setVariable – Talk

setVariable local or global in Multiplayer

Is this variable space local or global in multiplayer environment? If it is local, is there any way to transmit it across to all client in MP environment?

--Feersum 16:11, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

From what I know it is local. Afaik there's no way to transmit it. But remember that this info may change, as ArmA is not yet done. Maybe we can get a statement of Suma here, he should know more...

--raedor 16:14, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

Ok, explicit synchronization would probably be best solution, both from scripting and bandwidth point of view. For purely AI or player-controlled objects this isn't much of a problem even if they cannot be synchronized because all objects are local for either server or client and scripts that are interested in such variables run mostly local to that vehicle. There are however some cases like pilot controlled jump lights in F-27 Fokker paratrooper plane in FDFMod, where pilot could enable red/yellow/green jump light, and other players in cargo would see appropriate jump light textures in cargo area via setObjectTexture. In OFP:R it would require fake animation and scripts that check status of that animation repeatedly, some way of making object variables global would make such cases a lot cleaner to implement (we never got it to work really right :). All it would need then is an EventHandler to catch when object variables are synced... --Feersum 02:57, 20 July 2006 (CEST)

It is local, and there is no automatic synchronization planned. The whole object synchronization on our engine should be viewed as unreliable and non-guaranteed, and synchronizing object variables this way would probably make a lot of confusion. I think we could add some explicit synchronization mechanism if desired, similar to publicVariable. --Suma 19:43, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

I think that a synchronization mechanism is definitely needed. As Feersum already stated, without such a mechanism we would still need some ugly hacks using magazines to set global object properties. And since Multiplayer and the scripting developments on the Multiplayer sector are what kept OFP alive for the longest time, this is of no minor importance.

From the scripter's point of view, there are several possibilities to implement this. One is to keep two different commands: setVariable to set a local property, setPublicVariable to set a public property. Only I guess that this version would be a problem for the engine, since it would require the engine to constantly synchronize public properties, which it seems it isn't made for.

So the second possibility is a synchronization mechanism à la publicVariable, which could handle the matter in two different ways. First, f.i. publicObject object could synchronize all object properties over the net. I think though that this is no perfect solution, since it would be impossible or very hard for the scripter to seperate public from local variables. So, one of the best solutions would IMO be f.i. to create an extended version of publicVariable of such a syntax: object publicVariables ["property1", "property2" <, ...>] which would synchronize the given object variables over the net. Since this doesn't seem to be much different from publicVariable, I hope that it wouldn't be as hard to implement in the engine . . . --hardrock 01:12, 21 July 2006 (CEST)

In my opinion, they should be by default global or there should be function to sync object local variables across all the clients or we will never get rid of ugly hack like defining "fake" animations to have per-object global numeric variables. Of course that could get very interesting if you transmit unit/vehicle/object references and they are still local for each client...

--Feersum 16:24, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

@MP behaviour: Same here :)

--raedor 16:44, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

I have to correct myself here. This command better stays local. setVehicleInit can be used for global execution of this command (this saves bandwidth performance when you don't want to have the variables public). --raedor 19:18, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

Well, than you'll have a problem when a vehicle is "given" from one player to the other, because the new player doesn't have all the vehicle variables set. So either it should be global, or there should be a way to send all varaibles attached to the vehicle to someone else, like publicVariable but with more parameters. --TeRp 12:26, 20 July 2006 (CEST)

I have to admit a few other things here. First, there might be objectvariables which should be local to the vehicle and even objectvariables which should be global (e.g. like Feersum's light example). Even if setVehicleInit might be a solution to publicate some variables, there still might be variables which the author want's to stay local to the vehicles crew (e.g. the remaining smoke launcher ammo is only important to the crew of the vehicle) but have to be transfered to another client which enters a vehicle. In this case, you need a eventhandler thingy which transfers the valid local objectvariables to the new crewmember, which might be a problem too (how to determine, which of those local variables of the crew is valid?). Another problem with setVehicleInit is that players who have joined in progress (after the setVehicleInit command) do not have the variables set. So all in all, I highly recommend to use a kind of global / local objectvariables thingy which is in some way connected to the object/vehicle and not to a player. local objectvariables get transfered to new crewmembers when they enter the vehicle and can be unset when leaving the vehicle, global variables should be broadcasted to all players when set or when new players connect. --TeRp 13:48, 20 July 2006 (CEST).

Meaning of setVariable

Is it a way to have local variable to an object, like a real Object Langage (C++, Java...) ? Example:

  Class Myclass
  {
     Attribute1 = ...
     Attirbute2 = ...
     Method1() {}
     Method2() {}
  }

I hope it is, allowed us to attach some special thing to an unique object on map, because the only solution we have today is boolean animation in p3d models.

Can you explain that BI and improve our dreams? :)

--SoldierIsNotHistory 16:49, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

I'm not BI, but with this command you can attach a certain variable with a certain value to a certain object. You can attach a variable with the same name to different objects and with different values. --raedor 19:18, 19 July 2006 (CEST)

Is it comparable with the function fGet- and fSetProperty by hardrock from the mapfact forums? --T_D 11:59, 20 July 2006 (CEST)

Yes. --hardrock 13:46, 20 July 2006 (CEST)