@fantom
My best advice on this is try to think outside the box, if you look at aliens from say “Mass Effect” the only one’s which you can really identify as having significant earth species influence are the Salarians and the Hanar, however, you could easily start with an earth species and then slowly evolve the species to be different altogether; another thing not to forget is if you make them a civilised society make sure you flesh out their culture a fair bit - again “Mass Effect” can be cited as a good example of this with the Codex, which you could also implement and give players bonuses for knowing stuff in the Codex (ie a choice which would otherwise seem ludicrous makes perfect sense if you’ve read some of the Codex entries on the species you’re currently interacting with).
I’m having some kind of issue with coding. I thought I’d start on a bit of coding, something simple like setting it up so the player can create their name. I’m wanting to make it so that they set their first and last name separately and it is automatically combined in the stat screen, but for some reason it’s not working. I’m probably just tired, but I’ve gone through the wiki and the answer eludes me. If anybody cares to take a gander at my files here the link. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jd7w6iktsntzx1p/l98dxg7uNb/Game
Here’s the way I do it.
In mygame.js, create three variables.
,name: “Kaius”
,surname: “Octavius”
,fullname: “Kaius Octavius”
In your stats screen, use {fullname} to display the full name. Or alternatively {name} ${surname}.
It allows me to resuse any parts of the names if I need to. I hope this helps you.
Edit: I think I see the problem. In your mygames.js, you have this:
,name: “{firstname} {lastname}”
You need to define the variables for firstname and lastname. I didn’t see them in mygame.js.
*temp name
*set Name “”
*temp rank
*set Rank “Ensign”
*temp Gender
*set gender “”
You don’t need this. It will put down what you wrote within “” in mygame.js. Just something that could help clean up your code.
@Marius Ok, I did what you said and I can now allow the player to set the name, but in the stats screen the name is still blank.
@fantom Could you clarify what you mean? Have you tried setting up a choice to set the first name and last name? Is it still blank then?
Also, does the dropbox contain the latest updates? I think the problem might be:
From mygame.js
,name: ""
,firstname: ""
,lastname: ""
,fullname: "${firstname} ${lastname}"
From choicescript_stat
*stat_chart
text Name
text Rank
text Gender
As you can see here, you have 4 name variables and you’re only displaying the ‘Name’ variable on your stat screen. I recommend replacing ‘text name’ with ‘text fullname’.
Do a choice that sets up the first name and last name. That should fix it.
Let me know if that works.
I replaced “text Name” with “text fullname” like you said, but now it displays “fullname {firstname} {lastname}” instead. As for the choice thing, I have it set up like this:
Character creation test
*line_break
First name
*line_break
*input_text firstname
*page_break
Last name
*line_break
*input_text lastname
*page_break
Your name is {firstname} {lastname}!
Hm. I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty to download your game in order to test it personally.
It’s working as it should. When I input the names, it’s displayed correctly. I am using the latest version of firefox to open it. What are you using?
Edit: Read the question wrong. I think I know what the problem is. One sec.
Edit 2: Here’s the fixed version. https://www.dropbox.com/s/uc8wj3otp5hitnj/mygame.rar
Place inside the web folder. Make sure you back it up first.
I’ve changed the commands to {firstname} {surname} for convenience. Use {name} if you want to display the full name.
@Marius Awesome, it works now, although if you click “stats” at the beginning before you choose a name, it displays “{firstname} {surname}”
I really hope I get the hand of choicescript, because if I have this much trouble with something that should be simple, it doesn’t really bode well for the rest of the game, lol.
If you haven’t already checked it out, I highly recommend the choicescript wiki. Start here: http://choicescriptdev.wikia.com/wiki/A_Basic_Tutorial
Use the Index if you’re looking for something specific: http://choicescriptdev.wikia.com/wiki/Index
Stick with it! Once you get past the initial hurdle with choicescript, it gets much easier.
New question of the day: how do you guys think I should address people zipping about faster than light? I know there are many ways to go about interplanetary travel, but I don’t want to go ultra realistic, as that would require way too much travel time. “Warp drive” is obviously out of the question, since unless you’re writing a Star Trek fan fic it would be hard to take it completely serious. Hyperspace or some form of tunneling through space seems like the most likely option, but I wanted to get your guys opinion.
