Deafening

ID:170147
 
Mar 16 2005, 2:42 pm
I have a regular say verb that allows players to hear messages throughout the game. However, how would i code it so that if a mob is hit with a certain attack, such as "Sound Blast", the mob would become temporarily "deaf", and not be able to see the messages others say to the world for a short period of time? Also, how would i also add it so that after a short period of time, the mob begins to be able to see fragments of sentences others type, yet not the full thing?

--Reinhart
Mar 17 2005, 4:47 am
I would create a custom mob Hear() proc to catch "audio" messages sent to players. (I use Hear() in my own projects to make ignore lists easier to implement. You can also use NPCs' Hear() procs to parse conversations. DarkeNight even indicates distance and direction for all sounds. :) ) Your vocal commands will have to change to call Hear() for every mob in range.

This snippet may be more complex than you are looking for, but it models sound pretty realistically and minces messages that players can not hear at 100%. The perception comments in the communication verbs are for players with hear_mod = 1, the default value.
mob
    var
        hear_mod = 1 /* multiplier for sound volume. 
                    0 makes the player completely deaf 
                    0 < value < 1 => partially deaf
                    value > 1 => enhanced hearing */

    proc
        Hear(mob/who, message, volume = 10000, extra)
            message = html_encode(message)
            // add any additional handling for message length and spam

            if(!who || !message) return // no one talking or nothing to say

            // volume diminishes by the square of the distance

            var/d = get_dist(src, who) // or custom distance proc
            if(d) volume /= d*d

            volume *= hear_mod

            if(volume < 1) return // can't hear anything
            if(volume < 100) // mince the message
                var/new_message = ""
                var/heard_some = 0
                for(var/loop = 1 to length(message))
                    if(prob(volume))
                        new_message += copytext(message,loop, loop+1)
                        heard_some = 1
                    else
                        new_message += " " // a single space
                if(!heard_some) // entire message was obscured
                    return
                message = new_message
            else if(volume > 10000)
                // indicate that it sounds loud with <B> tags
                message = "<b>[message]</b>"

            src << "<b>[who.name][extra]:</b> [message]"

    verb
        say(T as text)
            /* 100% perception volume at range = 10
                50% at range = 14, 1% at 100*/

            for(var/mob/M in hearers(usr, world.view*2))
                M.Hear(src, T)

        shout(T as text)
            /* 100% perception at range = 31,
                50% at 44, 25% at 63, 1% at 316
                bold text up to range = 10 */

            for(var/mob/M in world)
                M.Hear(src, T, 100000, " shouts")

        whisper(T as text)
            // 100% at range 1, 25% at range 2... 1% at range 10
            for(var/mob/M in hearers())
                M.Hear(src, T, 100, " whispers")

To make players completely deaf, set hear_mod = 0. Partially deaf players have a hear mod between 0 and 1 (like hear_mod = 0.5). Your sound blast could initially set the victim's hear_mod to 0, then gradually restore it over time .