The Infirmary for C3

Version 1.3

Introduction

Welcome to the help file for the infirmary, a whole new area for C3 dedicated to
making sick norns well, and investigating norn biochemistry. This room is
designed to be used by anyone -- from a beginner norn breeder to experienced cdn
member. No special breeding experience is necessary.  However, the tools in the
room could do with some individual explanation, so here’s a quick help file to
explain everything!

Installation

For this agent file to work, you must have installed the second creatures three
update, and created a new world after that installation. A simple test to see if
your world is ready to accept agents is to look at your creator machine- if it
has a cross on it that lights up blue when you press it once, your world is
fully updated and ready to go! If you can inject the Albian Yule agent files on
Cyberlife’s site, you’ll have no problems. Place the infirmary.agent file into
the ‘my agents’ folder in your creatures three main folder. When you next run
the game, the infirmary will be available in your creator machine. Look for a
flashing blue cross icon. Once installed, the game will zoom to the new room.
The room can be removed by selecting it in the creator, and clicking on the
cross icon twice. Remember to remove any toys etc. first! Any creatures in the
room will automatically be removed to the bridge corridor, but anything else
will end up suspended in nothingness forever more. This version of the infirmary
takes advantage of the second patch to the game, and deletes the room, leaving
your world in the same state as before the room was injected. If you get an
error on trying to remove the room, abort the game, and get the second patch
from the creatures website.

Room Layout

There are basic machines in the room:

    1.  The Door: Dark metallic circle, bottom left.
    2.  The Norn Picture: Matt Black with norn drawing on it, middle left.
    3.  The Advanced Medical Scanner: A collection of coloured buttons and a
        graph display, middle to right of the room.
    4.  Norn Selector: Small gold metal edged black box, above the Advanced
        Scanner.
    5.  Bacteria Detector: Small, gold metal edged black box just beneath the
        Advanced Scanner.
    6.  Diagnostic Tool: Large Display box, underneath and to the right of the
        Bacteria Detector.
    7.  Potion Vendor: Large white box with arrow, button and small text
        display, bottom center of room.
    8.  Infirmary Camera Zoom: Blue cross next to the favourite places icons.


Using the room’s tools

All objects in the room have context sensitive help that displays extra
information about their function. This can be accessed within the game by
choosing the help mode (the hand with the question mark beside it), and right
clicking on the object.

    1.  The Door

The infirmary door is different to other doors on the ship. It can only be
operated by the hand, and is invisible to norns. No smells can pass through it,
so it won’t attract creatures to come and investigate. Once there is one
creature in the room, another can’t enter until the currently inhabiting
creature leaves. This means that the infirmary can be used to quarantine a sick
creature with no fear of any other creatures barging in and catching the
disease.

    2.  The Norn Picture

The norn picture in itself is merely a pretty backdrop that seemed appropriate.
However, if you right click on it in help mode, the context sensitive help will
bring up a full list of all C3 chemicals and their numbers. This is useful for
controlling the advanced medical scanner.

    3.  The Advanced Medical Scanner

This device can scan and inject up to five chemicals at any one time. It can be
set to read a norn of your choice using the Norn Selector (see below). It can be
switched on using the large bar shaped gold button to the right of the norn
picture. Once switched on, clicking on the coloured buttons immediately to the
right of the on button places them in edit mode. Type in the number of a
chemical to display the chemical’s name in the text box to the right, and to
draw a line for that chemical on the graph in the same colour as the buttons.
Clicking on the buttons to the right hand side of the graph display injects the
norn with 25% of that chemical. The scanner will save the currently selected
chemical scheme when switched off, and display it again when switched on.

    4.  Norn Selector

This tool chooses which norn in the world the advanced medical scanner and the
diagnostic tool monitor. It has two modes: Room Norn mode, and Selected Norn.
Click on the small golden button to change from one mode to the other. In Room
Norn mode, the creature within the infirmary is monitored. In Selected Norn
mode, the norn currently selected by the hand (the one with the little red arrow
above it) is monitored instead. In this mode, the infirmary acts more like a
simple science applet.

    5.  Bacterial Detector

The bacterial detector regularly scans the room for bacteria. If found, it
reports them on its screen. When the small gold button is pressed, the room is
sterilised. Please note that even if the Norn Selector is placed into Selected
Norn mode, the bacterial scanner still only checks the infirmary room, not the
selected norn.

    6.  Diagnostic Tool

The diagnostic tool reports any possible illness of the norn chosen by the Norn
Selector, and suggests a possible course of action. In itself, it does not cure
norns- that is still up to the owner. The diagnostic tool has a complex nested
scanning algorithm that allows it to attach importance to different conditions-
for instance, if a norn is suffering from alcohol and cyanide poisoning, the
diagnostic tool will report the cyanide poisoning, since this is a greater
threat to the norn’s life. The diagnostic tool only reports illnesses that are
curable- it is still possible that a norn with chronic organ failure may die
while being reported as healthy by the tool. However, regular checkups of a
norn’s health using this tool can prevent that from ever happening (unless a
grendel gets in on the act).

    7.  Potion Vendor

The potion vendor is in many ways a copy of the vendor on the bridge of the
ship. The name of the currently vended potion is provided in the black display
window, and the potion can be created by pressing on the round button. Pressing
on the arrow moves the vendor onto the next potion. Many potions perform a
similar function to those on the bridge, but there are a few extras I felt might
be useful, such as the instant nutrition, and the antibiotic. The Diagnostic
Tool refers to many of the potions as possible cures for diseases.

    8.  Infirmary Camera Zoom

This works in the same way as the other round blue favourite places icons,
except that it doesn’t have to be activated by visiting the infirmary- the blue
cross icon will appear next to the other favourite places icons on injection.

Developer’s Information

The infirmary metaroom has id#63, and is placed at the co-ordinates x=6740-7560,
y=1550-2150. The metaroom contains one room, id#677.

Dependencies:

Sprites:
irom.c16       - background room sprite, Norn Picture sprite.
adscan.c16     - Advanced Scanner, Bacterial Scanner, Norn Selector and
                 Diagnostic Tool sprites.
idor.c16       - Infirmary Door Sprite.
iromvendor.c16 - Potion Vendor sprites.
iromcross.c16  - Infirmary Camera Zoom sprites.

Catalogues:
infirmary.catalogue - Context sensitive help file for the infirmary agents.

Object classifiers used:
1 1 53200 - Background Scenery
1 1 53201 - Advanced Scanner
1 1 53202 - Norn Selector
1 1 53203 - Camera Zoom
1 1 53204 - Bacterial Scanner
1 1 53205 - Diagnostic Tool
1 1 53206 - Potion Vendor
1 1 53207 - Norn Picture
2 2 53203 - Door from corridor to infirmary
2 2 53204 - Door from infirmary to corridor

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my beta testers Carolyn Horn, Miff, and Ricardo2000, for spotting
many bugs and making some very useful suggestions.

Thanks also to Moca for giving me the original idea in the first place. I know I
said I couldn’t make it- it turned out I was lying!

Dedication

It may be considered a little odd to dedicate a few lines of computer code and
some pixels to a person, but in this case it seems apt. Max Jerome, better known
as Steerpike, created many items for the creatures community, and died, aged 47,
shortly after the first beta of this agent was completed, causing much grief
among Creatures users everywhere. Therefore, I’d like to dedicate this infirmary
to his memory. I hope you enjoy using it, and take a few moments to remember him
when you do.
