Alright, new question. Before, I was doing inventory like so: int inventory[3][50][16]; The first dimension would differentiate between Weapons, Armor, and Objects (potions, etc.) The second dimension would be each item. In this case, I would have up to 50 items for each type... The third dimension were the stats for each item, of which I had 16 (minimum strength, different flags...) Then this would work great, because I could just set a person''s inventory to the value of the item. (I had 11 slots for the inventory, #0 was for a weapon, #1 and #2 were for armor pieces, and #3-#11 were for regular objects). Well, as you can imagine, it works, but it''s an absolute pain. If, say, I had classes written for each (weapon class, armor class, and maybe item class... or have weapon and armor class that are sub-classes of item). So, my only question, is how I would assign these objects (weapon sword_of_death) to an inventory slot, or have them equiped? Maybe have more specific equiping rather than setting the items to certain inventory slots? Having an array of weapons? Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks. - Goblin

I would create an abstract base class called CItem.
This would contain common attributes of weapons and armour, and objects (such as a wear and tear, how much damage can be applied to it before destruction, who can use it etc).
Then i would create derived classes for each of your SubTypes holding their specific attributes (and possibly pointers to some global value structures).

Then i would hold all these in an array and build some virtual interfaces to manipulate them. eg a Damage function which is virtually defined for each class (CWeapon, CArmour etc), or a Wear() function, Drink() function etc. When the item does not allow it to be worn or drunk, return false and display your message. This way you are shifting all the processing to your items in a true OOP way (You tell the item to process the instruction and tell you any result, as opposed to querying what type of item it is and can i use it for that - a subtle but important difference!)

Well, some quick code would be usefull if you (or anybody) could supply it...

In addition, how would I know whether or not the player has the item or not?

Perhaps a flag inherited by all classes of whether it is worn or equiped or whatnot?

Just wondering :]

- Goblin
"In order to understand the full depth of mankind, you must first seperate the word into its component parts: 'mank' and 'ind'."

Argh... I really hate saying it, but:

Anybody, anybody at all?

Would I have each object have a bit that would say whether the player has it or not?

Would I have an array for inventory that I could set them somehow to the objects? If so, how?

Any ideas?

- Goblin
"In order to understand the full depth of mankind, you must first seperate the word into its component parts: 'mank' and 'ind'."

quote: Original post by Goblin

Would I have each object have a bit that would say whether the player has it or not?

Would I have an array for inventory that I could set them somehow to the objects? If so, how?

No you dont need a "has it" bit.

You just have to set all the pointers in your inventory array to NULL initially:

    #define INV_SIZE 50CItem* inventory[INV_SIZE];for(int i=0; i<INV_SIZE; i++){ inventory<i> = NULL;}    

I'm sure theres an easier way of doing this but none springs to mind at the moment.

Then when you add an item to the inventory you just make a free space in the array point to the coresponding CItem Object:

inventory[0] = &potionOfHealingObject 

To remove it just set that space to NULL again. (Be sure to delete all your objects properly before you quit.)

Hope that helps.
ro



Edited by - rowbot on July 16, 2000 7:52:55 PM

I thought that all pointers by default are initialized to NULL? And if I wanted all slots to have the item ''empty'' by default, I would:

    CItem empty;for(loop=0;loop<INV_SIZE;loop++){inventory[loop]=∅}[/source]I guess that sort of makes sense... and because inventory[] would be an array of pointers, I would have to set them equal to the <i>memory address </i>  of the object?Also, would I want to create the item ''empty'' (or any item, for that matter) normally, or in the free store:[source]new CItem empty;//game code... la, la, la...delete empty;    

Right? Or not? What would be the difference, anyway?


- Goblin
"In order to understand the full depth of mankind, you must first seperate the word into its component parts: 'mank' and 'ind'."

You cant guarentee an array of pointers will be set to null initially - you will get nasty errors happening otherwise.

Here is a basic header structure for you:

    class CItem{protected:    // Generic attributes    unsigned short m_integrity;     // how healthy is the object    unsigned int m_composition;    // whats it made from?    // etc..public:    CItem();    ~CItem();    virtual void Destroyed( void);    virtual void Damage( unsigned int appliedDamage);    virtual int  Wield( CEntity *owner, int hand) { return 0; } // default - cannot be wielded};class CWeapon : public CItem{protected:    unsigned int m_damage;    public:    void Damage( unsigned int appliedDamage)       { m_integrity -= m_damage/ 2;         if ( m_integrity < 0)             Destroyed();       }    void Wield( COwner *owner, int hand)  { return Owner->AddToHand( hand); }};    

Anyhow you get the idea.
Store your items in an array or linked-list within your class CEntity (which can be subderived into species for example).

hmmmm just saw your last post Goblin.

You really want something like rowbot was suggesting.

        #define INV_SIZE 50class CEntity{    CItem ** m_inventory;    // etc...    CEntity();    ~CEntity();    // etc..}CEntity::CEntity(){    m_inventory = new CItem *[INV_SIZE];    memset( m_inventory, 0, sizeof( CItem *) * INV_SIZE);   }CEntity::~CEntity(){    // Delete each item in the inventory    for( int i = 0; i < INV_SIZE; i++)    {       if ( m_inventory<i>)            delete m_inventory[i];    }    // Delete the inventory    delete [] inventory;}        

Make sense?

Edited by - shamen on July 17, 2000 5:47:03 PM

Yeah, thanks tons for the help, though I''m still confused about a few things (I know, I know, I don''t know enough about classes, etc.)...

Just wondering what a ** declaration means? Double pointer? Pointer array?

And also what an item in means? I''ve never really seen it before, so it strikes me as odd...

Thanks!

- Goblin
"In order to understand the full depth of mankind, you must first seperate the word into its component parts: 'mank' and 'ind'."

quote: Original post by Goblin

Just wondering what a ** declaration means? Double pointer? Pointer array?

When u use ** in declaration for a variable. That's mean that variable is a pointer on a pointer. You can use this like you want. (ie: an array of pointer, a 2-dimension array or simply a pointer on a pointer)

        CItem **items;// This will create a array of 100 pointers on some instance of CItem classitems = new *CItem [100]; // This will create a 2 dimension arrayitems = new CItem[10][10];    

Happy Coding

LowRad



Edited by - Lowrad on July 18, 2000 10:09:19 AM