Spell System Adjustments Conflict & Solution

[RoryTate]

Hi everyone. I just resolved a small issue installing SCSII (this will be my first time trying this mod out) and I wanted to note the solution so that everyone can access it. It turns out that there is a conflict with the Spell System Adjustments (SSA) mod, specifically with the "XP for casting spells" component of SSA. If "XP for casting spells" is installed, the "Smarter mages" component of SCSII will not install successfully. I actually tracked down this information deep within another thread on this very forum, but I thought I would make it a bit more visible, in case other people run into the same problem.

 

Another quick question about SSA and SCSII...SSA's readme says that the mod requires party AI to be turned on. Since I always play with it off, I'm going to have to see if I can handle this. If I can still micromanage the way I'm used to (what's the point in watching two scripts battle it out on screen?...*I* want to be the one trying to outsmart the opponent damnit!) then I'm fine with it. Maybe I'll have to switch party AI off whenever a battle actually starts, and then back on after to allow SSA's spell refresh to trigger (I set the refresh time to around four hours, if the calculations are correct), although that switching could become tedious quickly, especially if I forget (nothing suspends my immersion more quickly than interface unfriendliness). I noticed that SCSII had an "ease of use party AI" that looks promising, and might help me successfully adapt to this new play style. What is everyone's experience with SCSII's party AI component? I didn't install it (yet), but I may give it a try if it removes some of the tedium, but allows micromanaging easily without loss of spells/time/etc. Is the ease of use AI component recommended in that context, and is there one option in particular that fits best for an admitted micromanaging enthusiast?

 

Also, I neglected to install "Ascension" before SCSII, so I was surprised to see the Ascension items being skipped in the initial install of SCSII. Didn't even know they were there. Make already tougher battles even more tough? Hmm...sounds interesting (I guess). So I installed Ascension (which I had planned on doing anyway, I just hadn't put it in the right spot on the ordered mod list I'd created) and then went through the SCSII install again to install the Ascension related components, but when it came to "Improved Abazigal" it failed with the following error:

 

------------------------------------------------------------

ERROR locating resource for 'COPY'

Resource [dw#asc_new_dragblue.cre] not found in KEY file:

[./chitin.key]

------------------------------------------------------------

 

Perhaps this is due to the reinstall after Ascension? All of the other Ascension related components completed successfully though. I can probably start a new game right now and won't even notice this is missing, but I just wanted to see what the problem might be, in case it is something simple to fix (or is part of a deeper conflict that may eventually corrupt my install).

 

Thanks!

[DavidW]

Quick note about Ascension. What's going on is this:

 

- if the "smarter dragons" component detects that you've got Ascension installed, it builds a smarter script for the Ascension version of Abazigal, and then it puts it into storage

 

- if the "smarter Abazigal" component detects that you've got Ascension installed, it retrieves the storage version and uses it.

 

So by installing Ascension between the two components, you've confused SCS.

 

In any case, Ascension is a very old mod and does a lot of very crude hacking. If you've installed Ascension after the main components of SCS, I suspect that lots of small things have broken - in particular, the spell-detection stuff will now be badly confused. It's not catastrophic (probably) but if you can be bothered, it's probably wisest to uninstall SCS entirely, reinstall Ascension, then put SCS in place after Ascension.

[igi]

Another quick question about SSA and SCSII...SSA's readme says that the mod requires party AI to be turned on. Since I always play with it off, I'm going to have to see if I can handle this. If I can still micromanage the way I'm used to (what's the point in watching two scripts battle it out on screen?...*I* want to be the one trying to outsmart the opponent damnit!) then I'm fine with it.

 

I play with party AI turned on, but with no custom player script assigned to anyone in the party. The result is that 'AI must be on' mods work, but I am in complete control of the party. TBH, I thought this was how everyone played.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I play with party AI turned on, but with no custom player script assigned to anyone in the party. The result is that 'AI must be on' mods work, but I am in complete control of the party. TBH, I thought this was how everyone played.

You have the 'None' assigned as your party character script... as do I ... and every one else.

[DavidW]

I play with party AI turned on, but with no custom player script assigned to anyone in the party. The result is that 'AI must be on' mods work, but I am in complete control of the party. TBH, I thought this was how everyone played.

You have the 'None' assigned as your party character script... as do I ... and every one else.

 

Nope. I have a low-grade AI script installed (the one with SCSII, nowadays; previously, some minimal "attack nearest" script) and switch AI on and off according to how complicated the battle is. I think that's fairly common.

[RoryTate]

- if the "smarter dragons" component detects that you've got Ascension installed, it builds a smarter script for the Ascension version of Abazigal, and then it puts it into storage

 

- if the "smarter Abazigal" component detects that you've got Ascension installed, it retrieves the storage version and uses it.

 

Makes sense, now that I see it. I'll follow the steps you suggested to uninstall SCS, reinstall Ascension, and then SCS back in (correctly). A big thanks for the help!

 

I play with party AI turned on, but with no custom player script assigned to anyone in the party. The result is that 'AI must be on' mods work, but I am in complete control of the party. TBH, I thought this was how everyone played.

 

I did a quick test game last night to see if everything worked after my bit of mod confusion, and apart from a slow walking problem left over from EasyTutu (which ShadowKeeper allowed me to fix), things looked good, although I didn't have time to do much. However, I noticed that Party AI was on by default, and realized that I have been playing with it on exactly as you described: without assigned scripts. Wow, learn something new every day... The larger battles also already felt a little more "tactical" (in a good, challenging way...yay!), although that is tough to judge so quickly, and may be more the result of suggestion than anything else.

 

The AI script in SCS looks interesting though, especially the part about hot keys to buff before a battle and making such castings instantaneous...that was the last function in the ease-of-use party AI, and the most attractive. I'm going to be going through a few more test runs, so I'll probably give some of these functions a try to see how they feel during actual game play. Although I won't be at high enough level for any of the hot key defaults, I realize now that I can always change the script back to "none" if I want, so having the script on hand could be nice.

[Ilyich]

Please ignore this.

[coaster]

Surely these are already done (including the bugfixes). Check the readme?

[Ilyich]

I checked the ReadMe, and Coaster is correct. My previous post has been edited.