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Title

Accerak's Simple Spawn 'n Clean for PW's

Author

Accerak

Submitted / Updated

04-01-2004 / 11-22-2006

Category

Area

Expansions

HOTU-1.62

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/*
Accerak's Spawn & Cleanup System
Created by Accerak on 04/01/04
Crucible of the Crescent Shadow NWN Guild
http://www.crescentshadow.us

Don't let the length of this keep you from trying this
script system.  I'm a bit long winded (I like to explain
everything so that you can go in and edit, troubleshoot,
improve, without having to be a coder to figure out
what a section of my scripts is doing).

UPDATED AS OF 4/22/04
1.  Added ability to spawn and respawn items.  Rules for
    this are the same as for placeables, the items are 
    simply spawned in using the custom ITEM SPAWN
    waypoint.
**  NOTED CHANGE:  I mention further down that putting
    in a respawn time of greater than 12 hours will
    cause whatever is being spawned to never respawn,
    This is an error!  If you put in a respawn time of
    greater than 12 hours, the item will NEVER spawn in
    the first place.

UPDATED as of 04/03/04
1.  Added Ability to respawn placeables and creatures
    immediately. (my previous script would cause multiple
    instances of a placeable or creature to appear if
    you set the respawn time to 0, now it won't)
2.  Added ability to set # of creatures to spawn at a
    waypoint.
3.  Added ability to give spawned creatures a random one-
    liner for conversations. (in case you want to generate
    a bunch of townsfolk, etc...)
4.  Added a Default "Loot Store".  When an area is cleaned,
    any items that are dropped by PC's or creatures in that
    area can be purchased here later on.  A nice way to have
    an NPC "dungeon scrounger" who peddles what others have left
    behind.
5.  Added code to automatically close and/or lock anything
    that can be.

This spawn and cleanup system doesn't use any heartbeats.
So it should significantly reduce any lag problems.
It does not have as many options as NESS, but it is much easier
to use and less resource intensive.  It is a nice alternative
for PW builders (like myself) that find NESS and many of the
other waypoint based spawn scripts too cryptic and difficult to
use because of all those options that quite frankly, I don't use
that often (and will script in if I do need them).  Enjoy.

WHERE TO PLACE SCRIPTS
Three scripts are required to be in all of your areas.  Not having
them in every area will cause problems with the tracking of the
# of pc's in an area for cleanup and for respawning.

bpw_gen_usr - in area User Defined hook
bpw_gen_onenter - in area OnEnter hook
bpw_gen_onexit - in area OnExit hook

The other files, just need to be imported.  The only other that
you need to worry about is the conversation script that I explain
below.

CREATING CREATURE SPAWNS
Select the CREATURE SPAWN waypoint from the custom waypoints.
Place it in your area.  Go into it's properties and change the
following information...
1.  WAYPOINT NAME:  must be the RESREF of the creature,
    not the tag, and it is case sensitive.
2.  in the advanced tab, under VARIABLES:
    a.  Set the RESPAWN TIME in the # of game hours you wish to
        have pass BEFORE a creature can possibly respawn.  This
        DEFAULTS AT 2 HOURS, and SHOULD NOT BE SET HIGHER THAN 12 Hours.
        If you set this to 0, your creature can respawn IMMEDIATELY
        when a PC enters the area.
        
    b.  Set the SPAWN ACTION: (default 0)
        SPAWN ACTION = 1:  The creature will hunt down and
        attack PC's.
        SPAWN ACTION = 2:  The creature will walk randomly.
        Any other value will cause the creature to follow the
        script in your onSpawn hook for it.  In other words,
        it'll probably just sit there unless you modified that script.
    c.  SPAWN COUNT:  Set this to however many creatures you want
        to spawn at that point.  Remember though, they will all be
        the same creature.  So don't try to spawn an entire town
        from one point (or it'll look like you just entered
        Clonesville).

