System Features: * Ability to purchase and sell farmlands. * Flexible system allows for user-creatable plants, farms, and water sources (NO SCRIPTING REQUIRED)! * Complete persistency. Everything created within the system will remain after server crashes/resets. * Streamlined code with minimal DB calls allow for a highly efficient system (now uses the Enhanced Delay System).
Please view the ReadMe file included in the download package for more detailed information concerning this system.
Me again, hope you're not sick of me yet :) I had a good session online today with one of my main play testers. he and I spent soem time farming and trying out things with your system and from that came soem brainstormed ideas and bugs. Some may be repeats, it's late and I'm just copying stuff from my notes: 1) Deer and other animals taht eat crops. 2) Crops die after some time, perhaps water needs to be used on the land to keep them alive. ( neither of us really want to water crops, but we thought they should die otherwise it could get out of control on a busy server) 3) When you use a plant you see a string with your plot number and plant number, this should be removed or be more descriptive and in character. 4) There needs to be a 'Player's Guide to Horticulture' a book players can read to learn how to farm. 5) Seeds need to be a lot rarer by default. 6) Limit the number of plants that can be planted on a piece of land. (if this was a variable on the sign or trigger the amount could be adjusted by the builder depending on the size of the block) 7) A tool for the DM to delete crops, reset property and MOST importantly, clear unused databse entries. BUGS: The idea of persistent crops is fantastic, but is has a major bug. That is that the Location information yo are storing is NOT guaranteed to be acurate after a server restart. In particular it wont be accurate if the server has been rebuiilt ot new areas added. This is a known and documented problem with storing locations. Also, it's very database intensive, imagine 100+ farms with 10 to 20 plants on each (or more, and all that information is being read from the database on module load.. OUCH!) I've tried to think of alternatives. These two ideas came to mind.. 1) Store the location as a vector from the location of the sign. That way it will always be relative to the location of the sign (and hope the builders dont move signs) 2) Have the crops built only when the player logs in. So the load is spread out to player logins, and would be a much smaller hit. Especially if crop sizes were limited. OK, thats it for tonight. I'll leave you to the warm glow of that cathode ray tube.
Posted by Adamant at 2004-09-1514:08:00
Gomisan: I'm actually in the process of starting that. First thing, however, is for me to finish up adding persistency support for my 'Enhanced Delay System.' This will make it 10 times easier for me to keep track of which farms can and can't remained owned. Plus, the system is so small and efficient (not using real delays), that there should be no difference in CPU usage. Also, to prevent PCs from owning too many farms, I'll be adding a config. option to limit the maximum number of farms a PC can own at any point in time. I'll keep everyone updated as progress is made.
Posted by Gomisan at on09/12/04
Me again. I've just been looking at Hercnav'r Real-estate system and it occured tome that this farming system doesnt have any safeguards against absent players. I use persistent time on my server (the time is stored to a database and restored on moduleload) so I was wondering if there was some way that could be used to give a 'lease period' to the farms. I see it working like this.... When a player buys land a date stamp is recorded. When someone looks to see if teh land is for sale the date stamp is compared and if past a certain threshhold (say 3 game months) the land is offered for sale again. The date stamp would be reset when ever the plpayer logged in, so a frequent player never lost any land. Currently i fear that if someone goes around and buys up all the land, and then doesnt return the land is forever useless until I wipe the database, and that would remove other players valid land.
Posted by Gomi(san) at 2004-09-1218:22:00
That sounds good, I'll look forward to reading it as I plan to base a players reputation in the world at least partly on how much land they own. If anyone wants to check out the farming system in action, you are welcome to come and visit The Realme. therealme.game-host.org:5121 Send an in-game message to DM Gomisan or drop me a message on the Bioware forums (Gomisan) and I'll make sure you have enough money to sart your investment :)
Posted by Adamant at 2004-09-1208:34:00
Gomisan: I think I might add a new text file explaining how to use some of the main functions to retrieve farm-specific information. Everything you asked for can be retrieved, I probably just need to explain the format of certain sets of data. I thought about some sort of deed-type item for owning land, and I think it would be really cool. Housing can also be done with relative ease the way the system is setup. I'm probably going to eventually add this since it ties in well with raising livestock (as you mentioned). To fix the area cleanup problem, I might just have to whip up my own that would either not destroy farm-specific creatures, or simply respawn them once a PC enters that area. Not sure yet, but I'll figure it out when I get there. giantkin: I think there should be few problems trying to get housing up and running. I'll play around with it and figure something out.
Posted by giantkin at 2004-09-1206:48:00
hm in the PGS (player Guild system) there is something about Owning land... (controlling territories) maybe its helpful to look at, for this idea... (hell could be just a waste of time ;) gk Giantkin Servers: Realms Of Peril ip: giantkin.servemp3.com:5121 Growing past 600 areas, Bindstones in use! UOA (Ultimate Online Action) Beta testing done on: giantkin.servemp3.com:5122 (uo based) _________________________ GK
Posted by Gomisan at on09/12/04
OK, I'm all up and running. I really like this script. I have given soem more thought to the idea I have for my world about giving the players reputation for owning land. As it's pretty moduel specific I am trying to think if there's some feature that could be aded easily to the Frms that would allow other scripts to get info from teh farm system. Specifically I need to know the following: 1) Does a player own land 2) How much is that land worth in total 3) If a player sells land I need to know how much they sold it for, and I also need a revised total land value. Further Ideas for the system: 1) It would be 'nice' if players had 'Land Deeds' papers which could be used to transer ownership. 2) Perhaps incorporate player housing, where the door of the building bought would only open for the owner of the building. (these would have values in teh same way land does) 3) House land packages, where purchase of a house also includes a nearby field. 4) Creatures to buy. Eg, buy a 'Bag of Chicks' and you could 'use' it on your land to create chickens. Or Guard Dogs which would stay within 5 meters of where you 'place' them. (and if they die... well you have to buy another!) 5) Cows that can be milked. Possible problems... * Area cleanup scripts would remove creatures that aren't plot, but 'plot' creatures would be unrealistic The reason I mention some of these is that I already have scripts doing similar things but not tied into the farms. I have milkable cows, guard dogs that chase people and chickens, and I have chickens you can buy (as henchmen!) That should keep you busy for a few months :)
Posted by Adamant at 2004-09-1107:48:00
Gomisan: Yes, I know, I need to add some installation instructions. Instructions for setting the new farm prices should be in the "System Expansion.txt" file, I thought I put them in there. Anyhow, you seemed to figure it out. Tag-based execution works too.. as long as the tag isn't too long. Thats the only reason I stick with using resrefs.
Posted by Gomisan at on09/12/04
I'm slowly getting this to work in my module. It would have really helped to have soem installation instructions :) Also, you don't mention in your updated version how to set farm prices. (set an integer variable called Farm_Price if you're reading this and wondering) Als, your on activate script is for pre-hotu modules, and is slight;y non-standard even for custom item activate scripts. Most use the item's TAG not it's resref. To run the script, and that also makes them more compatible with the HotU system. I've actually changed the tags and the scripts to work that way. Anyway, it's getting there :) and I appreciate the work you've put into it!
Posted by Adamant at 2004-09-1022:51:00
Hello everyone. Version 0.2 has been uploaded to the vault (look for the updated filename). A list of the changes can be found in the "Version History.txt" file. I am still looking into the CNR naming schemes in order to make this system compatible. I'll be sure to inform you all as progress here is made. Thanks to all who have helped with reporting bugs and leaving comments!
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