List of interesting eventing points

Hey all!
I made a list of what I considered important points in event or points which could take a long time to discover on your own. (If you discover it at all)
Feel free to add your own

• Set Move Route overrides previous move route for the player or given event
• Set Move Route and Player Touch
• Set Move Route and Player Touch
• Wait for Move's Completion issue
• New Event Tab cancels Move Route
• Reluctance of events moving onto other events
• Tileset events and Through
• Parallel/Autorun events loops
• Common events on parallel trigger restart on map change
• Force action does not work on turn 0 in battles
• Defending actor + force action
• Self-switches in common events
• 'This event' in common events

Set Move Route overrides previous move route for the player or given event
I have seen a lot of support questions regarding which is due to this.
A typical cause are evented dash systems. You have to set a move route to change the speed of the player.
You can for example set a move route for the player to do something in a cutscene. The dash system then sets a new move route for the player and the player stops after one step or so.
The same holds for any events. Note that each event has their own move route (or none).
Note that events and the player don't have to have a move route. This is important for the following issue:

Set Move Route and Player Touch
If you have a passable event on Player Touch trigger, the event will NOT trigger if the player walks over the tile using a Set Move Route. If the player stops on the tile the event will trigger, but it will not trigger if the player continues.
You can fix this by setting the event trigger to Event Touch.

Wait for Move's Completion issue
Its wait until the player and no event have a move route. If you set a move route for an event which is on repeat action, then it never ends.
This can cause the game to practically freeze. As a general rule don't use Wait for Move's Completion. It can lead to hard-to-spot freezes which in the worst case can appear to happen randomly.

New Event Tab cancels Move Route
Let's say you have an event with two tabs, each with the same character.  The condition on the second tab is not true (so the first tab is 'active').
You have another event that executes a "Set Move Route" on this character event.  The character starts moving across the screen.
If the condition on the second tab becomes true while the character is in the middle of the move route, the move route will be cancelled and he will stop walking.

Reluctance of events moving onto other events
An event will not move onto a tile occupied by another event unless either of them has Through ON. (Or both)
The same holds for the player. The player basically treated as an event when other events move around.

Tileset events and Through
The passability settings are ignored for events which has Through ON. The same holds for the player.
Tileset events are interesting in this regard because they can turn impassable tiles to passable tiles.
Let's say you have a tileset event which turn an impassable tile into being passable. If we set Through ON for the event then its passability settings will be ignored. Yes, the passable tile will now not be passable anymore.
It is something to keep in mind. Especially for bridges that will be built some time into the game.
If you events to be able to cross the bridge without having Through ON then you must make the tiles underneath passable and use blocking events for when the bridge is out. Let the pages displaying the bridges have Through ON.

Parallel/Autorun events loops
When a parallel or autorun event has finished processing it will be processed again (next frame in case of parallel events).
Typical issues happens when you use event commands which takes several frames to complete.
For example showing an animation or moving an event or the player with a parallel event. Only the first few frames are shown over and over with the show animation and only the first move command is considered.
The solution simple to change the condition so that it doesn't loop after it has finished processing the event, which can be done by erasing the event or changing the page. Or in terms of common events, turning off the triggering switch.
In this aspect the Exit Event Processing command may lead to confusion since it ends the processing of the event. You may therefore get unwanted loops. Just change the conditions before the exit event processing command.

Common events on parallel trigger restart on map change
A typical case where this is a problem is if you want to have an invisible time running across maps.
If you have a Wait 999 frames event command, then it'll start over each time you transfer to a new map. (A solution for this is to wait say 4 frames, add to a variable and Exit Event processing if the variable is not over some value (conditional branch))

Force action does not work on turn 0 in battles
You can for example not have an item which causes on of the actor to attack immediately, nor can you have the monsters attack immediately. (I.e. before you can run away)
You can mimick it with animations and deal damage, but it's very tedious.

