The radio¶

C:\lancer\game\videoreports.cpp (Unverified: the file, placed by the link order) queues the lines the pilots say and plays them with their faces in the display's window 0, whose films C:\lancer\game\hudmovie.cpp plays (face films). OpenReliant ports both (game/videoreports.zig, game/hudmovie.zig), and the window's drawing (game/hud/radio.zig).

Lines¶

radio_say (0x004562D0) takes a film, a speech file (Speech files), a mode, the string that names the speaker, the film's flags, whose line it is (comms_object, 0x0057BDF4: a ship's slot, a pilot of the pilots' table from 0xFFFF on, or -1 for nobody) and how long it keeps, outside a multiplayer mission:

• Mode 0, at once: window 0 opens held unless it is open, with its full time and without the display's sound, from however far it had closed; the line playing stops; the window keeps the speaker's name (radio_name, 0x0057BC4C), whose the line is and their side (radio_side, 0x0056993C: the ship's, the pilot's face's, or friendly for nobody); the speech is read from msspeech.hog (radio_speech, 0x005883CC) and the film plays (hudmovie_play).
• Mode 1, queued. Mode 2, queued unless a line plays or waits (radio_busy, 0x004561A0).

The queue holds five lines (radio_queue, 0x005295A0, 0x74 bytes each: the film's flags, the speaker's name, the film's path in 50 bytes, the speech file's name in 52, whose it is, and the tick it expires at, or -1), counted at 0x00529594, written at 0x00529870 and read at 0x00529CBE. radio_frame (0x00456510), each frame after the controls, while lines wait, window 0 is shut or closing and no speech plays, takes the next and says it unless its time has passed: the window opens held and names the speaker, and, unless the line is nobody's, the speech is read and the film plays. A line that is nobody's leaves the window open with nothing in it, which then closes. The game also leaves out a line of object 0x3E9, which no slot reaches. A sixth line queued is dropped.

The pilots' table (pilot_faces, 0x005048D8, 24 bytes each) holds a face for each of the 194 pilots of pilot_stats, which object_set_pilot points an object at as its pilot record: the string that names the pilot, a halfword (Unknown: 0x53 in every record), the side, the voice the pilot speaks in flying a hostile ship (Remarks), and a film for each of four head movements: talking, laughing, the 45th's own pilot (the same film for every pilot), and dying. radio_say_pilot (0x00456250) says a line for a pilot of the table, as 0xFFFF and its number; radio_say_ship (0x004561C0) for a ship, with its pilot's face, unless the ship is a stand-in, exploding, or without a pilot record. Each names the film pilots\<film>.fm8 for the head movement the line asks for. OpenReliant generates the table from the payload (make face-tables). Fix: for a head past the four or a pilot past the table, which the game reads beside them, OpenReliant plays the dead channel's film, with no name.

radio_reset (0x004560F0), as hud_init readies a mission, empties the queue and names nobody; it also clears the remarks' state and the script's switches over them. Fix: the game leaves a film playing into the next mission, whose first line then starts before its window has opened; OpenReliant stops it.

The window¶

hudmovie_play (0x0048D120) plays a film and decides when the line starts. With a film playing already, the line starts at once unless the flags say not (bit 3). Otherwise the line waits for the window (hudmovie_waiting, 0x0057C298): hud_draw counts the frame's ticks (hudmovie_waited, 0x0057C3AC) and starts the line once they pass 91, 92 ticks after it was said, as the window has been open for a third of a second. The film's timer holds it at its first frame meanwhile. Its flags:

The script's CommsFromShip and CommsFromPilot, and the radio's own reports, play with 5, the film looping while the line plays; the Once forms with 6, once and then the dead channel's film; the dead channel's film plays with 13 (0xD).

hud_window_draw's case for window 0 (0x00488035), from the window's place (x, y):

• In the view ahead while the window closes, the last of its shapes, the emblem.
• A film that has stopped closes the window (and clears 0x00569974, which nothing reads).
• Once the line has started, a line that is over closes the window and stops the film. While it plays, in the view ahead, the speaker's name at (x + 1, y + 2) and the film at (x + 13, y + 19), each row moved right by a random share of 10 * hit_shake pixels, drawn every pixel, the see-through colour among them.
• While the line waits, in the view ahead, shape 0x131 and on for a friendly speaker, 0x148 and on for any other, a shape each 4 ticks of the wait: 23 of them, noise that settles on the emblem of the speaker's side.

