And the random encounters will now also be able to pick which foes you'll meet in battle

In stead of setting up a mathematical formula I decided it was just better to use my collections module in order to create a 2 dimensional array in which I manually set stuff up. The reason is simply because this was easier to come up with a well-balanced solution for all difficulty settings, and most of all the hard version. The hard version must be hard, yes, but experience also told me that there are sometimes mathematical impossibilities, and I don't wanna see those... Hard != impossible!

Especially in 1 and 2 character parties this easily happens. With 3 or more, this danger is out of the air, and not to mention then you must be able to properly cover it up as a player, but below that (especially in starting dungeons) this can be an issue!

This way I can more easily balance things out and even edit things.....

Right-o, I've set up a list of how many foes can appear in a random encounter based on the difficulty setting, and the number of party members.

All parse issues accounted for!

And let's move on into take VII

that one came out in take VI

Well that was very very stupid

Forgotten // in comments

Missing "self"

Take V

Anyway regenerated... (I guess that was obvious).

Forgotten anyway generation

Take IV

Illegal function call

(I did announce take II before, but somehow it didn't appear on the log... how odd.... That or I'm getting senile at a too young age).

Take III

missing data to map added

It was late in the evening when I wrote that code, so cut me some slack, will ya!

Unless of course you don't put the proper returns in the meta-table script

"nil" value? Now this is impossible from a metatable, so I wonder what has happened here!

Re-linked the script but now to a different spot... Maybe that will help!

Clearly the class required was not seen

Take I

I did add an extra exclamation mark in that error as a mark for myself to see if the entire routine did get executed.

I now must test if everything works the way it is intended, however that is not yet possible... All I can test is if no errors pop up, except for the one forced to happen

Some pre-battle config has been taken care of now

Well, now that all parse errors have been fixed, the "real work" has only just begun.
Now I can make the field routine actually configure the combat routine. This will be hard to do, as no visual effect will take place at all during this process. However the combat routine cannot start up without the data generated in this process...

A few early tests can be done in the form of drawing the arena and making sure the combat music will play, after that I will have to put in the foe compiler, which is very important as there the foe's stats and abilities are properly defined

Once that's all done, we're still not there, as then I need to position everything out, and well after some more preparations, I might be able to actually start to code the combat itself, which will even then still remain complex, but at least possible.

Of course, once the combat routine works, the long boring stuff will finally come to an end, allowing me to focus most of all on game content.

Let's first make the Random Encouter routine ine routine call out to the combat routine... Hey, no combat is yet possible I know, but at least I can see if things run accordingly ;)

Running... It was backlogged!

All parse errors accounted for

Take VI

A missing )

A cosmetic issue inside the class parser was to blame

It seems some line numbering issues in NIL have been fixed AT LAST!!!!

Take V

Which fixes another parse error in the process

Illegal "end"

Take IV

Bad function naming

Unfortunately that doesn't end all misery

That fix

Take III

?

Library not found?

Take II

The issue for now, taking away a parse error

jpbubble/NIL-isn-t-Lua#48 -- Really!

Take I

I've now linked the combat start linker into the main field flow.... I've not yet made any callouts to it, but this way I can a least check if all parse errors have been fixed

Calling it a day... Tomorrow is a busy day for me in general, and the work coming up now is very very complex... This is the hardest part of RPG creation, you know...

The receiver for the link has been written.... All it can do (for now) is receive the data, so I can later compile it into the "core" of the combat routines. This won't be an easy thing to do, though, so expect some long periods of time passing without anything spectecular happening (at least not for the naked eye).... And the number of bugs... Oh, I already feel them coming....

Some link up code has been written.... It links to non-existent stuff for now, so calling it now WILL lead to a crash, but.... writing that all out will be a lot easier now, so that's a good thing... right?

No idea if it works now, since I cannot yet test, and it will take awhile to reach that point!

Scipted the forest arena out in full....

Grass

Cloud

And a generator for forest arenas.... They will look different every time... :-/

Set up the loader for Arenas

I love my script

Rebuilt

Issues with NIL modules.... This will mean that no multiple modules can be sent anymore, but maybe that was a bad idea from the start, anyway....

Arena script loader!

I've setup a RelPos library, which can help me on the arenas.... Far from ideal, but hey, it will work out.... right?

In order to make sure the combat routine will always work, no matter how the screen settings are done, I've decided to set up a dynamic arena system.... This can automatically enlarge or reduce arena sizes and fighter positions.... It should be noted though, that this can (and likely will) tax slow computers with big screens, but then again, that combination was a bad idea from the start, if you ask me!

Added tag BRAINSTORM

Time for me to take a break

Not yet entirely happy, but for now it has to do... It's easy to lower or to raise the encounter settings in general, so it shouldn't be a big big issue....

Take VII

Unlike what the name implies to those who do not know the technical background of this routine, this actually LOWERS the frequency of random encounters

Doubled MaxRate for random encounters

Take VI

Case error

take V

Let's see what happens now

There's a lot more wrong than I believed

Take IV

Let's add some extra debug information

BUT STILL NO GOOD HERE!

Take III

And/Or error

Countdown linkup code ignored

Take II on the countdown test

Case error

Some real-life stuff

And once an encounter goes off the game will forcefully crash, the error message generated will however tell me if things work the way I planned them.... so far!

AND I must make sure it doesn't conflict with Zone Actions

I must still link it properly to the walking routine....

