And stacking misc objects that have transparency on a set graphic later also shows the smile face, causing me to make more objects.

Thanks for the compliment. The above pictures are no longer as I have changed the overall look. I started over actually. I am making the words of power scrolls instead. I did make a dialogue that was one spell running it. And you could type in the word of power and it word trigger the effects better then the massive macro code I originally had. But now thats all gone and scrolls are the new way. I don't want to use spell category because of the way the player can obtain them. Books are a large part of the game since the game is based on one.

It is history mixed with fantasy but thats mainly what all the old bible books are anyways. Enoch and the giants and fallen angels and such. I put in a lot of historical figures and they are not all in the right time due but why not.

Making it is a lot of fun, and now with better tile graphics its even more fun :smile:

i remember that from a while back, thought that was fixed.

EDIT: btw this whole project looks and sounds totally awesome so far!

Is it possible to tell the smile face to be all black?

If the player has a transparency turned on, and stands over a space that uses set graphic later, you can see under the player icon the smile face. It ends up being only the sides of the smile face as the player icon is still there, but if the smile face could be turned all black then when ever the player stands over such a space, it would be black instead of a smile face. Either that or just turn transparency off and I really don't want to do that.

Well, after 87 maps, 60 or so macros, and about 80 dialogs, about 10 months work, I'm starting all over. I was using the ultima 5 tiles, which only used 16 colors. and ACK uses 255 colors. I made too much to do simple fixes. I would have to go to every map and change so much to implement the new way, and so better to start over. The new version is much more impressive visually. The benefit of using ultima 5 tiles is the black backdrop to almost every tile, which means they can be as interchangeable as possible. You put an ultima 5 chair in the ultima 5 desert and it will look right. But full color tiles, I need more chairs. Chairs for every tile I plan to put a chair on. I know about making stuff misc objects and making those weight 9999 (transparency trick), but a chair should be a space, and better with the icon of someone sitting in it. But the visual effect will make the game more memorable.

Set Graphic Later; when building a room map, and using set later graphic gets slower and slower the more I place them. EDIT: no slowdown even if room building slows down.

Its better this way. I begrudged making some maps the way I did. Yet, sooo many portals were made to these that it would be wrong to change them. Now I can do it in a better direction. Anyways that is the update.

I think ACK is better to display the perspective from a master shot. As opposed to the top down. Only because the player can't turn direction. If it could then I could snatch graphics from ultima 6 and 7 (including martian dreams and savage empire), So I guess we got to cheat when we can. But some of ultima 5 tiles are from top down. Like the pillar. The pillar is from top down because the are mostly found in the center of rooms and would look strange otherwise. Now I use 4 tile pillars and the effect is much better. Chairs are a big problem because you want them to be used anywhere.

I would like the bottom message space to appear on a scroll. The bmp overlay has a scroll down there, but the space for messages goes almost to the very end of the right side of screen. Over writing the scroll graphic. The tskin.bmp has a border that matches the wskin, so it blends in perfectly. I changed the background color to that of the wskin so the bottom scrolling looks nice accept for the message space overwriting the very end. The only reason I can start over is that i seem to be addicted to ACK.

I see the level up is watched automatically by experience. But I want to make level up happen when Enoch visits the temple.
Would it be best to have the global macro stop experience increase until he level's up? Or should I make another variable be the experience? If it is another variable then I would make the values smaller. Monsters would give one two or three points and after every twenty points, have a level up.
I made copies of the towns just as the quick reference said for night versions of towns. (I was worried and didn't want to redraw them). copying the a b c and w # files works.
I might just do away with the words of power object after all. Though it works it would be a lot of typing and variable use. And I have plenty of object room for spells. The game even has it's own form of reagents already, I made them by accident and see that it may be the best use.
But do spells always show up or can we learn them as we go along? Will look at u4part2 to see.
I'm on map 78 now. And when the night versions are done will be at 85. I still need a heaven map. And the rest will be used up as random villages and dungeons.
The game as an ultima5 tile look, but lots and lots of new tiles and colors.
I might try adding ultima5 3d look of dungeons as bmps.

Here are some pics of the game. It's so big. I shoulda started smaller but its so much to do so that should be fun.

