Is it possible to change the default battle system in VX Ace?

[HelenPixels]

Hi all, I am making a game in VX Ace, and all of the battles are those turn based ones that happen automatically. This is great for pokemon style games and stuff like that. BUT, how would I get it so that the player can directly attack an enemy with a laser gun without having it turn based? The turn based system is not bad and would suit boss battles, but for every minor enemy it might make for annoying gameplay. Like, in most games you hit the enemy X number of times to kill it while avoiding it's attacks, by swinging a sword/shooting at it...etc. Think of how the battles system is set up in the original Legend of Zelda on the NES, that's the sort of gameplay I'm looking for, except with a laser gun not a sword. Is it possible, and if it is, how would I go about that?

 

[Trihan]

It is possible; the engine of VX Ace is built on a series of Ruby scripts written in RPG Maker's somewhat-proprietary RGSS framework, and this can of course be rewritten to the developer's requirements. You could replace the battle system with something completely different if you wanted.

An ABS (Action Battle System) like Legend of Zelda is not the easiest thing to code from scratch, though, especially since to prevent it from being clunky as hell you need to convert the tile-based movement to a pixel-based one.

 

[Shaz]

I've moved this thread to RGSS3 Script Requests. Thank you.

It's unlikely that you'll find someone to make you a custom battle system - they're very complicated and take a LOT of time to create. But there may already be some out there that suit you. Have you checked out the master script list (search this forum for master script list).

 

[HelenPixels]

Shaz, To be fair, I hadn't searched for that! I still have a lot to learn, and I have zero experience with programming. This said, I would be willing to learn it, if it means I can use it to add useful mechanics into gameplay that the default doesn't offer.

Trihan, as much as I would love to hire your services, I am struggling for money at the moment, especially with Xmas coming up. I will however check out the tutorials you provide and see if these will teach me enough about programming in ruby to be able to rewrite the battle system. It might take me a few months to learn enough though, I know it isn't as simple or straightforward as learning how to do good pixel art (I've been learning that as I go creating my own tilesets, and I am still improving all the time, so much so that I am going to be re-doing some of my earlier work that I now know I can make far better autotiles). In any case, thank you for writing tutorials, they do provide an alternative to either paying up or being stuck with a machanic we don't necessarily want, so kudos to you for that.