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Nice, the forums are back, now I can bother David all day long :7up:

 

*dances strange dance*

girdancingat9to6.gif

 

 

Seriously now, you've so much work around here that I wouldn't dream of stealing precious time ;)

 

But whenever you feel lonely and stuff please answer me :(

 

(I should probably stop playing around with the forum smilies too, they're very cute though)

 

I loved most aspects of your mod.

 

Some questions:

 

More consistent Breach spell - I can still get the CRE file for Lichs and Raks and make them imune to this using protection from spell right? I assume this wouldn't case any major issues.

 

They're not immune because this spell in no more recognized as a 5th spell? If yes, which level breach counts when affecting, for example, a spell turning (rebound total of 12 spell levels).

 

Remove the Shield of Balduran from the game - I hear theres a mod in which the beholders use telekinesis or such other excuse to make you drop the shield of balduran quite often, can't you do that as well? IMO would make battles more interesting.

 

Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures - I would rather it affecting everyone, friend and foe, I can understand the level of complications that this would be while scripting stuff though, too much work.

 

Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility - This worries me as in "enemy mages can become easy to kill", I don't know though, would need to play for some time with this feature, can you comment based on your testing experience?

 

 

Your work is amazing, only 2 things that bugs me:

 

1 - Can enemies make mistakes ? I think it adds to the realism, off course that this would be hard to judge as well, most mages and high INT/WISDOM foes would never make mistakes, but other creatures, er..

 

2 - Now this the point that really worries me, given the fast computers we have nowadays, I think its easier for the game engine to chuckle than our hardware, I haven't played BG for the last 2 years though, do a lot of complicated scripts running in a battle don't cause any slowdown? Do you recommend a certain amount of processor power before installing SCS ?

 

I've to ask since things like this

IF
!GlobalTimerNotExpired("castspell","LOCALS")
See(Player1)
!Kit(Player1,16389)
!Race(Player1,ELF)
!CheckStatGT(Player1,0,EXTRAPROFICIENCY5)
!HasItemEquiped("ARDEADX",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("C2HELM01",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("C2HELM02",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("C2SHLD01",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("C2SPER02",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("C2SW1H03",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("C2SW2H01",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("C2VALY01",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("CBCL023A",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("CBMNAMUL",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("CBSPYHP1",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("CHALCY3",Player1) // Greenstone Amulet
!HasItemEquiped("DEITM046",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("DEITM120",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("ELEMKATF",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("HELM06",Player1) // Helm of Charm Protection
!HasItemEquiped("MAHARPER",Player1) // No such index
!HasItemEquiped("MISCBC",Player1) // Blackrazor
!HasItemEquiped("NPCHAN",Player1) // Corthala Family Armor
!HasItemEquiped("RITAMUL",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("RTT041",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("RUNEZ10",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("RUNEZ9",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("SAMHELMX",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("SHLD25",Player1) // Shield of Harmony +2
!HasItemEquiped("SHOON",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("SPER07",Player1) // Spear of the Unicorn
!HasItemEquiped("STAF11",Player1) // Staff of the Magi
!HasItemEquiped("SUTEAR",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("SW1H35",Player1) // Adjatha The Drinker +2
!HasItemEquiped("SW1H54",Player1) // The Equalizer
!HasItemEquiped("SW2H14",Player1) // Lilarcor
!HasItemEquiped("U#AMUL02",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("U#SW1H04",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("U#SWDBRC",Player1)
!HasItemEquiped("WEAVER",Player1)
!GlobalTimerNotExpired("seeimmune","LOCALS")
CheckStatGT(Player1,0,SAVEVSSPELL)
!CheckStatGT(Player1,50,RESISTMAGIC)
!CheckStat(Player1,4,SCRIPTINGSTATE7)
!CheckStatGT(Player1,0,EXTRAPROFICIENCY2)
!CheckStatGT(Player1,0,EXTRAPROFICIENCY15)
!CheckStatGT(Player1,0,SCRIPTINGSTATE9)
!CheckStat(Player1,1,EXTRAPROFICIENCY9)
Allegiance(Myself,ENEMY)
!Allegiance(Player1,ENEMY)
!StateCheck(Player1,STATE_SLEEPING | STATE_STUNNED | STATE_HELPLESS)
!CheckStatGT(Player1,0,HELD)
OR(4)
	Class(Player1,CLERIC_ALL)
	HasItem("blun12",Player1) // Mace of Disruption
	HasItem("blun25",Player1) // Mace of Disruption
	HasItem("ax1h10",Player1) // Azuredge
THEN
RESPONSE #150
	SetGlobalTimer("castspell","LOCALS",7)
	ForceSpell(Player1,VAMPIRE_DOMINATION)
RESPONSE #100
	Continue()
END

