Guide To How To Create A Set Of Identical Objects With Different Texts

[BovineAvenger]

Someone in Help Chat was asking today how to set up a group of objects that were identical, but had differing text on interacting with each one; back on Live I'd gotten close, but decided to have another look at my ancient arc ("Apocalypse Cow") to see if I could improve it. And I've found a work around that does exactly that!

 

Step 1.)

 

Add as many mission options as you want objects in the set; in this case note we have 10 "Bookcase". We want to do this because as far as I know, there's no way in the editor to have a single set with 10 random outcomes. So instead we're going to have 10 unique items, with unique text, and have the random placement shuffle them for us instead,

 

 

Step 2.)

 

But if we name all 10 "Bookcase", we'll get error messages as they can't have identical names. The name is what appears in the target window, and has no other interactivity as such, so this is the best place to fudge it; Add an extra empty space to each name.  So the first is indeed "Bookcase", but the last in that list is really "Bookcase_________" You can just keep pressing space until the orange Error message top right disappears, no need to be too formal with counting them!

 

HOWEVER:  It doesn't handle said spaces very well, each time you close and re-open the gump, it resets to "Bookcase_" and then generates an error when you try to run it, as other items are also likely to be "Bookcase_"  To prevent that, you have to do the renaming in a single run and then save. If you come back again, you'll need to reset every item you open the options for.

 

Step 3.)

 

Choose the objects you want to be the Essential to complete the mission, and select them as such under Settings.

 

 

Now the "Navigation Text" is what you displayed on the in game mission compass; however as each object is unique, having information in the (Plural) line won't work. Fortunately however if the text lines in (Singular) are identical, it'l show just X of one target.  In this case, we would see a mission for "X of Copy of Genetic Data".  Ideally then we want to write them all as a plural, but in the singular line.  It should be "Copies of Genetic Data" in all of them. Or what ever you want it to be!

 

(If you have just one target out of 10 to complete it, like my original version did, that line should indeed just be "Copy of Genetic Data")

 

Step 4.)

 

Save the Arc and attempt to test it. If it pops up with a Detail error, one or more of the Collection Names has reset the number of spaces after it, and you'll need to pop back, add them again and immediately save once more.  When the arc launches without error, you should be safe to Publish it.

 

For those wanting to see how it works in practice, Mission 3 in my arc of "Apocalypse Cow" is the one with randomised bookcases as shown above. Each one has a unique, and terrible cow pun... gotta cowlect them all!

Edited December 14, 2019 by BovineAvenger