CREATING PLACEABLE SPAWNS
Select the PLACEABLE SPAWN waypoint from the custom waypoints.
Place it in your area.  Go into it's properties and change the
following information...
1.  WAYPOINT NAME: must be the RESREF of the placeable, not the tag,
    and it is case sensitive.
2.  in the advanced tab, under VARIABLES:
    a.  Set the RESPAWN TIME in the # of game hours you wish
        to have pass BEFORE a creature can possibly respawn.
        This DEFAULTS AT 2 HOURS, and SHOULD NOT BE SET HIGHER
        THAN 12 Hours.  If you set this to 0, your placeable
        can respawn IMMEDIATELY.

CREATING ITEM SPAWNS
Select the ITEM SPAWN waypoint from the custom waypoints.
Place it in your area.  Go into it's properties and change the
following information...
1.  WAYPOINT NAME: must be the RESREF of the placeable, not the tag,
    and it is case sensitive.
2.  in the advanced tab, under VARIABLES:
    a.  Set the RESPAWN TIME in the # of game hours you wish
        to have pass BEFORE a creature can possibly respawn.
        This DEFAULTS AT 2 HOURS, and SHOULD NOT BE SET HIGHER
        THAN 12 Hours.  If you set this to 0, your placeable
        can respawn IMMEDIATELY.
NOTE ABOUT SPAWNS FOR STACKED ITEMS:
I haven't tried spawning a stack yet, but you should be able to
do so.  For example, if you wanted to spawn a stack of 5 gems;
1.  Edit a copy of the gem from the palette
2.  Set the stack size to whatever you wish
3.  Save it.
4.  Call up the item using the new resref and you should get
    the appropriate stacked amount of the item.
**  Creating several preset stacks of items, like gold or gems
    might be the easiest way to manage spawning in stacked items.

PLACING WAYPOINTS

1.  Creature Waypoints:  Creatures will spawn facing the same
direction as the three points of the waypoint marker.

2.  Placeable Waypoints:  Placeables will spawn facing the
same direction as the two points of the waypoint marker.

In other words, in both cases, the placeable or creature will
spawn facing in the same direction as the side of the waypoint
marker with the MOST POINTS.


RANDOM ONE-LINER CONVERSATIONS

In order to use this system, you must CREATE a creature or EDIT
a copy of one.  Quite simply, you could take any creature, and
in it's CONVERSATION box, just select the script re_cv_commoner.
You can edit this file to create your own one liners, just save
it under a different name, and apply then put that new file in
the conversation box of whatever creatures you want it to go into.
The system will pick a random one-liner for that creature to say.
That creature will always say ONLY that one-liner.

Some important points to remember if you edit the conversations...
1.  Under the Current File Tab
    a.  Be sure to check the "Stop Camera Zoom In" box
    b.  If you want to use this dialogue for creatures that
        are walking waypoints or wandering, put the script
        called bpw_walk in the Normal box and the Aborted box.
        (Great for townsfolk - it makes them continue along their
        waypoint path or keep wandering - sort of like they say
        their greeting in passing).
2.  The re_sc_dialogue# (# being 1 thru 10) scripts are required
    to fire the one liners.  You can add to them if you want, but
    don't delete them (e.g., re_sc_dialogue1 fires the one liner
    you see in the 1st node of the editor.  You could always make
    this a "hostile" remark, and add code to make the creature
    attack when he says it.  But remember, it will do that for
    EVERY conversation file you edit off the original).

The credit for the creation of the actual conversation scripts
goes to Ray Miller.  I took them from his BESIE spawn system.

THE LOOT STORE

When an area is cleaned up, all items (things you can put in your
inventory) will be either destroyed or sent to a special store.
The store I have included is empty, and only for one reason.  I
created it so that it could be used as a way for you to put a
"dungeon" or "street scrounger" in your areas.

Here are some ideas for implementing this...
You have a city made up of several areas (could be different
districts like the slums, royal, merchant, etc...)  PC's, villains,
etc... always leave things behind on the ground.  You could have
something like a shopping cart lady in the slums, who essentially
picks stuff up and sells it, or a shifty character in a different
district that does the same thing.

To use this, all you need to do is create a store, and when you
get to the part where it asks you to "choose store", go into
the custom tab / Special / Custom1, and select the store called
"lootstore".  Then finish up your store.  You can add default
items to it's inventory if you wish (the one I provide is empty).

