How to script a custom-npc that initiates battles upon dialogue choices?

[Tenko Kuugen]

what I really, really want is some sort of debug-original npc that lets you do boss fights. Lets say, you get that as reward for beating all weapons ( Ultima, Emerald, Ruby ) and it lets you re-fight all the weapons and a few select other bosses or all. ( sure, this might provide problems with the duplicate item drops and stuff, but seriously, after you beat the weapons, there isn't much left to do. )
That can't be so hard to script. Some standard dialogue, some fancy choices, with "start battle xyaz" in the script I think.

How would I best go about this and how would I add it? I could just add it to an existing NPC that checks for something to decide whether or not to display it, but I'm not exactly used to messing with script files.

[Soul]

Is this, by chance, the one that your talking about? If this is it, or something similar, then I saw someone made it before. I searched, and I ended up with Kudistos. Hope this helps. Just check the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL7017hdubU

[nfitc1]

I think he wants a dialog box to come up and say

"Fight Guard Scorpion"
"Fight Air Buster"
"Fight Sample:H0512"
"Fight Motor Ball"
etc...

or something to that effect, yes?

I bet you can just look at the NPCs that do that and see what they do and script your dialog around whatever they do to start a battle. The only NPC I know of that does that is the battle with snow for the Alexander Materia. That's in flevel "hyou6" Text 63, but I don't know how helpful that is. I don't do any NPC manip. You could probably base the battle on the outcome of the dialog though.

[Tenko Kuugen]

I think he wants a dialog box to come up and say

"Fight Guard Scorpion"
"Fight Air Buster"
"Fight Sample:H0512"
"Fight Motor Ball"
etc...

or something to that effect, yes?

That is exactly what I mean. I'd make it a little more 'mysterious' what you get to fight, and include a Gil cost ( or GP, if I place this in the gold saucer )

I bet you can just look at the NPCs that do that and see what they do and script your dialog around whatever they do to start a battle. The only NPC I know of that does that is the battle with snow for the Alexander Materia. That's in flevel "hyou6" Text 63, but I don't know how helpful that is. I don't do any NPC manip. You could probably base the battle on the outcome of the dialog though.

It's not too hard to copy the "start battle xyz" and "start track xyz" for each choice, but I really haven't done any NPC editing before. I basically need a starting text, then it has to branch into choices ( I can probably copy the tutorial npc for this ) and it has to return the characters after the battle to the NPC. Question is, does that even work? returning characters to point B, when the fight originally transports them to point A?
This is gonna be one giant trial and error.
I'm gonna check the wiki on this to see if it helps.

I won't make all bosses avaible. Thats just silly and unneeded. ( and way too much dialogue choices )
Just the more 'fun' ones. like optional bosses, weapons, those are come on really hard. etc.

[Bosola]

Question is, does that even work? returning characters to point B, when the fight originally transports them to point A?
This is gonna be one giant trial and error.
I'm gonna check the wiki on this to see if it helps.

I'm a bit unsure what you mean here by having someone 'taken to point B', but there's no reason why a script can't take you to one field, give you a battle, then take you to another. Think about the Battle Arena, for example.

I won't make all bosses avaible. Thats just silly and unneeded. ( and way too much dialogue choices )
Just the more 'fun' ones. like optional bosses, weapons, those are come on really hard. etc.

Another thing you can do is offer old, low-level bosses with an interesting twist. You can edit some unused SCENEs to host your new boss battles, such as Lv99 Turks, or a two-sided double team WEAPON battle. Hey, you could even make me fight six Safer Sephiroths!

[ultima espio]

...Interesting. I might give this a try.

Tbh, I had something else planned for the Aeris patch that was similar to this...

I'll let you know if it works.

EDIT: Yeah, piece of piss. Just need to set up an NPC, then get it to ask questions in the talk script. Something like:

Who do you want to fight?

Emerald Weapon
Ruby Weapon
Ultimate Weapon

If option 1 play battle song x and start whatever battle the Emerald Weapon is.

I tried it with a member of the highwind crew, and got him to start the battle with the turks. I dunno how you'll find the battle numbers though...they may be the same as the scene numbers. I dunno.

[Tenko Kuugen]

For boss battles, the numbers are all in the field scripts, so it's really easy to find. Compare a few to scene.bin numbers and you can pretty much make an analogy of what goes where.
The idea for "New" battles is pretty nice but there is hardly unused space in the scene.bin I am using ( scene.bin from the hardcore mod )