Mod: Variations in Friendliness

[sgqwonkian]

Debugging suggestions:

Change "SVAR wormthink wormlove" to "UVAR wormthink wormlove" in the STAR block. UVAR initializes a variable, SVAR sets it if you're changing the variable's value after it's been initialized. You always have to UVAR before you can SVAR. Also, the modmaker's guide only lists UVAR for STAR blocks, and lists SVAR for PAGE blocks. I suspect they only work in the proper block types.

That change alone will probably solve your problems.

However, I'd also delete the entire PAGE 1 and PAGE 2 blocks. I don't think they'll generate randomly. I'm pretty sure it'll always read PAGE 0 first. Since PAGE 0 has both "endquest" and "break", it'll never check the pages after that once PAGE 0 has run. If PAGE 0 doesn't run (because you haven't UVAR'd the variable), then PAGE 1 and PAGE 2 still won't trigger.

Lastly, in PAGE 0, you might consider changing the order of the lines to ACTN, GFXP, TITL, TEXT, MUSC, FRND. (So, move MUSC to the bottom of the page, then move FRND right below it.) IIRC, the pages are sometimes very sensitive to component order, and won't load things if they occur at the wrong place in the page. Sometimes you can be lazy / sloppy and get lucky, but othertimes the game gets strict, and it's hard to predict. Some things can be out-of-order, but others can't. In general, you're best off if you try to follow the order they appear at in the Modmaker's Guide.

I'm fairly confident those changes should fix it, with the UVAR change being the most important part.

[ExplorerBob]

Unfortunately, the Muktians are as consistently neutral as ever...when they and the event show up at the same time, which is almost never. When the moly cone appears, I can almost count on there not being any Muktians -- I'll get literally almost every race but them, regularly, when the Muk variable diplomacy event comes up.

This is quite confusing, and frustrating; the code should be sound, but in spite of that it doesn't seem to work.

This is the Muktian love-code. Maybe try to test it, independently, and see if you can get anything out of it?

Originally Posted by muklove

FLAG event
KEYS muktian

STAR 0
FLAG existing
PLNT hope
ITEM wp_projmoly
UVAR wormthink wormlove
END STAR

CONDITION 0
TYPE preenc
STR0 muktian
END CONDITION

CONDITION 1
TYPE uvar
STR0 wormthink
STR1 wormlove
END CONDITION

PAGE 0
REQ0 0
REQ1 1
ACTN popup endquest break
GFXP races/muktian.jpg 0
TITL Muktian Vidcast
TEXT Greetings, outdwellers. We welcome you to Muktian space. While you enjoy sanctuary, rest assured that an array of security forces stand at the ready to deal with any problems that might arise.
MUSC music/vidcast.ogg
FRND muktian
END PAGE

[sgqwonkian]

Turns out the problem is "preenc". Try setting it to "encounter" and it'll work just fine.

Relevant snippets from another thread that clued me in to this possibility:

Phlagm:
Has anyone had success with using preenc in a condition, or do you know where it may have been used? I can get firstenc and encounter to launch the quest I'm trying to launch, but preenc does nothing.

Fingers:
The pre-encounter condition is used in mantle_gar and mantle_url to set that race to be your enemy if you arrive without the mantle and have made friends with them earlier.

The preenc is triggered just before the radar screen would pop up. The radar would not pop up if they were friendly, that's why this feature was added. It may not be possible to use preenc to pop up a quest window as it's only intended to make (invisible) preparations before the actual encounter.

I tested your quest repeatedly, but with "FLAG always" and "CONDITION TYPE encounter" and it worked every time.