Pause between spells! Options

[Sikret]

This tutorial contains a false comment inside one of its codes:

This is a technique used to account for the pause between spellcasting. It cuts off spellcasting actions when they cannot be performed,[...] So, you might have the following block:


IF
    !GlobalTimerNotExpired("castnattack","LOCALS")
    HaveSpellRES("spwi999",Myself)
THEN
    RESPONSE #100
        SetGlobalTimer("castnattack","LOCALS",6) // Timer always set to 6, as that is the duration of the pause
        SpellRES("spwi999",LastSeenBy(Myself))
END

Well, this is wrong!

As I have mentioned elsewhere the duration of the pause is NOT 6. I don't know how many modders might have been misled by the fasle comment inside the code which says "as that is the duration of the pause", but it's now perhaps the time to let people know that it is false.

The duration of the pause varies from spell to spell (it's not 6 for every spell). I know the exact duration of the pause for each and every spell, but the easiest way to implement the correct duration of the pause is to use "SpellNoDec" instead of "ForceSpell" as it is implemented in Improved Anvil.

[Creepin]

While your comment in question may look just ambigious, and not explicitly false, it's obvious that its general interpretation will be: pause between the end of casting a spell and the start of casting the next one, which will result in malfunctioning for those who interpret it in this way.

Just for the sake of objectivity: long time ago, when I was studying scripting to create my own PC combat scripts, there was 3 major sources of knowledge: Trigger tutorial by Vasqez, Action tutorial by KensaiRui (both are now integrated in IESDP) and Scripting tutorial by Ding0. I couldn't recollect now exact flow of my study, but one thing is certain: I was never, ever, having any problems with interpretation of cast'n'attack concept or mechanics, including delay between spells.

Furthermore, I didn't start this topic to discuss "cast and attack". It was about the delay between spells and I informed everyone that they can use "SpellNoDec" without any need to a timer if they want to ensure the delay between spells.

There's no any reasonable need to ensure delay between spells - game engine is perfectly doing this job on it's own. What one really need to ensure is not to waste this delay doing nothing - hence C'n'A routine and timer of 6. As the only reason of timer existance is C'n'A, it makes no sense to discuss timer but not to discuss C'n'A.

This post has been edited by Creepin: Jun 27 2006, 06:47 PM