Hello. Is it possible to delete conversations even if a person has been placed on the map using it? I really want to start the conversations all over again. Also I'm a bad speller.

I took a little break from it as an awaited game was released and doing that but will finish this thing. it's like 70 % done.
Happy holidays, merry christmas and happy new year.

Thank you.

EDIT:
I was working a little with exult studio, and the thing just crashes way to much. The benefit is larger tiles to use, but always always crashes (Even if you do not edit a thing) And for all it's features, they sure don't have enogh info on how to use all the features.
ACK community is much different. Very informative here. and lots of help.
But it did make me wonder one thing. Could ack implement paperdolls for ready weapons and armor. I believe the showbmp functions would do this normally, i mean macros
1 showbmp (papperdoll)
2 getkey m
3 if m= (selected sword) then (show bmp of sword on paper-doll)
also
The only command to add (which i dont knwo yet)
is in a macro have player ready weapon...
oh i saw the one were armor is unreadied. Bet the commands already exist.
I can't say enough how much fun ack is.

EDIT:
Ok, I found out what I did, some how I accidentally changed which color was the transparent one... I think, but it's working now.

Is it ok to have the original beginning stage hard to do unless you do it right? (also might rely on luck) I know ultima2 was really hard to figure out and survive until you found lord british selling hit points. If I didn't look up on internet how to beat it, I would have giving up playing ultima2. Should the first part be easy monsters, or should it be a real tuff challenge (right now its a tuff challenge)?

rld wrote:I don't think you can create a new portal on the fly, but you can change the destination of any existing portal whenever you want using the SETPORT command; see ACK manual for details.

I haven't tried to use MAPSET or MAPADD to create a new portal, so I can't say what will happen. I suspect that it will create the terrain object but not create a new portal number, thus leaving a "dead" portal that might as well be a space. Is the second byte of a portal object used to store the portal number?

joebonk wrote:Thank you sir. About the INV. I would think the portal macro
would look something like this:
if inv[1] >0 then
if inv [2] >0 then
and go through all the inv numbers that are possible
to possess.
And after the IFs, put a line that says stop.

SET SUCCESS = 0 before the stop.

The THENs of the IFs goto after the stop line
and after stop line
success=1

Something like this should work. I do suggest that you explicitly set SUCCESS to both 0 and 1, and never assume the system will choose one by default - just in case.

joebonk wrote:How do you use the patch commands. Looking over the patch post there are some really amazing additions. Changing a
people into another people is awesome. Turn a dragon into
a rat... that would be cool. Then the dialogue would be
"Nooooo!" I want enoch to be able to cure people who are possessed. And this would be the way. Replace a possessed
person with a citizen person. Awesome!!!!

Once you have installed the patch (which basically just means copying the new versions of ACK02.EXE and ACK02.OVR files from the patch into your ACK directory), the new features (other than bug fixes) are typically activated one of two ways:

Z variable - some of the features are activated by setting bits in the Z variable. For example, if you set the lowest bit (bit 0) of Z to 1, then the LOOK command will be ignored. See the changes.txt and readme.txt files in the patch ZIP for other examples.

Extended draw - other new commands (used by macros only) are added by extending the DRAW command with special hooks. This is done as follows. If the first coordinate of the command is 999 (which would be outside the screen), it is assumed that the macro is trying to use a special command; otherwise the regular line-drawing DRAW command is used.

For example, to perform the function above (changing the type of a creature), use

DRAW 999 304 TO i <val> OF 0 0
- set source type of creature instance i to <val>

where the creature instance # has previously been recorded in the editor or fetched by using the DRAW 999 300... command.

joebonk wrote: I only have one tile for 4 fazes of moon. But I will probably sacrifice another tile for more fazes. Wait!!! The bmp overlay could have the moon built in and just have like 8 the global macro uses. that way I don't need to kill another
game object. Is the overlay bmp constant if set in the configure screen or could it be set by the hourly macro?

