Reading the value of a variable[solved]

[Skye]

I wonder if someone can help me with a little problem.

In my game I have boxes of fuses that can be in any one of 4 locations and there can be 0 to 4 boxes available.

Currently, I am using 4 different variables for this
eg BoxAt01, BoxAt02, BoxAt03, BoxAt04

What I'm trying to do is achieve the same result but by using only 1 variable. I have an idea to use a numerical value assigned to the single variable that will allow the game to determine where the boxes are located
eg BoxOfFuses = 0110 - this would mean that there is a box at location 2 and 3, nothing at location 1 and 4.

I have no idea how I would script a procedure that could 'look' at the individual digits and thereby determine whether or not an overlay should be displayed nor how I could change the variable contents to 0 when the player picked up one of the boxes.

If anyone has any ideas I would really appreciate it. I'm struggling to try and reduce the number of variables I have in my game so that it doesn't take in the neighbourhood of 1:30 - 2:00 minutes to reload a saved game.

Skye

[ShadowHunter]

Hi,

This is a way... it's just a demo example of course

Code: Select all

Sub Parse4Bit
   For k = 1 to 4
      'mid(text,start,length)
      Digit = Mid("0110",k,1)
         If Digit = 0 Then
            Hotspot(k).visible = false
            MsgBox "Hotspot " & k & " is invisible"
         Else
            Hotspot(k).visible = true
            MsgBox "Hotspot " & k & " is visible"
         End If      
   Next
End Sub


Hope it will help !

Good luck,

ShAdOwHuNtEr

[Rooster]

Hi Skye.

1. declare a global variant variable "box_switches"

2. initiate at game start; box_switches = "0000"

3. to set a switch; create a procedure as follows, and invoke it with the relevant switch number (ex set_box_switch 1)

sub set_box_switch (switch_no)
box_switches = mid(box_switches,1,switch_no - 1) + "1" + mid(box_switches,switch_no + 1, len(box_switches) - switch_no)
End Sub

4. to check the values of all the switches, do as follows

ix= 1

Do until ix > 4
value = mid(box_switches,ix,1)
MsgBox cstr(value)
ix = ix + 1
Loop



I hope this can be of any use for you. Note that if you use the debug tool to check the values of the variables, the first zeroes are suppressed, even in a variant variable.

I'm not a VBScript expert at all, there may be hundreds of better ways to do this, but it works anyway...

Hmmm, I see shadowhunter has given a reply as well, hmm, as I said, not a VBScript expert...

Struggling as you are, with the number of switches... Try to reuse switches as well, but it's easy to get lost....

Good luck

/Rooster

[Skye]

Thanks for the help ShadowHunter and Rooster. I'll see if I can figure it out.

Skye

[!Jakon]

I think you are right guys! :)