A quick guide on some of the customization options for this plugin:
(Remembering that the plugin still works nicely in a plug-and-play style, everything here is optional)
ATB Ratio:
- Agility Weight is a percentage modifier to the importance of Agility in the ATB formula. The value is a percentage, the default 100 means 100%. Changing it to 200 would double the effect of Agility, for example.
- Turn Timer is a concept that determines when a “turn” passes (it can be used for battle event pages, states that end by turn end, enemy behavior, and/or regeneration-style effects). The value of the parameter is basically the “Agility” of the turn, to determine the speed that a turn passes.
- If the value of Average Turn Timer is set to 1, the value of the above parameter is ignored. Instead, the Turn Timer is calculated at the start of each battle as an average of the Agility of all battlers (actors and enemies) involved.
- Base Fill Speed is a baseline value added to the fill speed regardless of the agility values. This is important to make agility differences between characters less drastic in importance.
- Full ATB Gauge is how much total ATB is needed for filling an entire gauge. Defaults to 50000, reducing this makes the overall battle speed quicker.
For reference, the ATB Rate formula is:
base_fill_speed + agi * agi_weight/100
Starting ATB:
- The Starting ATB parameter determines how much starting ATB each battler has, based on their Agility and on Agility Weight. The value entered here will be multiplied by Agility and modified by Agility Weight %. For example, with a value of 50 here, each battler starts the battle with 50 * Agility * Agility_Weight/100.
- The Starting ATB Random Bonus gives a random bonus for each battler between 0 and the value entered here. For example, with a value of 25000 here, each battler can gain up to half of an ATB gauge on battle start, randomly.
- You can type the tag <start_atb:NUMBER> on Actors, Classes, Equipment or Enemies in the Note Field in the Database to give a bonus starting atb. For example, a piece of armor with <start_atb:25000> will give half a gauge for those that wear it on the start of combat.
How to have a CTB styled (Final Fantasy X) combat:
- Set Instant ATB to 1.
- (Optional) reduce Full Gauge a bit, it improves the performance of Instant ATB. 30000, for example.
- Set Display Gauges to 0.
- Set Display Predicted Turn Order to 1.
- (Optional) customize the display settings for turn order, like turning on Faces or changing opacities, etc.
- Set both Display Enemy Cast and Display Enemy ATB Gauge to 0.
Interacting with the ATB system:
Every skill or consumable item can have the
<self_atb:FORMULA> and/or
<target_atb:FORMULA> tags in their Note field.
You can fill the FORMULA in the same way that you’d fill a damage formula, with negative results causing ATB loss and positive results causing ATB gain. It’s important that what you type in formula must just result in a number, do not execute any command here or you will run into issues. Examples:
<self_atb:25000>The above results in a “quick” skill, one that makes your next turn comes faster.
<self_atb:-25000>While this one delays your next turn.
<target_atb:25000>
Similarly, each of those would make the target’s next turn come quickier or slower, respectively.
<self_atb:50*a.agi / (1+b.agi/75)>Example of using a mathematical formula and battlers attributes (a stands for self, and b for target, just like in the Formula field).
<self_atb:Math.max(50*a.agi / (1+b.agi/75), 0)>Some JavaScript is fine too, just remember that you should only be returning a number without actually executing any command that affects anything else.
Skills with Casting Time, Interrupts and Delays:
Skills can be set to have Casting Times by giving them the
<cast_time:NUMBER> parameter. NUMBER in this case is an ATB value, for example:
<cast_time:25000>Would make a skill have casting time equivalent to half of a normal ATB gauge fill.
Once a character starts to cast, his ATB Gauge (if displayed) will change into a Cast Gauge, with configurable different colors. As soon as the casting starts, a visual effect (Animation from the Database) can be played too. The
Default Cast Animation defaults to 0 due to compatibility, but the Animation
52 from the standard database works great for this.
You can also further customize each skill by overriding the Default Cast Animation and Default Cast Motion via
<cast_animation:ANIMATION_ID> and
<cast_motion:MOTION_TYPE> parameters. Animation_ID is the ID of an animation in the Database; Motion Type can be spell, skill, wait, item, chant, swing, thrust, missile; among a few others.
The default parameter used for casting can also be overridden with, for example, <cast_param:mat> to use MAT instead of AGI for that skill.
A skill can also be set to be Interruptible by using
<interruptible>. This means that attacks marked with
<interrupts> will break their casting. A VFX effect can be set as a global parameter to be played whenever an interrupt happens – I recommend creating a new Animation with just some simple sound effect and maybe a flash or some “Interrupt!” text.
Besides being interruptible, a skill can also be
<delayable>. The cast delay system works in a % of the total cast time. By default, every hostile attack will delay the conjuring of a skill by 10% of its total cast time, up to 100%. All those global defaults are exposed as parameters, including the options of whether every skills should be delayable by default, and whether every attack should delay by default.
You can override each of those default parameters with notetags:
<delayable>, <not_delayable>, <delays>, <delay_amount:NUMBER>More information and tips to come.
