SoD romance regions - what is going on?

[jmerry]

Not really about modding, but definitely a question. This is about something not working the way I would expect it to, and trying to figure out what's actually going on with it.

The romances in Siege of Dragonspear are mainly based on map regions. They have "trap" scripts that all follow the same format; on the first pass, set a variable. On the next pass, check that variable and have the NPC involved initiate conversation with the protagonist. Perfectly reasonable. What's the issue? Well, most of those regions don't have the "trap resets" flag checked. After the first pass, the region isn't trapped anymore. There shouldn't be a second pass at all. Yet there is. Try it yourself - one such region that lacks the reset flag is the first for Rasaad and Safana, just beyond the burned inn on the main road of the Coast Way Crossing. Edit its script bdrom02 to do something that will be obvious when executed repeatedly, load up a chapter 8 save, and head over to check it out. My test had that script run eight times in a matter of seconds, after which the quicksave showed the region no longer trapped. And yet, if I load that save and head over, the script runs half a dozen more times.

What's going on? Why does this region run its "trap" script even when it has already fired and is no longer "trapped"? (Not the only region this could apply to; it's just particularly easy to access.)

[argent77]

The "trapped" state is relevant for event-based triggers (triggers with id values < 0x4000, e.g. Entered()). The romance-related region scripts in SoD mostly contain blocks with IsOverMe() and other non-event-based triggers, however. That's why they can always trigger when characters are inside a region, regardless of their trapped state.

[jmerry]

And if I use "Entered" rather than "IsOverMe" in that new block, it doesn't repeatedly trigger anymore. OK, got it. Still weird, though.

[argent77]

Region script are actually processed continuously, just like area script, etc. If you add a True() block inside the script, then it will fire repeatedly, regardless of whether a character is inside the region or not. It's only script blocks with event-based triggers which fire only if the "trapped" state is active.