CSBuild Questions

[TyGuy6]

Ok, I sent it. Thank you.

[TyGuy6]

Thank you Zyx! I don't understand how, but removing my second, redundant fountain decoration from level 2 fixed the alcoves as you said it would.

[gothmogrules]

Can someone please explain the right way to place a button which will reveal a secret passage once it's pushed? I'm quite sure it has something to do with actuators, but I'm far from familiar with these functions so clear instructions would be greatly appreciated!
CSBuild is completely new to me... possibilities are impressive...
Thanx

[beowuuf]

If you look at the DM dungeon level 7 firestaff level on the looooooooong corridor, it gives an example of a push button actuator that targets a secret wall. Similarly, level 8 arena has lots of push button to open areas on the outer walls.

Hope this helps, if not I can give you a step by step when I get home.

[Paul Stevens]

I have added a pushbutton and trick wall to:
http://dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/CSBuildDemo.zip

[gothmogrules]

oh yeah!!! very helpful, thanx a lot!

[gothmogrules]

what if I want to have a pit closed by putting a gem into an alcove? I've tried it many ways, including actuator, object holder, which seemed logical... but it won't do the trick. :S

[Paul Stevens]

Okay. I added an Alcove and Pit to CSBuildDemo.
Don't eat the apple too soon!

[beowuuf]

An object holder is something like a torch holder. If you make it a once only proposition, with an object of that type already in the wall, it becomes an object giving wall item like the slime cup giving a gold key!

Alcoves are their own type of wall item really, if you have an alcove type item it will automatically allow you to see object in the wall and take them, and place new ones

[gothmogrules]

coool!! awesome... I feel like a young boy again!
now if I'd want two or more levers to be activated in order to open a door? and a pressure plate to open many doors at once?
hope I'm not asking too much of you... but you've been so helpful yet!!
thanx again!

[Paul Stevens]

Easy ones first:

pressure plate to open many doors at once

You put TWO pressure plates in the same place. Both
get stepped on and each opens a different door. Etc.

two or more levers to be activated

Use an 'AND' gate.

Have you examined some of the existing doumentation?
http://www.dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/doc ... uator.html
for example.

I'll also repeat what has been said many times. The Dungeon
Master dungeon contains examples of almost every possible
kind of puzzle. Examine how they work and you will learn
a lot.

Does anyone else know of a good place to start reading about
these things?

[beowuuf]

DM Level two, the two levers you need to open the iron grate, would show you exactly how to do the two switches at once and how to build up a basic AND gate

I'm not sure of a good guide. My hextut was too rambling and technical, the step by step 'build the basics' was for DMute, it might sort of help get what is happening under the hood but I'm not sure it help do basic stuff in CSBuild.


I think CSBuild might put poeple off for the techincal names it gives things, I do believe between it's help and GUI it does let you start to learn.

I definitely think taking a little time to sift through the DM dungeon and see, even in the first two or three levels, the various things done will help you get the confidence to explore further.

[beowuuf]

Actually, Zed5Duke had some nice basic description of mechanics here to get started with:
http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=25751

And I much prefer Gambit's tile set for using CSBuild, it makes it much more understandable I think:
http://www.dmjump.net/tiles.bmp

And zyx gave a very nice description of AND/OR gates here:
http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=24554

[gothmogrules]

excellent! this answered all of my questions!!... for now
thanx!

[gothmogrules]

back again! this time with perhaps a more complicated question... I'd like to create a 'leap of faith' type of puzzle, in which the party would need to jump into a pit that would extend multiple levels deep. Of course, this would normally mean automatic death for the whole party - unless one of the four champions carries a specific object with him (eg a cross).
Is this something possible to make (using some And/Or Gate + teleport trick maybe??) or am I pushing the limits too far?

[beowuuf]

Hmm, a simple way to do it.... maybe. A way to do it with an engine as powerful as CSBwin? Of course! There are things called Designer Specified Actuators (DSAs) that allow you to use a psuedo-code languaging to manipulate alot of the DM engine mechanics. Like change an illusionary pit to a real pit for instance. Or teleport the party no matter the tile.


It is beyond the normal mechanics to do it how you would really like it. Using normal mechanics, a floor tile can only have one property - a false pit, real pit, or teleporter.

So you could use a real pit that closes off if you approach it with a cross. There is a way to get an effect to happen if you step off of a floor tile, so you could attempt to close a real pit when you walk on to it. The trouble with that second idea is that I do not believe you could get the timings correctly so that if you step off you are likely to fall down the pit before you close the pit.


So the answer is yes, you can make something that is perfectly your wish, but you will have to go a little deeper into the rabbit hole

Or yes with normal mechanics, but you might need to tweak the operation a little and provide a buffer, or have the pit only open to drop the party.

With normal mechanics, can I suggest the following: A 'run and jump, if you have faith' a few paces down the corridor. If the party possesses a cross, then at the start of the corridor an input is fed to an AND/OR gate. Once the party leave this square, the input to the AND/OR gate will deactivate in a few seconds so they have to run fast. At the end of the corridor is the pit they have to jump. Infront of the pit is a teleporter and invisible floor switch is a second input to the AND/OR gate.