This "shop" will then have any items that get "picked up" by the
shopkeeper IN THAT AREA ONLY, and you'll also see anything that
is sold to them by PC's (you can clean this up by adding your
own merchant cleanup script.  I suggest Merchant Clean v2.0 by
Snake - it works very well, uses only 2 scripts - one goes in the
store onopen, the other in the modules onacquire - and if you've
already got scripts in there, these integrate in very easily).
Oh, almost forgot, if you've edited the merchant to carry any
items specifically, those will be there as well.

Important things to remember about the loot stores...
1.  NEVER have more than 1 loot store per area.
2.  The TAG of the merchant object(the merchant waypoint, not
    the merchant creature) MUST be "lootstore" without the quotes
    and in all small letters.
If your loot store isn't working, it's probably one of those 2
things!


CLEANUP DETAILS

The Cleanup Scripts were completely created by
Johnnie "Nekyia" Casiano as part of his MP compatible cleanup
system.  I only modified them to fit my needs and the credit for
them is due to him.  Thanks for making a great set of scripts!

The modifications are all commented in so that you can find
them easily.  The only part that you may want to change, is the
amount of time from when a PC exits to when the area is cleaned.

The easiest way to do this is to go into your area's properties,
under the advanced tab, select variables.  Put in a new variable
called "Delay" (without the quotes), it should be of the "float"
type, and enter in the # of seconds you want.  It should look
like this...

variable    type    value
========    ====    =====
Delay       float   300.0

If you don't set this for an area, it will default to 180.0 seconds.
Here is what happens with that #.  The script gets a RANDOM # of
seconds from within the range of 0.0 to whatever the value of
Delay is.  So in most cases (where you leave it to default),
the script will get a random # of seconds between 0 and 180.0.
It'll count down those seconds, then go through all the objects in
your area, and anything that you DID NOT specifically plop down
in the toolset (except for items - which cleanup will remove)
(like creature loot bags, pc dropped items, spawned creatures
and placeables, etc...) and flag them as trash for cleaning.

Then, 30 seconds later, everything in that area, flagged as trash,
will be removed. You can set this longer or shorter, by changing
the value of "Purge" at the top of the bpw_gen_usr script.

In essence, what this all does (if you leave it at default) is
clean your area up anywhere from 30 to 210 seconds all pc's leave.
By having the cleanup happen randomly, less stress is placed on the
server resources.  The idea is that if players are going in and out
of areas all over the place, That the "random" aspect will spread
the cleanup activities out more evenly.

Some of you may be concerned with the possibility of a short
30 second cleanup time, but remember, if you leave your RESPAWN TIME
at the default of 2 game hours, just because the spawns were cleaned
up doesn't mean they'll respawn in 30 seconds!  It just means that
if the PC's left any treasure behind, it may not be there unless they
go back that quickly (and even in a fantasy world, how long would a
bag of loot last just lying around)!

Lastly, of course if ANY PC enters the area before a cleanup is
actually done, it is aborted.  So they will not see things
disappearing in front of their eyes.  It will be restarted after
they leave.

*/

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Type

Type - Other

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Description

** MINOR UPDATE as of 04/22/04 ** Added a waypoint for spawning and respawning items. Instructions for updating or doing a new installation of the scripts are in with erf. ** MAJOR UPDATE as of 04/03/04 ** You'll want to download this updated version, it adds alot of new functionality, and fixes all the problems I could possibly see. A simple set of scripts to go into your area event hooks that will allow you to spawn creatures and placeables to waypoints, and clean up your areas after they are empty. It doesn't use any heartbeats and should be a great alternative to NESS (for those of you like me that find it too cumbersome).

Files

Name	Type	Size	Downloads
spawnnclean3.rarspawnnclean3.rar Submitted: 04-01-2004 / Last Updated: 04-22-2004	rar	18.6Kb	1241
--

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Comments (26):

Posted by Uze at 2007-09-19 03:27:04 Voted 10.00 on 09/19/07

Nice low lag system.
Thanks it works great

Posted by Rosietreats at 2006-09-09 01:21:06 Voted 10.00 on 09/09/06

Very cool Accerak!
Very cool indeed! Thanks

Posted by lau ( 80.197.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-06-18 07:36:14

What I mean is that, say I enter an area, kill the creatures and wait for them to respawn?