The window closes with the display's sound. hud_comms_marker and the radar mark the ship whose line it is while the window is open or opening (The target, The radar).

Fix: the game stops with a fatal error where pilots.hog lacks a film, as it does six the pilots' faces name (BLKACE, C_Scientist and its death, Saladin_Cap_D, Varygag_Capt and its death); OpenReliant plays the dead channel's film in its place. Where pilots.hog itself cannot be opened, which is fatal too, OpenReliant says the lines without the window's films.

The script's commands¶

• PlaySpeech (0x06) plays a speech file at once, without the window or a film, ending the line playing; the game reads it into a buffer of its own (0x005883D0), which leaves a line waiting for the window its own.
• WaitForSpeech (0x07) waits while a line plays; WaitForMovie (0x09) while a film plays (hudmovie_playing, 0x0057C3A8). The missions wait for the film before each line they say.
• PlayCommsMovie (0x08) plays the film pilots\<film> with a speech file, at once, looping, under the string its third argument numbers, the line nobody's. It also sets 0x005373EA, which nothing reads.

The game sets the volumes again as a line first plays in a mission (0x005297E8), alike either way.

Reports¶

A report waits its time before it goes to the queue (0x00529D48, five of them, 0x7C bytes each):

0x004560D0 finds the first free one, or -1, which stops whatever would queue one. 0x00456050, each frame after radio_frame, lets each whose tick has passed go, and queues it (radio_say, mode 1, flags 5, no expiry) where it is of kind 1 and neither nobody's, object 0x3E9's, nor an exploding ship's; a ship's is named by its pilot's record, a pilot's by the report. radio_reset empties them.

0x004566C0 plays the pilot's own line at once through the speech sample, without the window, ending the line playing, unless the mission is a multiplayer one: 0x004536D0 names it mp and the line for a male pilot, fp for a female one (0x00562F16, which the pilot roster sets).

PERMISSION TO LAND (Landing) has the pilot ask, hud_012, and queues the answer 300 ticks on:

• In a training mission, the flight instructor's, pilot 0x52 named by string 0x100: pilots\VirtFlt_Ins.fm8 and trnglnd_001.ut.
• In any other, the bridge's: pilot 0x54 named by string 0x44 where the carrier is a Yamato, pilot 0x3C otherwise. 0x00453620 makes its line, yam and the Yamato's bridge officer's film pilots\Yam_Brdge_Off.fm8 where the carrier is a Yamato or explodes, rel and pilots\Rel_Brdge_Off.fm8 otherwise, ending in a suffix 0x00453A50 picks at random by rand: clearing the ship, from _lnd_001 to _lnd_009 for a mission the script rates a success or better (mission_success), from _lnd_010 to _lnd_016 for a partial failure or success, and from _lnd_017 to _lnd_024 for any other; refusing it, from _lnd_den_01 to _lnd_den_04. It also writes "DEBUG: Mission is flagged as a" and the rating's name into a line nothing shows.

The wingmen's commands¶

ATTACK MY TARGET (0x00454C20), BACK OFF (0x00454FA0) and HELP ME (0x00455330) go to the wingman 0x00529596 names: -1, as the keys give them (Controls), for one the game picks; a slot, as the radio's menu names one; or -2 and -3, which send the command to another player of a multiplayer game. The pilot asks first, hud_001, hud_002 and hud_003.

ATTACK MY TARGET and BACK OFF are about the player's target (player_control_entry), and do nothing without one. HELP ME is about its attackers: the hostile ships that can be aimed at whose current order is Fight aimed at the player's ship, or with none, the player's target where it is a hostile ship that can be aimed at; without either it does nothing.

