On Sun, 10 Nov 1996, Nick B wrote: > What if you wanted to make it so that the player could command the ship > around, and different ships could fight with eachother? I coded a ship system on my mud last year that might be similar to what you are looking for. I haven't gotten around to letting players fight each other yet, but it's on my to-do list. :) Basically, it runs like this: Each ship is really just a mob. (I gave it a new flag that makes it impervious to player attacks and other interactions) The mob has a special procedure that looks for certain commands... i.e. "board", "look", etc... "look" shows who's on deck vis "board" you climb aboard the ship...into a special ship zone. The ship zone is about 7 rooms, above and below deck. Each room here has a special procedure also. "disembark", "sail", "lookout", "course", "navigate", etc. "disembark" takes the character to the room that the ship_mob is located. "sail" moves the ship_mob in the correct direction. (a new skill) "lookout" shows you the room the ship_mob is in. There are many more embellishments for each command, messages sent_to_zone for sailing, etc. And it depends on which room you are in. Above deck gets different messages than below...the crow's nest (and the person sailing) sees with the "ship_mob's eyes" as the ship moves. (whereas others are spared the spam unless they type lookout.) To make this all work, however, I needed an ocean to sail in. This also led me to create a whole new set of areas for new continents. And of course, I had to have a firm grasp on where existing areas already were, since my ocean linked all of them. Which brought about new movement rules for oceans, so players couldn't just walk around (well, they _could_, but at unbelievable move costs). And then, I had to come up with a system so players wouldn't get lost in the 3,000 or so room ocean. I made navigation charts, added a navigate skill, made quadrants, astrolabes. While in the ocean, you can navigate and it tells you your exact position...(37N x 110W). This took some forethought on how I numbered my ocean rooms. Navigation charts show coordinates for all cities. Later on, I added a routine that allows players to simply set a course if they are lazy (for a fee - and it only goes to the major cities, not the exotic quest areas), and the ship sails itself. There are boarding fees, import taxes. To make the ocean voyage less boring, I added special ocean mobs, rooms, and procedures. A very nasty Kraken that lies in the main shipping lane. You end up fighting tentacles on your ship, and if too many wrap you up before you kill them all, ship explodes, and you are in the middle of the ocean fighting the kraken's body. Sea serpents that attack you on deck. Sea goblins that board your ship and attack. Reefs, shoals, a sargasso (hmm, haven't got around to throwing the sargasso in yet.) Anyhow, maybe this is a little more involved than what you were first looking for. But in essence, the ship is a mob that is "linked" to a zone. The zone being the half a dozen ship rooms. And the player can control where the mob moves, thus where the zone moves. I have also implemented a somewhat similar system for coaches. You can sit in the coach, while another player drives it (or you can hire a coachman to take you wherever you want). The coach is a "mob", and moves your "room" around the mud. Oh, and a warning. This obviously took several months and a lot of planning. But I haven't seen any other system as extensive around. (granted I really haven't looked) ;) But I'd like to think that it went a long way toward making the mud more "real" and conducive to role-playing. - Joel. (Spud, imp of The Forbidden Lands. iswest.com 5000) +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ: | | http://cspo.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Circle/list_faq.html | +-----------------------------------------------------------+
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