Also:

- Some places where I place creature spawn waypoints, there are no creatures appearing at all.

- When I kill a group of creatures, and they respawn, and I kill them again, a clean and respawn will not occur a 2nd time.

Posted by Mistress_Anatida at 2005-06-16 02:12:56 Voted 9.50 on 06/16/05

I'm not sure where Accerak has ran off to, but I build & run the PW this system was developed for...

Lau,
By this question do you mean that:
1) There is already a PC in the area
2) A new PC enters the area
3) The spawns do not occur when the new PC enters?

I wouldn't think it would work that way, unless the 2nd PC is entering before the alloted respawn time on the WP. I'm in the process of a complete rebuild right now, I will test this with Silvercloud's fixes & see if I can replicate the problem. Please post more info if you can.
_________________________
I'd rather laugh with the Sinners than cry with the Saints, Sinners are MUCH more fun!

Posted by Mistress_Anatida at 2005-06-16 02:12:29 Voted 9.50 on 06/16/05

Posted by lau ( 80.197.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-06-15 16:27:04

Is it normal behaviour that creatures don't spawn while players are in the area?

Posted by SpiderMcFly at 2005-05-09 10:34:08

I'm still new to this building thing, but I like this package so far. Is there a way to modify it to spawn random creatures and items from a list? And even better, a weighted list?

Posted by Ornedan at 2005-01-08 14:56:00

There's a bug in bpw_gen_usr.nss, function void CleanArea.
When the last PC exits an area, a variable called Timer is checked. If it's 0, cleanup gets initiated and Timer is set to 1. I assume this is to prevent redundant cleanups taking up extra resources.

The problem is that if a player enters the area before the cleanup happens, CleanArea aborts right at the start, before resetting the Timer gets reset to 0.
Thus, Timer is forever stuck at 1 and cleanup is not called on the area again. And an area that hasn't been cleaned up will also never respawn.

The fix is trivial. Move the line
"SetLocalInt(Area,"Timer",0);"
to the start of the function, before the player presence check is done.

Posted by Ornedan at 2005-01-08 14:50:00

Posted by zNo ( 62.47.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-08-21 08:12:00

doesn't work for me :(.
does it matter what language your NWN is?

Posted by Kuld ( 213.105.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-08-02 10:01:00

Hi.

I used your spawn system, on some areas it works fine.

On another when I cleared the mobs out, they didnt respawn, not even on the next reboot. The scripts are all in place.

How come the mobs wont respawn, even after a server reboot?

I can send you the module if you wish to check it.

Posted by Anthony ( 80.171.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-06-25 04:53:00

Sorry, wrong email.

email to [email protected]

Posted by Anthony ( 80.171.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-06-25 04:31:00

Hi Accerak,

I'd like to try your spawn system, but it seem doesn't work.
Can you (or somebody else) send me a module that work? i can't get it work :(
please help me

email to [email protected]

thanks

Posted by Gomisan at 2004-05-21 00:54:16 Voted 9.00 on 05/21/04

Posted by Gomisan at 2004-05-14 07:44:00 Voted 9.00 on 05/21/04

Seems to be a small bug in the cleanup. I spawned a single monster, left the area and then returned before the monster had been removed. Started battle only to have the monster fade away before my very eyes.

Also, I was wondering if there was some way to have the spawns come more frequently than once an hour. A game hour is 10mins real-time on my server, which is a long time between spawns. I'd like to be able to at least spawn once/minute (real-time minutes, not game time).

Other than that.. thanks for a simple script. It handles two tasks I've been dreading, Area cleanup and Creature Spawns in the simplest way possible.

ooh and before I forget... are you going to expand the features at all? Perhaps with a trigger, so I can spawn ceatures only when a PC is actually near them or in a specific location.

