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Iluvatar · 08-18-2004, 08:49 PM

The example I've typically used is a dragon. The basic design is a mob named dragon that can do bite with the occasional breath blast as appropriate. The neat thing is add other mobs labeled and described as left leg, right leg, tail, wings etc which can act in a co-ordinated fashion to either bash, sweep, claw etc. It's pretty much whatever you wish and if you keep the basic concept of one creature in mind, not too hard to describe.

Realistically, the key is to make parts killable but not leave a corpse and the only simplistic way to kill it is to target whatever is labeled as the "main body" of the creature. If you kill the main body, all that's remaining is the corpse of the main body. If you kill an arm, obviously that isn't a death blow but you might see a dead arm if you have the time to examine. This won't work for groups of creatures or crowds of people by the nature of it. The mob (mob_set) flees as a group, fights as a group, dies as one and none of the components except the main can be seen by mortals on examining the room for contents.

Benefits to us as builders is we can tailor the power and interaction of the mob with just about any level opponent and it lends an air of realism to the fight. On a 1-101 level scale, imagine fighting a level 75 dragon with level 90 legs that kick and claw you while a level 80 tail sweeps? Downside is if the builders get too crazy, you can wind up with a serious memory usage issue with something like a centipede or excessive scripts applied and running during just one battle.

I've actually seen this work by both hard coding and DG_Scripting and I have to say hard coding is the smoothest of the processes. It's got to be special coding though so the function is outside of the normal message display system to maintain the semblence of just one mob.

08-18-2004, 08:49 PM	#7
Iluvatar Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Mississippi USA Posts: 142	The example I've typically used is a dragon. The basic design is a mob named dragon that can do bite with the occasional breath blast as appropriate. The neat thing is add other mobs labeled and described as left leg, right leg, tail, wings etc which can act in a co-ordinated fashion to either bash, sweep, claw etc. It's pretty much whatever you wish and if you keep the basic concept of one creature in mind, not too hard to describe. Realistically, the key is to make parts killable but not leave a corpse and the only simplistic way to kill it is to target whatever is labeled as the "main body" of the creature. If you kill the main body, all that's remaining is the corpse of the main body. If you kill an arm, obviously that isn't a death blow but you might see a dead arm if you have the time to examine. This won't work for groups of creatures or crowds of people by the nature of it. The mob (mob_set) flees as a group, fights as a group, dies as one and none of the components except the main can be seen by mortals on examining the room for contents. Benefits to us as builders is we can tailor the power and interaction of the mob with just about any level opponent and it lends an air of realism to the fight. On a 1-101 level scale, imagine fighting a level 75 dragon with level 90 legs that kick and claw you while a level 80 tail sweeps? Downside is if the builders get too crazy, you can wind up with a serious memory usage issue with something like a centipede or excessive scripts applied and running during just one battle. I've actually seen this work by both hard coding and DG_Scripting and I have to say hard coding is the smoothest of the processes. It's got to be special coding though so the function is outside of the normal message display system to maintain the semblence of just one mob.