Just wanted to share that I successfully tested a random encounter spawner that "rolls a dice" to see if the encounter happens. This example is a 50/50 chance of the encounter with a timer that resets the zone trigger (should the player return later, the roll can happen again if you so choose).

Enjoy!

Here's a diagram of it



or link:

http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt305/Gustang/basic_random_spawn_diagram.jpg

Edit: Just wanted to mention that the only reason the 3.5 second timer is in there is to fire the report that the roll failed. Otherwise, it's unnecessary.

Now THAT'S a good thing ... just what's needed for a real patrol mission.

Well done.

WH_JoeBob

Here's another example of a 4-way choice of encounter. Still testing this one...
It works, but it's not apparent to me that it works correctly. Separating the timers by milliseconds produced a lot of roll failures, where 1 second separation did produce better results (on my computer). This has the timers separated by 3 seconds.

http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt305/Gustang/Basic_25_Percent_random_spawn_diagr.jpg

Nice! A lot of possibilities with these random timers...

I think we need to be cautious with using msec timers for this kind of stuff, like you said. For my random recon patrol mission I used 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000 msec timers and that seems to work just fine. But who knows, this could work out not so well on another PC?

Specially for single player/campaign missions I think we need to work with at least "seconds" timers. When I was testing my mission in single player mode I used time acceleration to quickly see the results. But the acceleration completely messed up the randomness! I either got the no1 or no5 timer!
Luckily, in co-op missions you can't accelerate time and the server usually has (or it wouldn't be a server) enough processing power to do this correctly.

Watching this with great interest!

Thanks Gustang good stuff, naming a mission-building notes folder in your honour and backing up the thread

Ming

Thanks!

Also when 'there is time' enough, perhaps the 'divide et impera' method can be used in a cascade fashion, using just a similar structure of '2 self-canceling timers' at a time

Very cool Gustang.

Looks like you guys are developing some real potential with the ME.

Well, a couple of things to hash out here. I tested the 3-second separation approach last night and it didn't produce any better results. I got a lot of Fokkers or fails, so it's not bullet proof. Perhaps what we need to try next is to change the steps. Currently, it's:

Timer 1: 25 percent
Timer 2: 25 percent
Timer 3: 25 percent
Timer 4: 100 percent

But perhaps it could be:

Timer 1: 50 percent
Timer 2: 50 percent
Timer 3: 50 percent
Timer 4:100 percent

or increasing:

Timer 1: 25 percent
Timer 2: 50 percent
Timer 3: 75 percent
Timer 4:100 percent

I'm not well versed on statistics (rather probability), so I'm looking for the best way to produce (as close as possible to) an equal chance (like a 4-sided dice) for each step to occur. Any ideas?

I like Laser's suggestion of cascading pairs at 50 percent too. Is that a better approach?

Edit: It's clear now that the 25 percent/timer stepping isn't what I intended. Even at 50 percent/timer stepping, at 2 rolls, the probability of an encounter is already at 25%. Although that doesn't necessarily mean that 25 percent stepping isn't useful.

Gustang, is it possible to combine this with your Russian Roulette for Two mission so that the enemies spawned are randomly generated?

Once I can straighten out the probabilities and can get a good engine up and running, I'm pretty sure it's possible.

As JoeBob suggested, my primary drive for this is to setup patrols with (seemingly) random encounters. How cool would it be to go on patrol and meet up with different things as you follow your assigned path! Some could be friendly, others not so. Some you can fight, some will make you run. Of course, when to remove said encounter (for performance sake) is another problem all together...

Gustang, Are you sure you aren't testing with accelerated time? I tested basically the same setup and is seems to work just fine, but when I have time acceleration on I only get the first or last of the timers activated...

Hmm. I did use accelerated time during the last couple of trials (it was late), but I'm pretty sure I didn't do so in all. Especially when entering the trigger area. I'll be sure to test without it moving forward.

I failed to mention that I have a bunch of other technical experiments happening in the same mission, but ultimately, we'll need to be able to do these other things simultaneously.

Any luck with getting this to work yet?

Not I, but I haven't been pursuing it either. I see that someone posted a random roulette for 4 players here:

http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=3411

Seems this is the right post to start talking about mission building ;-)
can't get any responce at neoqb forum's.

I posted the 4player coop with random planes. it's still a WIP at the moment.
things i have found so far is:
1) NOT accelerate the time,
already changed the MS to full seconds. full run is now 15 seconds.
2) the last one needs to be 100%
Let it fail or point it back to the beginning.
(had the 100% pointed to the spawner for the N17, which spawned a lot of N17's.....

At the moment at version 1.13
i have 12 timers some at 8% and some at 9%. with the last timer at 100% which points
back to the reset timer so the sequence starts again. until a plane spawn's

what i really need to test it out good is a couple of human players, so i can stay alive long enhough to kill a couple of waves. to sew what happens after wave 3 or 4.

am working on a random one now that spawns trucks, with a tank sitting in a field blasting away at the truck, when the truck is killed another one spawns.
just to see what happens.

and to look if the % really works like i think it works. haven't really figured it out yet ;-)

Well if you want try it out and let me know.


*edit
Ps very easy to make it for single play, just open it in ME and change one plane to player. then save it.

K i found what caused the problem, i forgot to link all the timers to the first timer.
so the 1st links to 13 timers at the moment. but only 5 where connected .... DUH moment there.

fixed it and updated the file at Aerosoft so if you wanne try it out let me know.

Hey Michiel,

OK, thanks for putting it together and posting it at aerosoft. I'll check it out and report back.

Gus

Have updated the link at aerosoft

it now includes two missions one for each side.
still order playable.

Alba and fokker
and
Se5a and N17