Sword beams, stairs, and other questions!

[Zaelia]

up until about two weeks about I hadn't touched ZQ in about five years, so please bear with me XD I have a few questions.

1. I can't seem to find the quest rule for enabling sword beams with the wooden sword. I assumed it'd be in the item editor, but I'm not quite clear on how to work with it yet :x
2. In the dungeon I am working on now, I'd like to be able to use a warp that would bring you back to the entrance so that if you die, you can use the warp from the entrance to go back to that point. But I want the warp in the first room to not be functional until I warp from the other room back to the entrance. I've seen it done in other quests and am just not quite sure how to do it myself.
3. I'm using the New Newfirst tileset and I'm noticing that alot of the enemy colors are incorrect. I've tried cycling through the various Csets in the enemy editor and none of them seem to look right. Is there something I can do about that, besides try my hand at editing the sprites myself?

thank you in advance :D

[King Aquamentus]

1: Yes, this ability was moved to the amazing new item editor. How it works is, there are a number of special fields pertaining to swords specifically, such as how much damage the sword does, how much damage the beam does, how much health you need to *get* the sword, how much health you need to fire beams, etc. Rather than switch this ability on and off, questmakers now simply set it to an impossible value. Beams are on by default, but to deactivate it, simply set "B.H is percent" on and set your beam hearts to any number greater than 100. This means you need more than 100% health to fire the beam, and thus it is impossible. A little odd, but I suppose a simple checkbox for enabling beams might be redundant at this point.

2: This looks like a case of "screen state carryover". In the S. Data 1 tab (look in the Screens tab for this), there is a field that allows you to take various status and values of one screen and apply them to another screen, anywhere in the quest. In this case, it seems that when you step near the stairs combo, you are also activating a trigger that permanently "solves" the room (ie: shutters open, secrets appear, etc.) Due to screen state carryover, the status of this room is also permanently applied to the status of the entrance, unlocking a stair combo that had been there all along. I'm only speculating on how the other room's secret was triggered though. If forcing Link to walk over a trigger combo first doesn't sound like something you wanna do, might I suggest having him earn the warp by defeating all the enemies in the room instead?

(This technique is also great for boss battles. You can create an empty screen, make a copy of it with an enemy and some dramatic music, and give the original room a timed warp to take you there. If the copy has already been cleared out, screen state carryovers can apply the status to the original room and actually use that to stop the timed warp.)

3:haven't touched New Newfirst, so I dunno. Maybe they thought they looked better this way.

[Zaelia]

the warp in the other room was triggered by pushing a block, but that's only a temporary thing. I eventually want to make it so defeating all the enemies reveals the warp back to the entrance.

also, when setting the screen data, do you use the relative coordinates for that or the real coordinates?

[Zim]

the warp in the other room was triggered by pushing a block, but that's only a temporary thing. I eventually want to make it so defeating all the enemies reveals the warp back to the entrance.

also, when setting the screen data, do you use the relative coordinates for that or the real coordinates?

Is there a pallet download for New First?

Unfortunately revealing the warp back to the entrance, and then having to use the warp back to the entrance in order to carryover the 'secrets revealed' flag(s) would make some players possibly upset that they, per say, got the warp, use the warp in level 1. When they get to level 2 (room right before boss) warp, and they are ready to take on the boss, now with the knowledge that this warp is most likely a warp to and from start point, they bypass going into the warp. Then comes the possibility that they fail at defeating the boss because you like to make things challenging, and are sent to the start with (SURPRISE!!!) no effective warp secret carryover technique.



ffc script BOSSWARP
{
void run(int a,int b,int c,int d,int x,int y,int e)
{
if(Game->GetScreenState(Game->GetCurDMap(),Game->GetCurScreen(),a)>0)
{
Game->SetComboD(b,c,ComboAt(x,y),e);
}
}
}

this means that when flag A's value is >0 (triggered) on the current screen this ffc script is placed on,
the game sets the combo on map B, screen C, at coordinates x,y, to combo of ID# E.
the variables a,b,c,d,x,y, & e are args D0-D7, settable on the last tab of the ffc menu.

[King Aquamentus]

SSC's can be used multiple times in multiple places, without physically walking on a trigger. To make the effects on a room permanent, simply set the screen flag that sets a room's secret status to permanent.

Also, Zim raises a very good point. If you are going to push a block to access this warp, the warp should be made to appear when you do it, like the block unlocked it. Don't use this to seal the warp off. and again, set permanent status anyways.