Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: karajorma on March 23, 2002, 03:08:49 am

Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: karajorma on March 23, 2002, 03:08:49 am
In your mind what is the most useless SEXP? Is it just cause you can`t think of a possible use for it or just cause you can achieve the same thing more efficeiently with another SEXP.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Liberator on March 23, 2002, 03:18:50 am
Beam-Free-All.

The beams should be on by default.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Black Wolf on March 23, 2002, 03:22:04 am
Quote
Originally posted by Liberator
Beam-Free-All.

The beams should be on by default.


Can't argue with that :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: CP5670 on March 23, 2002, 03:55:39 am
Lets see...

never-warp and allow-warp (break-warp/fix-warp do the same thing)
is-tagged (doesn't work and would do the same thing as has-been-tagged-delay)
is-iff (doesn't work)
ship-guardian/ship-no-guardian (basically the same thing as ship-invulnerable/ship-vulnerable)
error (really stupid operator)

That's about it. :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Ulundel on March 23, 2002, 08:26:37 am
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670
Lets see...

never-warp and allow-warp (break-warp/fix-warp do the same thing)
 


Not sure about that. It's used in the Lions den mission and we all love that do we? :rolleyes:
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Reaper on March 23, 2002, 11:21:01 am
Quote
Originally posted by Liberator
Beam-Free-All.

The beams should be on by default.


Hehe, not really on default.
Beam free all should be to set on ships settings!:nod:
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: CP5670 on March 23, 2002, 11:51:19 am
Quote
Not sure about that. It's used in the Lions den mission and we all love that do we? :rolleyes:


Well, they do the same thing in any case; the break-warp/fix-warp ones could have been used just as easily instead. :p
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Ulundel on March 23, 2002, 12:14:28 pm
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670


Well, they do the same thing in any case; the break-warp/fix-warp ones could have been used just as easily instead. :p


Well that makes it another try by volition to make a good joke. :wtf:
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Stunaep on March 23, 2002, 12:25:00 pm
They have a difference actually. Break-warp stops you from exiting subspace, but that can be fixed with a Support Ship.
Never-warp can be altered only by Allow-warp. Not that it matters.

What about jettison-cargo-delay. I've never seen that one used
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: CP5670 on March 23, 2002, 12:52:04 pm
I think I might have seen that in FS1 somewhere, but I'm not sure.

Quote
They have a difference actually. Break-warp stops you from exiting subspace, but that can be fixed with a Support Ship.
Never-warp can be altered only by Allow-warp. Not that it matters.


The support ships aren't available in Into the Lion's Den, so it wouldn't make too much of a difference. I guess it might have some usefulness then if support ships cannot repair it, but they should then remove break-warp/fix-warp and keep the other two. :p:D

Quote
Well that makes it another try by volition to make a good joke. :wtf:


I guess that could be true; after all, we all know Volition has a strange sense of humor... :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Stryke 9 on March 23, 2002, 01:33:51 pm
Special-warp

You know, all the stupid ones that only work with Knossos portals?
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Stunaep on March 23, 2002, 01:48:35 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9
Special-warp

You know, all the stupid ones that only work with Knossos portals?


I use those. I actually like the green glow.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: LtNarol on March 23, 2002, 01:55:59 pm
both sets of warp sexps have their uses, you just need to know how to use them.  As for Volition's jokes, i got a rather funny one not long ago:  I was fredding a mission, the last mission, for TFP when i placed one cruiser too many and Fred2 kicked me out.  When i openned the mission again, one of the cruisers had been renamed to U.R.A. Moron 1.  Damn programmer humor ;7
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Stunaep on March 23, 2002, 03:04:42 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Ten of Twelve


Well that makes it another try by volition to make a good joke. :wtf:


