W00Ters, so... Shane and I have decided to create an interface for the vending machines. It'll be pretty versatile, he'll make one machine with open properties so we can insert item names, class names, prices, icons, and vending machine skins into it so the one machine will basically sell anything we want it to. Then we'll make some subclasses of that with all the defaults we think we'll need. Here are 8 machines we'll need:

note from fub: finished (or those being "borrowed" from hdtp)ones had a red asterisk next to them.

*1: Drink machine:
4 kinds of soda (Nuke, Zapp, Blast, and that last one)
4 kinds of forty

*2: Food machine:
Candybar
Soy food
(And whatever other food you feel like skinning)

*3: Ammunition machine:
Battery
Tranq darts
10 mm
7.62 mm
Shells

*4: Grenade machine:
LAM
Gas grenade
EMP grenade
Scrambler

5: Weapon mod machine:
Scope
Laser
Silencer

6: Tool machine:
Multitool
Lockpick

*7: Equipment machine:
Nightvision goggles
Rebreathers
Gas masks

*8: Cigarette machine (different mesh):
I don't recall how many different cig skins are in the game. We may need to snatch up the HDTP skins for them.

Machines 3 through 7 are specifically for the weapon shop. The other three can be used anywhere.

Of course dispensing sodas and forty's will require us to code up the different skin variations. We can go about this in two ways:

1. Code up four different classes and make each of them heal you more than the other. Nuke will heal 2 pts, Zapp 4, Blast 6, and the last one 8. The price will of course also rise. Each of these will need seperate belt and inventory icons.
2. Code up one new class with an option for changing the skin and make the vending machine set this option. That means all the different sodas will stack into 1 slot, and the only time you see their skin variations is if you throw them away (I discovered with the chemical bottles that the game actually does this, although Shane still thinks it's a figment of my imagination). With this solution, all four sodas should cost and heal the same.

Now, of course we need new skins for some of these. We're basing them all on the HDTP vending machines, but we won't need a skin for the drink dispenser as Metche and Phas already made that. Nor do we need a new skin for the cigarette dispenser. That means we need the following skins:

• Food
• Ammunition
• Grenades
• Weapons
• Tools
• Equipment

Functionality

Here's what we need the dispenser GUI to display:

We need it to scale according to how many items are on sale. For each icon, it needs to display an icon, a name, a price, and a description. Naturally, it needs to check your cash when you try to buy an item, and refuse to give you the item if you lack the funds.

I think the current plan is to display a list of items and prices and then a larger menu with an icon and a description of the currently selected item.

Shane and I will each be designing a concept for the interface and comparing them in this thread. Chris (Bell, aka. Breadfan) will be doing the skins for the machines themselves and possibly some of the icons. I will probably also be helping out with the icons, and I'll help Shane calibrate the GUI.

And it will rawk.

Hey Shane, if we get our graphics artists to make broken versions of each of the vending machines, could you code them up to do funny things when you shoot them?

For example:
1) If you damage them a little, they start sparking.
2) If you damage them further, they'll start smoking and maybe they'll eject a few random items from their list. They will no longer call up their GUI when frobbed.
3) If you damage them even more, they'll blow up and their skin will be replaced with the damaged version.

Interactivity++

Jonas, that's a really good idea and everyone will notice it and think its disgustingly awesome. Players always notice all the little details. (The ones that matter anyway)

quick question, I'm gonna ask in two places to make sure its noticed, has anyone seen me on MSN the past week?

Nope, we've been wondering where you were, actually.

Do you think its a little overpowered allowing the player to steal from the vending machines? what is the disadvantage?

I don't think players should be allowed to steal from the vending machines.

And Chris: No I haven't seen you online this week either.

That's pretty much stealing.

yeah, I agree...maybe just spit out random debris (rock gibs, etc).?

-Gelo

Oh. Well in that case the disadvantage should be obvious: The machine will stop working. You may get 1 or 2 random items, but you won't be able to buy anything again. Note the may.

But if you can't afford it anyway then you could just blow it up and hope for the best, if it doesn't work you could reload the map and try again. I donno, we could try it and see, it might work either way.

ok, that's as I feared. I've been on every day actually. My buddylist or connection... or... something is messing up, if I get online and I can actually see others online I'll IM them. Till then.

Frickpants.

Have you tried re-installing? Or re-adding us? Or voodoo spells?

If you decide to make the sodas stack, you can have my implementation of it. The skin changes in your hand, as well, so you won't just see them when you throw them away (assuming you actually select it to use it). I think there's also a comment in my code for where to change the icon, so that should be simple to add once the icons are available.

So, anyone have any idea what may cause this:

About a month ago my computer started acting really slow. Such as... when Windows is starting up it takes at least a minute or two, and when windows loads up and it starts loading everything in the quickbar it takes forever for that to finish, too. Games, such as Battlefield 2, take REALLY long. About 5-10 minutes to load up a server. Planetside, takes at least two minutes to load, as opposed to half a minute before this crap started. I scanned for viruses, clean, not even any warnings. I scanned for spyware, and everyone has SOME, deleted it. I have no clue what's wrong at all... I think this is contributing to my problems with MSN, though.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I defragged already a couple times, too.

Yes please!