Initiative Synchronized?

[bigbluepaw]

Hey guys. Quick conceptual question.

I plan on creating a number of tools to aid in other kinds of encounters. This would include a Travel Tracker, for managing navigation, exploration, tracking and travel. It would include a Debate Tracker for social encounters. It would also include a Chase Tracker for chase encounters.

I plan on grabbing the combat tracker XML files as a starting point (ct_client and ct_host). I plan to remove a bunch of columns and add some in for other things I want to track like distance from the PC to the NPC in a chase scene.

Interestingly enough, I could see some encounters morphing from one to another. What starts out as a social encounter turns into a combat encounter turns into a chase encounter. So each of these trackers could be up consecutively. Each will use initiative to determine the PC's and NPC's turn in the round.

So my question is this: will initiative be the same across all of them?

I plan on using the same scripts and everything. I guess it depends on of the initiative of each PC is a global variable or a local one. Anyone know? Any thoughts?

[Bidmaron]

I am not sure why you would want initiative to be the same -- at least for the social tracker. The adjustments to initiative for combat should be nothing like social initiative, which is a kind of interesting concept, now that you mention it.

Bigbluepaw, someone may come and answer your question, but if you are really going to do what you want, you are going to have to develop the skill to figure it out yourself by examining the db.xml file and/or the window xml code. It is VERY HIGHLY LIKELY that each entity's initiative is stored either in the combat tracker record or the NPC/PC record. I'd bet the combat tracker. FG uses very few non-database-linked controls.

I am not trying to be snide, bigbluepaw, but scouring xml is a vital skill to do anything useful in programming FG. Especially if you factor in the delay to get your question answered. Now, when it comes to understanding something arcane like the true meaning of <anchor> and <relative> and all that, ask and Trenloe or someone will link you to the most useful thread discussing it.

[bigbluepaw]

Bidmaron, I was heading off to bed for the night. I asked the question to see if someone knew the answer off the top of their head.

Trenloe, Damned or another FG person, let me know if these types of questions aren't welcome here. I'll gladly stop.

BTW, I duplicated the CT tracker as a new windowclass this morning. Initiative is not shared or synchronized across them.

[Trenloe]

Trenloe, Damned or another FG person, let me know if these types of questions aren't welcome here. I'll gladly stop.
Nothing wrong with asking questions.


BTW, I duplicated the CT tracker as a new windowclass this morning. Initiative is not shared or synchronised across them.
Depending on the ruleset, the Initiative order is usually determined by the "initresult" field stored in each creature record in the combat tracker. So, this field might seem to synchronise (if you copy a record from the CT to somewhere else as the original "initresult" value may come across with the CT copy), but if you change "initresult" somewhere outside of the combat tracker it won't sync back into the combat tracker as the "initresult" fields are in different places. This is assuming you will have your additional trackers as completely separate database sections in the FG database (db.xml file).

Now, this may not be the case for all rulesets. MoreCore, for example, stores the initiative (order) in the main PC record outside of the CT and mirrored (linked) this to the CT, so it would be the same across different trackers (unless you specifically coded it not to).

So, the answer is - depends on the ruleset. But then, it doesn't really, as you could code it to sync or not - but of course would be more effort to do if you're changing the base behaviour.