Jolt Country

Oh, and to expand on the variable thing, that also means that this would be a really bad step macro ;)

SETOBJ LOC[X] LOC[Y] 0

I found some bugs with LOC[X] and LOC[Y] in room maps while testing the new macro commands, so those are fixed in today's patch.

In the future I'll be using the new sticky thread to announce new patches, so you might want to subscribe to that thread; and this one can return to discussion of bugs. :)

One other change in the new patch relevant to the current conversation: the new map-editing macro commands have been renamed. The basic commands are now: MAPADD (add stackable object), MAPLOOK (see what's there), MAPSET (change the top object), MAPTAKE (remove stackable object).

This is a pretty big patch, but should be one of the last major code changes... I'll be releasing 3.1 soon, probably later this week.

In testing the new MAP* commands, I found a number of bugs -- they should be fixed in today's patch.

Also MAPTAKE now supports a third argument for what item to take (use 0 to make it behave the old way and take anything)

The new commands allow you to go out to a ship in your skiff, exit the skiff, board the ship, and have the skiff disappear. Then when you exit the ship, you're put into a skiff again. :)

Here's what they look like:

Macro 29: BOARDING SHIP (REMOVES ADJACENT SKIFFS)
1: SET X2 = LOC[X] - 1
2: MAPTAKE X2 LOC[Y] #75-SKIFF
3: SET X2 = LOC[X] + 1
4: MAPTAKE X2 LOC[Y] #75-SKIFF
5: SET Y2 = LOC[Y] - 1
6: MAPTAKE LOC[X] Y2 #75-SKIFF
7: SET Y2 = LOC[Y] + 1
8: MAPTAKE LOC[X] Y2 #75-SKIFF
9: STOP
Macro 30: EXITING SHIP (PUTS PLAYER INTO A SKIFF)
1: SET VEH = 75

(That exit macro needs some work -- next, I'll make it check for an adjacent dock, and if found, not put you into a skiff)

The next "patch" will probably be the full release, I think we're done verifying the new sound engine.

One more new toy that will make it in will be "small talk" files which can take the place of dialogues. If an adventure has a file called TALK7.TXT with the following lines,

Ugh, me tough!
Would you like to buy my apples?
Hex-e-poo, hex on you!
Believe!
Pay your taxes!
Funny, no response!

Then any creature with dialogue #7 will pick a random line from that file to blurt out (and the screen does not clear) instead of loading the regular dialogue #7.

It's just a quick and dirty, optional feature to make non-interactive NPCs a little easier to mass-produce.

I just posted the final beta patch, which will get your copy up to the 3.1 release level:

http://home.san.rr.com/divingpictures/PATCH.DAT

Future patches will be from the 3.1 level, so for those of you with the 3.1 beta, they'll no longer be cumulative -- you'll need to have this final patch installed.

Very nice :twiddles fingers ominously: I like the generic speech bit. I take it the response will simply show up at the bottom of the screen?

I apologize, as this isn't really a bug, but I need help with it. I can't get any sounds to play at all - I've messed around with all the sound settings and lowered the cycles in dosbox config to no avail. Should I be loading one of the sound drivers in the ACK folder with dosbox?

Great program, by the way!

Also not a bug, but the windows download link (on Mozomedia) is down.

Oops -- I had taken 3.0 down in preparation for the new version, but the new version is getting delayed by a couple of days. Check back shortly -- I'm going to try to have it up for this weekend.

3.2 ACK downloads now up--
http://www.mozomedia.com/ack/download.html
:)

Bruteman, you might check if 3.2 solves your sound issue.

Hi Bruteman,

Sorry for the delay in responding, I wanted to get 3.2 out there and into your hands so we could see if it fixes the problem. Since you're having issues, I would suggest replacing your old Adventure Creation Kit folder with the new one, rather than using the 31-to-32 patch.

If you still have issues, send me another PM and we'll start troubleshooting. Thanks!

