Prog: Random

Creating a Random Prog

What is all that gibberish on the left? That is a prog that is set up to send random messages to the room through an echo. This type of prog can also be used to make mobs do random emotes, make random comments, create random noises in a room, etc.

if rand 10 is the line that basically tells us if it’s time for the 10% random chance for this prog to go off, then I want whatever follows it to happen. You can add as many different IF sections as you want, there’s really no limit.

prog echo is how a prog can make an echo in that particular room. This is also where on an mprog you could have the mob do a random emote (just emote [text]), or a random say (just say [text]).

You can put multiple lines after the if rand 10 statement. One line could be a mob doing an emote, the next line could be the mob doing a say. Just remember they all happen in succession so large strings of actions/talks/echos could be seen as spammy.

break tells the prog “Okay! After that happens I want you to stop this particular section of the prog!” That way it’s not doing all the emotes/echos at once, it just does one at a time and then stops until it decides to randomly go off again.

else basically tells us, “Okay, that first prog, if it’s not time for that one to fire, THEN we’re gonna do this next one instead!”

endif is what we have to close all the if rand 10 lines with. For every IF we have to have an ENDIF. So if you have 5 random things going off, then have 5 endifs at the end of the prog.

Note:10% is really as fast as we want most random progs to fire off. If there’s a good reason for them to happen more often, you can raise the percentage, otherwise keep it at 10 and below.

Formatting is very important for progs, because it helps us read them faster. Make sure you indent all of your lines within the same IF section.

Adding the above prog to a room, mob, or object

Our next step, once we have all our different random commands ready in the prog above, is to add it to the room, mob, or object. To do so, have your room, mob, or object handy.

I’ll use an object for an example, so we would type: addoprog 121 random 5. Which addprog and the vnum should already be explained in the prog basics tutorial.

random just means we are adding a random trigger to this object, and it will go off 5% of the time.

But how is this different than the if rand 10 I already put in the prog?
Good question, I’m not exactly sure of the answer, but my theory is, the prog goes off a random percent of the time, which is the number you just added. Once it goes off, it reads the prog code (the if rand 10) and says, okay, everytime this prog fires, 10% of that time, I am going to do this first random thing, and then 10% of the time I will do this second random thing.

For simplicity sake, you may just want to make the random percentage the same value in the prog and when you add it to something.