I know many people in the scripting community may have no idea about your veritable knowledge of bos scripting and frankly many of them do not know how to dig on TAU like I can.
do you have any script bits that you found particularly interesting? I remember you made a neat script that checked angle on the ATAT going up hill, that brilliant tentacle monster... I mean sandworm.
What about things like the zbot scripts, I remember you saying something about how they did not work in spring before? is that still true? IF it is still true, what is broken on it?
*edit* forgot my pink*edit*
questions for the script master zwzsg.
Moderator: Moderators
Re: questions for the script master zwzsg.
From the top of my head, I have script bits to:
- Find the XZ position of the target
- Bridges!
- Stargates!
- Paratroppers!
- BriDoDon, a data fetching tank with digital display, turret that can be destructed and regrown, damage inversal device, scripted slope leaning, and lots of other cool think
- Some other unit with digital device, such as the caliper or that one walker with three digital display.
- Script to read the unit heading.
- Script to counter the unit rotation.
- Script to dynamically adapt the speed of a movement to reach just destination under a given time, used for instance on counter rotation script, true walkscript, space slug script, and some more. Sadly it reach target at the end of the movement, so it has a static trailing error, I made one which has no static error as long as the speed is constant, even when the refresh period is kept low, but then it jitters during the acceleration and decceleration phase, so I didn't use it alot.
- Varied auto load auto unload in formation, triggered by whatever scripted condition. For exemple planes that grab all units around when landed, then drop all units, in a nice square or disk or whatever shapped formation, in a split second, when told to attack (or unload, or turned on/off, or ...)
- In Spring, I can grab buildings! Which brings me to:
- Many kinds of pseudo mobiles factories
- I made a complex system to assign each units a "weight" for transport, as TA doesn't have the "mass" FBI tag.
- I have scripts detect the presence of unit of type X. And the presense of unit X under range R. Usuful for triggering area friendly bonus and enemy malus around captain and heroes, and lots of other purpose.
- Like, for instance, I made StarWars droid deactivate when there is no command center. In TA, they become unable to move, fire or be selectable, but that wasn't possible in Spring, however in Spring I made them self destruct.
- The Attention Deficit Disorder script, that sorta paralyse a unit but nothing like a paralyser weapon, but that one won't work in Spring.
- Had too many bugs even in TA, but the jedi force push still amazes people.
- Inter unit communication via infinitesimal displacment of attached units. Only work when the broacaster is a fixed building, unless I had some heavy error tolerance to the system. But otherwise I can make a building broadcast whatever number I want, and have whatever other unit be aware that building X is saying N.
- For Fran├âãÆ├é┬ºois I made a tank which gain a better weapon when near a certain tower. With some firetrail arcing between tank and tower. And it required:
- Some complex script to have two weapons use the same turret without jamming.
- Very varied upgrades script: Upgrade when a certain building is present map wide during birth, without giving upgrade to already built it and losing upgrade once got, upgrade as long as a certain building is present, gaining and losing upgrade even for old units as said building exist, upgrade only when a given unit is near, I have yet to do upgrade that have to be built individually for each unit but should be doable, ugprade on veterancy, upgrade on whatever else. Those upgrade can change armor, look, weapon, whatever scriptable, hmm, don't think I've done it but with the shell approach (make the upgrade be a shell that grab the unit it is supposed to give ugprade to, the shell could only and would autograb that unit, and would be rendered useless when empty) I could change everything.
- I use none of that Cavedog nonsensical scripting mess for my walkscripts, activation scripts, factories scripts.
- I have a dichotomy algorithm, for solving any f(x)=k; equation, assuming df/dx sign does not change. Can be used to compensate for the lack of operations such as arcsin for instance.
- One application would be the prodder, an arm that bends its elbow to reach a given point, much more natural than telescopic arms. Which itself was only a demo to show Zodius how to calculate leg movement of his true walkscript.
- The "Squirrel" and "Dark Squirrel" have a BOS simulated weapons. That is the weapon is in reality a bos piece, and it's the bos that move it, check for collision etc.. (never got around to reply to TRO remarks, but most of it can be fixed)
- Loads of 2,3,4, but mostly 6 legged walkscripts.