It's a constant - the game uses RMSKIN.BMP or WMSKIN.BMP depending on which type of region you are in. However, if you draw a transparent BMP on top of that to fill in your moon phase graphic, the game shouldn't erase the screen unless you go to another region, I think - I'm not sure exactly how often full screen erases are performed, but it's definitely not every time the room map is drawn - the rest of the screen is left alone most of the time.

joebonk wrote: But I can place a moon gate, but can a moongate not be there at certain times?
Can the player make a new permanent portal?
I'll probably use all 99 maps. I'm at 67 now. And still got villages to make and then rooms for places.

See the implementations of the moongates in the ACK manual. If you use the 'disappear when not passable' setting, you can make a portal disappear (appear to be empty terrain of your choosing) when the conditions for the player to enter it are not met.

I don't think you can create a new portal on the fly, but you can change the destination of any existing portal whenever you want using the SETPORT command; see ACK manual for details.

How do you use the patch commands. Looking over the patch post there are some really amazing additions. Changing a
people into another people is awesome. Turn a dragon into
a rat... that would be cool. Then the dialogue would be
"Nooooo!" I want enoch to be able to cure people who are possessed. And this would be the way. Replace a possessed
person with a citizen person. Awesome!!!!

Oh and I figured out what I was doing wrong with the mosaic.
tmosaic for transparency.
I got fazes of the moon working with qtile. Can portals only be replaced by other portals?
I implemented moon gates since ultima fans will like it. And I have a moon now. But I rolled an idea around earlier and now seems appropriate, that the timing of certain game situations happen during eclipses. This gives me a bunch of ideas for figuring out different moongate stuff.
I only have one tile for 4 fazes of moon. But I will probably sacrifice another tile for more fazes. Wait!!! The bmp overlay could have the moon built in and just have like 8 the global macro uses. that way I don't need to kill another
game object. Is the overlay bmp constant if set in the configure screen or could it be set by the hourly macro?
But anyways, the manuel says DAYS Hours MINUTES, And I wondered if there was a way to implement a calendar.
From day one to the year enoch is doing his giant bashing.
So make a year variable (I think later variables have up to like 60000 settings possible). And then have the Egyptians tell enoch (gives him a scroll (which triggers a bmp)) that has calculated all the possible upcoming solar and lunar eclipses. Then the macro ask what year it is, what DAY it is.
And it everything lines up, the moon gate portal goes to mars, or someplace.
But I can place a moon gate, but can a moongate not be there at certain times?
Can the player make a new permanent portal?
I'll probably use all 99 maps. I'm at 67 now. And still got villages to make and then rooms for places.

Regarding the summon command...along with its other problems, this can only be called from an action-triggered macro (with QA) and not a step macro, etc.

One other way to 'summon' a creature is to have the creature already existing somewhere in the region (with its instance number known since it has already been created), waiting inside a sealed room as a staging area. Then, you just create a new #255 object on the map where you want the new creature to be, and set that object data field to the creature instance number. You don't have to delete the original copy of the creature; as long as the player can't get into the room/area where the extra copies of the creature(s) are, having more than one in the region shouldn't cause any problems.

This way, you can create the creature in advance in the editor (defining its conversation #, etc.) and then just 'plop' it on the map where you need it.

You can also use the patch commands to change an existing creature from one source type to another, if you just want to change how a creature looks. This won't change a creature from moving to nonmoving or change its conversation type, though.

Thank you sir. About the INV. I would think the portal macro
would look something like this:
if inv[1] >0 then
if inv [2] >0 then
and go through all the inv numbers that are possible
to possess.
And after the IFs, put a line that says stop.
The THENs of the IFs goto after the stop line
and after stop line
success=1
It may be a lot of if asking but I don't mind.

The summon creature QA. It would be the object of chained victim's Action calling the Macro. And the trigger would be
attacking the object, thinking enoch cut the chains. (I dont want to make a key object)
But the macro wont write it. The object itself works in summoning a creature as the action using no macro. And I guess I could simply make more then one.
But You are right about stacking in rooms. Great idea there.
I could then even have demons chained in heaven or somewhere and if released they attack.
The werewolf will put you in a map with lots of space; depending on the terrain. Desert , forest, mountain and grass. Then the global or step macro (whatever is watching the time of month) ask what map enoch is on, and then send him to the right map. What happens then is each of these maps have a town in the middle, status is criminal and tile is werewolf. I think that should be enough to simulate the experience.
I don't know how to overlay a title bmp over the mini mosaic at the bottom of screen I made. Only the mosaic shows up.
I was thinking of making a look at stars telescope action.
First I wanted to make random mosaics of maybe 7 tiles scattered, and then randomly have others picked to overlay. each time would be a random experience of stars. But I have no more tile space left. So Then how about random overlays of bmps? That would solve it.

