Welcome, Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, teens and pre-teens, newbies and expert, etc., to the Trigger Library/FAQ! All you need to do is to read this thread and you will become a trigger expert!!!

There's Two Sections:

1) FAQ for NEwbies
2) Tricks Section
Maybe adding Scenario design section...

I will simplify everything I can.

Here we go:

Basic Trigger Stuff

This is what newbies will frequently ask:

Q) I have absolutely no idea what is a trigger!
A) A trigger is a series of event that you want to happen in you scenario/campaign that is completely not controlled by the AI file or the human player.

Q) Where can I create a trigger?
A) Go to the map editor, find triggers on the top bar, select it, and a menu will pop up on the left side. Under the first box, select new and trigger X will be created.

Q) How do triggers work?
A) Well, first, you might want to name it. Find a bar where it says trigger X. There click on it and you can name your trigger, or just leave it along as long as you know which trigger it is. Second, There are several buttons to the right saying :
Set as Objective {ON} {OFF}
Starting State {ON} {OFF}
Trigger Looping {ON} {OFF}

Set as Objective: Sometimes you might want to have an objective in the middle of a game. There's a big box in the middle which says: Trigger Description. Type your objective in there and set SET AS OBJECTIVE ON. That way an objective will show up when the trigger is activated. If a condition is met, the objective will be striked out.

Starting State: Whether or not you want your trigger to be activated automatically in the beginning of the game. If on, the trigger will be starting whenever the game starts. If off, then another trigger must activate this trigger in order for it to work.

Trigger Looping: Whether or not you want the trigger to loop. For example: You want the militia to say "Hello" everytime you click on him, loop the trigger and use the "Click-talk trick".

Q: What's a condition in trigger?
A: A Condition is, well, a condition is a condition you want for a trigger to activate. For example, if you want the unit to speak when you go to him, use a condition bring object to object so when you get to him (condition) he will say something.

List Of Conditions:

Bring object to Area - A certain object must be brought to a certain area to fulfill this condition. For example, If you want an object to say something when the objects gets into the entrance of the forest. Use this condition.

Bring Object to Object - This time, it's similiar to the bring object to area, but you have to bring the object to another object such as a building or an unit. You can use it on a unit talk or building talk.

Own Object - A certain player must own a certain amount of a certain unit to fulfill this condition. For example, if you want the player to win when he has 100 champions, you select the player X, amount 100, and object - military-champions.

Own Fewer Object - A certain player must own less than an amount given of a certain unit to fulfill this condition. For example, in Angel Shadows' Where we have arrived campaign at the end battle at the sea when the enemy had less than 5 war galleys, you win.

Destroy Object - A certain unit must be destroyed in order to fulfill this condition. For example, if you must destroy the traitor Kushluk to win, use this condition.

Object in Area - A certain object or a certain amount of object must be in a certain area to fulfill this condition. For example, in Yogurt's Final Hour campaign, if ten or more natives are in the garden of the heroes, you lose, and he used this condition.

Capture Unit - well this one you must capture a unit with a monk in order to fulfill this condition. This is rarely used but if you want to capture a unit so you can know the enemy plans, use this condition.

Accumulate Attribute - A certain player must accumulate a certain amount of either gold/stone/food/wood. This is usually used in RPG scenarios for food meter. If you have 0 food, you die.

Research Technology - for this condition you must research a certain technology to activate the effects. For EX., You have to research chain mail armor to send your troops out or they will all get killed by archers.

Timer - This is one of the mostly used condition. When a certain amount of time had passed, then the effects will change. Look in the EXAMPLES section for an example with timers.

Object Selected - Well, this is another one of those condition that is often used. You have to selected a certain unit/building/object in order for some effects to take place. It's widely used in RPG scenarios for talking to other units. Also, the Read-as-long-as-you-want trick use this condition.

Player Defeated - Obviously, this condition requiers a player to be defeated to fulfill the condition. Look in the RPG TRICK - Items and Objective lists for an example.

Object Has Target - [fixed]this condition is when the object IS VISIBLE and IS SELECTED.[/fixed]

Object visible - kinda like object has target but in fog of war you can't see it.

Research Technology - Very simple condition. You only have to research a certain technology to fulfill this condition.

Units Garrisoned - This is usually used to start a conversation in a town cernter or castle. When a certain amount of units are garrisoned in a castle/town center/transport boat this condition is fulfilled.