- A 8 legged walkscript, which switch into crab sidestep and backward walk so that the whole unit turn likes a turret by increment of 90├âÔÇÜ├é┬░ (while arms do rest of the turning).
- Btw the scorpion unit that use that also has a cool tail animation, but the aiming is not mathematically correct, it just random-and-tried parameters until it looked good enough.
- To the contrary, my multi-segmented shai-huluds use a mathematically correct formula to bend in such a way to reach their target.
- True WalkScript, that is, walkscript that lock the foot in place when down, so it doesn't look silly when the unit is turning.
- Scripted reload.
- Varied experimental weapons that anyway wouldn't work in Spring. But the thunderstorm cloud could.
- Stomp, either scripted or with ever firing weapons.
- A melee unit (with some script trick to make melee work) that gains a ranged weapon after five kills.
- A unit that loose turrets depending on which direction the shot comes from. It has four big guns turret, about ten flaks turret, a BLoD, and a radar at the center. But I have yet to finish writing the "rebuilding the turret when health rise" part, because it's confusing to decide which turret to rebuild.
- For Legion, I scripted some sort of "fuel". Over time, ships flags decrement a counter, they show a flag turning green, yellow, red, to show how much time left, when in red they can't fire anymore. Being close to a "refueling ship" refuels them.
It should be noted that Zodius made those True WalkScript first, he calls them Zbot, and he claim his don't suffer from my bug of sometimes lifting all legs at once. I didn't say those true walkscript don't work in Spring. To the contrary I posted this image and this ufo, to prove that they indeed work in Spring. TAU topic here. However, in TA my script works fine whether the unit is Upright=1 not, while in Spring it has to be UpRight, even if doesn't look so since the script simulate slope leaning, because otherwise me and my script get confused between the xz and Y axis local to unit and the aboslute xz and y: In TA, the xz plane used by commands such as get PIECE_XZ is always the absolute horizontal, disregarding if the unit is on a slope, leaned. While in Spring, the local XZ follow the slope. Or maybe the contrary. Whatever, I just wanted to post about my walkscript in Spring forum without losing time figuring that out, so I simply used upright=1; to fix that. Crap this paragraph is getting confusing, all I wanted to say is: Don't worry, works in Spring
Oh, and all I listed were for TA. For Spring:
Also, now, thanksfully, there's a couple other people understanding advanced scripting, such as TheRegisteredOne, Boogie, KDR_11k, ....
Check Talon! It has mind control tower and psyker infantry, buildable [shield/ring teleport/sensor/missile backpack/combat drone] commander upgrade, trapmines, tracks that leave trail of fire, orbital ion gun and firestorm, and, uh, much more!
- Find the XZ position of the target
- Bridges!
- Stargates!
- Paratroppers!
- BriDoDon, a data fetching tank with digital display, turret that can be destructed and regrown, damage inversal device, scripted slope leaning, and lots of other cool think
- Some other unit with digital device, such as the caliper or that one walker with three digital display.
- Script to read the unit heading.
- Script to counter the unit rotation.
- Script to dynamically adapt the speed of a movement to reach just destination under a given time, used for instance on counter rotation script, true walkscript, space slug script, and some more. Sadly it reach target at the end of the movement, so it has a static trailing error, I made one which has no static error as long as the speed is constant, even when the refresh period is kept low, but then it jitters during the acceleration and decceleration phase, so I didn't use it alot.
- Varied auto load auto unload in formation, triggered by whatever scripted condition. For exemple planes that grab all units around when landed, then drop all units, in a nice square or disk or whatever shapped formation, in a split second, when told to attack (or unload, or turned on/off, or ...)
- In Spring, I can grab buildings! Which brings me to:
- Many kinds of pseudo mobiles factories
- I made a complex system to assign each units a "weight" for transport, as TA doesn't have the "mass" FBI tag.
- I have scripts detect the presence of unit of type X. And the presense of unit X under range R. Usuful for triggering area friendly bonus and enemy malus around captain and heroes, and lots of other purpose.
- Like, for instance, I made StarWars droid deactivate when there is no command center. In TA, they become unable to move, fire or be selectable, but that wasn't possible in Spring, however in Spring I made them self destruct.
- The Attention Deficit Disorder script, that sorta paralyse a unit but nothing like a paralyser weapon, but that one won't work in Spring.