I thought I would have this done by now. But it might be another month.
Is it possible to set a degree of transparency?
Like a crystal ball bmp can have slightly blue overlaying a mosaic. Or tiles with slight transparency.
Well u4part2 has a unique night time tile for darkness where you can still very slightly see the terrain beyond torch
light. Did he make a tile that has very few pixels transparent while rest is dark?
I haven't had this much fun programming in a long time.
I am so glad people still like 2d games.

Ok, sorry, one more question. I saw a facebook pic of ack
where there is a side of cliff tile. Its mixed with other
u5 tiles, but that side of cliff tile would complete so much
of ideas from my game. Does anyone know if it is available
from one of the demos (I didn't see it) or where I could get it. I would love floating in space style areas.

joebonk wrote:There is one problem I have with macros. I can't get it to summon creature qith QA 24 1
This is not an action in an object, though I am using the QA command. I'm typing it into the macro editor.
And it's not being run from a dialouge.
It's just not successessfully being written.

QA will work only if in a macro called by an action. And Summon Creature is not always reliable.

I type:

16 QA 24 16 (16 is villager)

but it turns out to say
QA SUMMON CREATURE :: NONE YET

SO I type QA :24 16 and same thing
So I type QA :24:16 and the same thing
Or I go over the name 'none yet' and type 16 but nothing works.

Like I said, it's not always reliable.

What I hope to happen is the chained victom or sacrificial victom object's action is execute macro. And also object is elliminated if action triggered. I used to have an empty chains tile space that replaces the chained victom but this overwrote the creature being summoned. like mapset does (killing the ncp) And that was when the object, not a macro, summoned the creature. But then I wanted more then just one type of ncp being summoned. The macro sets a variable random to 6. Depending on enoch's intelligence, the creature summoned can be either a possessed evil (man women or child) or if INT is higher, (good man women or child.)

INT tells goto, and then set varaible to rnd 3 or 6, 3 for first three evil choices, or 6 for all choices, I should also have it if INT is high enogh, only the last three choices are available good citizens) but then what if the player is seeking to become a demon (as the game allows) so maybe I'll leave it alone.

This can be done without Summon Creature, using stacking, if done on a Room-Type map. Put the CHAINED VICTIM object on top, then pairs of creatures and EMPTY CHAINS objects.

• CHAINED VICTIM
  CREATURE 1
  EMPTY CHAINS
  CREATURE 2
  EMPTY CHAINS
  etc.

The CHAINED VICTIM object calls a macro that removes CHAINED VICTIM from the space, and randomly removes as many creature-chain pairs as needed. You can use a loop, and keep using MAPCHK to make sure the right objects are deleted. Using this method, you can when editing the map put any creatures you want in the stack, even talking ones. It is impossible to use Summon Creature to create a talking creature.

- A:A:

Wow, thank you very much. hmm looks like its hex editing. I'll read it all, thanks.

There is one problem I have with macros. I can't get it to summon creature qith QA 24 1
This is not an action in an object, though I am using the QA command. I'm typing it into the macro editor.
And it's not being run from a dialouge.
It's just not successessfully being written. Or won't.
I have some objects that are trapped victoms, and Enoch can set them free.
Like chains, or as a sacrificial victom.
I type:

16 QA 24 16 (16 is villager)

but it turns out to say
QA SUMMON CREATURE :: NONE YET

SO I type QA :24 16 and same thing
So I type QA :24:16 and the same thing
Or I go over the name 'none yet' and type 16 but nothing works.
What I hope to happen is the chained victom or sacrificial victom object's action is execute macro.
And also object is elliminated if action triggered.
I used to have an empty chains tile space that replaces the chained victom but this overwrote the creature being summoned.
like mapset does (killing the ncp) And that was when the object, not a macro, summoned the creature.
But then I wanted more then just one type of ncp being summoned.
The macro sets a variable random to 6. Depending on enoch's intelligence, the creature summoned can be
either a possessed evil (man women or child) or if INT is higher, (good man women or child.)
INT tells goto, and then set varaible to rnd 3 or 6, 3 for first three evil choices, or 6 for all choices, I should also have it if
INT is high enogh, only the last three choices are available (good citizens) but then what if the player is seeking to become
a demon (as the game allows) so maybe I'll leave it alone.

