Updated Jan 23 2005

Scripting Introduction

Introduction.

Here will take an over view of all things script related, the intention here is teach you more about what your going to be reading in the next few chapters without getting bogged down in real programing details. So this chapter is a plain english explaination of Mechwarrior 4 scripting.

The 3 types of scripts.

Mechwarrior 4 uses 3 different types of scripts, 2 look the same but are different in one important respect. These are the basic 3 types of scripts.

1) Gametype scripts, eg Team Destruction, King of the Hill etc. Assigned to your map and control entire games.

2) Bot Scripts, or AI Brain files as the devs called them. Assigned to individual objects on your map.

3) Abi scripts, usually created by the Dev team these setup important scripting commands and functions that we use all the time and are added to all our scripts using the include command found near the top of every script ever writen for Mechwarrior 4. You generally do not edit these EVER. Take a look in your Mw4 folder (any version) and look in Content\ABLScripts for any files with abi at the end. open them in a text editor and have browse. Do not save them when your done. Best to be safe.

All scripts are excuted roughly 60 times per second, so if a game is stuck in specific state in your script it will excute that small part of the script 60 times per second until it gets the information it requires and can move on.

Gametype Scripts.

These scripts control entire games, generally they are best considered as Control scripts and used to interact with other scripts. You can make brand new missions for single player with these or make a new multiplayer game or Coop mission. These scripts setup the game, tell it how to start and how to end and how to do everything in between.

You assign a gametype script to your map directly and set it up in your maps NFO/NFM/ NFX file so it works online or in single player.

AI Brain files or Bot Scripts.

These control mechs, turrets, tanks. Basically they are the brains of the AI units or buildings. There is a complete set of commands that can only be used in these scripts to help make the bots look smart. Sometimes you can combine bot scripts with gametype scripts to make some rather good missions simply by checking in the gametype script if a bot script is still running (not dead).

You assign an AI Brain file to a object on your map in the editor.

Abi Scripts.

These scripts are important to game, editing official Abi scripts is not recommended however you can make your own. This will be covered later in the scripting section of this tutorial.

Without these scripts, nothing works.