Yea, I'm beginning to understand why Freespace 2 sold only that many copies
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Ulundel on March 23, 2002, 03:06:38 pm
Quote
Originally posted by LtNarol
both sets of warp sexps have their uses, you just need to know how to use them.  As for Volition's jokes, i got a rather funny one not long ago:  I was fredding a mission, the last mission, for TFP when i placed one cruiser too many and Fred2 kicked me out.  When i openned the mission again, one of the cruisers had been renamed to U.R.A. Moron 1.  Damn programmer humor ;7



LOL. Wow, the second joke from Volition that is actually funny! :nod:
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Zeronet on March 23, 2002, 05:28:28 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stunaep


Yea, I'm beginning to understand why Freespace 2 sold only that many copies


Yeah, Interplay literally hid the game from the public. You cant buy what you,ve not heard of.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Black Wolf on March 24, 2002, 12:28:51 am
Quote
Originally posted by Ten of Twelve



LOL. Wow, the second joke from Volition that is actually funny! :nod:


HEADZZZZZZZZZZZZ! :D

Actually, there're a few funny ones. There's the shivan bodyslamming the guy in hall fight, Summoner Geeks and a few other good ones. These two are preety sweet though.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: vadar_1 on March 24, 2002, 12:41:40 am
Quote
Originally posted by LtNarol
both sets of warp sexps have their uses, you just need to know how to use them.  As for Volition's jokes, i got a rather funny one not long ago:  I was fredding a mission, the last mission, for TFP when i placed one cruiser too many and Fred2 kicked me out.  When i openned the mission again, one of the cruisers had been renamed to U.R.A. Moron 1.  Damn programmer humor ;7


I seem to recall that happening in version 1.01 I think? Anyways the GTVA Colossus would randomly be named that.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Ulundel on March 24, 2002, 04:05:53 am
Quote
Originally posted by Black Wolf


HEADZZZZZZZZZZZZ! :D

Actually, there're a few funny ones. There's the shivan bodyslamming the guy in hall fight, Summoner Geeks and a few other good ones. These two are preety sweet though.


In my opinion the only good jokes are that moron thingy and "freespace wants to sleep" in one of the table files.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: karajorma on March 24, 2002, 05:02:47 am
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670

error (really stupid operator)



I think we have a winner! Why on earth would you ever need to use that SEXP? Even in mission testing it would be far more sensible to put a message in its place saying ERROR. :D



never-warp and allow-warp (break-warp/fix-warp do the same thing)
is-tagged (doesn't work and would do the same thing as has-been-tagged-delay)
is-iff (doesn't work)
ship-guardian/ship-no-guardian (basically the same thing as ship-invulnerable/ship-vulnerable)


I`ve found uses for never-warp and allow warp. They are very useful in missions where you want the player to make use of a jump node. You could probably base a mission around a broken jump drive and thereby make use of break-warp so it isn`t completely useless.

I agree with you about ship-guardian what's the point in a SEXP that prevents weapons from doing damage but stil lets you get blown up by explosions and the like.

I haven`t bothered with the others you mentioned so I guess they really are useless :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Stunaep on March 24, 2002, 06:18:50 am
Quote
Originally posted by Ten of Twelve


In my opinion the only good jokes are that moron thingy and "freespace wants to sleep" in one of the table files.


HKHM :headz: HKHM
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Ulundel on March 24, 2002, 06:21:41 am
Quote
Originally posted by Stunaep


HKHM :headz: HKHM


You're starting to piss me off. :mad:
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Stunaep on March 24, 2002, 06:27:45 am
Quote
Originally posted by Ten of Twelve


You're starting to piss me off. :mad:



I was referring to the OTHER good joke from Volition.

