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Hey everyone!  It's been a while since I have worked on my projects, and I have some catching up to do with the new updates.  Anyway, for the past few months I have been working on building a template/engine for RPG games.  I am about to begin working on a Party Handler that will be used in games where the player controls a party of several characters.  I have come up with 2 ways of doing this so far, but wanted to get some additional input before moving forward and deciding which method to use.  Here are a few more details about what I need the party handler to accomplish:

1. The handler needs to spawn the characters that are currently in the party.  The party needs to spawn when starting the scene, and the player should be able to swap party members during gameplay. Right now, I have a variable [Character]PartySlotNumber for each character, where the lowest values represent characters that are currently in the party and any value greater than that means they are not in the party.  I use emitters and destroyers to set the party members.  Party member exchanges will only happen at specific scenes in my game, but I would like to set the template up so that it can be done anywhere.  Also, combat is carried out in different scenes entirely, so keep in mind that the party will frequently be sent back and forth between exploration scenes and combat scenes (let me know if you have any questions about how that is done).
2. The player can control different party members while exploring.  A very common mechanic in RPGs.  I want the camera to follow the selected character, and smoothly transition when a new character is selected.  Right now, I am just using a camera rig that follows the selected character, but I might change that.  I am also going to be using this for events that require speaking to NPCs with the correct character, but there should be enough variables in place already to accomplish that.
3. The handler needs to successfully move the party from one scene to another.  This one is a doozy.  RPGs are going to require many, many scenes in order to create a big enough world to explore.  Because of the way that the doorways work, there needs to be a possessed controller sensor in order to spawn the party handler at the correct doorway in a scene.  In order to save on thermo, most of my puppets don't even have their own controller sensors, I use a primary controller sensor to send signals to the puppet interface on the selected character.  This is the function that I need the most help with, and it looks like there are a number of different ways to go about doing this.  My first method was to use an invisible party member, the player is actually controlling this invisible puppet and the party just follows it around.  That method is relatively expensive, but I could make it work if necessary.  I am currently working on another method, that involves a low-thermo invisible cube that holds all of the logic for handling the party in addition to the general exploration mechanics (variables, primary controller sensor, camera rig, etc...).  It will essentially spawn at the correct doorway, spawn the current party members, and then follow the selected character throughout the scene, acting as the possessed controller sensor.  It is also important that the party handler can use LocRot (location, rotation) data to teleport to a spawn point, because that is how the party is returned to the correct location after combat (and how the player is spawned in the correct location when starting the game).  I'm not sure if this can be done yet and am currently working on it, the doorways might require a puppet in order to function properly.

Any way, sorry about the long post!  If there are any content creators looking for more tutorial ideas, I would really appreciate any additional input.  I realize this is a somewhat complicated function so definitely let me know if you have any questions.  Once I finish with the party handler I will make it available for everyone else.  Thanks for reading, I hope all of your projects are going well!

 

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