Getting boats working...
 

I haven't seen Wumpas online lately and I know he was interested in this. I am going to be working on getting boats working on the Scorpious2k Server as soon as we switch over to 5.3DR2 and was wondering if anyone was interested in helping out...

Well I know you can get boats working on grids and i've been able to ride on the boats but I dont see how you could get the boats to zone into another zone.. It just doesn't seem possible.

But one idea I had was make the boats go to the zoneline and maybe stop so you can just walk into the zoneline, then have another boat stopped on the other side for you to zone in on and wait for another boat to come pick you up.. Its sloppy but its all I could think of..

Or just make the boats zone from lets say Butcherblock to East freeport, just skip the OOT part :)

I explained how we did it here: http://www.everquestserver.com/forum...=11781&start=0

Myra tells me she hates the impossible stuff... it takes longer to do. :-)

I'll help if ya like.. Although, with the ships 'turning' each time it hits a waypoint pause.. this might be a bit trickier than you'd like.

Let me know what I can help with... You can also find me in #eqemu and #npcmovdb on irc.

lol... sounds like the little girl from Dr. Ecco's corner in Dr. Dobbs.

They (my twins) have gotten spoiled by the "miracles" I pull off with computers. I'm not sure they believe the word impossible actually exists. And if it does they probably just think it means "very difficult". LOL

The first thing we'll need is grids for the ships movement. Most will be type 4 wander types.

Once we have those, we can tweek them with addition waypoints to smooth out movement.

Then we will need to set up the stationary zone-in ships along the moving ship's path and put a waypoint there for the stop.

Finally there is the zone point out to the next zone. I had that hard coded into the program. Unless there is a better way to do it, I'll have to do that again.

Alternately, we could do it backwards... do the zonepoints in the program and then build the grid moving towards that point.

What do you think?

I probably shouldn't mention this here....

but I have also figured out how to make the boats work eqlive style... no transfers from boats, no shuttle/cruiser setup... just get on the boat at the docks at one location, ride, zone, ride, zone, ride and get off at the docks at the destination.

This is a much more complicated fix, involving DB, world server and zone server changes. It also requires a little bit of strange thinking (my specialty). In effect, the ships become moving zones.

Anyway, this would probably best be done working with a dev who has a server up. The other way that I have described will be easy, will work, can be understood by non-techies and won't break anything...

ill help Scorpious
 

Id be glad to help scorpious I even started on it myself a while back witrh wander type 4 and my boat went from Freeport side of OOT to BB side following the correct eqlive path and stoping at the docks of the sister erollisie island :D The problem came when the boat paused at a waypoint it would turn into the dock kind of strangely kroeg pointed out already.

I would love to help here and will start spending some time in #npcmovedb :D

P.S. the trikest part by far in pathing the boats for me so far is getting them to line up with the dock just right. If anyone has loc's for each dock that ensure a "good fit" please let us know : )

P.S> Scorp I am very intrested in knowing how to get boats working eqlive "like" and also your wander type 4 fix for 4X works for 5X as well ive been using it quite sucessfully

I'll help out if need be...

Tell me when, where, and what ya need done...

Re: ill help Scorpious
 

nice to see you're still with us :-)

I've seen that. I think it can be fixed with close waypoints near the docks. I'm not sure, but it may be turning towards the next wp. If it is, we just set up a wp that causes it to line up correctly. If its a problem in the program, I happen to know a code tinkerer....

Great. A lot of help will be needed. I'm not a part of the tcs project and have only been on their irc once.

While the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42.... the meaning of boat parallel parking is 64 :-)

You can go to the edge of the docks, get the loc. If the X/Y coord (whichever is affected by your forward/backward movement at this dock) goes up when you move foreward add 64 to the value at the edge of the docks, otherwise subtract 64.

We've kept wander type 4 working on our server since I figured it out. Very handy little thing. I have in mind a wander type 5.... <grin>

As for making the boats work like live. Its a bit more complicated. Will require changes to world.exe & zone.exe and a new way of thinking of boats and handling them. I have a new quest command I am working on that will be a precursor to it The "signal" command. Among other things, this command will make it possible to script a conversation between NPCs and eventually make the boats work. Keyword: eventually.

So for now, I think the cruiser/shuttle boat method should be done. The paths from it could probably be used with mods for the eqlive one later.

Everyone is always telling me "you need HELP" so I guess it must be true. :-)

The first thing we need is grids for all the boats.

This is for everyone who wants to help:

Pick a boat in a zone and create a grid for it so that it moves along the correct path. Post which one you want to do (Wumpas says he already has oot taken care of) and go ahead and start.

If you don't already know, wander type 4 is a single run wander. It goes from wp 1 to the last wp and then depops. This will be the one you want to use in most cases.

When done, post the grid and tell which boat its for. We will need to match it to the correct NPC ID for TCS and Myra databases and any others that may be out there.

Then we can test them on the Scorpious2k server and any other server that wants to take part. Any server op that wants to test, post here.

There are 2 ways we can handle the zoning at the end of the path. We can code it into the program, or come up with a new quest command like "zonenear" that zones all PCs within a certain range of the NPC (boat).

To make this work, quests will be required. In butcher and timerous there are more than 1 boat in close proximity. The only way I see to make those run smoothly and not run into each other is to have a quest file for the main one (the one spawned when the zone is booted) and when it reaches a certain point, it spawns the second, which goes away before the first reappears (using respawn time on the first). This means we will probably need two versions of these quest files: one for perl and one for old style.

So, make your suggestions, lets kick the ideas around and get some grids to play with. When we get it done, we can set it up as a downloadable addon for any DB out there.[/b]

I guess i can grab the board from oasis to tim. deep and maybe the boat from tim. deep to overthere.

woot
 

sounds great scorp

The problem with the boats is code related as I did the next waypoint after the dock strait out ahead and this i have triple checked. The tcs guys as well as I have noticed the effect with a paused npc.

I have 1 boat done in oot as i said before now im making the one to go the otherway.

Question which boat went what direction so I get the names right
Stormbreaker, Sirens bane

Thank you for the intrest scorp Id really love to see this working :D

Great start!!