How do I get Psyche-Locks to appear in a conversation?

[henke37]

Ok, we finally get the locks. But how do you mark a specific conversation to require one? I've looked really hard, but I can not find how to do it. It is not in the new tab, it's not in the tab for the talk options. There seems to be no way to hook it up. I mean, surely you can't expect us to always use them on the first talk subject? I am sure that you do not think so either.

Further more, there does not seem to be any way to use non evidence locks, such as a point at picture action. At least not in a way that you can chose the number of locks to see as well. It simply does not seem to be possible to control how many locks there will be, many of the official cases had locks with a different amount of steps compared to the visible locks. For example that Oldbag lock where you only needed one piece of evidence. Also, there does not seem to be any way to control the positioning of the locks either. In the real game, they where all uniquely arranged each time.

[Unas]

Ok, we finally get the locks. But how do you mark a specific conversation to require one? I've looked really hard, but I can not find how to do it. It is not in the new tab, it's not in the tab for the talk options. There seems to be no way to hook it up. I mean, surely you can't expect us to always use them on the first talk subject? I am sure that you do not think so either.

I told it in my announcement : everything you want to do when completing the locks has to be done in the last success conversation. That includes, of course, revealing a new conversation, or setting variables as you want, or anything...

Further more, there does not seem to be any way to use non evidence locks, such as a point at picture action.

Does that exist ? Well, I guess I forgot
You could avoid that problem by asking to present the "photo" evidence from the record and, in the success conversation, use the point action, that continues if successful or else redirects to a message of the failure conversation... something like that

It simply does not seem to be possible to control how many locks there will be, many of the official cases had locks with a different amount of steps compared to the visible locks. For example that Oldbag lock where you only needed one piece of evidence.

I know that. But remember that AAO aims at being simple and rather intuitive, so I didn't include advanced functions like this.
Currently, the number of displayed locks is the minimum between 5 and the number of key sentences. If there are more than 5 sentences, the first ones will have "invisible locks"; that means only the 5 last key sentences will really break a visible lock.

Also, there does not seem to be any way to control the positioning of the locks either. In the real game, they where all uniquely arranged each time.

If the editor were to ask for a position for each lock, I believe people would quickly get tired of it
Of course it would be technically possible, but how to you expect me to include complex things like this in a way people will understand ?

[Hodou Okappa]

Does that exist ? Well, I guess I forgot

In 3-5, Larry's "psycholocks" (since it's during Edgey's run) require you to point at Heavenly Hall on the map of the Hazakura Temple area.

[henke37]

No, no no. I fully understood how to react to the lock being fully broken. What I can not understand is how to tell the game that it is possible to start breaking it.

About the point at picture example. Here I was just guessing that people might want to do it, I didn't remember the real games using it. Another thing that obviously should be able to trigger a lock breaking is the choose from N options action. But as you figured out, it's easy to fake these by just using the normal actions and the new break lock action.

For the positioning, it wouldn't be any harder than the existing point at picture setup. And there could and should be defaults. This would double as an explicit lock count setting.

Without even trying, I just realized that it should be possible to manually hack in some flashing lifebars into the scripts. But what I don't know yet is if there is a default failure hp loss or not. Is there such a default?

Further about defaults, there would be quite some pacing issues if we had to stick to all the locks breaking at the end of a PL, the real games spaces the breakings out so that there was locks breaking evenly during the PL. I think that if there are manual actions to break the locks, there should not be any automatic breaking.

[Unas]

No, no no. I fully understood how to react to the lock being fully broken. What I can not understand is how to tell the game that it is possible to start breaking it.

Ah, okay. Well, I guess I'll have to add actions to display/hide the button, and a select thing to decide if it's visible or hidden at the beginning, just like normal discussions. I had thought about this, but forgot...
I'll see about that.

For the positioning, it wouldn't be any harder than the existing point at picture setup. And there could and should be defaults.

Well, maybe I'll add that some day, but that's definitely not a priority for me.

Without even trying, I just realized that it should be possible to manually hack in some flashing lifebars into the scripts. But what I don't know yet is if there is a default failure hp loss or not. Is there such a default?

Nope, if you want to penalise the player it's up to you to do it in the failure conversation
And there shouldn't be any problem with the flashing bar

[henke37]

To be even more exact, I do not understand how to set a specific talk subject as being locked. Me hit's himself for not you know, trying out the new thing in the player. It's obvious now how the game player starts it. But yeah, the hidden/visible part needs to be fixed.

How is the game supposed to know what PL to run if there are more than one? Also, what if some madman tries to be creative and does not include THE magatama in the evidence? Because you must be sneaking in an extra option to the present evidence action used by the investigation block. But there is one issue, what if someone needs to start a PL some other way for some strange reason?

Also, I think we need a new refill lifebar action now, that post PL refill is just too stylish to pass up. Further more, you forgot to mention that the PL does not automatically end.

[Unas]

How is the game supposed to know what PL to run if there are more than one?

You mean, like having several locked talk subjects in the same place ? Never happened in the games, as far as I know : one at a time is far enough
The system only supports one series of locks for a place.

Also, what if some madman tries to be creative and does not include THE magatama in the evidence?

I'm not sure I understand you here. The evidence has nothing to do with the system, I'm using the AA4-style icon above the Talk subjects

But there is one issue, what if someone needs to start a PL some other way for some strange reason?

Then what he does isn't really a psyche lock, and isn't therefore officially supported by that system. But for someone like you who likes to modify files manually ( ), you can use the AllerMessage action until the message that contains the LancerVerrous one

Also, I think we need a new refill lifebar action now, that post PL refill is just too stylish to pass up.

Well, not a priority but perhaps.

Further more, you forgot to mention that the PL does not automatically end.

What do you mean ? When you reach the end of the last success conversation, locks disappear and you're sent back to the place's Talk message. That's automatical

[henke37]

Ignore the bug about not ending, my bad, used the wrong evidence id.

You can disregard the part about the magatama, it was written before I had gotten the point that you are using the aa4 style.

And for the idea of manually starting it, are you sure that frame number is allowed for the jump action by the editor? I mean, it is a generated action. But yeah, I could just fix that manually.

[Unas]

And for the idea of manually starting it, are you sure that frame number is allowed for the jump action by the editor? I mean, it is a generated action. But yeah, I could just fix that manually.

It isn't, that's why I talked about people who like to change the file directly

it was written before I had gotten the point that you are using the aa4 style.

I guess that's because you decided to have a look at how the script worked before actually trying to run it ?

[henke37]

Something like that.

[henke37]

One thing I wonder, how should you do when you want to show and let people start cracking at a PL in one location, only to have some random event move the character with the lock to a new location? I mean, it's enough of a pain already to duplicate the testimonies, but a full PL?

Maybe you could deattach the lock into it's own block in the editor and let people link the investigation to the PL block manually? But then again, the current actions already seem to have lots of return pointers pointing at the origin location...

[Transfinite]

Is it possible to make Psyche-Locks appear in a conversation without the Psyche-Lock editor? By this I mean how, when you're in the middle of a conversation, the background goes black and locks appear, and then it goes back to normal and you go "Oh, dangit, now I have to unlock that..." The "Locks appear" action doesn't seem to be working.

[Unas]

That's not possible yet. I've just answered Meph's post in the ideas section : I'll think about that