 

and some other things like a helluva lot of potions checks do make "easy to impress" people like me get scared :O

 

 

 

Lasty (for now), I've read in the Big World Project thread that maybe you would look into building, fixing or helping with an IDS (was it STATS? can't remember). Is that in your to do list or something? I would really like to try that mega mod but broken tables & IDSs give me the creeps ;)

 

 

 

Whenever (if ever) you answer my doubts I'll probably (in time) have some more to ask.

 

But thanks for a great, superb mod!! :beer: (that has spared me infinite amounts of work)

 

Perhaps we can join forces for something in the future (provided I get smarter and all this scripting won't leave you crazy :cool: )

 

 

Must get ;) out of :( these forums.. ;) Can't :argh: resist :( the smilies ;):band:;)

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[...]

 

Some questions:

 

More consistent Breach spell - I can still get the CRE file for Lichs and Raks and make them imune to this using protection from spell right? I assume this wouldn't case any major issues.

 

[...]

 

Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility - This worries me as in "enemy mages can become easy to kill", I don't know though, would need to play for some time with this feature, can you comment based on your testing experience?

 

[...]

 

Mhm... I assume you simply dislike the idea that those creatures can be affected by Breach? Um, this may sound stupid, but... why don't you simply ignore Breach when facing liches and rakshasas? I mean, you don't have to cast it, right? Or is it more an "Well, if I protect my mage with Spell Turning and the lich casts Breach on him it will be reflected back onto him, dispelling his protections"-issue?

 

Depends... actually, yeah, essentially mages become easy prey, depending on your spells. If you have access to Spellstrike about any mage you'll meet is dead meat if you want to. You start by casting Spellstrike, followed by True Sight or something like that and then cast Breach. Everything's dispelled so you have a smart mage without buffs which means he's a considerably less lethal foe.

On the other hand there's the problem you may face without this component. Namely the SI:Abjuration + SI:Divination + Improved Invisibility combo. It's actually quite broken and one would have to rely on Chain Contingency or quick slot items to actually start dispelling the enemy. Of course it's not like every mage you meet would use this as it's still somewhat randomized. SI:Divination + Improved Invisibility is quite annoying as well, if you can't use Dispel/Remove Magic to a good effect due to the caster level difference, by the way.

I guess it's ultimately a matter of preference and personal playing style. Just because you could Spellstrike every mage doesn't mean you have to. Oh and it's still quite interesting without that spell as you would have to dispel the mage's protections one by one which will take a while.

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More consistent Breach spell - I can still get the CRE file for Lichs and Raks and make them imune to this using protection from spell right? I assume this wouldn't case any major issues.

Nope.

 

Or, if you want to do it more elegantly, just add something like the following code to the end of setup-scsii.tp2

 

BEGIN ~Himself custom component~

OUTER_SPRINT ~immune_to_this~ ~SPWI513~

COPY_EXISTING 
 ~lich01.cre~ ~override~
 ~raksha01.cre~ ~override~
	   LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~grant_spell_immunity~

 

(warning: not tested.)

 

They're not immune because this spell in no more recognized as a 5th spell? If yes, which level breach counts when affecting, for example, a spell turning (rebound total of 12 spell levels).

It doesn't (that's a flaw in the component, I agree).

 

Remove the Shield of Balduran from the game - I hear theres a mod in which the beholders use telekinesis or such other excuse to make you drop the shield of balduran quite often, can't you do that as well?

I already do. (In fact, I don't know of any other mod that does, so probably you're thinking of SCSII already!)

 

Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures - I would rather it affecting everyone, friend and foe, I can understand the level of complications that this would be while scripting stuff though, too much work.

