Adding muliples of the same item? and custom Q.
By
Decorum,
Posted on: 2009-04-12 06:36 in Mission Architect
To question two, no that sounds about right (even small). You can add around 12-14 custom characters to an arc (depending on a lot of different factors). The costume changes take up more room than powers.
Dec out.
Soo if your making a custom critter, its better.. aka less space if you take an existing critter, like say a madness mage, then custom his powers vrs his outfit?
Im not sure i was clear on the other Q though. Basically, I have a bunch of kidnapped people i want to make. Basically all the same except for minor changes in either animation, or dialog. It would be much easier to just copy the same main file, then just switch the minor detail.
Like say muliple bosses, but one says You wont take down my bother, the other says,, ahh you got my brother but you wont get me!
thats not exactly what i wanna do but you get the idea.
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Soo if your making a custom critter, its better.. aka less space if you take an existing critter, like say a madness mage, then custom his powers vrs his outfit?
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Other than simply trying to make a custom duplicate, you can't do that. You can't change any of the existing characters. They take up less space because they are already..."hard-coded" (not what it's called, but you get what I mean?) into the game.
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Im not sure i was clear on the other Q though. Basically, I have a bunch of kidnapped people i want to make. Basically all the same except for minor changes in either animation, or dialog. It would be much easier to just copy the same main file, then just switch the minor detail.
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Since animations and dialogue are handled separately, you can already do that.
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Like say muliple bosses, but one says You wont take down my bother, the other says,, ahh you got my brother but you wont get me!
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Entirely doable already.
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thats not exactly what i wanna do but you get the idea.
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I think so, but you'd have to confirm that I do.
Dec out.
Wait, looking back, do you want to use the same character, or have everything you've written be there, too? In the case of the latter, you can go into the mission file on your computer and cut and paste in a text editor. Then go to the interface and make your tweaks.
Dec out.
OKy.. well seeing you get where im going with this ill get specific..
I want to make a group of 8 hellions that are being held by CoT. All captives i want to use a different escape dialog. I know i can just create 8 seperate guys, go through and hit all the options and make them the same, and then just add different escape dialoge. very dooable, but a total pain in the rear to set all that stuff 8 times. What i wanna do is make 8 copies of the "Hostage" then go back and tweak the one line i wanna change. In other builders i would just hit clone, or copy paste the dude, rename him and save it. Like Hostage1, copy paste, swap the dialoge, rename hostage 2. Basically skipping all that other time setting everything back up like the first.
The other thing im trying to do is make some CoT and hellion bosses that look EXACTLY like the normal dudes, but have different powersets and names. One i wanna do is an Illusionist Primary mage. a few others are Hellion and skull based custom bosses. I dont wanna go with different looks, and i dont wanna deviate far from the normal guys, just tweak them a bit to add to the story.
Not to give too much away but some crazed mage is trying to take over both the hellions and skulls, give them stornger powers and start a war between the 2 groups.. that offs um both. Crap mabey i did give too much away 
But im trying to figure out the best way to go about doing the bosses.
Right now all my hostages are just the pure clone, aka one hostage set up, spawn 8. what i wanna do is fix that to make each a bit different as the dialoge will add to the story.
Ohh well why not one last thing, clues. Is there a way to keep adding to a main clue like they do in single player campain? I tried naming clues the same, The Plot Thickens, then keep adding to it as it would make more sence to just make one long train of dailoge/story in one box, but that didnt work, unless it was cause of typo, all it did was keep adding boxes named "plot thickens"
soo blah blah you saved the day.. blah blah..
adds new text after next plot.. Soo it wasnt what you thought, blah blah blah... its time to go after XXXXX
next mission.. You find yourself learning more that goes along with the same theme....
Is there anyway to get this into one long dailoge clue?
then use the smaller clues to add simple things, Like Mage Note, the new base is in kings row, Or SKulls swear its the hellions.. on death the skull said you were after the wrong people.. (not exact just examples)
Basically more like the way the real game is.. not 25 small dialog clue boxes which just seam to get lost in the mix after a while.
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OKy.. well seeing you get where im going with this ill get specific..
I want to make a group of 8 hellions that are being held by CoT. All captives i want to use a different escape dialog. I know i can just create 8 seperate guys, go through and hit all the options and make them the same, and then just add different escape dialoge. very dooable, but a total pain in the rear to set all that stuff 8 times. What i wanna do is make 8 copies of the "Hostage" then go back and tweak the one line i wanna change. In other builders i would just hit clone, or copy paste the dude, rename him and save it. Like Hostage1, copy paste, swap the dialoge, rename hostage 2. Basically skipping all that other time setting everything back up like the first.
