Afx Core

#1 Personally I'd recommend AFX for anybody interested in Torque, it's not just a spell casting system the ability to do things like zodiacs (basically artwork drawn on the terrain/buildings) I've used for all sorts of things like player selections, highlighting of objects to be picked up for missions.

It gives you more freedom and control of the camera, character selection & targetting and I've found it useful to use to get a cool effect for a number of things for example when someone wins, spawns into a game or any manner of things that you're imagination can think of.... for me it's the pack that adds that extra WOW factor to a game.

The combo pack or spellback (dependant which you buy) only includes some additional spells so it's a case of seeing whether you want the additional spells or not.

Yes AFX replaces quite a few files in the engine although I don't think that shapebase is one of them.

As for Cpu usage yes it does use more, but that's a given anytime you want your game to do more it's going to cost you more cpu usage the question really should be is the functionality worth the extra cpu required and in my opinion thats a definite YES YES YES. I've put it into my game and found it went from me feeling it was a good game into one where I thought wow that's great, I want more.

There is a learning curve to understand all that's changed, the choreographer and all but there are four documents (well written pdf files) included with the pack, these are:
1. The Afx spell and demo guide - an intro to the demo game and included spells with some details how it works. ( 23 pages)
2. Afx Merge guide - which talks about changes made to tge and about some issues you may face merging the code with your own game. (13 pages)
3. AFX USer Guide - provides a concept-oriented description of the AFX: CoreTech framework. It provides an overview covering all areas of the system and also presents a number of key concepts crucial to nderstanding and mastering AFX (30 pages)
4. AFX Reference guide - documents elements of the AFX effects engine on an object-by-object basis and focuses on information needed by users crafting effects in TorqueScript. (55 pages).

So you can see a lot of effort went into the documentation which is a great help.

Of course with over 100pages of documentation you're likely to want to read through and all the changes, merging of code and understanding you'll need to gain to use it the learning curve isn't a quick one but I can assure you it's well worth it.

The real downside for me (and it's one that bothers me with TGE too) is the datablocks, AFX does use a lot more datablocks for all of the configuration and as you start adding more and more spells, effects, and all the nice things you want to your game they all add datablocks so your level loading times can increase dramatically because TGE always transmits the datablocks each and every time you start a mission. Personally I think it would be better to flag datablocks that need sending every time (to prevent hacking) and for others to just them on the client and only transmit if they've been changed but heh that's a problem with stock tge too, afx just exacerbates the problem.

I should mention that you get great support from Jeff Faust and his team on the afx forums, so just to summarize it's a great add on, that creates the wow factor, has great documentation and support and something I've not seen anybody unhappy about purchasing.

#2 Nice inout... Yeah i saw that the example spell "Fire broil" used a rather large amount of datablocks. Im also curios about the flexibility of the code, for the time being, when a player uses a skill or action or whatever, this is what follows:
command called from user input(like 1 equalls a fireball or something)
server is told to prcess this request, in which it takes data from the player object calling it, and then calls a class specific function(if thats what you call them?) player::onAction which is the final call, i belive. From here any of the visual effects are called, and are run on the server side, which i by now have learnt that that should be avoided. Anyways, in which phase of this flow would i call an AFX effect? Further: i allready have a quite cool spell system(implented from a resource and then worked on a little), and i dont want any of the afxs casting time, target system or that stuff, i just want the visual effects. Plausiable?(Juding from the fiirebroil spell it is, but i want to be sure)

Also: The art thats used for say the zodiac when channeling a spell(its not art per definition but u get what i mean), how customiziable is that stuff? Am im able to change patterns and stuff, or do i just make like 10 diffrent images and stack them on top of each other with alpha channells? Gonna check out the vids on their website.

Off topic again: BIOSHOCK godamnit! I mentiond it in a previous post. ANy one here played bioshock? Its really fun, and also great horror in the "paradise gone wrong" fashion.

Another important question: are all the spell effects scripted? I have 3 player resources now, so it would suck for me if all magics drained the predefined energy thing, the one that Torque comes with. Curently, i reduce players mana and energy and stuff like that script side, is that possible with afx? (My guess is yes)

#3 Bioshock was a lot of fun to play. My only disappointment with it is there weren't really any puzzles to figure out to advance in the game, I think system shock had more of that.

#4 Never played system shock, did not think it sounded scary. Trapped on a spaceshipp with hybrid cyborgs? Comeone! What i really miss from Bioshock is the featuree they claimed it would have, but which they later decided not to use. It was a complex NPC system were every part of Rapture was broke down into factions and your actions made diffrent factions hostile, and others friendly. Also, it was to easy. Fontaine went down on the first try, the big daddys did not really need any planing to take care of, mostly i just opened with 3 proximity mines stuck on one of those explosive barrels and tossed it at him, after which half of his health went down. I would have liked if they waited some more. And they did not keept the Big Daddy with shouldermounted grenade launcher, though he was one of the coolest guys.