Soda Dungeon 2 – Scripting

by Falagar / Game Guides, General Guides / 12 Jul 2020

The core concept of scripting is telling the character what to do. You can’t directly tell them what not to do, so you can work around that by telling them to do something different when that condition is not met. For example, let’s say I wanted my Nurse to heal someone who’s injured, but only when there are 1 or 2 enemies left on the screen.

This is a common condition I use when my nurse is contributing to my team damage since killing an extra enemy is more important to the team’s survival than healing when there’s a large group of enemies. In this case, you can’t script those two conditions (ally hurt, enemy < 3) into one trigger, so you can give the Nurse a prior instruction to do something different when the condition is not met. So we can add a prior trigger for ‘Enemies > 2, attack’ and then have our healing trigger later in the script. Because the first trigger will force the nurse to attack when there are 3 or 4 enemies, she will only proceed to the next step and look for someone to heal when there are 1 or 2 enemies left.

Layout:

[#] [Target] [Condition] [Action] – This whole line is called a trigger.

!= is Not, so Rank != Normal would be anything that’s not Normal rank.

Common scripting problems/mistakes

Self MP > 80%, use a high cost skill – this will not work because the initial condition, Self, is also the target of your ability, and you can’t cast a damaging ability on yourself or allies.

Self HP < 50%, Defend – this will not work because for the purposes of scripting, defend is treated as an attack and must be targeted at an enemy

Enemies alive <2, Heal – Again, this heal would target an enemy, so the whole trigger is ignored

Enemy MP <50%, use skill – Enemies don’t have MP, so this will be ignored

Ally MP < 50%, use Recharge – While this works, the recharge skill does not restore mp right away, so it’s possible that the ally will still be under 50% when it is the Mystics turn again. This will result in the Mystic casting Recharge even though Recharge is already active. Instead, use Ally Status != Positive, use Recharge.

Status Triggers – This trigger can be confusing to some. When you have a Positive Status, you have a buff, like Recharge or Sharpen. When you have a Negative Status, you have a debuff, like poison or sleep. When you have None, you do not have a buff or a debuff.

Use Debuff action won’t cause Nurses to use Biohazard – A debuff, for the action listed when scripting, is a skill that causes a status effect *but does not cause any damage*. Because Biohazard causes damage, it is not considered to be a debuff skill by this action. Instead, the Strongest Attack trigger will cause this skill to be used.

How do I get Ransack not to be used on the same enemy twice? – Ransack causes damage, so with the Thief in the front, you can think of it this way – How do I get Ransack not to be used on a wounded enemy? This can be done simply by adding a trigger above the Ransack trigger specifying that the Thief attacks a wounded enemy. If it does so, the Thief will never reach the Ransack trigger. This can also work if you have someone attacking before the Thief, but you will have to adjust the enemy hp% trigger to a lower number to compensate.

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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