Basically, it's well-nigh impossible to script enemies to use area effects that target their own side without a lot of friendly fire. Partly that's due to some pretty deep limitations in artificial intelligence (those sorts of tasks are notoriously difficult) but mostly it's due to the specific limitations of the BG2 scripting language. So (even in the vanilla game) spells like Blade Barrier and Symbol are enemies-only when cast by NPCs. I'm just making it a little more consistent.

 

Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility - This worries me as in "enemy mages can become easy to kill", I don't know though, would need to play for some time with this feature, can you comment based on your testing experience?

Well, put it this way: certainly it makes them easier to kill than it would be if you had SCSII installed but didn't use that component. Vanilla mages are ridiculously easy to kill anyway (and rarely use invisibility tricks... or more accurately, rarely use invisibility+SI:Div, so their invisibility doesn't last.) Tactics mages have different strengths and weaknesses (since Breach penetrates spell turning, wands or scrolls of breach make very easy meat of most mages, and tactics mages aren't as efficient as SCSII mages at renewing their defences.)

 

Ignoring the comparison and just thinking of SCSII itself, my experience is that until you get Spellstrike, it's still quite a slog to tear down a mage's defences. Spellstrike makes a bigger difference than I'd really allowed for, so later versions of SCSII have been a lot more aggressive at renewing defences once dropped. (I use a lot of Spell Turning+ Pro/MW + something else sequencers, in particular).

 

 

Your work is amazing, only 2 things that bugs me:

 

1 - Can enemies make mistakes ? I think it adds to the realism, off course that this would be hard to judge as well, most mages and high INT/WISDOM foes would never make mistakes, but other creatures, er..

They're not coded to make deliberate mistakes. But any enemy running on a BG2 script is so staggeringly stupid compared to a savvy human opponent that they're bound to make plenty of accidental mistakes!

 

(genuinely unintelligent creatures, like animals and zombies, do use deliberately stupid scripting though.)

 

2 - Now this the point that really worries me, given the fast computers we have nowadays, I think its easier for the game engine to chuckle than our hardware, I haven't played BG for the last 2 years though, do a lot of complicated scripts running in a battle don't cause any slowdown? Do you recommend a certain amount of processor power before installing SCS ?

 

I don't make a concrete recommendation, because I haven't done anything like enough testing. By and large, though, there don't seem to be too many problems provided you're using a vaguely new computer (say 2 GHz+) and I've heard of people using lower-powered ones. Even on fast computers, though, there's a short lag (about 0.5seconds - 1second) when mages first spawn. That's the game engine loading in the script. It's mildly annoying but doesn't seem to be a big thing.

 

Once in a while, though, someone reports much worse lagging than that, and not just when creatures spawn. I'm not always clear why that is - I suspect some people are using high-performance computers but not using them very effectively, e.g. having lots of stuff running in the background.

 

Lasty (for now), I've read in the Big World Project thread that maybe you would look into building, fixing or helping with an IDS (was it STATS? can't remember). Is that in your to do list or something? I would really like to try that mega mod but broken tables & IDSs give me the creeps

 

Remind me.

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Er.. ;) argh, :cool: dangdsfdr ;):(

 

*Casts immunity to smilies list at Himself*

 

Arkain, thanks for your interest ;)

 

Now this may sound stupid as well.. but I like to have everything "working the way it should", even when I could ignore stuff, it adds to the level of immersion ;)

 

(This is in no way an affront to you, your comments were well meant, I'm sure)

 

 

David:

 

 

As far as STATS.IDS is concerned: there really isn't any simple workaround where different mods use different choices as to what detection state to assign to what STATS.IDS value. Certainly, manually editing it to restore removed stats won't help at all (believe it or not, they were changed for a reason).

SCSII already fixes Kelsey and Ascension. (Actually "fixes" is perjorative: I ought rather to say that it alters them to make them compatible.) If you have other mods that use a non-SCSII detectable-spells arrangement, it's possible that I can incorporate alterations into SCSII.

 

 

:(

 

 

 

Or, if you want to do it more elegantly, just add something like the following code to the end of setup-scsii.tp2

 

Thanks, I'll try! But wouldn't you consider adding immunity to "breach resources.spl" to know CRE files that are raks or lichs, in future versions of SCS ? (people could help providing a list of these .CRE as well to spare you some work)

 

 

They're not immune because this spell in no more recognized as a 5th spell? Which level breach counts when affecting, for example, a spell turning (rebound total of 12 spell levels).

