chapter 8 "Understanding the Lib"
One of the most common questions I get goes something
like this: "I'd like to change combat so that it is
turns-based, with actions. How would I do this?" Another
example might be "I'm setting up a farming system, with
livestock and stuff. What should I look at?"
To me, the questions are the same. Translated into
my language, this is the meaning: "I have great ideas that
require advanced knowledge of the lib to implement. How do I do it?"
I'm usually at a loss when I get one of these, because
I want to set people straight, but I don't want to hurt
their feelings, either. In the FAQ's, my response is
something along the lines of:
"If there's anything in the Creator's Manual you don't
understand, you aren't ready to try this."
I hate to say that, because I think it's probably discouraging
to hear. After all, whatever the project, it is very likely
doable. You can make an LP mud do pretty much anything
you want...that's the beauty of the flexibility of LPC.
However, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility,
and in this case, it is your responsibility to understand the
lib, if you want to make major changes to it. Let's take the
example of farming.
Section I: Verbs
----------------
It is critical to understand how verbs work in order to
do anything in Dead Souls of an advanced nature. Verbs are
basically commands that do something to your environment,
something in your environment, your "body", or something
in your inventory.
For example, "who" is not a verb. It's a standard command,
which doesn't act on any cloned items. All it does is communicate
with the lib to query the list of users logged on, and displays
it to you in a particular manner.
Then there's something like "zap". That *is* a verb, and
it takes cloned items as arguments. When you "zap orc" this
has a special meaning to the parsing system. The parser is the
part of the game driver that tries to interpret your input
and attempts to do something useful with it. When the parser
catches a verb at the beginning of your input, it gets to
work on figuring out how the rest of the words in the input
relate to that verb.
This is done through "rules". You can take a look
at /verbs/creators/zap.c for the specific rules in this case.
If the word or words (for example "first orc", "orcs", "an orc")
match one or more objects in the room, the parser then
sends the arguments to the verb object. The verb object is
the loaded code from /verbs/creators/zap.c in this case.
Depending on how the verb is coded, your command line will
succeed or fail.
For your new farming system, you're going to need some new
verbs, so the first thing you need to do is understand verbs.
You're going to have to build new verbs like "plow", and "plant",
and "harvest". Therefore, you'll need to go over the verb
tutorial, which is at http://dead-souls.net/verbs.html
Section II: Lib Event Objects
-----------------------------
In the verb tutorial, you read that when a verb acts on
an object, the parser requires that the object have a function
that handles that verb. If a chair object lacks a function
like direct_sit() or something similar, the parser will assume
your sit verb doesn't apply to chairs, and the command line
will fail with something like "You can't sit on the chair".
It would be incredibly tedious to have to code a sit verb
handler in every piece of furniture you create. Similarly,
your farmer's field plow *could* have a plow verb handler
coded in it, but it is much better to create a lib object that
your plow will inherit. That way, other objects can inherit
that functionality without having to reinvent the wheel, and
plowing in general will be a uniform experience across the mud.
For example, one of the first systems I made when
I started my lib obsession was the inheritable flashlight
system. The original Dead Souls lib had regular old torches
you'd light with a match, but it seemed to me that not every
Dead Souls mud would be Sword & Sandals style, and a modern
illumination system should be available. So I set about
making a "turn" verb, so that once I had flashlights,
you could "turn on the flashlight".
I then created the lib object /lib/events/turn.c (when
referring to lib objects, I often use the macro name. In
this case, if I'd said LIB_TURN, it would be the same thing
as saying /lib/events/turn.c). The lib object doesn't really
*do* much of anything. That object isn't really where you
need to be checking for validity of commands. What that
object does, almost *all* it does, is to have functions that
correspond to the verb "turn". That's it. It's kind of like
a socket for a plug. The verb is the plug and you're trying
to use it on something. If that something has a socket
that fits your plug, then it'll work.
