Editing New Shortcuts.cos

Because I’m still learning CAOS, I’m focusing largely on editing files that I enjoy. This time, I’m adding a feature to Amaikokonut’s amazing New Shortcuts.cos file. Also, I’m sick with the flu so I hope this post makes some sense.

You can snag a copy of her file at the link above.

Likewise, if you’re here for a copy of the file, you can download it here.

I’ve always been fascinated by Amaikokonut’s agents and updates, so it was a treat to take a quick peek inside one of my favorites. What prompted this though was a Grendel wolfling run that I’m playing with. This might come across as monstrous of me, but I have a tribe of Grendels running around and 3 Ultimate Life Norns. I added the Ultimate Life Norns so that the Grendels could still satisfy their instincts to slap Norns and alleviate their anger without actually hurting anything. Unfortunately, Ultimate Life Norns tend to go on murder-sprees. To keep the Ultimate Life norns from slapping my Grendels to death I decided to freeze them. I checked the internet for an agent or a script that would freeze an individual creature and asked a few members of the community but it didn’t seem like there was one available.

I had to do something. Besides my… unorthodox purposes, I was confident other people needed to have the ability to freeze a single creature easily as well.

Cue notepad.

First, I had to clarify what I wanted to do. First, at the top of the New Shortcuts.cos file I added two comments.

*Ctrl+6 -- Freeze the selected creature
*Shift+Ctrl+6 -- Unfreeze the selected creature

This would describe, in a nutshell, what I was adding.

Next, I needed to add the command to freeze the creatures. I added this below the section that handles Ctrl+7 and above the *Ctrl+Shift line.

*Ctrl+6 -- Freeze selected creature
	doif _p1_ = '6'
			targ norn zomb 1
				motr 0
				dirn 1
				pose 77
	endi

What this says is “if the key that’s pressed is 6, target the selected norn. Zombify, keep them from moving, make them face the camera and lie down.”

Finally, I just needed to add the edit that would allow me to unfreeze a selected creature. Just above the line that says “*Ctrl+Shift+7 — Unfreeze all creatures” I added

*Ctrl+Shift+6 -- Unfreeze selected creature
		doif _p1_ = '6'
			targ norn zomb 0
			motr 1
		endi

What this says is “if the key that’s pressed is 6, target the selected norn. Unzombify and allow them to move.”

Pretty straightforward.