How a wingman stands to a command:

The game picks from the ships of the player's wing but the player, not exploding and free: for BACK OFF one at random (rand over their number); for the others one the likelier the farther it is from the player's ship, a rand over 32767 times the sum of their distances falling among the running sums. A wingman free, or the one picked, takes the command: it fights the player's target (Fight, order 105); it pops its current order and leaves the player's target be for 3000 game ticks, which Find New Target then passes over (+0x6AC, +0x6B0); or it fights one of the attackers at random. Before it, the game draws a number it does nothing with for a pilot whose third value (pilot_stats, +0x20) is 0, 1 or 2. A wingman named that is busy only answers so; one that has it in hand only answers, BACK OFF's leaving the target be all the same.

The answer is a report, from the wingman to the player, 300 ticks on, its line in the pilot's voice (ship_line) and the film of its face talking. Bandit, Diceman, Viper, Enriquez and Hawkeye have a fuller set of replies (0x004539A0, by the table at 0x004539D0):

Fix: the game copies the reply of a pilot with no voice from nowhere, and stops; OpenReliant leaves it out.

Not ported: a multiplayer game's commands (#55).

The menu¶

The display's window 11, which COMMS WINDOW opens held (Controls), and the script's OpenInstrument too, shows the radio's menu (comms_menu_run, 0x00455D40): a page of numbered items. Opening the window starts the menu at its top page and runs it at once; while the window is open, hud_target_keys runs it each frame before its own keys. A run makes the page's items, ten at most (0x00529540, 0x00529CBC of them), or does what the page is for and closes the window, held no more, still showing the page before. A page left with no items goes back to the top, which a page of none makes at once. Then the number keys choose an item, 1 the first and 0 the tenth, each press once (key_pressed), with the display's sound 0: the item's page comes next, about whom the item names (wingman_addressed, 0x00529596). While the window is open, the keys 1 to 8 do nothing else. Each page also names a title (0x00529FB4), which nothing draws.

0x00453A70 draws the menu from 2, 2 of the window's place in the view ahead: COMMS in the display's font, then from 24 below each item, 12 below the one before, in newfont.fnt: its number and a full stop, and 13 across what it says.

A taunt: the pilot says hud_007 to hud_011. Unless the ship is not to be disturbed, is not a fighter by its type's class, or its current order has a priority or aims at the player's ship already, it turns on the player's ship (Fight) and answers 300 ticks on, in its pilot's voice, _res_001 to _res_024. Six aces answer in lines of their own, by the pilot's number: Black Sun (10, hs_res_001 to hs_res_007), Ivan Petrov (15, ip_res_001 to ip_res_014), Nicolai Petrov (16, np_res_001 to np_res_010), Colonel McGann (50, cm_res_001 to cm_res_010), the Saracens' leader (131, al_res_001 to al_res_011) and the Golden Warriors' (133, rd_res_001 to rd_res_006). Before it turns, the game draws a number it does nothing with for a pilot whose third value is 0 or 1.

What's your status?: the pilot says hud_004, and a wingman whose pilot has a face and a second value (pilot_stats, +0x1E) above 0 answers 250 ticks on, by how whole its armour is: its four quadrants together over six times its type's armour class, the fraction dropped, less 1, held from 0 to 2.

The scolding and the praise: the pilot says hud_005 or hud_006, and the ship answers 300 ticks on, _cmon_001 to _cmon_004 or, in the fuller set, to _cmon_012; _iou_001 to _iou_004 or, in the fuller set, to _iou_008.

REQUEST BACKUP: the pilot says hud_013. Where the script has set backup_available (variable 3, The game's variables) and the request has not brought backup yet this mission (0x00529CB0, which a mission's start clears), the player's ship has its PlayerWantsBackup, on which the script sends the backup, and the bridge of the carrier the ship launched from answers 300 ticks on that it comes, _reqbk_001 to _reqbk_007; otherwise it refuses, _reqbk_008 to _reqbk_014. The officer and the lines are PERMISSION TO LAND's.