Lib event objects come in different flavors, and some
really do perform a bunch of thinking. But for the most part,
for simple verbs, all you need is a lib event object that
says "yes, I understand that verb".
LIB_TURN is inherited by LIB_FLASHLIGHT. That means
that when you clone an object that inherits LIB_FLASHLIGHT,
it contains all the functions of /lib/flashlight.c plus
all the functions that LIB_FLASHLIGHT inherits from LIB_TURN.
Because your flashlight inherits LIB_FLASHLIGHT,
which inherits LIB_TURN, when you issue the command line
"turn on flashlight", the parser checks with the
flashlight to see if it knows what you're talking about,
and gets a "yes, I know that verb" response. At that point
the parser says "fine, here's the rest of what this
player thinks he can do with you and the turn verb" and now
it's up to LIB_FLASHLIGHT to figure out whether it has
enough batteries, of the right kind, with sufficient
charge, and so on.
For your new farming system, you'll need to implement
a similar scheme. Your "plow" and "hoe" verbs will need
lib event objects that can be inherited by the cloned
objects you want to plow and hoe with.
In this case, LIB_FLASHLIGHT and the turn verb
aren't the best models for your new plowing system. This
is because your plow is something you plow *with*,
as opposed to something that *is plowed*.
To see how a plowing system might be implemented,
take a look at the "dig" verb, LIB_DIGGING, and
LIB_DIG_WITH. This is what a shovel would use, so
that you can "dig in sand with the shovel". After
studying the dig system, and lots of trial and error,
you will hopefully eventually come up with a
plow system that will let you "plow field with plow",
for example.
Section III: Daemons
--------------------
So, now you've created a plow verb, and a plow lib
event object, it works, and now you're happily plowing
along. Let's say that the rooms field1.c and field2.c
are plowable rooms. Presumably, you don't want people
to be able to plow here all the time. The fields need
time to do their thing, and constant plowing would
slow down the growth of your tender young corn stalks.
Normally, you might deal with this by having
a local variable in the room, so that "harvest time is
50 hours, unless someone plows again, which
makes it take longer", this sort of thing. Let's call
that variable PlowedTimes.
But, oh noes! The mud rebooted! Now all the rooms
have reset, and the planting and plowing variables
have reset!
You might avoid this problem by just not rebooting,
but even if you manage never ever to reboot your mud,
the mud periodically does resets of unused objects,
retiring them from memory and resetting their values
to zero.
You might avoid *that* problem by setting your
fields to be "NoClean", to avoid resets, but this is
very inelegant. Rather than ensuring the integrity
of your game data, you're just crossing your fingers
and hoping it doesn't go away.
The solution is to use a daemon. A daemon is an
object loaded into memory that acts like an arbiter
of information. For example, STARGATE_D keeps track
of where stargates are, and which gates are in
what state, and which gates are connected to each
other. It is important to have one location where
this data can be accessed, because a new gate must
be able to know what other valid gates there are, and
it must be able to know what gates are idle and
therefore accessible. STARGATE_D is a central
repository of this data, and serves as a mediator
for connection requests, keeping things working right.
In this case, the daemon's job would be to
keep track of which fields have been plowed, how
many times, and how long it'll take to get to harvest
time. Dead Souls daemons typically use object
persistence files ( http://dead-souls.net/ds-admin-faq.html#80 )
to avoid losing information during object reloads or
mud reboots. A FARMING_D is exactly what you need to
keep track of and manage this kind of data.
Section IV: Skills
------------------
To what extent should people be able to plow? How
well should they do it? If you care enough about farming
to have come this far, you've probably got ideas about
what good plowing is and what criteria a player should
have for extracting the most from their land.
This is where skills can play an important role.
What you have to understand about skills is that they
are simply variables in a player's body. Skills don't
have to be gained by joining a class, guild, or being
member of a race. Adding a skill to a player is as
simple as having an object do something like this:
this_player()->SetSkill("scuba diving",1);
And if just strapping on a scuba tank does it, then
now that player has that skill.