@fantom
I can think of two things:
-
Mass Effect Fields - You create a mass effect field to surround your ship then - using “conventional” fusion powered thrusters - then you are able to zip about FAR faster than the speed of light the (I know I’m beginning to sound a bit like a “Mass Effect” fan-boy by now but it’s the most recent sci-fi thing I’ve played/watched)
-
Wormhole Generator - you generate a wormhole which then allows you to instantaneously travel from one point to another in space/time(NB slower-than-light speeds are needed when traversing a wormhole). I kind of like this one myself as you could play around with the origins as well the dangerous fact that it’s pretty hard to restrict/monitor/track wormholes and people going through them and also the fact that if someone ever opened a wormhole in front of a large moving asteroid, placing the other end of the wormhole at a habitable planet, they could essentially "hit the reset button on an entire planet - though on that note it might be better to state a “size rule”(ie. the largest possible wormhole that can be generated is just large enough and no more to allow the largest of warships to get through length-wise).
@Ajax I like that idea. Maybe I can go a sort of Babylon 5 route and make it so that wormholes are extremely difficult to generate and anything smaller than a full battleship would require a gate, which in turn would probably be regulated by the government with a toll or something. Not that this would circumvent industrious pirate or such 
@fantom personally I’ve never seen “Babylon 5” so I don’t know what you’re really talking about
Bear in mind you could always go for the “inverse” meaning that wormholes can be easily generated but at large size are unstable and more prone to closing prematurely the larger they are, which would utterly obliterate any ship that was only part-way through; as such large ships (anything bigger than frigates) require “gates” that are under constant observation for signs of failure, and only have wormholes generators installed for use as a last ditch effort, if a ships is on its last legs.
There’s of course also the option to say that wormholes are hard to “tie” to specific locations, meaning you could easily end up flying into a star for seemingly no apparent reason, and therefore “gates” are used in all but emergency situations.
EDIT: Also on the subject of pirates are there going to be slavers in the game? I was just wondering 
@Ajax I just noticed that you further edited your last comment.
I hadn’t thought about slavers, but now that you mention it if the player decides to become a pirate adding in slaves would give the player a bit of a moral dilemma.
Question of the day: I’m thinking about trying to insert and image of the players character in the stat screen, which would look different depending on what physical characteristics they choose. I’m pretty sure I can accomplish this by dividing the image up and using the *if command. My initial test of this seems promising, but I notice that there’s a gap between the images. So I’m wondering if there’s any way to get rid of these gaps? I also notice that if I try to get them to align to the left or right, they appear jumbled, but centering them works just fine. Any ideas?
Does anyone know if you can use fractions in the stat screen, like “2.56”, or only whole numbers?
@fantom
If you’re using the *text command for numbers under the *stat_chart, yes! It should display the decimal number. I’m not sure about the numbers for the *percent command, though.
Question for you guys: I still haven’t written much for my game yet beyond a basic outline, but the reason for this is because I decided I’m in this for the long haul, as such I’m going to try and take the actual writing aspect for the game more serious. Part of this involves some self imposed homework like reading up on how to properly set up a story and plot, creating memorable characters, and creating a sense of emotion when needed. I probably also need to brush up on proper grammar as well, considering I flunked English class in high school. Anyway, beyond giving you guys an update, I was wondering if anybody here might be able to recommend some books or whatever that also help in this endeavour.
@fantom
I can’t think of any books that might specifically help, but reading in general is good and learning how to present ideas well - using rhetorical techniques - is easily enough learned by reading people like Cicero and Dickens.
When it comes to grammar the best thing to do is read things out to yourself: if your running out of air then there should probably be a comma or something else in to give your reader a pause; also if you’ve put in extra information (Parenthesis) like a minor character’s name - or “rhetorical techniques” above.
Also here’s a brief outline on when to use grammar:
Inverted Commas - speech, titles, quotes, sarcasm
Brackets - Parenthesis usually at end of sentence, informal grammar (put spaces on outside)
Dash - Introduce Expalnations (usually at end of sentence), Parenthesis (put spaces on outside)
Hyphen - used to hyphenate two words
Colon - Introduce Explanations and Lists
Comma - Pause, Use in Lists, Parenthesis
Semi-Colon - (This is the weird one) Half-way between a full-stop and a comma - should be used if the following sentence is closely related to the previous but the following sentence is not an explanation
I figure the rest are pretty self-explanatory 
Alrighty, I have some placeholder images for use in the stat screen. Let me know what you guys think. Too cartoonish?