The AND/OR gate activates the teleporter which teleports them across the pit. So, if they have activated the and gate with the cross, and run fast enough to then land on the other pressure switch, the teleporter will activate and it will seem as if they have 'jumped' across the pit. If they are too slow, or don't have the cross, the teleporter will not work and they will simply fall in to the pit

[gothmogrules]

wow... think I'm gonna try your last idea (run and jump), see if I can achieve that! It seems like a heck of a challenge, considering my novice skills!!
Btw, should my blue trolls (creature cavern) be orange?? loll
Thanks very much Beo!

[beowuuf]

Ah, yes, there is a weird thing with the colour palettes - in order to squeeze in as many colours as possible with a 16 color palette, they left the last two colours floating. So each level displays two colors as a priority - say blue for the level 3 or level 11 where the trolins are.

So if you put them on to another level, some of their colours are instead replaced with the colour of that level! There is a way to correct it, just you worry about getting a fun dungeon for now


Good luck with the run and jump! Try to get the basics first, using the two switches activating a door mechanism. Once you are happy that will work, then figure out the 'party possesses an item' mechanism, and then the little bits like the way to get timing, and even how to activate things when the party step off.

[gothmogrules]

alright. I'll do that!
thanx!

[Paul Stevens]

I suggest the following: A 'run and jump

Are you going to patent that idea? Or might it
be derived from prior art?

[beowuuf]

I will go back twenty years, before CSB, and do so! Heh, it's an idea I had after the CSB section. There, you just close the pit. Boring. I wanted to jump the pit!

Here's the mechanism itself without the cross making a difference. I've realised that to place the cross into the mix, you need to split out the switch on and switch off functions, which might have made it harder to follow. Hopefully you can alter it yourself.

http://www.dmjump.net/dungeon.dat

[Jan]

I'd like to create a 'leap of faith' type of puzzle

Hey! I was just thinking about the same thing in my own VERY SECRET AND STILL UNFINISHED (TM) dungeon!

[gothmogrules]

humm... trying to get some dagger holes to work here. I've looked closely to the original DM's fireball shooters as an example, applied the same logic for daggers but it just won't work. Even the fireball holes won't hurt a fly... :S
Does someone have any helpful insight about this?
---- oh, just found out that they work when they're on a south wall... dunno why though!

[Paul Stevens]

Is the pressure-pad or switch ( or whatever
activates the fireball shooters )
set to send a message to the south wall?
That would explain your symptoms.

[gothmogrules]

Is the pressure-pad or switch ( or whatever
activates the fireball shooters )
set to send a message to the south wall?
That would explain your symptoms.

Not initially. At firt, the pressure pad was sending a message to a north wall, and it wouldn't work. But I've now configured the room so it sends it to a south wall and it works this way... So that's good enough for now!
Thanx!

[Paul Stevens]

Well, there is either a bug or some confusion.
If it is a bug, send me a copy of your files and
I will fix it.

But --- it may only be confusion. The fireball
holes have a position relative to the stone
wall that contains them.
If the fireball holes are on the south wall
then they will appear on what a player would
call the 'north' wall of the 'room' he is in.
But the trigger would have to send a message
to the 'south' wall.

So, if you believe you have done everything
correctly and it does not work, please send
your dungeon.dat file to me. We cannot have
bugs floating around.

[gothmogrules]

sorry Paul, just read your last post... as you say, it was probably just confusion. It works fine as long as the holes are south of us, shooting towards north.
This being said, does anyone have a link where could I find clear explanations for monster generators?
Tx!!

[beowuuf]

This is exactly what Paul meant - if you look at the activation GUI for a switch, there is a drop down menu that ets you chose the facing of the target. Not important for floor items like teleporters, but very important for fireball shooters, etc!

Monster generator mechanics are discussed on one of the old DMute forum posts. However, they are faily simply:

- they are floor objects, you place them where you want a monster to be generated.
- they need to be activated. A floor switch, wall switch etc is needed to target the square each time you want a monster
- there is a delay number (set for each generator). You can have the generator always fire (delay 0), or you can set a delay so that a generator wlill not generate a monster again if activated before a certain time has elapsed.
- you can only have one monster type generated from each generator. You must also set how many get generated - either a random number to appear, or have a specific number of that type to be generated.

I think that's everything!

[gothmogrules]

ohhh very nice, thanx for the info!

[gothmogrules]

Hey guys.. trying to do something I thought would be pretty simple, but it might prove more complicated than I thought.
I want a visible teleporter at the end of a corridor, but I don't want it to operate until a button is pushed on the wall within this teleporter... In other words, I want it to be inactive and visible, so the player needs to get in and use the pushbutton inside to activate the teleporter.
But if I set my teleporter to 'inactive and visible', I can't see the teleporter... What am I doing wrong??