Defending actor + force action
This may not be an issue, but it's worth noting.
Let's say you set Actor 2 to defend and have a force action which causes Actor 2 to attack in Normal sequence. (Let's say the force action is in a common event triggered by the skill of Actor 3)
If Actor 2 acts before Actor 3 then Actor 2 will not attack when Actor 3 acts, but Actor 2 will not defend anymore. This means more damage for monsters attacking Actor 2 after Actor 3 has acted.

Self-switches in common events
I have wrote a tutorial about this matter ~ http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,31620.0.html

'This event' in common events
It refers to the map event calling that common event (either directly or indirectly)
If there's not a map event calling that common event then the event command has no effect.

Special Thanks
Animus
Kipe
Regi
Shaz

*hugs*
 - Zeriab

This is very useful, Zeriab. Hopefully people will post more tips/points, and new eventers be able to come here whenever they have an issue. :3

Actually, I use Wait for Move's Completion - a LOT.  I've only had it freeze the game on one occasion, and it took AGES to figure it out (because I wasn't following exactly the same steps as my tester and I couldn't reproduce it).  However, I also use an anti-lag script that probably stops out-of-range events with repeated moves from starting, and that may be why I've only had a problem with it once.


Here are a couple more:

New Event Tab cancels Move Route
Let's say you have an event with two tabs, each with the same character.  The condition on the second tab is not true (so the first tab is 'active').
You have another event that executes a "Set Move Route" on this character event.  The character starts moving across the screen.
If the condition on the second tab becomes true while the character is in the middle of the move route, the move route will be cancelled and he will stop walking.

Exit Event Processing and Parallel/Autorun events
Exit Event Processing is a nice way to cancel a series of event commands if you want to stop half way through.
However, if your event is a Parallel Process or Autorun event, it will exit at that point, but then it will start all over again.
To get a Parallel Process or Autorun event to stop in its tracks, you either need to use Erase Event (if you're sure you won't want it run again before you leave the map, but you WILL want it run again when you next enter the map), or add a second event page conditioned by a switch, variable, or self switch.



Too late in the day for me to come up with anything more intelligent than that...

I can imagine how bothersome that would have been shaz. *pats*
Can I carbon-copy your nice New Event Tab cancels Move Route point?

Your second point and Kipe's point revolves around that parallel processes and autorun events loop.

Parallel/Autorun events loops
When a parallel or autorun event has finished processing it will be processed again (next frame in case of parallel events).
Typical issues happens when you use event commands which takes several frames to complete.
For example showing an animation or moving an event or the player with a parallel event. Only the first few frames are shown over and over with the show animation and only the first move command is considered.
The solution simple to change the condition so that it doesn't loop after it has finished processing the event, which can be done by erasing the event or changing the page. Or in terms of common events, turning off the triggering switch.
In this aspect the Exit Event Processing command may lead to confusion since it ends the processing of the event. You may therefore get unwanted loops. Just change the conditions before the exit event processing command.

*hugs*
 - Zeriab

I noticed that, with parallel effects in battle, it processes so fast that sometimes it processes from the beginning again before actually processing the last command in the process (which was a switch to switch the event off). To fix this, I placed a "Wait 0.5 seconds" event item right after the last part of the parallel process, which stopped it from repeating before ending the last process.

I am using RPG Maker 2003, so it could be just a bug that isn't in XP or VX.

Actually, I noticed something interesting on maps possibly related to this.  If I play a cut scene on one map then free the player to move around with the intention that they're supposed to leave the area and go to a new map, sometimes I want a bit of dialogue to play upon loading the new map (a reminder about what their next task is, or a bit of conversation about which way they need to be going).  Often, the first line of dialogue is skipped, and I have to put a Wait X seconds in front of it.  I had thought it's because the transition was still happening, but it's possible I'd set those events up as parallel processes, which start to run before you even see the map.  Wonder if autorun events would fix the problem - must test...

Kipe - WOW!  I'd never have thought that.  So used to compiled languages ditching the comments!  Definitely something to look out for.