Expression Gate 2

[Jat Goodwin]

Woot! 1000th post in topic.

Anyways, what should we expect for the next new thing in the egate2?
In other words:
What are you doing to it right now to make it better?

[Gwahir]

I've dropped in the documentation

Syranide, do you mean specifying another entity as the center of the query? If that's the case, it's unnecessary. You can already specify the location in global coordinates, it isn't tied to the chip. So you could query a sphere ahead of the chip and then ask for the closest entity to the chip if you wanted. I left it pretty open.

One bug that I'm aware of is some odd problem with finding things in cones, not sure what's up there, if someone has a chance to figure that out, I'm all ears.

[Hunter234564]

Could somebody explain what functions like E:right() return? I know vectors are a position and I already use them.
I'd prefer a expression with comments, that's the way I learn it best.

And any ETA on tables yet? Once I get more string functions, tables and a string screen, I can start on my biggest contraption I ever made

[Syranide]

Interesting stuff. With my limited lua reading skills it's a little difficult to read the meaning into them, though. Basic usage for the E2 coder seems to be find() to search for entities, and you call findinBox()/findinCone()/findDisallowPlayer() and such in order to change how find() works?

Also, any chance of committing qthree's string functions at least as a temporary fix or something? Been using them for a while now and while string.lua throws errors sometimes they seem to be in other places - length() and such. Easy character/byte conversion is just such a lifesaver.

That link doesn't seem to be the correct one, or is it? I can't find anything about any string functions.

Woot! 1000th post in topic.

Anyways, what should we expect for the next new thing in the egate2?
In other words:
What are you doing to it right now to make it better?

"Nothing" basically, I will try to maintain whatever needs urgent fixing, but I don't really have time to develop any extensions to it. Most of it will have to come from other developers (like gwahir), I will of course provide feedback and help, but I won't be doing any developing myself.

(It's thanks to shandolum that E2 was released a while ago)

I've dropped in the documentation

Syranide, do you mean specifying another entity as the center of the query? If that's the case, it's unnecessary. You can already specify the location in global coordinates, it isn't tied to the chip. So you could query a sphere ahead of the chip and then ask for the closest entity to the chip if you wanted. I left it pretty open.

One bug that I'm aware of is some odd problem with finding things in cones, not sure what's up there, if someone has a chance to figure that out, I'm all ears.

Sweet.
Ah ok, I didn't look that closely at all the functions, but if that's the case then it's already there yes.
I added a note crediting you as the developer of it on the wiki (feel free to change/add to it if you like).

Could somebody explain what functions like E:right() return? I know vectors are a position and I already use them.
I'd prefer a expression with comments, that's the way I learn it best.

And any ETA on tables yet? Once I get more string functions, tables and a string screen, I can start on my biggest contraption I ever made

E:right() returns the "right vector" of the entity, this is similar to the forward and up-vector. Basically, if you consider yourself the entity, point your hand to the right, that's the right vector, point your hand forward, that's the forward vector. (Note, directional vectors, these are not positions in space, but a direction in space)

The purpose of these 3 functions is that they together define the "frame" or the matrix for the entity, which can be used for calculations, but also gives the exact rotation of the object (regardless of orientation). So its basically another way of determining the rotation of an object.

You should check out shandolums zero-g stabilized ship, it uses this to be accurate at all orientations.

As for the others, same here, I won't be developing anything, any new extensions will have to come from other developers.

[Magos Mechanicus]

Hmm. I thought that was the purpose of the permalink, but apparently not. Maybe this works better? Alternately, post 665 or search the forum for "chartobyte", that's how I found back to it.

[Syranide]

Hmm. I thought that was the purpose of the permalink, but apparently not. Maybe this works better? Alternately, post 665 or search the forum for "chartobyte", that's how I found back to it.

commited, but they are named S:toNumber()/toString(N)/toChar(N)/toByte(S)/toByte(S,N)

(I have not documented these in the wiki)

[Hunter234564]

blah blah vectors blah blah

Thanks for explaining but I didn't get it, the example is to complicated for me, I haven't worked that much with vectors yet. :/

And the reason I asked this: I am trying to make a bot that hovers X units to the right of somebody and looks were the player is looking. If you could post an expression with comments what everything does, many thanks.

Man, I feel like a noob now while I haven been using wire for 1+ years and made some pretty awesome stuff.


And thanks for committing the string functions

[Magos Mechanicus]

Thanks for that. Now (well, soon) I can use all those string manipulation gates I wrote for the Fallout console thing online too.

[Bobsymalone]

weapons\gmod_tool\stools/wire_wirelink.lua:58: attempt to index local 'info' (a nil value)

Got this error when trying to dupe a contraption with two wirelinks. Looks like it's to do with the forward slash.

[Hunter234564]

ToChar(N) doesn't seem to work, whatever I do it always returns " " or a square.

I am using an interval and I am giving it a valid ASCII code.