- Had too many bugs even in TA, but the jedi force push still amazes people.
- Inter unit communication via infinitesimal displacment of attached units. Only work when the broacaster is a fixed building, unless I had some heavy error tolerance to the system. But otherwise I can make a building broadcast whatever number I want, and have whatever other unit be aware that building X is saying N.
- For Fran├âãÆ├é┬ºois I made a tank which gain a better weapon when near a certain tower. With some firetrail arcing between tank and tower. And it required:
- Some complex script to have two weapons use the same turret without jamming.
- Very varied upgrades script: Upgrade when a certain building is present map wide during birth, without giving upgrade to already built it and losing upgrade once got, upgrade as long as a certain building is present, gaining and losing upgrade even for old units as said building exist, upgrade only when a given unit is near, I have yet to do upgrade that have to be built individually for each unit but should be doable, ugprade on veterancy, upgrade on whatever else. Those upgrade can change armor, look, weapon, whatever scriptable, hmm, don't think I've done it but with the shell approach (make the upgrade be a shell that grab the unit it is supposed to give ugprade to, the shell could only and would autograb that unit, and would be rendered useless when empty) I could change everything.
- I use none of that Cavedog nonsensical scripting mess for my walkscripts, activation scripts, factories scripts.
- I have a dichotomy algorithm, for solving any f(x)=k; equation, assuming df/dx sign does not change. Can be used to compensate for the lack of operations such as arcsin for instance.
- One application would be the prodder, an arm that bends its elbow to reach a given point, much more natural than telescopic arms. Which itself was only a demo to show Zodius how to calculate leg movement of his true walkscript.
- The "Squirrel" and "Dark Squirrel" have a BOS simulated weapons. That is the weapon is in reality a bos piece, and it's the bos that move it, check for collision etc.. (never got around to reply to TRO remarks, but most of it can be fixed)
- Loads of 2,3,4, but mostly 6 legged walkscripts.
- A 8 legged walkscript, which switch into crab sidestep and backward walk so that the whole unit turn likes a turret by increment of 90├âÔÇÜ├é┬░ (while arms do rest of the turning).
- Btw the scorpion unit that use that also has a cool tail animation, but the aiming is not mathematically correct, it just random-and-tried parameters until it looked good enough.
- To the contrary, my multi-segmented shai-huluds use a mathematically correct formula to bend in such a way to reach their target.
- True WalkScript, that is, walkscript that lock the foot in place when down, so it doesn't look silly when the unit is turning.
- Scripted reload.
- Varied experimental weapons that anyway wouldn't work in Spring. But the thunderstorm cloud could.
- Stomp, either scripted or with ever firing weapons.
- A melee unit (with some script trick to make melee work) that gains a ranged weapon after five kills.
- A unit that loose turrets depending on which direction the shot comes from. It has four big guns turret, about ten flaks turret, a BLoD, and a radar at the center. But I have yet to finish writing the "rebuilding the turret when health rise" part, because it's confusing to decide which turret to rebuild.
- For Legion, I scripted some sort of "fuel". Over time, ships flags decrement a counter, they show a flag turning green, yellow, red, to show how much time left, when in red they can't fire anymore. Being close to a "refueling ship" refuels them.
It should be noted that Zodius made those True WalkScript first, he calls them Zbot, and he claim his don't suffer from my bug of sometimes lifting all legs at once. I didn't say those true walkscript don't work in Spring. To the contrary I posted this image and this ufo, to prove that they indeed work in Spring. TAU topic here. However, in TA my script works fine whether the unit is Upright=1 not, while in Spring it has to be UpRight, even if doesn't look so since the script simulate slope leaning, because otherwise me and my script get confused between the xz and Y axis local to unit and the aboslute xz and y: In TA, the xz plane used by commands such as get PIECE_XZ is always the absolute horizontal, disregarding if the unit is on a slope, leaned. While in Spring, the local XZ follow the slope. Or maybe the contrary. Whatever, I just wanted to post about my walkscript in Spring forum without losing time figuring that out, so I simply used upright=1; to fix that. Crap this paragraph is getting confusing, all I wanted to say is: Don't worry, works in Spring
Oh, and all I listed were for TA. For Spring:
- Some would need some fixing to work in Spring. Most of the time very small fixing, but still if you don't know what has to be fixed. For instance, in my earlier unit, the unitlimit was fixed to 500, and only in my later scripts I use a something to detect if the engine is Spring or has Xon's dll and then use "get MAX_ID" and only default to 500*10 if not.
