TES CS Function/Variable Conditions

Dialogue Tutorial

Part 3: Function/Variable Conditions

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The most powerful and flexible section of the Speaker Conditions area is the Function/Variable section. This lets you specify up to six different conditions in addition to race, sex class and so on. For now we'll just look at a couple of these that are especially useful for greetings; we'll look at a lot more later, when we get into quests.

First, though, an overview of what's in that area.

Function/Variable List Items

These items return a numerical value which can be compared to another number using standard numerical comparators. If the comparison is true, the condition succeeds; if it is false, it fails.

There are six entries in the Function/Variable list. Each one has the following structure:

List 1

List 2

Comparator

Numeric Value

Each of these except the last is a drop-down list. The contents of the List 2 depend on what you choose in List 1. I've included the complete list of possibilities in Appendix 1.

We'll be looking at many of these later on. Here are the ones we'll be looking at in this section:

NotRace: Race	This is true if the speaker is not of this race.
NotID: ID	This is true if the speaker is not this person.
Global: Random100	Picks a random number between 0 and 100.
Global: PCRace	A number corresponding to PC's race: 1 Argonian, 2 Breton, 3 Dark Elf, 4 High Elf, 5 Imperial, 6 Khajiit, 7 Nord, 8 Orc, 9 Redguard, 10 Woodelf
Function: Same Sex	This is 1 if the speaker and the player are of the same gender and 0 otherwise.
Function: Talked to PC	This is 1 if the speaker has ever talked to the player and 0 otherwise.

Talked to PC

All of the greetings we've added so far are "welcomes". These are appropriate the first time the player talks to an NPC, but should only be said once. Let's make sure that happens.

Open the Dialogue Window, go to Greetings | Greetings 1, and click on the first response you added.
In the Function/Variable area, click the down arrow by the first list in the top row and select "Function".
In the second list, choose "Talked to PC".
In the third list, choose "=".
In the edit box, type "0".

This condition should now read as follows:

Function | Talked to PC | = | 0.
Repeat these steps for each of the three dialogue responses you added.

You have now added a condition which says "say this only if the NPC has never talked to the player before". So after the NPC has said this the first time, they should revert to their default Morrowind greetings. Start the game and test this.

Now we need some more custom greetings for after you've talked to them once...

Not Race, PC Race

We've established that Neverland is a Breton town, so let's give the local non-Bretons something to say about that. Of course, they'll only feel comfortable saying it to somebody who isn't a Breton.

Select the record after the three new greetings. (This way the "welcome" greetings will always be said on a first encounter.)
Right-click, and choose "New".
Add the following text:

Hello again, %PCName. It's nice to see an %PCRace face around here -- I sure get tired of Bretons. Oh, they're nice enough, but I always get the feeling they think they're a little bit smarter than us.
Add the following conditions to your new greeting:

Cell: Neverland

Disp: 40

Function/Variable: Not Race | Breton | = | 1 ("Anyone but a Breton can say this")

Function/Variable: Global | PCRace | != | 2 ("They'll only say it to someone who isn't a Breton")

Same Sex

How about a little innocent flirting? Here's something for characters of the opposite sex from the player.

Add this greeting below the "Not Race" greeting (that one will have priority):

Oh, you're still here, %PCName. Are you going to be free later on? I could show you the sights...
Add the following conditions to your new greeting:

Cell: Neverland

Disp: 40

Function/Variable: Function | Same Sex | = | 0 ("Only someone of the opposite sex can say this")

Random greetings

Finally, let's pick a random greeting for everyone in Neverland who doesn't meet one of the conditions already accounted for. This will prevent Neverlanders from using any of the general Morrowind greetings. By randomizing, we can prevent things from getting too repetitive.

Since these will be the "catch-all" greetings, they should go below all the others you've added.

Start by making new entries for each of these greetings. Here are five you can use, or make up your own if you prefer. Start by adding the Cell: Neverland and Disp: 40 conditions to all these greetings.

Still here? I'm surprised.

Don't fall in the canals -- that's where we dump our garbage.

Nothing ever changes here. Of course, in some ways that's a good thing: for instance, the bartender never runs out of flin.

Hey, have you heard the one about the %PCRace and the %Race? They go into a bar, and... whoops, you're %PCRace, aren't you? Never mind!

Hello there, %PCName. Enjoying your stay?

Now we'll add some conditions to all except the last... that one will be the "catch-all", that will be used if none of the others has been used first (and thus effectively prevent Neverlanders from using standard Morrowind greetings).
For the first one, we'll use the Function/Variable condition Global | Random100 | < | 20. The global variable Random100 is a random number between 0 and 99 that changes with each frame. By checking to see if it's less than 20, we're saying that we want a 20% or 1 in 5 chance of producing this greeting.
If we get to the second one, we know our random number is in the range 20-99. There are only four greetings left, and we still want an equal chance among all of them. So this time the condition should be Global | Random100 | < | 40.
Using the same logic, the third one gets the condition Global | Random100 | < | 60. This one needs another condition as well: we don't want the bartender to say it, since he would be talking about himself. To avoid this, we can use another Function/Variable condition: NotID, which means "anybody except this person can say it". The bartender's ID is DT_Pourboire, so we'll add the condition NotID | Pourboire | = | 1. If you're talking to Pourboire and he gets this far down the list, he'll just go down to the next one.
Now there are only two left, so we use the condition Global | Random100 | < | 80. And we need another condition on this one too: it wouldn't be very funny if someone said it to someone of the same race. This isn't too likely since we've already provided another greeting for people of the same race, but that one doesn't apply to Bretons, and we wouldn't want a Breton NPC saying this to a Breton player. So let's add the condition Function | Same Race | = | 0.
We could use Global | Random100 | < | 100 for the last one, but that would be silly... it would always be met. So we simply don't use any additional conditions here.

Conditions to use for random info/response items

If you want to pick a random greeting or response with equal probability among a number of different items, you need to use a different filter for each item. That's because the number of responses you're choosing among keeps decreasing as you go down the list. The value you compare the random number to should increase in steps of 100/n, where n is the number of responses you have.

Responses	Values
2	50, none
3	33, 67, none
4	25, 50, 75, none

... and so on.

Enough! Save and test.

If you like, you can experiment with rearranging the greetings you've got to see what effect that has; and you can add more greetings with different conditions.

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