Hey, its gotta be good, if it made the smiley list.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: USS Alexander on March 24, 2002, 10:03:05 am
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670
Lets see...

never-warp and allow-warp (break-warp/fix-warp do the same thing)
is-tagged (doesn't work and would do the same thing as has-been-tagged-delay)
is-iff (doesn't work)
ship-guardian/ship-no-guardian (basically the same thing as ship-invulnerable/ship-vulnerable)
error (really stupid operator)

That's about it. :D



They all work when you make the event good.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: CP5670 on March 24, 2002, 02:17:17 pm
Quote

I think we have a winner! Why on earth would you ever need to use that SEXP? Even in mission testing it would be far more sensible to put a message in its place saying ERROR. :D

I`ve found uses for never-warp and allow warp. They are very useful in missions where you want the player to make use of a jump node. You could probably base a mission around a broken jump drive and thereby make use of break-warp so it isn`t completely useless.

I agree with you about ship-guardian what's the point in a SEXP that prevents weapons from doing damage but stil lets you get blown up by explosions and the like.

I haven`t bothered with the others you mentioned so I guess they really are useless :D


Yeah, on second thought those warps might come in handy if the support ships can repair jump drives with one set of operators but not the other.

The other two actually crash the game when you try to use them (Volition didn't implement them properly), so they are pretty much useless.

I think debug rises high above them all though, since it is supposed to crash the game with an error message. I can just dream on about of all the possible uses of that. :p:D They went as far as to give debug its very own category as well. (it should be renamed to "pointless sexps" or something like that)
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: LtNarol on March 24, 2002, 03:30:56 pm
other voliton jokes:
-volition bravos pirate ship
-heads in a tank in vasudan main hall (with the code of course)
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: karajorma on March 25, 2002, 02:58:56 am
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670
I think debug rises high above them all though, since it is supposed to crash the game with an error message. I can just dream on about of all the possible uses of that. :p:D They went as far as to give debug its very own category as well. (it should be renamed to "pointless sexps" or something like that)


You do have to wonder if the guy who created that error didn`t realise that ALT-Tab works with FS2. Maybe they didn`t and wanted a quick way to get back to FRED :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Setekh on March 25, 2002, 03:07:02 am
Quote
Originally posted by Black Wolf
Summoner Geeks


The Geeks are hilarious. I must've watched that hundreds of times. :D You know it only just got hosted on FilePlanet? And it got 8000 downloads. :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: karajorma on March 25, 2002, 04:33:29 am
I just downloaded summoner geeks after hearing about it here. *Wipes away tears of laughter*

I suppose it's even better if you`ve actually played summoner :)
Title: Useless, or not?
Post by: EdrickV on April 05, 2002, 09:08:29 pm
I know this thread is a bit old, but I just thought I'd mention that the Guardian SEXPs are not useless and do work, though they don't do what you'd probably expect. Guardian prevents a ship from being destroyed, not from being damaged. It can be damaged down to 1%, and can trigger things like the Traitor built in event. Invulnerable, by contrast, keeps a ship from being damaged at all so won't trigger the Traitor event. Also, is-iff seemed to work when I tried it. Didn't try comparing the two tag SEXPs. :)

Oh, almost forgot, I would agree that Error seems to be the most useless. I couldn't even get it to crash FS2.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Sesquipedalian on April 05, 2002, 10:16:55 pm
Orders doesn't work either.  But debug takes the cake for me.

Quote
Originally posted by USS Alexander



They all work when you make the event good.


:doubt:

If you can make orders or is-tagged to work, I'd greatly appreciate knowing how.;)
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: CP5670 on April 06, 2002, 12:47:30 am
Quote
Guardian prevents a ship from being destroyed, not from being damaged. It can be damaged down to 1%, and can trigger things like the Traitor built in event.


That would actually be very useful then; I have a number of places in my missions where I might be able to use that. Thanks for the advice. :)
Title: is-tagged order
Post by: EdrickV on April 06, 2002, 01:06:44 pm
Order and is-tagged don't seem to work at all. Is-tagged may have been disabled/removed because it would seem to be redundent with the more robost has-been-tagged-delay. As far as order, it wouldn't work. Since the built in mission TSM104, which deals with communications and ordering other ships about, doesn't use order I figure it wasn't implimented.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Gortef on April 06, 2002, 02:28:26 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Setekh


The Geeks are hilarious.  