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Not do-able in game. Very do-able in the text file stored on your computer.
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The other thing im trying to do is make some CoT and hellion bosses that look EXACTLY like the normal dudes, but have different powersets and names. One i wanna do is an Illusionist Primary mage. a few others are Hellion and skull based custom bosses. I dont wanna go with different looks, and i dont wanna deviate far from the normal guys, just tweak them a bit to add to the story.
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You can't alter the existing mobs in any way shape or form. The only thing you could do is try to make custom characters as close as you can (difficult, sometimes, as many of the existing mobs use costume parts we simply don't have access to). If you don't mind them being customs and possibly not matching exactly, then yes, you can do that.
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Is there anyway to get this into one long dailoge clue?
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No, not that I'm aware of.
Are we getting any closer?
Dec out.
yea.. But its not helping much lol
Soo im stuck with totally custom charcters.. Oky well ill flesh out the rest of the missions before i start in on custom stuff. Im at finish of mission 2 and im already at 19kb. I did add one custom toon but she is gonna be a toon im gonna use in all 3 of my stories, as basically this arc is gonna span lvls 5-50.. (all 3 of my story arcs will be about the same thing, to some extent) Id rather finsh all 5 maps and the story and see how much room i have to play with first. Before i really start adding custom stuff. But i had to do one first just for kicks !
Oky editing text file, how do you do this? Im not totally clueless when it comes to this kinda stuff, but im also not totally advanced.. I would definatly make a copy of the file before i screwed with it. are there any guides on this? or perhaps you could give me some insite?
Im also have trouble with some mob/item placements. I heard that you can set this in the text file too. is this true? the maps say it has say 30 placements front, 20 middle, 30 back for example, to me they all must have a number to go along with um right? To me it would have to be, or they would never beable to get something to always spawn in one location when needed?
Like right now im using the carnvial city map. the one with the 3 tents at the end of a city block that looks like kings row. i want all the mages and the boss to spawn in the carnival, is this possible? I tired front/back, used back first but that put um in the city, ill try front next, but id really like to place them secfically, all around the carnival tents, with the boss right in the middle as he is running the show. Is this possible?
BTW this MA creator is soo much fun!!.. already much have 10 hours on my arc and first 2 missions arent even close to done yet. Still making sure dialoge and clues flow right, and yikes fixing typo's and tweaking the spawns and such. Im havnig a blast though..
One last thing, where are the Hero NPCs stored? people like fusionette, the mystic in the early hellion arc, the gypsy you save to get the badge magic 10-14 (cant remember the badge name for the life of me)
Id think some of these i could use to save file space but i dont know where they are saved, must be somewhere right??
Ohh oky another one.. What about saving someone to escort, but you have to bring them someplace to interact with an item. Like save the doctor, Bring him to the lab storage box, or save the hacker, find the computer.. soo far on escorts or ally i only see basically follow, stay or lead to exit.
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Oky editing text file, how do you do this?
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I don't know if there's a guide, but I'll try and give you a quick and dirty run through.
First you put in the event you want to copy from (gotta start with something to copy). I think you said you wanted hostages. So make a hostage event, create or load the character, do the dialogue and the emotes, etc. etc.
Once you've got the first one, save it and open up Notepad (or Word, or some other text editor. I like Notepad because there's zero chance of it formatting something weird...the text I see is all there is). Have it open your mission arc. This should be located in the folder C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\Missions . A lot of it seems fairly intuitive to me, but it depends on how much familiarity you have with this kind of thing.
Glance through it looking for "Detail" (that's what the events are called). You should be able to recognize if it's the one you want. They kind of look like this:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> Detail
{
Name Joy-Buzzer
DetailType Rescue
EntityGroup Joy-Buzzer
EntityType Custom
EnemyGroupType Custom
VillainGroup "Cutting Crew"
Placement Back
Quantity 1
Difficulty Hard
InactiveSpeech "Stoopid girl!"
ActiveSpeech "Get 'em!"
CompassDescription a
CompassDescriptionSingular "Free the sidekick"
Trigger Bingo
PersonInactiveSpeech "Oh, you guys are gonna be in so much TROUBLE!"