It doesn't

 

You mean it doesn't for both cases? (as in, if I cast breach at spell turning, it will count as a ZERO lvl spell and turning will still rebound a total of 12?)

 

Nice thought with the balduran shield, again a toast to you! ;)

 

 

Once in a while, though, someone reports much worse lagging than that, and not just when creatures spawn. I'm not always clear why that is - I suspect some people are using high-performance computers but not using them very effectively, e.g. having lots of stuff running in the background.

 

Thats probably due the way people install things nowadays (mass amount of mods), its always easier to blame a mod which uses mass amount of scripting. Not that they are always wrong though, given the complexity of scripting, a X number of things can go wrong, that were never intended or noticed by the coder.

 

 

 

From now on I'm going to presume and point a lot of stuff that is due to me not playing the game with you mod yet (I'm just wandering around the community and bothering kind people such as yourself), please dont get angry ;)

 

 

 

until you get Spellstrike, it's still quite a slog to tear down a mage's defences

 

By the time players (should) have spellstrike, normally an enemy spellcaster will use 1 or more timestops, timestoping 2x before the party actually can do some major action is potentially very dangerous against the party, I assume your mages will sometimes use of that, between greater malisons and other well thought actions.

 

 

 

HAVE NO IDEA how you keep track of most of your scripts, given the massive amount, but if you were to re-work some aspects here and there, would that be painful to accomplish or do you use some sort of system that makes your scripts easier to manage (when being done by yourself, at least), or maybe you just have an overall pretty good memory :(

 

As mentioned in the SHS forums, do you actually replace most creature scripts in the game by versions of yours?

 

And how much do you use DisplayStringHead? One of the aspects of BP I liked the most is that enemies would often scream threats, ask assistance to their allies, curse your archers, even the less intelligent creatures would groan or make confusing/bad grammar comments, that adds immesurably to immerson and fun factor IMO.

 

 

Well, thats concludes round 2 of my incessant bothering :argh:

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Oh, and a comment I must make.

 

I like to roleplay my game, that sorta means I don't make an endless number of pre-buffering before certain key points or abuse of any knowledge that my group has no way to have.. plain put:

 

I as a player know that there is gonna be a very powerful lich taking a pee in that alley ahead, but my group has no means to ever guess that, so I will only take the necessary measures when my party actually discovers this, which will probably be, in this case, visual contact.

 

The lich, which is (in this case) also concerned with something else at the moment (hes thinking: "Why the hell am I taking a pee? I'm a damn undead for christ sake!"), has no way to know that my group is going to meet him, so he also has not buffed himself as if he was going to take Elminster down.

 

Just my definiton of roleplaying the game, which again adds to immersion in my case ;)

 

(obviously I believe a powerful foe like a lich would normally sense theres a group of adventures coming his way.. afterall hes one of smart bad guys, they're supposed to know this kind of thing, in my example he didn't just for the sake of the argument)

 

In this sense your mod allows 3 kinds or enemy pre-buffering, that is so, so great!

 

Thanks a lot for this feature!!! Hated when other AI mods would buff the spellcasters out of nowhere and I was forced to break away from my roleplay just to be at same level of cheating.

 

Still I ask, is it a GLOBAL that modify their amount of buffering? In some cases I think enemies have all the right to get buffed, but in others I don't.

 

If that is a simple local value or any other thing that I could easily alter by messing around in a given creature script, please tell me as I would try to set the ammount of pre-buffer to be different based on each condition I'm 'supposed' to face a certain enemy :cool:

 

That had be incredibly cool.

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As far as STATS.IDS is concerned: there really isn't any simple workaround where different mods use different choices as to what detection state to assign to what STATS.IDS value. Certainly, manually editing it to restore removed stats won't help at all (believe it or not, they were changed for a reason).

SCSII already fixes Kelsey and Ascension. (Actually "fixes" is perjorative: I ought rather to say that it alters them to make them compatible.) If you have other mods that use a non-SCSII detectable-spells arrangement, it's possible that I can incorporate alterations into SCSII.

 

That means: if someone makes a SPECIFIC request for a SPECIFIC mod, I MIGHT do something about it. Life's too short to trawl the BigWorld forums looking for chances to be useful.

