Entry 248

The story autopilot into Mutation's dungeons

2026-09-27test

Filescrates/piney-game/src/session.rscrates/piney-game/src/session/tests/survey.rscrates/piney-game/src/session/tests/shrine.rscrates/piney-world/src/lib.rs

Event 104 (M204) now plays to its end under the autopilot, from its start in Dun Loireag. The path goes through the board, Carmina Gade, Elk, the party calls, the gate hack, field 44, its dungeon, three floors of fights, and event point 1. Before this entry the autopilot read the board, logged in, and then warped to a stale marked area. It knew no way to find what the story wanted next.

What the story wants, from the scripts

story_wants(vm, save) reads the volume's main events (100 x (volume - 1) to +49). It skips any event whose flag has bit 62 or 63 set, and any whose event_done open conditions fail. For each block not yet played it walks the precondition settings as the event walk does (Vm::set_current):

• Scene settings (in_town, in_field, in_dungeon, scene) and game_status other than 5 replace one another.
• status / status_range decide whether the block can open at all.
• block_done is an earlier block that must have played.

A block that passes gives its wants:

• its scene's town (Town);
• its area, from the field or dungeon (Area, Dungeon);
• its in_point (Point);
• its conditions' gate_words area and in_party members.

Blocks that want not_in_party or an answer are refusals and give nothing. Event 104 shows why the settings matter: in_town 2 and status 0 == 1 are block 2's settings, not its conditions. The first reader looked only at the conditions and missed both.

The town

gate_player picks one goal, in this order:

1. an event target NPC present here (World::event_targets, walk and talk);
2. with mail or a board post unread (board states 1 and 7 count), log out;
3. a wanted town not this one, by its row in the gate's Towns list;
4. a wanted member missing from the party who has an address (partyMemberFlag) and answers calls (partyMemberCall), while a slot is free. The call goes PERSONAL, Party, Add, the member's face, OK;
5. a wanted area, either its row in this server's Word List (gateOrderList) or the town on the server that lists it;
6. the marks, as before.

On the top page the autopilot now reads every new post, thread by thread, before it logs in. A protected area opens the gate hack (menu 62). The autopilot turns each slot's cores up to its protect row's count, moves to the next slot, and presses OK.

The field

A field whose dungeon the story wants: Kite walks straight at the entrance (dungeon_pos) while he is more than 2500 away. Closer in, he follows entrance_path. It is a breadth-first search over a 100-unit grid 3000 either side of the entrance. The target is the ground whose attribute has bit 0x80000; field 44's door cells are round the middle, at the end of a walled way from the south. A step between cells is allowed when:

• no wall crosses it at 30 or 95 above the ground, 100 either side of the line;
• the ground rises or falls less than 120;
• a diagonal has both of its sides open too.

Walls stop Hits::line only from their front. Each check therefore runs both ways; the first planner went through the back of the entrance's west wall. The path is planned again whenever a 60-frame check finds Kite has not moved. The field's hit models are only loaded near the player, so nothing can be planned from the far side of the map.

The dungeon

walk_to's body is now Walker::step, one frame at a time, and walk_to loops over it; the shrine and dressing tests pass unchanged (19). The story's walker (Walker::wary) makes two changes:

• it fights only enemies within 600 of Kite;
• it leaves magic portals shut unless it is stuck in the room.

Only event entries shut a room's doors (ccEntryEventMng's CloseDoor), so a portal can be left alone. The goal is the room of the event point the story wants (EventMng::point, from SetEventData).

The fights

At level 30, attacks alone lost. Area 44's Red Scissors (level 29, 1210 HP) has pDef 585 against Kite's pAtk 250 and regains HP. The party was wiped two rooms in. StoryPilot now drives the menus, one action at a time, in this order:

1. The fight's start. CHAT's Skill Usage goes to both members: Magic! when the nearest foe's pDef is above its mDef, else Skills!.
2. Someone is down. A member with Rip Maen (180) and the SP for it is told to use it (CHAT, Members, Designate Skill, the recovery page, the target). Failing that, Kite uses a Resurrect. Failing that, Kite gives a Mage's Soul to the member who knows Rip Maen but lacks the SP.
3. Someone is low (under 45% of his HP in a fight, 70% out of one). The first of these that applies: a member's heal (La Repth); Kite's Repth (Skills, the recovery page, the target); a Healing Potion; First Aid!, at most every ten seconds.
4. Out of a fight, anyone under a third of his SP gets a Mage's Soul.
5. In a fight, a member is told to cast his spell of the element the nearest foe resists least, when that is under 100 (Elk's Vak Rom against the crabs' fire 0). Otherwise Kite uses the first skill he has the SP for from the magic or attack page.

The target menus list the party in order. A revive lists the fallen (condition not 0 and not 5), anything else the members in condition 0. A row past the list backs out.

Several menus hold a message that only OK closes:

• the target menu with no target left (menu 65, proccess 2, and 73's proccess 10);
• the PERSONAL menu's "Cannot be used while dead." (menus 0 - 2, proccess 2 - 3).

Cancel did nothing there, and Kite's death with menu 2 open froze the dungeon for good. When no action is under way, the pilot now backs out of any of these menus. In a field or dungeon it is the only thing that opens them.

PINEY_DEBUG_PILOT prints the actions, the dungeon goal, and every 50 frames the place, the pad, the party and the foes. The survey line now says whether the event finished (done) or which blocks played.

The survey (20000 frames a start)

• 102, 110 finish.
• 104 is in its dungeon at 20000 frames (blocks 0, 1, 3, 9). Given 70000 frames it finishes: floor 2's room 3 and event point 1, then on into event 105's field 58.
• 105, 109, 112 - 115 go round the party call: menu 68 again and again.
• 107, 111 stop at the gate hack (menu 62).
• 103 waits in its town, 106 on the desktop, 108 on the top page.
• 116 plays its staff roll, as before.