Posted by Accerak at 2004-05-01 23:22:00

Just noticed a bug inherent in the system... Make sure that the Palette copy of ANYTHING that you are spawning in is NOT SET TO PLOT. The cleanup script doesn't remove those placeables, creatures, or items that are set to plot. So every time the spawn fires when a PC enters another copy is created. eg., you initially spawn in 1, then a pc leaves, the area cleans up, and when the next pc comes in, now you have 2, and so on and so on.
_________________________
"Victory is built from the ashes of your enemies." - unknown

Posted by Accerak at 2004-04-19 14:41:00

No problem Tolinus. Happy to see that it's working for you.
_________________________
"Victory is built from the ashes of your enemies." - unknown

Posted by Tolinus at 2004-04-17 13:51:00

Hi Accerak, the module you send me works fine, thanks a lot!! ^__^ Now I'll try to generate some other spawns :-)

Posted by Accerak at 2004-04-09 13:26:00

Hey Tolinus;

Got your module, looked it over and sent it back to you. Please let me know if everything works ok now.

_________________________
"Victory is built from the ashes of your enemies." - unknown

Posted by Tolinus at 2004-04-09 11:43:00

Thanks for your quick reply!! I've done another attempt, but without success :-( I'm losing something. Sent the module, but take your time, Accerak.

Tolinus

Posted by Accerak at 2004-04-09 10:14:00

Sorry, forgot to mention that the spawns seem to get fouled up if you are running CEP and have the PRC classes.2da in your override. I don't think the PRC classes.2da on its own creates a problem, and I know CEP on it's own doesn't.

But I just downloaded the files, did what you said, and I had spawns without a hitch. So if you still can't get it going, send me your mod at the email below and I'd be glad to see what's going on.
_________________________
"Victory is built from the ashes of your enemies." - unknown

Posted by Accerak at 2004-04-09 10:00:00

If you're doing everything you say, then it should be working just fine. I noticed one thing, if you are using the PRC classes.2da in your override folder, that stopped spawns from happening on my system, I've no idea why.

If you're not, send me a copy of what you're doing and I'll try to figure it out.

email to [email protected] ok. Thanks!
_________________________
"Victory is built from the ashes of your enemies." - unknown

Posted by Anonymous ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2004-04-09 06:29:00

Hi Accerak. Compliments for your work and for sharing it!I'd like to try your spawn system, but it seem doesn't work. Try to explain myself: i've made a new module before importing your erf. then I've made 2 areas and put in both the three script provided. I've dropped one of your custom waypoint in one of the two area and, in its properties, changed only the NAME with the resref of one creature standard (nw_goblina).Nothing happens when i play....any ideas?

Posted by Accerak ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2004-04-03 10:26:00

Thank you Sabbryn!

I have updated the file as of a 12:20pm today, and included a great deal of new stuff. I think I got all the bugs I could foresee out, and made it as simple as possible. I hope everyone gets a great deal of use from these scripts (and to you Sabbryn and everyone else writing cleanup and spawn scripts, thanks for teaching me how to code and what good commenting and instructions can do for the average guy)!

You'll know if you got the updated file version if the filename ends with spawn_n_clean2.rar! (not sure how long the vault takes to get the new files available).

Posted by Sabbryn at 2004-04-03 08:42:00

Thanks for the props in the well-written readme (something I forgot to write myself - heh).

Glad to see my code has come to some benefit. It originally sprang from the optimizing I did for a PW I'm builder for.

Since then, I have done something similar - taking their existing spawn system (Palor's) and making it into a hybrid so that it worked with the cleanup system instead of being heartbeat intensive - which greatly helped in overall performance, especially with over 300 areas involved.

Posted by Accerak ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2004-04-03 00:37:00

I'll be posting an update for this pretty quickly. I added a little bit of script so that during cleanup anything that could be closed and/or locked would be.

I also noted a mistake in my instructions.

IF YOU SET THE RESPAWN TIME VARIABLE TO 0, CREATURES AND PLACEABLES WILL BE AVAILABLE TO RESPAWN IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU SET IT TO A VALUE HIGHER THAN 12 (SAY 13), THEY WILL NEVER RESPAWN (It's a one shot deal then until the server is reset) But I am working on a simple widget that will allow a DM to go in during the game to reset the variable and allow respawns again.

Also, if you create a new store, under the standard types in the palette, you'll see one for NW_LOSTITEMS. This is a "specialty store" where all the items that are dropped by pc's or recovered from loot bags will go for purchase. If you have such a merchant actually created.

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