 

Thanks, I'll try! But wouldn't you consider adding immunity to "breach resources.spl" to know CRE files that are raks or lichs, in future versions of SCS ? (people could help providing a list of these .CRE as well to spare you some work)

But I don't want them to be immune; that's the main point of the component.

 

They're not immune because this spell in no more recognized as a 5th spell? Which level breach counts when affecting, for example, a spell turning (rebound total of 12 spell levels).

It doesn't

 

You mean it doesn't for both cases? (as in, if I cast breach at spell turning, it will count as a ZERO lvl spell and turning will still rebound a total of 12?)

Probably; not tested, though.

 

 

until you get Spellstrike, it's still quite a slog to tear down a mage's defences

 

HAVE NO IDEA how you keep track of most of your scripts, given the massive amount, but if you were to re-work some aspects here and there, would that be painful to accomplish or do you use some sort of system that makes your scripts easier to manage (when being done by yourself, at least), or maybe you just have an overall pretty good memory

 

It's pretty easy to edit. The scripts are mostly written in SSL, which is a "scripting metalanguage" which makes it much easier to edit scripts. Look at any of the .ssl files in the SCS subdirectories to get an idea of how it works.

 

As mentioned in the SHS forums, do you actually replace most creature scripts in the game by versions of yours?

Yes, nearly all of the combat ones, though there are plenty I don't touch.

 

And how much do you use DisplayStringHead?

 

Not much, sorry. Not that kind of mod.

 

Still I ask, is it a GLOBAL that modify their amount of buffering? In some cases I think enemies have all the right to get buffed, but in others I don't.

 

If that is a simple local value or any other thing that I could easily alter by messing around in a given creature script, please tell me as I would try to set the ammount of pre-buffer to be different based on each condition I'm 'supposed' to face a certain enemy.

You can override it manually at the console; see the readme for details.

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But I don't want them to be immune; that's the main point of the component.


You mean it doesn't for both cases? (as in, if I cast breach at spell turning, it will count as a ZERO lvl spell and turning will still rebound a total of 12?)

Probably; not tested, though.

 

This may be going too far on my part, but is it right to assume they're not immune cause maybe all versions of breach are not properly flagged as a 5th lvl spell? This way I won't touch cres only the spells.

 

 

do you use DisplayStringHead?

 

Not much, sorry. Not that kind of mod.

 

This means you have absolutely no interest in adding such, or just not right now, maybe someday?

 

(Gee my questions are coming to and end :cool: )

 

I don't know if you plan on releasing additional stuff in future versions, I had like to make a little request though:

 

Looking at the demons it seems you made special work on them, it had be great if demons could react reflecting the blood war, demons x devils, for example a Pit Fiend and a Balor will engage against each other right away and ignore all "lesser" creatures from this plane until they wipe out all of theyr swore enemies, and only them resume back to his regular routine.

 

Maybe that would interfere in you scheme of summons and then it would be a no go.

 

I understand if you don't like the idea or its too much work, but asking won't hurt

 

Again thanks very much for the mod ;)

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But I don't want them to be immune; that's the main point of the component.

 

 

You mean it doesn't for both cases? (as in, if I cast breach at spell turning, it will count as a ZERO lvl spell and turning will still rebound a total of 12?)

 

Probably; not tested, though.

 

This may be going too far on my part, but is it right to assume they're not immune cause maybe all versions of breach are not properly flagged as a 5th lvl spell? This way I won't touch cres only the spells.

Confused... but if you mean, "does the component work by relabelling all versions of Breach as 0th level", then yes.

 

do you use DisplayStringHead?

 

Not much, sorry. Not that kind of mod.

 

This means you have absolutely no interest in adding such, or just not right now, maybe someday?

Very little interest: the work/gain ratio is pretty high. (It would mean either a lot of extra padding on the generic scripts, or replacing the generic scripts with lots of specific ones.)

 

Looking at the demons it seems you made special work on them, it had be great if demons could react reflecting the blood war, demons x devils, for example a Pit Fiend and a Balor will engage against each other right away and ignore all "lesser" creatures from this plane until they wipe out all of theyr swore enemies, and only them resume back to his regular routine.

 

It already works that way.

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