I've set up the countdown which should lead to a random encounter... Please note that I only did the countdown for now, and nothing more

Time for lunch!

All parsing crashout accounted for.... Wow.... I never expected THAT!

Take III

Cockroach prevention macro! Doesn't hurt too much, so WHY BOTHER!

Take II

Order error

Take I

WISH ME LUCK!!!!

For now all I can test is the absense of crash messages. But that is already a great deal on its own, so let's go for that!

And an automated property added to make this easy

Compiler for which floor may lead to encounters and which may not

I've written a compiler which compiles Foe lists for dungeons....These are hard (read: impossible) to test at the current state of the game, but as things will run, I hope things will get clear... It shouldn't give any serious trouble, though...

Okay, it works... Maybe a little bit of fine tuning on the x-coordinate of the swords, and I need to make sure the gauge disappears in areas without encounters, but that comes later!

Swords place in a a bit of fine tuning

AT LAST!

I'm tired!

NOOOO!!!! NOT AT THIS HOUR!!!!!

A laziness fix

MOAR bugs

And many bugs fixed along th eway

RENC preparations

Swords symbol for Random Encounters

I think it goes without saying that these two enemies will be the ones little Irravonia will meet during her prologue dungeon in the Xenor Bushes

Blue Slime

Monster editor worked out a bit more

Big Mama Slime, although that boss will come in later, but I simply needed to get a few things on the road already

Laziness

Added tag BOSS

Goblin

The basic editor for foes has now been set up.... It's not yet possible though to properly import the data it generates into the game, but that will soon be taken care of

Added tag FOE

Stricly speaking an ability as far as the database in concerend :P

Attack

I'm still working on my foe editor

And my lamp bulp broke... I guess I need to buy another one (sigh).

I've made a small start to set the enemy editor on the road, but it's far from finished yet!

One of the first things to be done is to set up a proper enemy editor... Now I could make one with WPF... Not sure if that's the best way to go, but it is a viable option, GTK+ also looks like a good option.... MyData is quite often NOT the best option, due to some functionality I need that MyData simply can't provide

Now the hardest part..... The encounters.... Some pre-work will have to be done before the combat engine it self will be set up, but it will be a very hard job altogether

I expect "OVERLOADED" works as it should, but I cannot fully test that, but that will come over time!

It appears to be working

Take VII

Forgotten minimessage coordinates

Take VI

And I fixed it

I think I found out why

But now it tries to look on the Kthura Object tag in stead of the item tag, and I need to find out why

All direct parse errors accounted for

Take V

Syntax Error

Take IV

How could I make such a beginner's mistake?

Unquoted string

Take III

Syntax error

Take II

Forgotten declaration + definition

And then a lesser fun note....

Today I've been told a woman I know has passed away. She was 60 years old.

So let's get to it

Take I

It's not tested yet, though

I've created the item pickup routine

I mean a quick script updating stuff with Butler

And a quick powershell so I don't have to worry about it anymore in the future

I've set up a secret page on itch.io for this... Most of all to prevent having to deal with stuff later on release days

Now the next step is (of course) to make sure the treasures are actually being awarded

the specific (temporary) crash message I've set up does confirm the treasure event does trigger

The treasure bags appear

And Take IV

So running my compilation script

Forgot to recompile NALA was was needed for this operation

Take III

Schijt

Take II

Case error

Let's see if the treasures appear

Rebuilding

Kitty needs her foodbowl to be filled... ;)

Random treasures as the name suggests are placed at random... In the easy mode they always reappear and all spots are set... in the harder modes, this will be less. In casual modes some treasure spots can randomly disappear forever, in the hard mode this always happens, and the easy mode never. And Random Treasures are not saved, so they reset every time you load a game... Permanent disappearances ARE saved, though :P

I've placed in several random treasure spots, let's see if they appear....

Kthura issue

Not yet tested if they actually appear, if they do, trying to pick them up will (for now) crash the game (safety pre-caution, because that part has not yet been fully coded out).

The auto-clickables compiler has been set to recognize random treasures

Kthura String properties of objects are not writable.... This is a dangerous feature, but unfortunately, needed!

Black Orb, but that was only because now I had it, and it would save me some frustration later ;)

Bag

So far no errors pop up, but the "real" work is not yet over... :-/

And yeah one did pop up....

All I can test for now is making sure no errors pop up....

This compiled data can be used by the clickable compiler to assign treasures to treasure spots

I made a "compiler" for the random treasure list. I should note that the list of treasures you can find can 'narrow' a bit based on your chosen difficulty settings.

And that being said I'm gonna call it a day! See ya!

Irravonia will now refuse to go back through the eastern exit of the Xenor bushes and say that it's better to go the other way. Sounds obvious, but if I didn't do this, the player could end up on the world map in the later stage of production and that was NOT supposed to happen.

Don't go back!

Don't goback

Don't go back

Don't go back

FINALLY!

Running in the background

Take XXVII

Compilation script running

Walking no longer read only

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH! (Crash)

Is take XXVI the final take then.... PLEAAAAASE!!!!

I guess not

Take XXVI (hopefully that's the final test in this issue)

Minor bug... StopWalking() was forgotten, that's been added to this event to preven further confusion

Main bugs fixed

Take XXV

???

Take XXIV

Xtra debug line undummied

take XXXIII

Extra checkups

It says the scenario "map" is not loaded... That's not possible without causing bugs on this in the start game scenario.... In fact not possible at all, at this point of production, and yet it happens, so this is getting on my nerves