- A couple simply wouldn't work in Spring, but Spring offers other route for same effect.
- Sometimes they need fixing not because they're aren't made for Spring, but merely because I wrote them long ago and can't rewrite all my units whenever I reach a new level in my scripting or modding skill.
- Much of those script are rendered useless by better, Spring only features:
- Spring has Fuel FBI tag, which can replace my scripted fuel system irrelevant.
- Spring has Mass and Transport Mass FBI tag, which can replace my scripted weight and transport cargo weight system.
- We can emit a weapon at will in Spring, better than using a five hour burst weapon, which I move out of map to turn off, like I did for TA
- Spring has area load area unload repeat, and no limit on how far can unit be transported, which could be used to replace my 1700 lines Teleporter script by a 17 lines one.
- Spring doesn't mind dropping unit in occupied area, which makes all my script bit to "test that the unit was really dropped, and retry another location if not" irrelevant.
- Spring has LUA, which according to some can do MORE THAN ANYTHING! (Including, but not limited to, executing arbitrary command of whatever level, morphing, upgrades, spells, turn mexx into moho, making pig flies, arm chicken with teeth, fix third world issues, help you retrieve your loved one, and end world poverty! Also, LUA is so magical that if some feature is buggy when done another way, when done in LUA it will be totally bugfree and works 100% like you dreamed! The LUA language is so easy that even my chinchilla learned it under 5 mins! Nothing like the hard BOS or FBI or TDF which will be deprecated. Soon, even Spring.exe will be replaced by a LUA widget, as C++ is such an inconvenient, outdated and awful language. LUA! LUA! LUA!)
Also, now, thanksfully, there's a couple other people understanding advanced scripting, such as TheRegisteredOne, Boogie, KDR_11k, ....
Check Talon! It has mind control tower and psyker infantry, buildable [shield/ring teleport/sensor/missile backpack/combat drone] commander upgrade, trapmines, tracks that leave trail of fire, orbital ion gun and firestorm, and, uh, much more!
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Runecrafter
- Posts: 148
- Joined: 30 Oct 2005, 00:23
refar to this thread lol desu:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... &start=260
http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... &start=260
nope this was pretty much to show you peeps that zwzsg is teh pimp of scripting. It also shows you guys what the bos is capable of.
Zwzsg has done a lot of really interesting exploratory work that if people would try it they will find themselves capable of some really amazing things. However, people become intimidated and refuse to utilize the code he offters. There are some amazing things that can be done. ZWZSG has shown the way many many times before but that is in the past on another forum. So you guys needed to be enlightened. Hence the thread.
look at all the stuff he has done, if you will listen you can learn to do some amazing things! I was tired of watching people pass over his work without knowing how much can be done. This also help illustrate limitations that are non-existent thanks to some very clever stuff zwzsg has done!
He is one of the few people that I consider innovative in his scripts.
Zwzsg has done a lot of really interesting exploratory work that if people would try it they will find themselves capable of some really amazing things. However, people become intimidated and refuse to utilize the code he offters. There are some amazing things that can be done. ZWZSG has shown the way many many times before but that is in the past on another forum. So you guys needed to be enlightened. Hence the thread.
look at all the stuff he has done, if you will listen you can learn to do some amazing things! I was tired of watching people pass over his work without knowing how much can be done. This also help illustrate limitations that are non-existent thanks to some very clever stuff zwzsg has done!
He is one of the few people that I consider innovative in his scripts.
People...pass...over his work?
INCONCIVABLE! I remember when he shows us that AWSOME Shi-halud thingy? Remember? Anyone remember that?
Anyone? I was pissed when no one ever used that. Then again, no one ever made a Dune mod...untill Rattle...
So if ZWZSG created teh Shi-halud modle, and Terry was at his apartment at 5:21 on the night of the murdurer, and Rattle has a vested interest in the Quantico Oil Indusrty, which made him STAB Ghooshi in the back on March the 31st...which means that the REAL murdur was...