Fix: where the top page itself has no items, the game makes it again and again, and hangs; OpenReliant leaves the menu empty. The game reads the name of a wingman with no pilot through a null pointer; OpenReliant names it by its call sign alone. It reads the armour class of a ship with no type's stats through a null pointer for What's your status?, and the carrier for REQUEST BACKUP where the ship launched from none; OpenReliant makes no report.

Not ported: a multiplayer game's pages and the chat line they type in (chat_typing, 0x00529FB8, #55).

Remarks¶

The game has the pilots speak by themselves on the radio. Moose makes the squadron's remarks: pilot 2 of the pilots' table, the 45th Tigers' Moose, after mission 13, and pilot 4, the 45th Volunteers', through it. 0x00453A50 picks a line of a table at random by rand. Unless it says otherwise below, each is said talking, the film looping (flags 5), queued (mode 1) and kept for good; mode 2 queues it only while the radio is free.

A ship's pilot speaks in its voice. ship_line (0x00453710) names the line into 0x00529CC0: for a friendly ship, the pilot's number up to 0xB9 indexes a byte table (0x004538E0) whose cases start the line with one of 22 voices, ban, dic, fre, vip, enq, sil, tak, jor, vix, cut, cla, ski, jui, fac, haw, arr, ner, rhi, sta, fla, wor and ego, or with none; for a hostile ship, the face's halfword at +0x06 does, 5 rus, 6 chn and 7 arb, any other none. Every pilot of the table is rus but a few, of 4 or 0. A pilot with no voice has no line, which radio_say then leaves out. Fix: for a ship of any other side the game leaves the name as it was, the line it made last; OpenReliant has no line.

DisableGenericComms leaves the remarks unsaid (0x00529538), but for the reminders to jump, the flight instructor's reminder to land and the ejection's words, and DisableTaunts the taunts (0x00529CB4) (Script VM).

radio_remarks_frame (0x00456B90), each frame after the reports, runs four:

• radio_landing_reminder (0x00456710): unless the player's ship is landing, while the script's landing_cleared is set and the mission goes on, the reminder runs (0x00529878); otherwise it is over. As it begins, in a training mission, the flight instructor, pilot 0x52, says trnprm_001 once. In any other, 4500 ticks of frame_start on and every 4500 after (0x00529D40), Moose says one of moolnd_001 to moolnd_003.
• radio_jump_reminder (0x00456860): while the mission has a jump or a warp ready (jump_ready, warp_ready) and goes on, the reminder runs (0x00529874). As it begins, the flight instructor says trnjmp_001 in training; Moose otherwise says one of jmp_001 to jmp_004 for a jump, or of wrp_001 to wrp_004 for a warp alone. Outside training Moose then calls the pilot to jump every 2000 game ticks (0x00529D44), four times (0x00529598), from moo_w1001 to moo_w1004 the first time to moo_w4001 to moo_w4004 the fourth; 300 ticks after the fourth, the player's ship jumps (player_jump).
• radio_missile_warning (0x00456A80): while a missile homes on the player's ship and the ship is neither exploding, ejected nor sent off, at most once in 1000 ticks of frame_start (0x005297E4), Moose says one of plck_001 to plck_008, mode 2, kept 500 ticks.
• radio_rescue (0x00456B10): 1000 ticks of frame_start after a wingman's pilot ejects (0x00529880), unless the pilot's pod is exploding, the pilot of the ship in the last place of the player's wing (0x00515D92) says res_001 to res_003 in its voice, mode 2. Fix: the game reads before its objects where the wing has no ship there; OpenReliant says nothing.

The others answer what happens:

explode_kill_credit clears the ship's exploding flag while it runs, so that the dying pilot may speak (radio_say_ship passes over an exploding ship), and puts back the flags it found.

The ejection has Moose's words too (The ejection): ejt_001 to ejt_008 calling the pilot to eject, ejt_015 or ejt_016 as the pilot calls from the pod, and nanpkup, antpkup or ejtkll on the pilot's fate, each queued.

The game's mode 0x00524FE4 1 counts as training for the reminders and the launch's words. Not ported: that mode.

Speech¶

A line plays through the speech sample (Sound), its peaks rounded off and in the cockpit's cabin unless --original.