Hi. I have the city, with a fairly small number of building, and a bunch of NPC's wandering about at all hours.

What Id like to be able to do is this:

Add map markers outside various buildings that are initially disabled so they cant be seen on the local map.
Talk to any of the NPC's and one of their topics will be directions
Depending on the state of various quests, offer direction to specific buildings, and enable the map marker in the local map

Problem: I have no idea how to tell if a Quest has started to run or not. For example I need to get directions to a house before Quest1 begins (it starts in that house). So how would I test this in the conditions for the directions dialog? Of course the same goes for the other quests - I need the directions before the quest can start.

Is there a way to do this? I know that its a lot of dialog to write, but that's not a problem, just so long as I can get the NPC's to give the correct directions.

Cheers

MVK

Unfortunately, a quest needs to be active for any markers to show. While you could add a directions component to any of those quests (controlled solely by a variable) you would need to do this for every quest, and you would need the player to have that quest active. The same is true for a specific "Directions" quest.

Using map markers in a small town can become rather cumbersome, so isn't particularly suggested. However, these can be enabled or disabled like any other object, so if you decide to do this, it's only a matter of enabling one and disabling the others within the dialogue result script.

Hmm, thanks Vagrant0. So then, for example, I could enable direction marker 1 in the startup script of the mod, then disable it and enable marker 2 in the results script at the end of Quest1, ready for Quest2, and so on?

That just sounds too simple! Is there a catch? (I just looked in the Wiki at Enable and Disable - is it really that straight forward?)

Cheers

MVK

Until it behaves otherwise.

Well that works exactly as advertised, but its actually not what I want to see!

As it is, the map markers are visible, and I can fast travel to them (or not), and they dissapear at the right time, however, this requires you to enter the map to look for the marker. What Id rather see are the kind of pointers you see as Quest markers, which appear as a nice little green or red arrow on your compass.

Is there a way to get these kinds of pointers to work instead? I can add pointers to Quests without a problem, but when these markers are required the player is in between quests, and the pointer arrow is only wanted for a short while to direct the player to the next person required to follow the plot line. There should certainly be no quest log for such pointers, and of course there is no dialog, just the pointer.

So.
Can a pointer be used outside a quest?
If not can a quest be run that shows nothing in the log and is not a followable quest?
Can a quest end itself when, for example, the player reaches the marker?

Cheers

MVK

I think the answers to questions 2,3 is yes. Check stopquest in the cs wiki. Don't add quest logs - but add quest targets (the arrows). But you can see only one quest at a time, so you have to put all your arrows to the same one. The problem is this should be the active quest. So if you can make this into the active quest it will work - if not :shrug:
Correct me if wrong, someone

Thanks utumno.

I'm not sure but the active quest thing might be the problem and Iv no idea how to make it so. This worked when I first tried it, but it needed to have a log entry, and that log entry became the active quest, even if there was only a space in it. I could probably stretch the plot line enough to include comments that would serve as the log entries, but the quest conclusion is that the player reaches the right location.

When I tried this I had a result script when talking to the NPC that the player needed to find, that set the pointer quest to another stage (where the pointer did not show), and then stopped the quest, however, when that NPC then gave me his quest, it was not made the active one, which was somehow still the pointer quest. (I hope that made sense!)

This whole thing is related to another thread I made here, asking about running a script from the reading of a book/scroll. The player starts with a scroll in his inventory, and is encouraged to read it during the intro. When the player reads the scroll it should start the first pointer quest to help the player reach an NPC in a city that they will never have seen before. Once the player is there the pointer quest should stop (possibly when the player enters a trigger zone), and the NPC they talk to gives them the first quest of the mod while expanding the plot line.

Strictly speaking this is not a requirement, but I like things to be just so, and this would be nice.

I'm certainly open to any idea on getting this working.

Cheers

MVK

reading Vagrant0's post I am sure you need to make it into a logged quest to see nice green arrows - if you insist on them then
begin onEquip
activate
startquest MKVnewCityQUEST
...
begin onactivate
activate
startquest MKVnewCityQUEST
...
on your book and have MKVnewCityQUEST place the first arrow. The rest is scripting - create stages in this quest to add/remove markers (quest targets), use setstage in the result scripts to advance the quest etc. I think that the arrows will show even if you don't add logs to every single stage - just have a lot of stages with your targets set.
HTH

Iv been playing with this for a while now. It seems as if the pointers will only appear when there is a log of some kind. So thats okay, but that means that the log entry will appear on screen as soon as the player begins to read the book, and it just covers the text before you even get to read anything relevant to where you are meant to go (where the arrow is now pointing).

To combat this I tried to use OnUnequip, but that does not seem to do anything at all in regard to a book or scroll! Most frustrating!

Ill seem to be following pretty much what you suggest, although Ill make sure and then try without any log entry.

Thanks for your time

MVK

I've seen this in 100ds of quests - you open the book the quest log pops up, tells you what's in the book - then you may read it if you care.
Very simple workaround :
begin onEquip
if doOnce == 0 ;edit
set MKVnewCityQUEST.opened to 1
set doOnce to 1 ;edit
endif ;edit
end
on quest script

scn MKVnewCityQUESTSCRshort openedbegin gameModeif opened == 1setstage MKVnewCityQUEST 5 ;the quest must be start game enabled ; stage 5 is the stage that 'll put the marker etcset opened to 2endif...end

I think you have a lot of reading to do :grad:

Thanks utumno, Ill look into that later on - its not much different to what Iv been doing but Iv not seen QUEST.opened before.

Reading, yes, plenty of it too!

Cheers

MVK

don't get me wrong - the opened is just a name for a variable - you can name it whatever you want - like bookread - likewise MKVnewCityQUEST is a name for your quest - again name it whatever you want
check menu mode blocks - and blocks in general