Diffuiculty Level - A computer will check the difficulty level when the trigger is activated.

Q: What's an effect?
A: An effect is what you want to happen. There are more effects then conditions. For example, you want to have the scout to move to a certain spot on a map when you click on him, use "object selected" condition and "task Object" effect. Select the object as the scout, and the location as somewhere on the map.

<List Of Effect Coming soon>

Examples/Tricks:

Examples/Tricks:

A Dialogue
Click-Talk Trick and Read-As-Long-As-You-Want Trick
RPG Tricks - eating food, using market, using blacksmith
HP and Attacks: Increasing and decreasing
Enterable buildings trick
RPG Trick - Weapons and items and objective list
Making a cutscene
Going to add:
Following unit trick
Ferrying Trick
Making a cutscene
Instant Heal Trick
Walk On Water (not really) trick
Random Generated Unit Trick (By: Shadows)

Special: RPG TRICK: Equiping Weapons and Items.

Lot more tricks can be found here: www.scnpunk.com

And many other tricks!

A Dialogue with triggers:

(When I say on/off, it means the trigger's starting state is on/off. When I say Looping/not, it means the trigger is looping/not.)

trigger 1
on , not
condition: select object: archer (must be on the map)
effect: display message: samurai: Hail Young Warrior, do thee know which way is to Casadina?
effect: activate trigger 2

trigger 2
off, not
condition: timer: X (depends on how slow/fast you read it)
effect: display message: Hero: I'm also going there, may I accompany thee?
effect: activate trigger 3

trigger 3
off, not
condition: timer X
effect: display message: Samurai: Sure! Why not!
effect: activate trigger 4

trigger 4
off, not
condition: timer X
effect: change ownership: samurai player X to player 1
effect: display message: Samurai: Well lets go then!
effect: deactivate trigger 4

The Click-Talk Trick and The Read-As-Long-As-You-Want Trick

This trick can make a unit say something when it's selected. It's widely used in RPG campaigns to talk to other units. Also the only way you can do the read as long as you want trick is by using click talk trick.

trigger 1
on, looping
condition: object selected: village
effect: display message - (there's a timer box on top, and set it to 1111) Villager: You wanna pick a fight! * chucks beer bottle at hero *
effect: display message - timer-1111 - location: 2 : Click on Hero to continue
effect: activate trigger 2

By doing this everytime you click on the guy he will say you wanna pick a fight?

trigger 2
off, not looping
condition: object selected: hero
effect: display message - timer 1111 : Hero: No fighting in here, let's go out to the river to fight.
effect: disaply message - timer 1111 - location 2 : CLick on the man to continue
effect: activate trigger 3

Well trigger 3 you can make anything up. Hope this example showed you how to use the click talk trick.

RPG trick: Eating food + using market + using blacksmith

This trick is, well, used in RPG scenarios. It can make the hero eat food, use markets, and use blacksmiths.

food eating
trigger 1
on, looping
condition: timer: 100 (so every 100 seconds the hero will eat some food.
effect: tribute: 10 food from player 1 to player X

trigger 2 (this is for killing the hero when he has no food)
on, not (of course it;s not looping because he can only die once!)
condition: accumlate attribute: food stockpile: 1
effect: kill object: Hero

This way everytime he has no food he will die.

Market Using

This is for using the market to buy food.

trigger 1
on, looping
condition: object selected: market
effect: change ownership: market: from player X to player 1
effect: activate trigger 2

trigger 2
off, not
conditon: timer: however long you want the hero to buy food
effect; change ownership: market: player 1 to player X

(so this way after a X amount of time the market will be given back to the orginal owner.)

Using Blacksmith

This trick will let the hero use and research in the blacksmith.

trigger 1
on, looping
condition: object selected : blacksmith
effect: change ownership: player X to player 1
effect: activate trigger 2

trigger 2
off, not
condition: timer: 120 (it takes about 120 seconds to research something)
effect: change ownership: player 1 to player X

This way after you research something the blacksmith will be given back to orginal owner.

HP and Attack: Increasing and Decreasing

Well, this is one of the frequently ask question: How do you increase/decrease attack?

It's really simple:

There's change HP and change Attack effects (in AOK:TC)

First, let's look at increasing:

When you increase an attack/HP, always put the number below 32676.
For example: Let's say a militia had 30 HP. You put 32675 in the change HP box. Then the computer will do 30+32675 with equals 32705! That means the militia had 32705 HP!