I agree with that one :nod:
Title: Re: Useless, or not?
Post by: karajorma on April 06, 2002, 04:39:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by EdrickV
I know this thread is a bit old, but I just thought I'd mention that the Guardian SEXPs are not useless and do work, though they don't do what you'd probably expect. Guardian prevents a ship from being destroyed, not from being damaged. It can be damaged down to 1%, and can trigger things like the Traitor built in event. Invulnerable, by contrast, keeps a ship from being damaged at all so won't trigger the Traitor event. Also, is-iff seemed to work when I tried it. Didn't try comparing the two tag SEXPs. :)


That's one of the main reasons I posted this topic. I was wondering if the SEXP's I thought were useless actually did have a good reason for existing. I guess I`ll be using that one a little more often.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Shiva Archon on April 10, 2002, 12:31:59 am
is-iff did a wonderful job of crashing FS2 whenever I tried to use it.

Though I've been informed by EdrickV that using it in conjunction with is-destroyed-delay probably made it all screwy.  

Still, the months of infuriating irritation it caused makes it my most hated SEXP, and useless.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: WMCoolmon on April 10, 2002, 12:54:58 am
"Heat sinks were not made for this kind of abuse, Command! We'll melt down our cannons if we push any harder."
(http://members.cox.net/wmcoolmon/images/welcome.gif);)

I think beam-free-all is the most useless...as someone has stated, beams should be on by default :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Nuclear1 on April 10, 2002, 04:03:38 pm
Hey Shiva!

By the way...

is-iff
      -when
         -is-iff
           -Zeta 2
           -Hostile
         -crash
           -Freespace2
           -3
     
is-tagged
   
       -when
         -is-tagged
            -Red 4
            -3
         -screw up
            -Freespace 2
            -every time you use it

is-event-true-delay
 
         -when
           -is-event-true-delay
                -Beam free
                -3
            -add-goal
               -aichase-Alpha-one-all-over-map-firing-BFReds-atpoint-blank-range
           
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: EdrickV on April 10, 2002, 04:13:40 pm
I've experimented with is-iff and have yet to get it to crash my FS2. If anyone has a mission (or can easily make one) where is-iff causes it to crash I'd be interested in seeing if it'll crash my FS2.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Nuclear1 on April 10, 2002, 09:05:44 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stunaep

What about jettison-cargo-delay. I've never seen that one used


Ahem.... "The Shivans are leaving their cargo behind!"

"Pilots! Don't destroy the cargo!"
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Anaz on April 10, 2002, 09:14:23 pm
that is un-dock jenius... (the j was intentional, he might pronounce it wrong any other way :p)

IIRC jettison cargo makes the cargo go *poof* out of the ship, as in it not being there any more...pretty much what it does is changes the cargo to none.

Now, remember, that is IIRC
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: FSW on April 11, 2002, 12:54:05 pm
Quote
Originally posted by LtNarol
When i openned the mission again, one of the cruisers had been renamed to U.R.A. Moron 1.  Damn programmer humor ;7

That happened to me in FRED1. It was a Vasudan freighter I think.
Oh, and in one of the tables it says that if you get promoted to anyting above Commodore in FS1 you will be accused of cheating.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: _argv[-1] on May 11, 2002, 11:05:54 am
Quote
Originally posted by FSW

That happened to me in FRED1. It was a Vasudan freighter I think.
Oh, and in one of the tables it says that if you get promoted to anyting above Commodore in FS1 you will be accused of cheating.


"You really must have cheated to get this rank. Do you want to sit behind a desk or something? This is what vice admirals do."

"You really have got to stop cheating; this could become a natural thing for you, and that would be bad. Go on, Admiral Cheater, I think you have to perform some ceremony or inspection or something."

