Question about NWNX

etched_in_blood · Joined: 28 Apr 2009 Posts: 13

As nice as those options sound, the whole night/day spawn, things like that, the complexity would quickly become overwhelming if I started to dictate every portion of the spawns like that. All I want is this:

The script fires off, and first things first, it checks the area to make sure it's ready to be respawned/spawned by checking for a local int that's reset on a timer. If we're not good to go on respawn, it simply returns, if so, then we continue, and we set that int and timer now.

Then it starts by reading a local int on the area. This local int simply tells me what the Average CR of the area should be.

Then the script reads a second local int, and it tells me what the Terrain Type of the area is.

Then the script reads a final, third local int, and it tells me what the Maximum Spawn number should be for this area.

The script then randomizes a number between 1 and the Maximum Spawn number, and enters a while statement, which causes it to loop and spawn until it has spawned the proper number of creatures.

While it is looping and spawning, it rolls a d100 for percentile for each creature it's going to spawn. This percentile tells me what CR that creature will spawn as based on the Average CR of the area. For instance:

If the Average CR of the area is 4, the chances that an individual spawn will be of a specific CR is....

7% chance it will be 3 less than average Spawns a CR 1
12% chance it will be 2 less than average Spawns a CR 2
22% chance it will be 1 less than average Spawns a CR 3
30% chance it will be average Spawns a CR 4
18% chance it will be 1 more than average Spawns a CR 5
8% chance it will be 2 more than average Spawns a CR 6
3% chance it will be 3 more than average Spawns a CR 7

The minimum CR the script recognizes is 1, and any creature entered with a CR of less than one is treated as having a CR of 1. As you can see, this adds for a lot of possible flexibility in the actual spawns of any given area. That flexibility adds to a lot of the unpredictable nature of the world, without letting it get TOO out of hand.

So. Now the script knows what the Average CR of the area is. It knows what the Terrain Type of the area is. And it knows how many spawns it's going to create, because it randomizes a number between 1 and the Maximum Spawn. Now that it knows all of that, it starts spawning creatures. It grabs the actual CR to spawn by combining a percentage roll with the Average CR information as shown above for each creature it's going to spawn. This then tells the script all the information it needs to know in order to spawn the creature. It knows the CR to spawn, and it knows the Terrain Type that spawn is associated with.

In my CURRENT system, that's where the base script ends, and the LONG function comes in. It sorts by those specific groups, for instance CR 1's of Terrain Type 4, and it randomly chooses one of those creatures ResRefs. Then it simply spits back the ResRef of a randomly selected creature from the proper group. The code then generates a random location in the area, and spawns the randomly selected creature there.

Its a lot of randomization, but it guarantees that no area, and no dungeon will ever spawn the same way twice, and will never become predictable. There's chances for tougher, meaner creatures than usual, or weaker creatures than usual, while still primarily spawning creatures very close to a specific CR. If there ever comes an area that I don't want randomized like that, I simply don't have to use it in that area, so my options remain open.

For example, if I wanted a cave that spawned just orcs, I could simply use NWN standard spawning in that specific cave. If I have a specific boss I want to spawn in a specific dungeon, I can spawn him manually with a trigger or so forth. So now that I've explained exactly what the system does, you can obviously see what it is that I'm wanting out of it.

Now, beyond this, I'm lost. I'm not sure how to set up or update the database, or how exactly the script will change, so on and so forth. So with all that, I'll need some help. As I said, if it helps, I would be willing to post the home script and even the long function if need be to give a perfect representation of how it is supposed to function.

Zebranky · Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 415

FunkySwerve · Joined: 02 Jun 2005 Posts: 377

etched_in_blood · Joined: 28 Apr 2009 Posts: 13

Well holy crap.... that seems fairly freaking simple. I just copied and pasted that so I would never ever lose it. Now how do I configure NWNx to use that database? Or will it just.... work? lol

FunkySwerve · Joined: 02 Jun 2005 Posts: 377

You tell nwnx which database to use in the NWNX.ini, in the "; Use these five settings for MySQL connections" section:

etched_in_blood · Joined: 28 Apr 2009 Posts: 13

Problem.

It is saying in the log that it connects to the database correctly, but it doesn't recognize the table "spawns". Thing is, I downloaded the GUI that someone talked about in this post, and looked it up. The table is right there. Don't know what's going on. The spelling is the same and all that, so I don't know what's happening.

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