Now, *normally* players are granted skills through
something more sensible than just picking up an object.
It makes more sense to have skills granted when a
player is taught something by an npc, or joins a guild,
or whatever, which is why traditionally that's how
it has worked.
So let's say you have a Farmer's Guild, then. When
you show up and sign the registry, some npc pops out,
"teaches" you the farming skills you need (by simply
adding the skills "farming" and "plowing" and "sowing"
to the player) and now you have the skills. If you
want, you can even create a Farmer class, like Fighters,
but that's up to you and not in the scope of this chapter.
This plowing skill is totally useless right
now. It does nothing at all, because you haven't yet
coded anything that makes use of it. This is the key
concept of the skills system that you must understand.
Just giving a player a skill does not mean that
it has any use. For a skill to be useful, there
must be lib verbs and/or objects that evaluate the
skill and perform calculations based on it.
It is therefore time to add these skill checks to the
objects that need them. For example, suppose our
farmer's plowing skill is at level 5. This doesn't
mean he's a level 5 player necessarily, just that
at plowing, his skill level is 5.
You might have a function in your /verbs/items/plow.c
verb that checks that skill, and determines how long
the field will take to grow based on it. Perhaps
for a level 5 plower, the field will be ready for
harvest in 45 hours. Perhaps for a level 10 plower,
it would be 35. You might have either the plow verb
or the plow lib event object do something like:
int PlowFunction(string field){
int skill_level = this_player()->GetSkillLevel("plowing");
if(skill_level) skill_level *= 2;
else skill_level = 1;
FARMING_D->eventModHarvestTime(field, skill_level);
return 1;
}
It's a silly example, but you get the idea. The
"plowing" skill is valuable because the lib uses it
in some way to modify events the player performs. If
the lib doesn't know about it, the skill has no value.
In the case of, for example, "blade attack", the
lib checks for this if you're wielding a sword and
you're in combat. Based on how good you are at blade
attack, combat.c will modify how much damage you
inflict when you hit your opponent.
Section V: Special Abilities
----------------------------
Perhaps "plant" and "sow" are verbs that should
only be available to players with the skills "planting"
and "sowing".
Or, if farming isn't your thing and you want to
enhance combat, you might want Fighters who are members
of the Viking Guild to have a special ability called
"massacre" that can do extra special damage.
This is best done by simply creating the sow,
plant, and/or massacre verbs, then coding the verbs to
work only for those people you designate. If the player
isn't a Fighter and a Viking, perhaps the massacre
verb would return something like "You have no idea
how to do that." and do no more.
You are, of course, free to implement a Special
Abilities System along the lines of the existing Dead
Souls spell system. I encourage you to do so, if
you're so inclined, and to share that code with me,
if it works. But it isn't necessary. The existing
verb system is plenty sophisticated enough to
handle such special events.
Section VI: Summary
-------------------
At this point in my lib coder development, I have
a hard time distinguishing what is easy and what is
hard for new people. I have been surprised by people
who take a long time to grasp simple concepts. I have
been surprised by people who grasp complex concepts
so quickly that I can't answer their questions.
Where you stand in that continuum I can't say.
What I can say is that if this chapter seems like it
went mostly over your head, you shouldn't worry too
much about it. It took me years of coding experience
and months of obsessed lib analysis to reach my
current level of understanding. You should not expect
yourself to grok everything in this guidebook the
first time around.
As suggested in the previous chapters, it's best
to start small, slow, and steady. As you build simple
things, more complex things will make more sense, and
you'll eventually reach the level of technical
expertise you need.
This chapter was not written to make you feel
overwhelmed by what you don't know. It was written so
that you understand what you're asking when you
say "How do I revamp bodies and limbs so they have
knees and elbows you can poke people with?"
Once you understand the lib, it really really isn't
that hard to do. But if you are a beginner, don't
set yourself up for failure by taking a leap at a
project you don't have the experience to tackle.