;7 :D :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Nuclear1 on May 11, 2002, 12:01:15 pm
An unearthed topic...... I remember posting here when I had only about 3 posts! :D
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: EdrickV on May 11, 2002, 12:56:31 pm
Some of the info in here may become obsolete though. I intend to see if I can fix is-tagged to work the way it sounds like it should because has-been-tagged-delay does have it's drawbacks. Shouldn't be too hard to do, once I dig up the HUD code that decides whether or not to draw the box around the ship as a "tagged" color or not again.

Edit: I think this was one of the first topics I replied to as well.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: CP5670 on May 11, 2002, 01:27:37 pm
It might be possible to fix some of those broken operators with the source code now. ;)
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: EdrickV on May 11, 2002, 11:32:57 pm
Of the three SEXPs I know that don't usually work, only one is actually broken. And that's is-tagged. error only works with a debug build, because it was designed that way. Order does exactly what it's coded to do. Nothing:

int sexp_order(int node)
{
   return 0;
}

Apparently they never finished it and I'm not sure how they intended it to work code wise. (If they ever got that far.) I may be able to fix is-tagged, but I'm not sure about order. Oh, and the hidden end-mission-delay SEXP doesn't work but may be fixable. (Just need to find and trace back the Alt+J code and have it use the same calls, if it can access them.)
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Kabal on May 12, 2002, 12:37:54 am
Dont you just hate it when parts of the game are incomplete and it got released?:doh:
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: EdrickV on May 12, 2002, 12:51:57 am
I'd rather they try to put as much in as they can, which means there will be things that won't be finished (like the Open GL code) but things like the order SEXP should have been commented out for the release builds if they didn't work. :)
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Alikchi on May 12, 2002, 01:01:02 am
Quote
Originally posted by EdrickV
If anyone has a mission (or can easily make one) where is-iff causes it to crash I'd be interested in seeing if it'll crash my FS2.


I have one that crashes. It uses is-iff. Not sure if that's the cause, but if you want it, meh, go ahead.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: EdrickV on May 12, 2002, 01:23:14 am
Quote
Originally posted by Alikchi


I have one that crashes. It uses is-iff. Not sure if that's the cause, but if you want it, meh, go ahead.


I would be interested in seeing if it will crash over here, since I haven't been able to crash FS2 using it. It would just be for my own curiousity since it wouldn't have anything to do with fixing the code. :) I think is-tagged was an early SEXP that they later broke by changing some of the ship object code and didn't fix because they had has-been-tagged-delay.
The HUD system has code to tell when a ship is tagged though so I want to recycle that for the SEXP and thus it should work the way it sounds like it should. :) (In otherwords: Is ship x currently tagged rather then have I ever tagged ship x?)
Hmm. I wonder if the tag info gets reset when a ship is destroyed.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: EdrickV on May 12, 2002, 01:26:53 am
:doh:
I feel like a real dunce now. :) Is-iff not is-tagged. Yeah, I'd like to check that mission out as I've made tests with is-iff and it worked.
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: EdrickV on May 12, 2002, 02:52:21 am
I've got a simple 2 line fix for is-tagged. It works, but you don't want to use it with repeat and for multiple is-tagged checks against the same ship, you'll probably need to use seperate checks. (Probably in a chain.) Example:
If you wanted to do a mission where the user tags a single ship twice you might do something like the following.
Event 1: is_tagged (ship name) do (whatever)
Event 2, chained to 1: not is_tagged (ship name) do (whatever or nothing)
Event 3, chained to 2: is_tagged (ship name) do (whatever)

With the regular exe it won't work 'cause the tag code is broken. With my simple modifications it works. I did it. I'm going to post the changes I made in the source code forum and maybe the guy who ported FS2 to GCC will add them to his CVS version. :)

Edit: No more using greater then/less then symbols. :doh:
Title: Lets try this again : Most useless SEXP
Post by: Kabal on May 12, 2002, 07:43:30 pm
:snipe: :snipe: :shaking: :shaking: ;7 ;7 :confused: :confused: