Interstellar Variables

[catfighter]

Is it possible to check a variable set in another star system?

For example, destroying the primary enemy base in System A sets baseDestroyed="True". Can System B (or a timer/station in System B) check whether baseDestroyed is indeed set to "True" to determine which set of encounters to use? (ie. Gate before the base is destroyed and a single ship demands a toll. Gate afterwards and a whole fleet is waiting to annihilate you.)

If it is possible, could an example be provided?

[AssumedPseudonym]

 I don’t actually have an example I can provide off the top of my head — I’m a little rusty on tLISP after having been playing around with a different language — but my suggestion would be to put the variable in the station’s sovereign. Set it to true when the station is destroyed and put a little something in the code to run in <OnGlobalPlayerEnteredSystem> to trigger when they get to the target system. Not destroyed, one ship; is destroyed, enumerate through all of the ships and sic ’em on the player.

[pixelfck]

I'm almost sure it is, at this moment, not possible to read data, set on objects in another star system.
Only your current star system is available in memory, al other star systems are dehydrated (= stored on disk in read only memory). Yet, it is, for example, possible check if objects exist in other star systems.

You can take a look at the Function list: 1.5. All functions which accept the nodeID argument can access data from different star systems.

Hope this helps,
Pixelfck

[george moromisato]

pixelfck is right. Also, you should check out the unvFindObj function which can return some limited information about objects in other systems. For example, you can use it to figure out where Korolov stations are.

[catfighter]

Should I instead set a global variable operable throughout the entire universe? I'm hesitant to do so, however, because if enough were set I feel sure the game would get rather clunky and could possibly have lag.

[george moromisato]

Should I instead set a global variable operable throughout the entire universe? I'm hesitant to do so, however, because if enough were set I feel sure the game would get rather clunky and could possibly have lag.

The recommended way is to use the ???SetData functions (typSetData, sysSetData, etc.). You should be able to set and access hundreds of variables without performance problems. Once you start crossing into thousands of variables, I think you'll see problems.

If you describe what you're trying to do, we might be able to come up with concrete suggestions.

[catfighter]

I want to track multiple stations and ships and states throughout several systems, but it shouldn't get over a thousand variables.

I'm thinking about making a very choice-dependent mod. Destroying anything in a one system will have an impact in every other system (ie kill a base or capital ship, set baseDestroyed="true" and there's a firing squad waiting at every gate). I also wanted to have wingmen who could "perform" missions in other systems. For example, tell someone "go kill so-and-so" and the game will have them will gate out and then set a timer with a random chance of them getting "hit" in combat with the enemy or "destroying" their target (this would need to change the station/ship into a wreck and set the station's specific baseDestroyed variable to "true" from whatever system the player happens to be in). I'm pretty sure it would cause problems to attach the variable to any specific entity if the player did something like gating or dieing/resurrecting.

[EditorRUS]

I'm thinking about making a very choice-dependent mod. Destroying anything in a one system will have an impact in every other system (ie kill a base or capital ship, set baseDestroyed="true" and there's a firing squad waiting at every gate). I also wanted to have wingmen who could "perform" missions in other systems. For example, tell someone "go kill so-and-so" and the game will have them will gate out and then set a timer with a random chance of them getting "hit" in combat with the enemy or "destroying" their target (this would need to change the station/ship into a wreck and set the station's specific baseDestroyed variable to "true" from whatever system the player happens to be in). I'm pretty sure it would cause problems to attach the variable to any specific entity if the player did something like gating or dieing/resurrecting.

IIRC, things like that are implemented by setting certain variables of gPlayerShip to certain values at the moment.
You can find an example of that in, um, commonwealth.xml maybe? I don't remember the file's name, but it's sets the fine player ought to pay for destroying stations or ships.
So I guess you can make it as follows:

Code: Select all

<OnDestroyed>
	(block (Nil)
		(objSetData gPlayerShip "station_5_destroyed" 1)
		1
	)
</OnDestroyed>

Better way is to make a list containing all the variables you need in certain order and accessing function.