Skip objectives

[Pfeiffer]

A "Skip Objectives" button on the opening dialogue of a mission, that would allow you to skip the Objectives text.

Some user missions have long and tiresome text - and if you are restarting a mission, it gets annoying to have to double-tap through screens of information you already know.

And I second the other posts requesting the option to hold - specially Andy, who has a life pof his own and tends to get killed when you are looking elsewhere.

Cheers!

[Verdagon]

I think a solution instead of "skip objectives" button would to be to make all the ecoms the same size and position. Then you can just speed through the ecoms by tapping in one place -- the button.

[UGMC]

Here's yet another solution: save the game after the cut scenes and ecoms are done. Don't retry the level, load the game.

[crakerz]

I always hate to click through all that crap myself (some levels seem more ecoms than anything else!) but see the need - the first time through. (As I once said, I don't always remember to "save". And what if I want to replay the level months from now?).

That's why I have used the "briefing" trick in my levels: I have Surveillance Center near my starting point. The player is advised to access it within so many seconds before it is destroyed. Another less dramatic option might be to have a pad nearby that activates the briefing whenever the player sits on it. It could be deactivated after so many seconds.

Because ecoms and objectives are only given when the creator wants, having a "skip" is only feasible if all creators use it. I mean, where would the skip....skip? If it toggles something, the creator would have to use it, or it wouldn't work.

[Verdagon]

I like that pad idea, it's interesting...

[PhillipEarl]

Try a persistant variable. If your level is named, for example, FR1-Guerillas in the Mist , then you'll need a pvar named "FR1-Guerillas in the Mist intro." The important thing to remember is NOT to set it to zero when the level loads.

Now make separate mission loaded triggers for your initial ecoms, with the added requirement that your "...intro" pvar be exactly zero. After the ecoms are displayed, add one to the pvar.

After so many attempts at the mission, you could even set it up so that the intro plays again to remind the player what the mission is about. This could be done by including a trigger that resets the pvar to zero when it is greater than fifteen or twenty (the triggers will continually add one to the pvar every time the game is loaded, and after it gets so high, have it reset to zero)

[Verdagon]

When are the persistent variables deleted? If you make a pvar like that, how long will it last?

[PhillipEarl]

Provided no one names another pvar after the specific mission that your pvar goes with, then both the pvar and its setting will be saved to WI's preferences file, which is the same file that holds your registration, and so will be there for as long as you own the game. That's why I suggested you name it after the mission you want to skip the intro in - odds of another mission author (or even you) writing a mission that contains an identical pvar - and thus overwriting this one - are absolutely zero.

[dws90]

I still think its easier to just tap the same place a few times.

Although, I do hate it when mission intros jump all over the screen. Whenever that happens, I want to go to the author's house and slowly remove their spleen.

[Verdagon]

fece, i better change it while i still have my spleeyn.

[crakerz]

[PhillipEarl]

hmmmm..... then the pvar ISN'T saved to the preferences? '' Then I completely misunderstood how they work. If pvars are saved between missions, then is the pvar saved after a single mission is completed? If so, then what I said above could still apply. If not, write me off as a raving lunatic and follow Crackerz' solution. To be honest, I kinda liked his better, anyhow.

[crakerz]

[dws90]

I still think its easier to simply hit a few buttons or save...

[Verdagon]

maybe 1nce or 2ice, but mllions of times and millions of ppl, that adds up to a lot of time lost clicking buttons.