Also make sure to check out the brand new TUTORIAL adventure. It uses a lot of sound (starting at the title screen) so that will be a quick test of whether or not sound is working.

5 Stars on that new tutorial! Excellent use of all the nifty new features. And that title animation is great - had me laughing out of my seat. I think that should really grab some attention.

You began this thread with a list of 10 bugs you were currently working on. I see that many of them have been fixed. Which bugs remain? I'm wondering about original #7, room deletion disabled due to data corruption issues. How is it coming? And is there a related bug with wall tiles sometimes disappearing from rooms while I am editing them?

In any event, many thank-yous for bringing a version of ACS up to a speed I can run on my current computer, that was a program I missed terribly. Never played Ultima, but my, what a lovely tile set.

Now if I could just figure out these macros.

I like the new tutorial.

I seem to recall that the very old tutorial warned about wasting memory in room type maps (the ACS-style maps) by accidentally stacking terrain on the same coordinate. Does this still apply and/or is it a big deal?

Well, the new version did it - I have sound! Fantastic new tutorial as well, really got a kick out of Max Headroom in the 2400AD setting.

Hi everyone,

I'm glad you like the new tutorial. :) I'm happy to finally have a demo adventure that shows off many of the newer features.

To answer the questions about rooms:

Memory and room-type maps: Yes, there is a limit of 6400 objects for the entire region. You'd have to go pretty nuts with stacking to hit that limit -- but if you redraw a room several times without erasing the contents first, you might.

Room deletion: Yes, I've been focusing on getting the new sound engine done and released, so now I'd like to visit that room deletion bug. The current implementation seems to scramble other rooms in some situations. Expect this to get fixed in a future patch.

Wall tiles disappearing: The only reason I can think of would be if two rooms have overlapping edges and you make changes to one room, it will change the other room wherever there's an overlap. If you're seeing this happening in places where that isn't the case, let me know -- I'll want to get some clue how to duplicate it.

I have had a tile disappear from a non-overlapping part of a room, the edges of which overlap five other rooms in version 3.201.

I ran the old 2.2 version for a day, as a regular program. During this time I found few errors, but a door and a counter (created by using the middle section of the table) were mysteriously turned into wall segments when I returned from editing another region. These were non-overlapping squares of a room that overlapped one other room.

I Then found these forums and the website for the new link while it was inactive. Later I downloaded 3.20 and the next day I downloaded the patch for it.
Before downloading the patch I started experimenting with creating an adventure using the Ultima tile set. I created and deleted a rooms region twice, because I could not delete or move the one misplaced room. The fourth time I created it I got all the rooms to overlap just as I wanted.

In drawing rooms maps I am actually trying to make them overlap the edge spaces so that I can use doors or spaces instead of portals. I am taking guidance from the old tutorial for this. Am I using the right concept to try designing these maps?

Yes, you're doing it right -- it's very similar to ACS in how it handles the rooms. If two rooms share a wall, then any spaces (or empty squares, which are walkable spaces, just like ACS) will allow you to walk from one room to another. The three rooms in the tutorial, for example, have overlapping room edges. Same thing with the first region in "Caravan".

I'll see about making a couple of enhancements to the room layout editor -- it has been left in kind of a rough state. I'd like to allow it to start drawing from any corner, instead of forcing the upper-left corner; I'd also of course like to get the "delete" to work reliably.

And I want to figure out what's going on with that data corruption bug you're seeing. I'll send you an e-mail separately about that one.

I just posted a v3.202 PATCH.DAT addressing the room deletion and room data corruption bugs -- if anyone has the opportunity, please give the new patch a little workout (try to stress out the room editor by creating room maps, deleting rooms, re-creating rooms, and seeing if anything gets garbled.) If you can break it, let me know what you did. :) Thanks!

You might try cranking up the speed of the map editor's DosBox window (Control-F12) to make the room delete "data check" run a little faster -- I realize it's very slow, I hope to improve this on a future patch.