PersonRescuedSpeech "Don't you worry, Mistah C! I'm comin' ta save ya!"
PersonRescuedAnimation BigWave
CustomCritterIdx 9
CustomVillainGroupIdx 1
}
</pre><hr />
Don't worry so much what that means, as much as recognizing that that's the event you want to copy. Copy it, then paste it in as many times as you want it right after the first one. Save the file (use the same filename) and go back to the MA screen and open it again. You should have that event duplicated however many times you did it, and then you can do whatever tweaking you want!
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Im also have trouble with some mob/item placements. I heard that you can set this in the text file too. is this true?
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No real idea, but in this case, you're kind of shafted. The outdoor maps just don't recognize "front, middle, back". It's going to be random placement, no matter what you do. At least that's how it was last time I heard. 
I don't know if it's just that way with outdoor maps or they're bugged, but it ain't workin' as far as I know.
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BTW this MA creator is soo much fun!!.. already much have 10 hours on my arc and first 2 missions arent even close to done yet. Still making sure dialoge and clues flow right, and yikes fixing typo's and tweaking the spawns and such. Im havnig a blast though..
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Preach it, brother! I'm feeling the same way. 
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One last thing, where are the Hero NPCs stored? people like fusionette, the mystic in the early hellion arc, the gypsy you save to get the badge magic 10-14 (cant remember the badge name for the life of me)
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Spelunker.
All standard NPCs are under the "Standard" tab (as opposed to "Custom"). Some just aren't there and some you don't get until you buy them with tickets (which you get for playing other people's missions). I'm pretty sure Fusionette is in there somewhere, and I'm not sure about the Fortune Teller that spends most of her days being kidnapped over and over.
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Ohh oky another one.. What about saving someone to escort, but you have to bring them someplace to interact with an item. Like save the doctor, Bring him to the lab storage box, or save the hacker, find the computer.. soo far on escorts or ally i only see basically follow, stay or lead to exit.
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Can't be done at present. On a lot of people's wishlists for the next upgrade (mine included).
Dec out.
Thanks a ton.. that answered a lotta Q's.. and yea it all pretty much made sence. I know basic a bit, and have done a little directobject programing in Neverwinter nights, its not really the same, but i get the jists of it.
Seams like the MA is definatly missing some key features atm, But my hopes/thoughts is they will be eventually. But hey, there are a lotta work arounds im seeing people do that seam too take the place. My first mission im on the 5th incarnation of it and its getting closer to done. I droped the hostages down to 3, last one is an esort out, did some ambushes on events, used a narrow map soo front, middle, back are easy to hit.
things seam to be working nicely. Id say another 2 hours, maybe 3 and first mission should be all ready and done, outside of difficlutly tweaking..
Im also consitering doing some custom groups to make things spawn the way i want. LIke i have some captives i want with mages only, but ghosts keep poping up. I guess ill do some playing with those later. right now i just want everything working right. Ill worry about the nit pick details later.
Probly will take me another week before i have this arc fleshed out the way i want. Still am having issues on how the story is gonna get to the wrap up. 5 missions isnt that long.
You can pull out any of the standard enemies and put them in their own custom group. Then it will spawn only those if you use it for "surrounding enemies". I'm not sure if this affects the "custom cap" but I don't believe it does (don't quote me on that, though).
Dec out.
awsome ill give that a try then. Im sure it will add some cause it is adding some text and such. though last edit i seamed to get a 6kb bloat at one point. I could swear i was watching it and it jumped from like 19-25, dont remember adding anything specific but fixing texts and it wasnt that much
Soo could i make these?
CoT archers Just put archers in it? then tag that as enemy group?
Cot Nerva spectral demon in another single unit custom group.
Basically use the archers on a hostage group and the demon on a death.
Kill the named boss, His death spawns a demon off his corpse that you must defeat and then get a clue?
Hmmm that could work in story line
I got a q here, I wanna add some rescue victums to a mission. is there a way to copy the exact same dialog/peramiters, basically duplicate the other one with out going through and adding everything manually? Im bascially wondering if there is anyway to copy past stuff like that?
also. Im currious about adding custom content. I added a custom escort. basically just outfit on a NPC with custom dialog. It added about 5KB. Is this right? I want to use this character later in the arc as a ally. For right now i didnt even add powers or anything and it took up that much. some how this doesnt seam right as i played a arc last night that had to of had 10 or more custom bosses/allys. Am i doing something wrong? or is there a way to lessen the load on custom created things?