Natural Disasters..

[xamlit]

Okay... Lets open this can of worms. Is there any way that I can have a  earthquake occur in any section of the map at certain intervals of time?

[Eddy-B]

Yes; use timers:

CreateTimeTrigger(1,0,2000,"Quake");
...

void Quake()
{
  TethysGame::SetEarthquake(32+TethysGame::GetRand(128),TethysGame::GetRand(128),1);
}

This will create an earthquake in a 128x128 map at a random location, every 20 ticks.

[xamlit]

How do I set a specifc location?
 

[Eddy-B]

TethysGame::SetEarthquake(x+31,y-1,magnitude)

magnitude=1 is a small quake, anything over 2 will kill almost any building at the epicenter.

[EDIT] There is a (+31,-1) offset in co-ordinates. Don't ask why: just calculate it that way: if you want a quake at (1,1) set it in code to occur at (32,0)

[Mez]

Is that because the disaster can occur off the map?

i.e. a tornado can spin in from the edge of the map, or the epicenter of the quake can be off the edge of the map so the edge only recieves a smaller shock?

[BlackBox]

Actually, the +31 -1 stuff is used almost everywhere.

It's because the game adds padding regions to the sides of the map (If I remember right, they're used for blight expansion, letting units exit off the edges, etc) and the mission designer could also use them to hide things that will be used later, like units, possibly even whole bases =)

So in effect (0,0) is probably still a real place on the map, but not visible to the user.
(31,-1) is the upper left corner of the player-visible map.

We haven't documented the padding regions at all, they seem to be different for different map sizes if I remember right. The best way to find out whether they're usable is to just test. If it doesn't work the game will crash trying to do something in that part of the map.

World maps, I'm not sure if they have left-right padding. I don't think they do. They might have top-bottom padding though.

Just play around with it if you're really interested in putting stuff outside the map.

[Leviathan]

And if you dont want to add the number when placeing mines use:

Code: [Select]

	{ XYPos( 15,  8), mapMiningBeacon, 0, 1, 1},

[zigzagjoe]

How would one go about making a volcano?

i have:

TethysGame::SetLavaSpeed(10);
TethysGame::SetEruption(163, 136, 0);

and a script that setslavapossible on all volcaninc tiles.

problem is: i get nada

it is announced, but nothing else happenes.

[Leviathan]

Eddy-B the volcano expert to the rescue.. !

[Hooman]

Well, from what I hear, Eddy has more advanced code than I do for setting lava flows, but essentially you can do it by calling GameMap::SetLavaPossible for each tile the lava can flow to.

Here is some sample code I used to clone the lava flow from CES1.dll (Colony, Eden Startship). I got the coordinates of the volcano from a disassembled view of the DLL, hence why all the coordinates are listed in hex.

Code: [Select]

	// Set animated mouth of volcano
	GameMap::SetTile(LOCATION(0x32, 0xB8), 0x474);
	GameMap::SetTile(LOCATION(0x32, 0xB9), 0x47E);

	// Allow lava at initial eruption point
	GameMap::SetLavaPossible(LOCATION(0x32, 0xBA), 1);
	// Set eruption point
	TethysGame::SetEruption(0x32, 0xBA, 0x96 /* Lava spread speed? (set after the eruption has occured) */);

The first two lines of code set the animation usually found on volcanos. The next line of code ensures lava can flow on the actual eruption point. (Otherwise it tends to never appear, even though you get the eruption warning.) The last line actually starts the eruption. Note how the last parameter controls the spread speed. It needs to be fairly large for it to be noticable. Also, when the eruption occurs, whatever lava spread speed was set before is overwritten. It appears to be one global value used by all volcanos.

[Eddy-B]

To add to Hooman: the 3rd param in SetEruption is the speed at wich the lava will spread out: set it 1 and it'll go a snail's pass, set to too 200 for example, and you got 2 seconds to get out of the way !

As for LavaPossible: This function (SetAllLava) sets LavaPossible for all dark-gray tiles, including the edges. Just call the function from your InitProc().
Be advised that IF you call it at some other time in your DLL, it won't setLavaPossible to any modified tiles, i.e. tiles that are dozed, or have a crater, or rubble, or whatever!

Code: [Select]

// SetAllLava:
// dark lavarock: 1D7-1F8
// edges: 22F-25E

void SetAllLava()
{
	LOCATION size(1024,1024);
	int x,y,tile;

	size.Clip();    // just a simple way to get the correct mapsize
	for (y=0; y<size.y; ++y)
	{
  for (x=31; x<size.x; ++x)
  {
  	tile=GameMap::GetTile(LOCATION(x,y));
  	if (((tile>=0x22F) && (tile<=0x25E)) || ((tile>=0x1D7) && (tile<=0x1F8)))
    GameMap::SetLavaPossible(LOCATION(x,y),true);
  }
	}
}