

Now, for the second event, specify it as Chained (on the right side, check it off). That should fix you up.

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- IceFire
Volition Watch Project Manager
[url=http://www.volitionwatch.com]Volition Watch[/url], [url=http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater]BlackWater Operations[/url], [url=http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/babylon]The Babylon Project[/url], [url=http://terra.sourceforge.net]Machina Terra[/url], [url=http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/ott/]Over The Top[/url]

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Cool, IceFire's got a cool new symbol

I think he must have had some say in its design as it suits his name far too well.

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All VW people have them.
I've got an idea for the coolest avatar, but I haven't photoshopped it together yet.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Finally got the directives to work as advertised.

Thanks for all your help.

Last question (for today):

The debriefing editor, for success i used and-in-sequance and then is-goal-true-delay for each goal. Thus i linked all of them. It's fine when you win, but what do you do if you failed some goal? or all of them? is it better to use diffrent stages for every goal? (which will result in alot of stages).

BTW mission #2 is 99% done the debrief is done but i'm not sure that that failing goals is possible other then dying...oh well, it's alot of fun (IMO).

I got a great idea for #3 btw. dunno where i got it, but i think it will take anyone playing the first 2 mission by surprise.


Flounder

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Basically, you want to create a debriefing for ALL possible outcomes/scenarios of the mission. These usually include complete success, partial success, mediocre success, total failure, and desertion. Sometimes you can use the same debriefing stage for two if you keep your words general ("The Fire and a number of her support ships failed to reach the jumpgate.") rather than specific ("The Fire and Iota 1 were destroyed.")

When it comes to setting up the debriefings for a failure, you'll probably utilize the not and is-goal-false-delay SEXPs. A "total failure", as I'll call it here, would be where the player failed all required objectives. Here you could just pretty much do the opposite of what you did for success. Another example for failure:

not
has-departed-delay
Arianya's Fire

This would return true if the ship in question hadn't left the mission before the player did. This could mean it was either destroyed or the player didn't stick around long enough for it to jump out. Or:

is-goal-false-delay
<Goal Name>

This one is pretty self-explanitory. If the goal returns as false at the end of the mission (you've obviously specified what this Goal is about in the Goals Editor before hand) then this part of the debriefing would show up.

If you want the player to fail the mission if any of the goals were not fulfilled, you'd want to use the or SEXP and use is-goal-false-delay SEXPs as its argument(s).

It's up to you as to what the player must/must not do in order for the mission to be considered a success or failure.

Last edited by Slasher on 02-26-2002 at 04:41 AM

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Just a thought, unless your objective has to have a defined failure condition to be considered failed then you probably want to use the "is-goal-incomplete-delay" sexp. This sexp records a zero value if the goal is incomplete (i.e. not successful) unlike the "is-goal-false-delay" that records a zero value if the objective has been categorically failed but a one value otherwise.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Darn I dont have anything to add on that....



But luckily we all can enjoy Flounders missions! Of course when his campaign is-done-delay

__________________
"Losing your temper is sign of worries or panic"
-Shogun Tokugawa

Aku. Soku. Zan.
-The wolves of Mibu, Shinsen gumi

Creator of [URL=http://www.hot.ee/miburo1]Tale of EAS Janus[/URL] campaign
Also leader of [URL=http://www.hot.ee/honorofomega/]Honor of Omega[/URL] campaign
FREDer and general errant boy of mighty [URL=http://http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/mindgames/]Mind Games[/URL], which power no-one can escape. There is always a first time.

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Registered: Jul 2000
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VW Archives is nearly ready so you guys can start posting your own campaigns and missions on there.

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- IceFire
Volition Watch Project Manager
[url=http://www.volitionwatch.com]Volition Watch[/url], [url=http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater]BlackWater Operations[/url], [url=http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/babylon]The Babylon Project[/url], [url=http://terra.sourceforge.net]Machina Terra[/url], [url=http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/ott/]Over The Top[/url]

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Campaign

Laugh all you want 8)

I've started working on #3 and then tossed it out the window. But i have done some serious re-thinking and have a new mission frame for it.

Can anyone post the url for the archive?

Flounder

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Registered: Jul 2000
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Last I heard, the TBP archives were still being worked on.

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