Edit: (sometimes I write txt files for my questions at work and save to flash drive. Thanx for above bit save data. I hope it doesn't involve figures like 2e and b7. But then if it works, why not. I'll read it avidly)
Here is what I want to save into one variable's 16 bits so far:
bit 1 - demon status (how evil enoch performs)
bit 2 - angel status (how hero enoch performs)
bit 3 - fish status (marriage to neptunes daughter and living in fish world)
bit 4 - dream captive status (citizenship in dream world)
bit 5 - seer knowledge status (which happens by schooling, egypt partisipation, task)
bit 6 - warrior status, (how victorious enoch is)
bit 7 - curiousity factor (the game rewards you by how far you go without succuming to the game altering stages)
bit 8 - doubleness status (how advanced enoch is at doubleness, which is required to win the game)
bit 9 - death status (enoch can become just a slayer of giants, or take death's place)
bit 10 - werewolf status (because one a month, if bitten (toach macro), enoch terrorizes a town. The time macro watches this one)

And The rewards and specific develupments that occure will watch them all. SO some rewards will have a formula,
if bit 1 is 3 and bit 2 is 7 and bit 9 and so on.

mainly each staus has it's own home map, and the greater the bit, the more doors are opened in each
but rescuing a victom, sets angel status higher, and demon status lower. sacrificing victom does opposite.
these forces are at war in the game, and also within enoch.

I want to simulate a once a month turn to werewolf.
I sacrificed a monster for the moon tile.
And it has 4 fazes. New Half Half and full, so I guess enoch will spend a day or two as a werewolf (if activated).
And at night fall. SO I guess the global macro will decide which quarter tile gets used in displaying the moon.
And since I have a moon now, I might as well time some spells to it's faze.
I also wonder then, can the global macro decideof much torch light happens at nightfall.
I want to make it just one tile more visible at new moon and 4 tiles a full moon.
And who wants to wait a month for the fazes to change. SO Maybe 2 or 3 days changes the faze of the moon.
Is there already a varable for the clock? And is there day varaible and hour varaibles? I know something watches time.
At this point I'll keep adding stuff till I run out of everything.
Seems possible to make U4 and U5 dungeons just using bmps. I thought of making a huanted house.
Even a mosaic could be displayed, one for pathway, one for crossroads, one for ladder up or down.

The article was:

Bit-wise use of variables explained.
http://www.joltcountry.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6450

- A:A:

joebonk wrote:I still don't know how to set the
bits in a variable. I tried set m.1 = 3 but didn't work.
thinking .1 is the first bit.

There was another post on this forum re. bit manipulation.
I'll try to find it. Right now, I can assume bit 1 is the rightmost bit, and say:

Set bit 1 on: SET M2 = M2 | 1
Set bit 1 off: SET M2 = M2 & 65534
(For 8-bit variables: SET A = A & 254)
Test bit 1: IF M2 & 1 THEN ...

I also suggest:
http://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-decima ... erter.html

- A:A:

Thank you very much Admiral. (salutes)
The death macro can do that... awesome!
I have a dream world and I was wondering how I was going to
manage dyeing in it. Thats a good idea of saving the HP and MP in variables for the double.

Your M2 variable example tells the macro what action to
perform. Like m2 is 1 for flying, and the other variables
will activate that and terminate that accordingly.

Thats great management. I still don't know how to set the
bits in a variable. I tried set m.1 = 3 but didn't work.
thinking .1 is the first bit.
(Was setting variable bits possible on the commodore? I saw one in a thrieft store once and bought it for nostalgia sake, but was again disappointed by the slow speed of the
disk drive. Expensive calculator.)

For some reason when ever I make a map and then change the edge setting to portal, the map ends up having a 16x16
misplacement. I thought it was due to being too small but it happens on 48x48 maps.

thanx again.