[snip] which could possibly cause some problems, I made a change in the look function. When I load the image mob I make it a follower of the caster to make checks easier, and the mob saves the IDNUM of the caster. When a player looks at a mirror imaged mob the look function actually checks the IDNUM of the caster and displays the caster in look. This [snip] Just a suggestion, it might be quicker if you change look so that instead of getting the caster IDNUM that the mob has saved (and presumably searching for the matching idnum on all chars in the room), you could simply have the look function refer to victim->master. Unless I've misinterpreted your message, it seems that would make it go a bit faster. Of course, this forces you to eliminate the possibility of the mirror image following anyone but the caster. Is that reasonable? How do you treat mirror images? Do they actually mimick the caster's actions? (i.e., if the player picks up something in the room, wouldn't it let any perceptive players immediately spot who the real person is and who the images are?) That might be a little too much detail to worry about. Can the caster order them about? That would mean that they are doing different things than the caster. You would have to modify more than the look function if you make them mobs. What if someone tries to give them something? Can you give stuff to a mirror image? Perhaps a more workable solution would be an AFF_MIRROR_IMAGE flag, and if possible (in the affect structure?) store the current number of images. If a player is flagged AFF_MIRROR_IMAGE then anyone who looks at him would see Ralph is standing here. ...he is surrounded by six mirror images! Then all the logistics of dealing with mirror images (someone tries to give him something, etc.) aren't affected, (even though this is a bit unrealistic) and you only check it in combat. If someone scores a successful hit on Ralph, and he has 6 mirror images, then there is a 1 in 7 chance that the real Ralph was actually hit. If he wasn't (and it was an image that got hit) then the number of images gets decremented and he is now surrounded by five mirror images (increasing his chances of getting hit). I guess my message has strayed a bit from its original point, but oh well. Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 12/07/00 PST