Complex music script. Can't get it!

[Lotus]

Okay, I'm new to these forums, and if you haven't read already, my name's Lotus. Good to meet everyone, if you count this as meeting you.

I'm making a pretty intense covert project.  Anyone ever play any games in the Metal Gear series?  When you're discovered, frantic music plays, then fades when the danger's over.  I want to achieve this in my OFP mission.

Now I know I could name every enemy unit and his mom, and do a script that would require me to type in the name of every enemy unit, checking "if bad1 knowsAbout playerr" bla bla.  But is there an easier way?  I have a sound that rings out and "danger" music starts playing if I'm discovered.  I want it to fade when the danger's over.

I've thought of some things, but I'm curious to see if anyone can help me. Thanks for taking the time to read this.  Take it easy =)

[ACF]

Welcome...

First thought:
playerside 'Detected By' enemyside trigger, set 'Repeatedly' so it will fade music in 'On Activation' and fade it out 'On Deactivation'.  The bits you will need to experiment with are the thresholds for activation and deactivation, they may not be fine enough for what you want.

Second thought:
You can avoid mass naming and referencing of units by capturing them with a normal 'Present' trigger and the List command.  The resultant array of units can then be used in your script as per your first thought.

My gut feeling is that the second approach is going to be easier to fine tune.  There's been a fair bit of discussion of knowsabout values that it would be worth tracking down if you haven't already.

The next bit is just opinion rather than advice, so feel free to ignore it:  I'm not sure how the 'discovered' music will be received - usually the tension in sneaky-beaky missions comes from not knowing whether you've been detected.  The third thought would be to bring in the frantic music when your or their firing starts, rather than giving away the fact that you've been detected.  

[Lotus]

Thanks for the reply.  I'll try that out, and also thanks for the input about the atmosphere of covert ops, you're certainly right about how not knowing you've been detected adds a lot to it.  I got so carried away with trying to accomplish this, I never thought about that.  

Also, I should have said before, but the "frantic" music was to be started as you said, when the enemy has actually begun firing on the player, not upon mere discovery.  I've decided to probably do away with the alert sound...keep the player on their toes =)

For the sake of editing though, I'm going to try and make it work anyway.  I'll let you know how that goes.  Thanks again ACF =)

[The-Architect]

You could run a script with a loop which checks whether the unit still knows about the player. Add a bit which checks distance or whatever.

[Mikero]

I imagine this topic will get moved to standard scripting as it isn't an advanced subject however, as you learned from previous reply, what seems like a good idea at the time rarely applies to ofp. It just isn't another 'me too' shoot-em-up as it's longevity should attest to. So,,,,

music was to be started as you said, when the enemy has actually begun firing on the player,

You will sir, get howls of scream and pain, and, most likely, many, many players will *instantly* type -endmission.

Why? It's termed, disparagingly, 'battle music'. As a player you have a choice of bopping along to some loony tune, or, the choice of listening out for *real* sounds like tanks approaching, or the direction of fire from a semi-silenced weapon, or determining where concentrated fire is coming from or, howls of pain, a chopper flyover, and react accordingly. The moment you drown out the 'realism' of Flashpoint and turn it into just another first person shooter with limited shelf life, it's goodnight, and thank you for playing.

But, by all means, try out your ideas and put in into the beta mission forum for some road testing.

[Dane]

Some very low moody background music to add to the atmosphere of the mission is nice IMO, but no loud rock&roll and stuff like that.

[Lotus]

Thank you all for your input, and heh...sorry for posting in the wrong spot.  Much appreciated though.  I'm learnin' =)

[Mikero]

Some very low moody background music to add to the atmosphere of the mission is nice IMO, but no loud rock&roll and stuff like that.

Precisely. Often termed 'ambients'

@Lotus

I forgot my manners, welcome to ofpec and the fabulous people here :wave:

('m the only one who's perpetually in a bad mood  )

[Lotus]

Yeah, all I'll say is the music isn't what you guys would typically think it is. I'll show you all someday if I ever release it.  No electric guitars and loud annoyance...it's deep/moody ambient and plays quietly.

Adds a lot to the atmosphere if I may say so myself.  But yeah, I've scratched the idea of danger music.  However I did get it to work, so thank you all for helping me figure it out.