Smoth?
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, Rattle should use the Shi-halud modle in his Dune mod. That was it.
INCONCIVABLE! I remember when he shows us that AWSOME Shi-halud thingy? Remember? Anyone remember that?
Anyone? I was pissed when no one ever used that. Then again, no one ever made a Dune mod...untill Rattle...
So if ZWZSG created teh Shi-halud modle, and Terry was at his apartment at 5:21 on the night of the murdurer, and Rattle has a vested interest in the Quantico Oil Indusrty, which made him STAB Ghooshi in the back on March the 31st...which means that the REAL murdur was...
Smoth?
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, Rattle should use the Shi-halud modle in his Dune mod. That was it.
Now I feel bad for having been tricked into showing off. :S
KDR_11k:
Bah, after I understood the little differences between Spring and TA handling of bos, such as:
- wait-for, call-script, start-script taking at least 1 tick in TA but none in Spring
- Spring calling the aiming function very often, while TA only call it once per shot
- Spring noting angles between -180├âÔÇÜ├é┬░ +180 instead of 0 360├âÔÇÜ├é┬░
- "Smoothing" messing everything until it was made optionnal
- Units ID not being sorted by player in Spring
- Spring having no problem dropping unit in occupied spot
It became easy to do "extreme scripting" as you call it that works both in TA and Spring. But "extreme scripting" makes it sound like some kind of dangerous exploit, which it is not. Most of it is simply about using the available script commands to write my own script, instead of religiously following Cavedog templates (which BTW are filled with horrors and needless overcomplexity). A couple are about coding some algorithm in BOS just like you can code in any other language.
For instance, in the Shai-Hulud, there's:
- Using the commands "get UNIT_XZ()" and such to find the position of a unit. That command has been documented forever and is pretty self explanatary, the only thing I did was to use it ouf of the regular Cavedog Transport Script Template it's usually found in, but how is that extreme? When there's a command to "get" the "XZ" of a "unit" why would I not be allowed to use it? In which way is it hackish or extreme to make use of it?
- Using some math to compute which angle each segment should turn, and how many segment to pop out of ground, for the worm to reach said point. This is just about solving with pen and paper a geometric problem, then writing the formula in the script, not "extreme scripting". Same formula would be used whatever the language. Is it that hackish and extreme to do some simple math, division, multiplication, substraction, etc... to compute the result of a geometric formula? Ok maybe indeed I had to take into account how division results are floored to integer, and I think once, in a single script, (the stomping one) I hade to take into account squaring a distance can overflow. But besides that, considering the / * + - operators are available in BOS, why using them should be forbidden under the seal of extreme hack?
It's the same for every other script. I'm fed up with people calling "extreme" and "hackish" what is simply using what's available. Ok it helps to know what you do and how the engine works, but for info, in LUA, and even in TDF or FBI, you can screw things. Should I bring you a FBI that works in TA and not in Spring, then call anathema on every FBI that isn't a copycat of a Cavedog FBI?
KDR_11k:
Bah, after I understood the little differences between Spring and TA handling of bos, such as:
- wait-for, call-script, start-script taking at least 1 tick in TA but none in Spring
- Spring calling the aiming function very often, while TA only call it once per shot
- Spring noting angles between -180├âÔÇÜ├é┬░ +180 instead of 0 360├âÔÇÜ├é┬░
- "Smoothing" messing everything until it was made optionnal
- Units ID not being sorted by player in Spring
- Spring having no problem dropping unit in occupied spot
It became easy to do "extreme scripting" as you call it that works both in TA and Spring. But "extreme scripting" makes it sound like some kind of dangerous exploit, which it is not. Most of it is simply about using the available script commands to write my own script, instead of religiously following Cavedog templates (which BTW are filled with horrors and needless overcomplexity). A couple are about coding some algorithm in BOS just like you can code in any other language.
For instance, in the Shai-Hulud, there's:
- Using the commands "get UNIT_XZ()" and such to find the position of a unit. That command has been documented forever and is pretty self explanatary, the only thing I did was to use it ouf of the regular Cavedog Transport Script Template it's usually found in, but how is that extreme? When there's a command to "get" the "XZ" of a "unit" why would I not be allowed to use it? In which way is it hackish or extreme to make use of it?
