Possible Help With ->Activate, Player?

[mitschu]

Hi, I just recently returned to Morrowind in honor of Skyrim coming out, being that MW is my favorite of the series, and for the first time I started tapping into the Construction Set to see what I could do with it - so far, I've had fun, but I've run into an issue that I can't seem to solve, specifically while trying to make an... (ahem) Storage Keyring item that accesses a remote chest for you.

In particular, it seems as though the
"remote_chest"->Activate, player

function does not work, although I've seen on several sites that it should cause the item to be activated by the play no matter where they are, as long as the item is flagged persistent, which mine are.

I admit using the MW scripting language is driving me nuts, and it's probably very likely as a newb to this that I'm overlooking something, but I tried to test the issue in game by using the command manually in the console, and then teleporting to the chest, opening it, and trying the command again... and no luck.

Honestly, I'm almost of the mind that the sites out there documenting "X"->Activate, player might just be messing with my mind, and no such function exists.

I'll post the entire script below, sorry if it takes up too much space, but I'd appreciate any assistance y'all could offer me. ^_^

Also, all items referenced are kept in a small interior cell named 0mit_chestspace, all are flagged persistent, the script itself is on a prong item called 0mit_storagekey, the menus work fine, but clicking on any option other than More... / Less... just causes the script to accomplish nothing (and manually doing a "0mit_armor"->Activate, player from the console does nothing as well) so without further ado:

Begin 0mit_storagering

short OnPCEquip
short PCSkipEquip
short button
short StepOn

if ( OnPCEquip == 1 )
set OnPCEquip to 0
set PCSkipEquip to 1
set StepOn to 1
endif

if ( StepOn == 1 )
MessageBox "Which storage do you wish to access?" "Reagent" "Potion" "Alcohol" "Scroll" "Book" "Soul Gem" " Trinket" "More..." "Cancel"
set StepOn to 11
endif

if ( StepOn == 11 )
set button to GetButtonPressed

if ( button == -1 )
Return
endif

if ( button == 0 )
"0mit_reagent"->Activate
endif

if ( button == 1 )
"0mit_potion"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 2 )
"0mit_alcohol"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 3 )
"0mit_scroll"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 4 )
"0mit_book"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 5 )
"0mit_gem"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 6 )
"0mit_trinket"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button != 7 )
set StepOn to 0
endif

if ( button == 7 )
set StepOn to 2
endif

endif

if ( StepOn == 2 )
MessageBox "Which storage do you wish to access?" "Armor" "Weapon" "Clothing" "Jewelry" "Quest" "Misc" "Back..." "Cancel"
set StepOn to 22
endif

if (StepOn == 22 )
set button to GetButtonPressed

if ( button == -1 )
Return
endif

if ( button == 0 )
"0mit_armor"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 1 )
"0mit_weapon"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 2 )
"0mit_clothing"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 3 )
"0mit_jewelry"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 4 )
"0mit_quest"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button == 5 )
"0mit_misc"->Activate, player
endif

if ( button != 6 )
set StepOn to 0
endif

if ( button == 6 )
set StepOn to 1
endif

endif
End

[cdcooley]

Unless you have physically been to the cell with a container (during each game session!) you won't be able to access it remotely from script even if it's persistent. That was one of the great bugs in the Morrowind engine.

You can look at BungaDunga's Better Portable Containers to see all of the horrible tricks we played to make the idea work. There's a MWSE patch to make the process slightly nicer, but the core limitation couldn't be eliminated.

The link is www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownloaddetails&lid=1250

[mitschu]

Downloaded it, peeking at the readme's, gonna skim the code but it sounds like a solution is to just create a startup script of some sort that teleports the player into the container room and then back again, each time they start a session.

v_v I'd say one of the great bugs in the ME engine is how it's nearly impossible to set up dynamic teleport locations, personally. v_v

Also, re: the original issue, why was it then when I teleported my test character to the container room and had him manually open each chest first, the portable chest item still didn't work?

And third question, I'm making a very rudimentary gold coin of banking, I've gone over my if statements with a fine tooth comb repeatedly and not seen one missing endif, much less the five it insists are on lines 113, 118, 123, etc... is there a limit to the number of nested if statements allowed in the MW engine?

Oh, fourth question! Is there a specific protocol to including % signs in a MessageBox without it assuming you are referring to a variable? Because

MessageBox "Your current account has 0.45% interest and a 2% loan rate." "Okay!"

returns "Could not find variable "Okay!"

Thanks for the link and the assist, I'll go code poring over it in now and see how he's doing it, hopefully I can apply it to my own butchered code without issue. (I downloaded the Home in a Bottle mod to see how they did return teleportation to last known location and was distinctly disappointed with the whole "just force cast Mark / Recall" cop out. T_T)

Thanks again,

[cdcooley]

My first followup question is: Are you using or willing to use MWSE (Morrowind Script Extender)? That's a very important decision.

I don't think there's really a way to detect the start of a session but I could be wrong, it's been too long since I did anything with Morrowind.

Without MWSE you will only be able to move characters to locations in external locations which is why some mods just used Mark and Recall. With MWSE you don't need to resort to that and it's faster to move between external cells too.

Don't let the player actually open the containers if you want to be able to access them from script. If you choose the Take All option it will break the script's access to the container.

Yes, there's a very low limit on the number of nested if statements, something on the order of 4 or 5 I think. There's also a limit to how much can be inside any one if or else section!

Try %% to print a % but I'm pretty sure the real answer is that it isn't possible without MWSE.

[cdcooley]

Two other things.

Don't name scripts or objects with values starting with a digit or you'll eventually run into some really strange errors.

The 34th variable in any script can't be used in every situation, so if you need that many just name the 34th junk and put your next real variable after that.

[mitschu]

Followup to the followup:

Yeah, I should grab MWSE, I'll probably do that and then rewrite most of my code.

34th variable issue is interesting... I'll keep that in mind, and I'll take the second statement on if statements to heart, I had the if statements for all 8 buttons nested inside one if button was pressed statement, I'll separate them and see if that helps the code actually run.

I'll try %% and if that doesn't work I'll just drop the percentage signs and actually write out "percent".

For accessing the containers, does that mean there needs to be something in the container for it to be accessible? If so, could I just make a scripted item, say for "Mitschu's Everholding Pouch" an item inside of it "Mitschu's Everholding Pouch's Drawstring" (whoo, mouthful there) with some form of "when this item is taken out of the chest, take it out of the player's inventory and add it back to the chest" script? (I.E: A perma-object inside the pouch.)

Or is it specifically that "Take All" breaks the containers, not the items being taken out? And if so, wouldn't the script calling the object have "Take All" which could then break the script?

>_> Going through my scripts now renaming everything from 0mit_ (my unique flag) to something equally easy to find, like a_mit_ etc (I like having my stuff at the top where I can find it quickly.) Good to know, thanks for the warning.

Hrm, anything else I should know, or know of a solid tutorial for MW modding (most tuts I've seen have either been geared at complete newbies to coding, or just a compilation of all functions with a short description.)?

[cdcooley]

Rule one with Morrowind scripting: don't assume things will make any sense.

The containers don't need anything to be inside as far as I remember and the Take All bug is really odd. If you physically activate the container then Take All it will (sometimes but not always) prevent you from being able to properly access the container with a scripted Activate command. If you use Take All after a scripted activate it won't have the same problem. At least that's how I remember it, but it's been a few years since I last did any Morrowind scripting.

I don't know about the current state of documentation, but the gold standard was always GhanBuriGhan's Morrowind Scripting for Dummies. It has both information for novices and some really detailed warnings about potential problems.