Logic help - token choosing

[arfa]

My brain could do with some help here

Player dives down to collect treasure. [random selecting]
Each treasure yields a token
On death (not enough air) a token is lost and respective treasure is returned.

How to test for the availability of a token?

Well, easy enough to test - is in zone/play area - but how to remove one and leave the others.

eg. I could have token C & E and die. Only need to loose C 'or' E. But not both - which I can't seem to avoid. I also need to avoid negative values but this is not the main problem.

Coding I would have a qualified loop. When the condition is met we 'break' the loop. Done.

I hope this makes sense. It seems like it would be a common scenario so hope there is an easy solution.

thanks - arfa

[LB]

Can't you just randomly pick one?

[arfa]

Sure LB - if I knew how. I am on a learning curve back from the late '90's and there is much new.

OK... i see
new condition>new obj>pick random in a zone
I will try this.

The one thing with ver2 (v's ver1.2) is more options - including extensions. I have many more yet to try.

Any other suggestions on obj selection?

[arfa]

Hmmmmm,

Looks like I might need a bit more here )

I can set up the condition:
Player dead
+ "Pick a random object from zone ...."
but I am not sure where to from here.

Each object has an ID - my tokens are 53-57
Perhaps select a random number within range?

MMF has a specific condition/action/expression logic that I have yet to get in mind. I will continue to experiment but any pointers would be appreciated.

[LB]

Right click on the type of object you want to select in the New Condition menu, and choose "Compare to an Alterable Value". Then just compare your ID value to:
Random(MAX - MIN + 1) + MIN

Where, from your post, MAX you would type in 57 and MIN you would type in 53.

[arfa]

I appreciate you patience here LB, thanks

Just to be clear - I want to pick one object randomly from a group of 5

The most promising new-condition to me seemed to be:
New Objects > Pick a random object from zone
but then I couldn't work out how to return or test the value of the selected object.
________________
Looking at your approach...
New condition > alterable value > compare to one..
you said: > compare your ID value
I am not sure how to set that.
# Choose value > use expression or,
# Enter expression > retrieve data from object

And I presume I would need to test this for each of the (in this case 5) objects?

I have not been able to finish this level on account of this one bit. This program has great power and I am enjoying extending my understanding. Thanks.

[LB]

Oh, you just want to pick one of five objects? Would this work?


It will pick a random object out of the currently selected objects, so if you have 5 selected it will choose one of those 5.

[arfa]

I will come back to object picking...

I have put time into this - with a slow, old(er) brain.

1 - Thanks for the random(range) code. I work in PHP and am used to rand(MIN,MA so the syntax is a bit weird, but it works!
2 - I realise object selection can just as easily be linear. Pick ANY object in the zone.
3 - I see that object numbering is not what is referred to as object ID. I guess that ID is alt. val. A or, flag on or some such.

The challenge was isolating one of the 5. I used a similar scenario to the mouse-visibility-group-toggle you referred me to a few days ago [hey! I am learning from you ]

So, I have a working example.

www.buddhamind.info/mmf/AK_object-select.mfa

Perhaps there is a more elegant way to do this?

PICKING....
I was thinking to start a separate thread on this.
There are several 'pick' options.
The one I referred to earlier seems useful here:

new cond. > new objects > pick a random obj in a zone

But, what does it do? How do I return the value - say to a counter or string or anything? How do I know which object it picked?
Your suggestion:
new cond. > pick/count > pick "" at random
I imagine this works if all my objects are copies but not clones. The tokens I am using are all different.
"...pick a random object out of the currently selected objects"
Selected how, by what?
Would this be...
new cond. > new ojbs > pick all obj in a zone ?
Hmmmm, tried this a bit but can't seem to work out how to isolate one of five independent objects.

Bear with me ;o
I am slow - but diligent.

[LB]

You could put the objects in a qualifier.

To know what object you picked you could use its Fixed Value, or you could spread values in an alterable value and use that as the ID.

[arfa]

"objects in a qualifier"
The terminology...
In the help file this looks very much like what I remember as 'groups' back from GF days. There used to be a limit on the number of objects in a level and groups was the way around that. If my memory is correct. I need to re-learn that.

"Fixed Value"
Terminology? Would this generally be what is referred to as ID?

"spread values in an alterable value"
Ah, you are stretching my boundaries of understanding. Great. I will look into this further.

thanks so much for your time here LB.