- Using some math to compute which angle each segment should turn, and how many segment to pop out of ground, for the worm to reach said point. This is just about solving with pen and paper a geometric problem, then writing the formula in the script, not "extreme scripting". Same formula would be used whatever the language. Is it that hackish and extreme to do some simple math, division, multiplication, substraction, etc... to compute the result of a geometric formula? Ok maybe indeed I had to take into account how division results are floored to integer, and I think once, in a single script, (the stomping one) I hade to take into account squaring a distance can overflow. But besides that, considering the / * + - operators are available in BOS, why using them should be forbidden under the seal of extreme hack?
It's the same for every other script. I'm fed up with people calling "extreme" and "hackish" what is simply using what's available. Ok it helps to know what you do and how the engine works, but for info, in LUA, and even in TDF or FBI, you can screw things. Should I bring you a FBI that works in TA and not in Spring, then call anathema on every FBI that isn't a copycat of a Cavedog FBI?
Zwzsg, a lot of ta people complain about transports being hard, I know you have done a lot of work with transports and arms as well. I know by using an arm that checks for open space you created formation unload scripts. Can this sort of thing be used to do a fast unload where rather then slowly flying down the transport "dumps" all of it's cargo units quickly upon unload orders?
One thing that helps with multiple unit transports in spring is the area unload and load complimented with a repeat order, howerver, the transport mechanics require full touchdown to land, so you can stop the transports by moving stuff underneath them. However, an arm that dumps units onto the ground quickly could just avoid the squad and release units in a general area.
How would you suggest going about this script?
One thing that helps with multiple unit transports in spring is the area unload and load complimented with a repeat order, howerver, the transport mechanics require full touchdown to land, so you can stop the transports by moving stuff underneath them. However, an arm that dumps units onto the ground quickly could just avoid the squad and release units in a general area.
How would you suggest going about this script?
This would be a good place to start: 
http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... &&start=20
Do I need to make an animated .gif to show that it is indeed a transport plane that unload all its load in one instant when told to attack? Do I need to write a page or two about how it can be combined with regular loading procedure? And tweaked in numbers of other ways?
http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... &&start=20
Do I need to make an animated .gif to show that it is indeed a transport plane that unload all its load in one instant when told to attack? Do I need to write a page or two about how it can be combined with regular loading procedure? And tweaked in numbers of other ways?
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Guessmyname
- Posts: 3301
- Joined: 28 Apr 2005, 21:07
Well yes. That dropship has a weapon btw, I didn't want to waste time finding how to make a no weapon that still cause "FirePrimary" to be called. However, if firing the weapons triggers the unload, then, well, firing the weapons triggers the unload. You could make the unload triggered by something else, like, for instance, the unload. Do I make sense?
My mass insta unload is scripted the raw way. I can make anything trigger the mass insta unload function I wrote. Currently I made "FirePrimary()" trigger my mass insta unload. Instead I could make "EndTransport()" (that is, the regular function that Spring calls to animate a plane regular unload) trigger my mass insta unload code. Or whatever other event the bos can be made aware of.
My mass insta unload is scripted the raw way. I can make anything trigger the mass insta unload function I wrote. Currently I made "FirePrimary()" trigger my mass insta unload. Instead I could make "EndTransport()" (that is, the regular function that Spring calls to animate a plane regular unload) trigger my mass insta unload code. Or whatever other event the bos can be made aware of.
Could you do a unit that drops it's load when it dies then? Does the takedamage function allow you to interrupt the death of the unit and unload everything before it dies?zwzsg wrote:Well yes. That dropship has a weapon btw, I didn't want to waste time finding how to make a no weapon that still cause "FirePrimary" to be called. However, if firing the weapons triggers the unload, then, well, firing the weapons triggers the unload. You could make the unload triggered by something else, like, for instance, the unload. Do I make sense?
My mass insta unload is scripted the raw way. I can make anything trigger the mass insta unload function I wrote. Currently I made "FirePrimary()" trigger my mass insta unload. Instead I could make "EndTransport()" (that is, the regular function that Spring calls to animate a plane regular unload) trigger my mass insta unload code. Or whatever other event the bos can be made aware of.