Problems with moving to an area

ID:150521
 
Sep 6 2001, 9:40 am
In the quest system im designing, I move a few mobs, objs, whatever to a specific area. The area is defined as follows

var/area/SquirrelArena/SA
and is searched for, right before this like so
for(SA in world)
break

the problem is this:
M.Move(SA.contents[rand(1,SA.contents.len)])

It doesnt move M, and so it stays at a null location. Im wondering exactly why this isnt working. SA.contents is all the stuff inside the area(list), so thats the turfs correct?
and the len just gives me the number of turfs in the area so its between 1 and however many tiles there are? Anyways, I cant see a reason for it not to work. If anyone could tell me why I would be greatful

Alathon
Sep 6 2001, 9:59 am
Alathon wrote:
the problem is this:
M.Move(SA.contents[rand(1,SA.contents.len)])

It doesnt move M, and so it stays at a null location. Im wondering exactly why this isnt working. SA.contents is all the stuff inside the area(list), so thats the turfs correct?

Do some testing...loop through the contents of an area and list the type of each thing you encounter.

Or override Move() to print out a message indicating why it didn't work.
Sep 6 2001, 10:24 am
Heh, I just discovered in the reference: Area contents also includes the contents of all the turfs in the area! This behaviour is very different from turf, mob, and obj contents lists. That explains a couple unusual instances from Tanks. It does pay to help! :)

You'll need to make a list of the turfs in area contents, then get a random one from within that list.

var/list/turflist = list()
for(var/turf/T in SA)
turflist += T
P.loc = turflist[rand(1,turflist.len)]

I used P.loc instead of Move() because there are a ton of reasons Move() can fail, leaving P where it started. If you want, you could also filter turfs out of turflist so that they don't start inside walls or places where there is already a mob.
Sep 6 2001, 10:30 am
In response to Deadron
Deadron wrote:
Alathon wrote:
the problem is this:
M.Move(SA.contents[rand(1,SA.contents.len)])

It doesnt move M, and so it stays at a null location. Im wondering exactly why this isnt working. SA.contents is all the stuff inside the area(list), so thats the turfs correct?

Do some testing...loop through the contents of an area and list the type of each thing you encounter.

Or override Move() to print out a message indicating why it didn't work.

Alright now I know why, have one more question however. If I do like this
var/area/SquirrelArea/SA
for(SA in world)
break

If I placed some SquirrelArea on a map, wouldnt it find SA? because thats how I have it atm, and I tried doing some debugging and the for loop is failing. Am I doing it wrong (im still a bit cloudy on how areas to turfs and things around that work)

Alathon
Sep 6 2001, 10:32 am
In response to Shadowdarke
Shadowdarke wrote:
Heh, I just discovered in the reference: Area contents also includes the contents of all the turfs in the area! This behaviour is very different from turf, mob, and obj contents lists. That explains a couple unusual instances from Tanks. It does pay to help! :)

You'll need to make a list of the turfs in area contents, then get a random one from within that list.

var/list/turflist = list()
for(var/turf/T in SA)
turflist += T
P.loc = turflist[rand(1,turflist.len)]

I used P.loc instead of Move() because there are a ton of reasons Move() can fail, leaving P where it started. If you want, you could also filter turfs out of turflist so that they don't start inside walls or places where there is already a mob.

Ahh, ok. Thanks once again Shadowdarke! :)

Alathon
Sep 6 2001, 10:35 am
In response to Alathon
that's how I did it in Tanks and the Outside Area Demo. the easiest way to see if it's working is to put a debug message after the loop

world << "SA:[SA]"

(Make sure you have some text with it, so you recognize what's going on if it's null.)
Sep 6 2001, 10:43 am
In response to Shadowdarke
Shadowdarke wrote:
that's how I did it in Tanks and the Outside Area Demo. the easiest way to see if it's working is to put a debug message after the loop

world << "SA:[SA]"

(Make sure you have some text with it, so you recognize what's going on if it's null.)

it works! halleluja, or however thats spelled. Well, almost, 3 out of 5 of what is spawning is missing, but..some of em appear, so yay! :) And yeah, I was doing some debugging but for some reason it didnt show that for(SA in world) was working, and it obviously was cuz It can find SA for the turf thing.

Alathon
Sep 6 2001, 10:47 am
In response to Alathon
What does list index out of bounds mean? Thanks

Alathon
Sep 6 2001, 11:17 am
In response to Alathon
for index out of bounds, perhaps you should run the loop from 0, to length - 1, rather than 1 to length
Sep 6 2001, 11:25 am
In response to Cybergen
Cybergen wrote:
for index out of bounds, perhaps you should run the loop from 0, to length - 1, rather than 1 to length

Hmm...Alright, thanks

Alathon
Sep 6 2001, 11:54 am
In response to Cybergen
Cybergen wrote:
for index out of bounds, perhaps you should run the loop from 0, to length - 1, rather than 1 to length

DM lists are 1-based, not 0-based.
Sep 6 2001, 12:22 pm
In response to Alathon
If you are getting index out of bounds on the line with the rand() statement, it is most likely because turflist.len = 0