Drugs (Programming)

---+++Generic Drug (#276)

Drugs are used to affect some change on the player over time. In this simplest case this is simply the player ingesting a drug of some sort. For instance, the speed drug will boost your reflexes and lower your cool for a while. Drugs can also be used to cause things like diseases, or bleeding, or damn near anything else.

To get an idea of what is possible, take a look at *@leaves $drug*: <pre>

 thc (#798)
 crank (#5066)
 bleeding (#814)
 healing (#796)
 shock (#646)
 radiation sickness (#1324)
 rot (#1522)
 black lung (#1883)
 ebola (#1813)
 stage I zombie rot (#2511)
 stage II zombie rot (#2282)
 organic tobacco (#1328)
 suffocation (#1042)
 coma (#919)
 thirst (#1065)
 water (#1088)
 curare (#1530)
 alcohol (#1112)
 nutrition (#895)
 caffeine (#2652)

</pre>

Drugs are a way for you to affect a players stats or cause some action on

 every heartbeat.

---++++Verbs

• $creature:ingest(OBJ drug, INT doses)* -- add this many doses of the drug to

 the creature's bloodstream

• $drug:onset(user, doses)* -- do whatever needs doing when use first takes the

 drug.  By default this just prints a the drug's .onset_msg to the user, if
 it exists.

• $drug:reup(OBJ drug, INT doses)* -- do whatever needs doing when the user takes

 this many more doses of the drug.  By default this just prints the drug's
 .reup_msg to the user, if it exists.

• $drug:overdose(OBJ user)* -- do whatever needs doing when user overdoses on

 this drug.  By default this just prints the drug's .overdose_msg to the user.

• $drug:metabolize(OBJ user)* -- this verb is responsible for removing the drug

 from the user's bloodstream when his heart beats.  How this happens is
 governed by the properties defined below.   This verb also checks for an
 overdose condition and triggers that.  If the drug is metabolized in part,
 the verb will print the drug's .decay_msg, if it exists.  If the drug is
 completely metabolized, the verb will print the drug's .final_decay_msg, if
 it exists.

• $drug:effect(OBJ user)* -- this is the verb that calls :metabolism on every

 heartbeat.  This is what you would override to cause the drug to perform
 some action on every heartbeat, like inserting actions into the action
 queue, etc.

---++++Properties

• .onset_msg* -- what's printed to the user when they first take the drug, if

 anything

• .reup_msg* -- what's printed to the user when they take more of the drug, if

 anything

• .decay_msg* -- what's printed when the user partially metabolizes the drug, if

 anything

• .final_decay_msg* -- what's printed when all of the drug is metabolized, if

 anything

• .overdose_msg* -- what's printed when the user overdoses on this drug, if

 anything

Note that the _msg properties can also be lists of strings. If so, the drug will pick one of these strings at random when printing the message

• .halflife* -- this is a list {INT chance, INT min, INT max} that determines how

 the drug gets metabolized.  First, the drug rolls to see if the
 metabolization happens at all.  This is where 'chance' comes in.  Chance is
 the percentage chance (0-100) that any of the drug gets metabolized.  If
 roll succeeds then the drug eliminated between 'min' and 'max' doses from
 the user's bloodstream, at random.

• .overdosage* -- the threshold number of doses that can trigger an overdose

• .skill_mods* -- a list of lists, with each sublist containing {OBJ skill, FLOAT

 modifier}.  For each dose in the user's bloodstream (up to the .overdosage
 level) this modifier will be added to that skill for the user.  Negative
 numbers mean a penalty, positive numbers are a bonus.  Note that these can
 be fractional, so that if you set it mod to be {skill, 0.25} you will only
 get a +1 when you have four doses (the fractional part is ignored in the
 final comparison).

• .addiction* -- this points to the addiction drug that corresponds to this drug,

 if the drug is addictive.  See ProgDrugAddiction for more info on that.

-- Main.SpunKy - 02 May 2004