Hi there,

I'm just trying to start learning scripting for Oblivion. I've picked a project that is short but probably not that straight forward to learn from, basically I find it annoying that after every fight I look like a human pincushion, so I'd like to try and add a script for the player and NPC's / Creatures to vanish a percentage of the arrows that hit you based on your armor type. But I'm starting one small step at a time. Just now all I'd like to do is register a message when you are hit by an arrow.

I noticed that there are a number of blocktypes that ar ebasically functions that get called when an in game event is encountered, and that there were a couple that looked useful particularly 'OnHit' and 'OnHitWith'. I've been trying various ways to get either of these blocks to be called from within the game but nothing I've tried so far has worked. I've found an example of a script that is doing something similar but for blocking, but I don't know how this would be attached to the player in my mod?

Scriptname MartialArtsBlockParryScriptshort PCIsBlockingfloat timershort bMagicEffectBegin OnMagicEffectHit   set bMagicEffect to 1EndBegin OnHit   if (bMagicEffect == 0) && (timer > 0) && (timer <= 0.5)        MessageBox "Normally I'd Parry right now, but this is just a test."    endifEndBegin GameModeset bMagicEffect to 0;If the player has just started blocking, set the variable to track;this state and begin timerif (player.IsBlocking) && (PCIsBlocking == 0)   Set PCIsBlocking to 1   Set timer to 0endif;If the player is currently blocking, increment the timerif (player.IsBlocking) && (PCIsBlocking == 1)   set timer to timer + getSecondsPassedendif;If the player has stopped blocking, reset state and timerif (player.IsBlocking == 0) && (PCIsBlocking == 1)   Set PCIsBlocking to 0   Set timer to 0endifEnd

It would be great if someone could tell me.

PS. The other bit of my title was about references as I'm going to have to get the references for the arrows stuck in the player at some point. Ideally they would be accessable from within onHitWith using a function but I doubt it's that straight forward

Since it has an OnHit Block, this Script should likely be attached to an NPC-- I am assuming that this particular Script is attached to the Player NPC. This NPC can be found under Actors-->NPC-->Imperial-->Male, although it is usually recommended against attaching Scripts to the Player, or editing the Player NPC in any way.

This page of the CS WIki may be useful:
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Begin

Generally Block Types can be divided into three groups:
- Background Blocks, like Begin MenuMode, Begin GameMode, which can be attached to anything, and will run in the corrisponding Modes.

- "Action" Blocks, such as "OnHit", "OnAlert", "OnDeath", which are designed to run when this action happens to the Object they are attached to-- usually, it's pretty obvious whether it is intended for an NPC or an Item (OnDeath, for example, is for things that can die, so NPCs; OnDrop is for things which can be dropped, so Items). There are also some exceptions, such as OnActivate, which work with any Object without real preference

- Spell Blocks, like Begin ScriptEffectStart, ScriptEffectUpdate and ScriptEffectFinish, which are designed to run during the relevant part of a Spell.

Oblivion has 3 types of scripts: when and how often blocks run depends on the script type and block type.

Object script:
Does nothing unless placed on an object in the game world. That is, you need to assign your script to an object (say a container or NPC), then place an instance of that object in the game world (either within the CS or using placeatme*)
On objects, Gamemode scripts generally run every frame of the game, as do menumode scripts (when in a menu). The other blocks mostly just run once on their particular trigger condition.

Quest script:
Needs to be assigned to a quest. Script only runs when that quest is active (by checking the "start game enabled option", or using the Startquest function from another script).
Gamemode blocks here run at an interval defined by the variable fQuestDelayTime (default if you don't change it is 5 seconds)

Magic Effect Script:
Must be assigned a spell, and script runs when the spell is cast, on the spell's target.
ScriptEffectStart block runs once.
ScriptEffectUpdate block runs every frame (IIRC) for the duration of the spell.
ScriptEffectFinish block runs once at the end of the duration.

*Don't seriously use it in a mod unless you read up on it and understand its drawbacks.

For playing around and learning, you can just attach your scripts to NPCs or even the player. **But**, when you actually get ready to make a mod... that's not gonna work (your scripts will conflict with every other mod that modifies the same NPCs, and won't affect NPC's added by other mods). At that point you'll want to look at OBSE's event handlers.

Thank you, and thank you.

That's a good bit clearer. I was casting about in the dark a bit by applying OnHit blocks to different in game items / NPCs / spells / quest to try and see which ones responded.




Now that's what I'm talking about. Looks like I might even get my arrow http://obse.silverlock.org/obse_command_doc.html#Events.

(edit) Damb, I'm looking at OBSE 19!

It looks from what I've red that OBSE 19 is required for OBSE event handlers? Is this reasonable to use, I thought it was beta?

From what you've said and what I've looked into on other peoples mods, if I wanted to do what I've been talking about I couldn't use events to wake my script and grab my arrows. I would need to do something hack-y, like a game loop that monitors the player's / NPC's health for a drop then scan through some kind of object list (either objects in the cell or in the inventory depending on where these impaled arrows are actually stored as references in the game) and somehow hide the arrows from the game world. Or, I could force a trigger to match the player's location as in the arrow example n the CS wiki but make it cover the player and hide any arrows that intersect it that don't belong to the player.

Would this be a fair assessment?

If so these sound like resource intensive approaches and I'm probably best waiting till OBSE 19 is released.