MobileCollectiveGroup

Overview

The MobileCollectiveGroup extension implements the MobileCollectiveGroup class, a type of CollectiveGroup that can be used to represent two or more similar objects (e.g. to give a summarized description) when those objects may move around (so that the number of them that are in scope can vary from one turn to the next). MobileCollectiveGroup behaves exactly like CollectiveGroup except that an object defined as a MobileCollectiveGroup is moved into the player character's location whenever the player character can see at least two of its members and moved into nil otherwise. This ensures that the MobileCollectiveGroup is available when it is needed to summarize the appearance of two or more of its members.

Usage

Include the mobilecollectivegroup.t file after the library files but before your game source files. Your game will also need to include extras.t and events.t since this extension makes use of both of them.

To make use of the MobileCollectiveGroup class, simply define an object as a MobileCollectiveGroup and then use it in just the same way you would a CollectiveGroup, the only difference being that it will work as required even if its member objects are moved around. In most cases you shouldn't need to do any more than this, since the MobileCollectiveGroup class should take care of all the internal housekeeping for you.

One possible exception is where something that belongs to a MobileCollectiveGroup is moved in the course of a turn, after the end of the previous turn but before the execution of a command (typically EXAMINE) that needs to be handled by the MobileCollectiveGroup. This isn't likely to occur often, but could occur, for example, if an object is moved by a Daemon before the MobileCollectiveGroup's Daemon is run. This is unlikely to happen since the Daemons used by MobileCollectiveGroup are given a high eventOrder to prevent this, but if it does happen you may need to call the MobileCollectiveGroup's scopeCheck() method manually in your code to force a recalculation of whether the MobileCollectiveGroup needs to move.

The other situation that could theoretically occur is if the objects belonging to a MobileCollectiveGroup (those that list it in their collectiveGroups property) change during the course of play. A MobileCollectiveGroup works out the list of objects that belongs to it and stores it in its myObj property at preinitialization. If this list changes during the course of your game, you'll need to update the myObj property accordingly in your own game code (again, this is unlikely to occur very often, so you probably won't need to worry about it).

Example

Suppose your game has three short lengths of patch-cable, each one a different colour. You might use MobileCollectiveGroup to define them thus (excluding other elements of the code such as the definition of the Room that would be needed to contain them):

 
+ redCable: Cable 'red cable'
    colour = 'red'
;

+ blueCable: Cable 'blue cable'
    colour = 'blue'
;

+ greenCable: Cable 'green cable'
    colour = 'green'
;


class Cable: Thing
    desc = "It's a short length of <<colour>> cable, essentially a patch cord,
        less than a foot long, with a shiny quarter-inch plug at each end. "
    collectiveGroups = [cableGroup]
    
;

cableGroup: MobileCollectiveGroup 'cables'
    desc()
    {
        inherited();
        "Each cable is, essentially, a patch cord, less than a foot long, 
        with a shiny quarter-inch plug at each end. ";
    }  
; 
 

With this scheme in place the command EXAMINE CABLES would generate the response "There's a red cable, a blue cable, and a green cable here. Each cable is, essentially, a patch cord, less than a foot long, with a shiny quarter-inch plug at each end." This looks better than having three similar descriptions, one for each cable, which is what you'd get otherwise. As the cables were picked up and moved around the response to X CABLES would be adjusted according to which cables the player character could currently see.

This covers most of what you need to know to use this extension. For additional information see the source code and comments in the mobilecollectivegroup.t file.