What's up, RMers?

[DerVVulfman]

ROFL!   


Well, I'm still working on Animated Battlers, and hooooo-boy did I have some fun stuff to doublecheck.

As you might have read, I had a z-Depth glitch which made attackers draw themselves underneath their target instead of overlapping them.   It was a pesky but easy fix, only requiring a single line involving the refreshing of the battle screen.

But when I began testing battle-systems, I found some rather fun things.

Would you believe not all timer bar scripts work 'clean'?  In most battle-systems, you would assume that hitting [ESC/CANCEL] in an item select or skill select menu would tell the battle-system that you've chosen NOT to use an item or skill, right?  Nope.  Some battle-systems forget to clean up after themselves and assume you've chosen to use said attack.  And if the timer system's clock finished counting down for item/skill use, you're gonna find your battler is using that attack even when you tried to cancel!  

Animated Battlers to the rescue!  This is not a bug with Animated Battlers, but Animated Battlers now include a feature where hitting ESC/Cancel in those options resets your battler to a 'do-nothing' setting.  So if the timer runs out, you don't waste a skill or item you didn't want to waste.  It doesn't hamper any other battle-system that I've tested (yet), so... "It's a good thing" - Martha Stewart

Now there were a couple of novel little bugs that did appear after all these years.  Apparently, it has been a while since I tested Animated Battlers to see how it reacts if an enemy 'Escapes'.  *KE-RASH*  It required me to come up with a new method to test for the battler's 'Hidden' flag.  And this required minor additions to a couple of classes and a couple bypasses in my Scene_Battle code.  Strangely enough, I also discovered that one of the battle-systems I've been testing doesn't allow enemies to escape.  Wha???  I guess the coder forgot that some monsters might be giant chickens.  *BOK BOK!*

And it has been a long time since I tested Animated Battlers with any large party script like Fomar0153's (a personal favorite).  Well, a routine I added that allowed redrawing of the actors, storing their values for the battle screen, and halting it from repeating to prevent lag..... had a bug which caused a crash if the size of the party had changed between battles.  If you had a battle that began with three heroes, and then had a battle with four heroes... *BOOM*  I had to re-address the safeguard that prevented lagging to test if there was any difference in party sizes.  But re-address it I did, and that feature is now fixed.

Meanwhile, I have tested Animated Battlers as it now exists with the following battle-systems:

1.  The Action Cost System by Fomar0153:  Simple but effective.  As your AT bar grows, the options in your Action window become enabled.  Adjustable in the simple config module.  But to my surprise, enemies will not 'escape' from battle.
   
2. Syvkal's Agility Based Battle:  Based on XRXS's (or fukuyama's) BP 1, it works fairly well and has a more detailed configuration section.  There is a section in the script so you can add additional AT bar costs for skills of your choice.  The only issue is the Battle Report script that he had in the original demo.  I might look for a replacement or 'fixed' version as the current version crashes when you exit the report.
   
3. An edit of MakirouAru's ATB:  Also based on XRXS's / fukuyama's work, this is a version I cleaned up and provided a couple of fixes. 
   
4. The Active Time Battle by ParaDog:  As comprehensive as any by XRXS, the system uses a vertical-list battlesystatus window akin to Final Fantasy's.  And a detailed list where you can set AT action costs.  But this demo includes an additional script by ParaDog where you can make a skill take extra time to cast 'after' being selected, much like spell preparation.  Oh, and this demo includes Fomar0153's Large Party script for testing.  At one point, my personal game was to use this system.
   
5. The SoulRage System by Blizzard:  Rather entertaining, you receive AT points in battle, but enough to allow you to use a Soul Rage skill instead of a normal skill.   One could consider it akin to a Final fantasy Limit Break.
   
6. The XRXS65 CT system by XRXS (fukuyama):  This demo includes his Command Window Addon and CP Synthesized Order Gauge for a fairly entertaining experience.  The gauge iis one of icons that travel a bar with the battler about to act reaching the end before the others.
   
7. RTAB by Cogwheel:  Okay, I mentioned earlier that I was working on the rework of Animated Battlers with RTAB.  But there are many addons by Cogwheel that I do need to test.
   

And I haven't touched the battle-systems by Trickster ... yet.