Now for decreasing Attack/HP:

When you decrease attack/HP, always remember to minus the number you want to subtract to 65536. It's confusing, so look down at the ex.

Example: Let's say a samurai had 500 HP (That's not true, but I'm using it as an example). If you want it to decrease HP to 400, do 65536-100=65436! The computer will then do the math and it will subtract 100 from the 500 HP. That way the samurai will have 400 HP.

Same Thing Applies with attack.

Enterable buildings trick

This is usually for RPG scenario, where you get to enter buildings and such.

Here's how you do it:

Usually (in shadow's SR series) you have flags next to houses/buildings that are enterable.

Do this trick:

trigger 1
on, looping
condition: object selected: house/building with flag next to it.
effect: change ownership: the hero from player 1 to the player of the house.
effect: display message: This is my house, I live here, what the f*** do you want?

and then after a certain amount of time change back the ownership and it will look like you just entered the building!

RPG TRICK - Weapons and Items and objectives list

Well, Shadows invented this, used in the SR series.

This is how you can make a Weapon/Item/Objectives/etc. list in you scenario:

Make a trigger and Set it as objective, then in the trigger description type in something like this:
Objectives
***************

and then in the trigger make a condition that is impossible for the player to accomplish like these:

player defeat: player 1
accumlate attribute: stone: 12323453456
bring object to area that's impossible to get to

Now when you test your scenario, in the objectives list you will see this:

Objectives
****************

all the times!

Same thing with others.

Making a cutscene

A cutscene in AOK is, well, like a movie involving bunch of triggers, the amount of triggers it needs bases on how long is the cut-scene.

Usually in cut-scenes there is a lot of changing view, creating map revealer/torches/flags. If you want to have a person that you don't control, which means it's your ally/enemy's unit, to walk to somewhere and its visible, do this:

first task the object to somewhere in the fog-o-war.

Then do this:

condition: bring object to area - object to the place it's going
effect: change view: to the object
effect: create object: maprevealer/torches/flags

then you will see the screen showing up when the object goes to that place

A cutscene involves a bunch of tasking object. A good example: My Legend Of The Knight - Prologue It's rated 3.8 too! IT shows a good example of how to make a good cut-scene.

Special: RPG TRICK - Equiping Weapons and Items

This is a very complicated trick. Me and Bon are the first ones to use it in a scenario. If you are new to triggers, don't think about understanding this.

First We need the "Get Item/weapon trick".

trigger 1
on, not
condition: bring object to area: bring hero to area near broken tradecart.
effect: display message: ~ Received Blood Sword ~
effect: activate trigger 2
effect: activate trigger 3

trigger 2
off, not, special: Set As Objective
condition: player defeat: player one
trigger description: ~ Blood Sword ~ (After Equiped) Increase attack by 10 ~ etc.

First of all, there is a area like this where a bunch of relics and a piece of true cross are. Area:
[] - stands for relic {} - stands for Piece of True Cross
* - stands for blank area
**[][][][][][][][]
*********{}
**[][][][][][][][]

Now for trigger 3

trigger 3
off, not
effect: change object name: one of the relic to Blood Sword
effect: activate trigger 4

trigger 4
off, looping
condition: object selected: relic renamed to Blood Sword
effect: display message: Do you want to equip Blood Sword? If yes, click on the item equiper (piece of true cross) to equip it.
effect: activate trigger 5

trigger 5
off, not
condition: object selected: piece of true cross aka item equiper
effect: display message: Blood Sword Equiped
effect: increase attack: 10
**Special**effect: create object: relic next to the relic renamed to Blood Sword

Now let's say you already got an Ice Sword.

trigger 6
on, looping
condition: object selected: relic renamed to Ice Sword
effect: Do you want to equip Ice Sword? If yes, click on the item equiper to equip Ice Sword.
effect: activate trigger 7

trigger 7
off, not
condition: object selected: piece of true cross aka item equiper.
effect: activate trigger 8 (for multiple items)

trigger 8
off, not
condition: object in area: relic (that I mentioned before in trigger 5 saying **Special** that relic was created next to the Ice Sword Relic.
effect: decrease attack: 10
effect: increase attack: 12

Do you get this? You have to be a trigger expert to understand this. If you don't understand it, ICQ me. My number is in my sign.

OK, I don't fell like typing much today, sections will be added soon!

[This message has been edited by The_Conqueror (edited 08-07-2001 @ 02:11 PM).]