Beta version of SCSII v10 available

[DavidW]

I don't normally release beta versions, but I've finished v10 of SCSII just before going on holiday for two weeks, so it seems like a good idea in this case.

 

The link is here (3.5 MB). Try at own risk, since after the next 24 hours I won't be around (though it should be fine).

 

Here's the relevant bit of the changelog:

 

New or heavily modified components

 

Systematic rewriting of mage and priest components to generate spellbooks from scratch; lots of small tweaks to mage and priest targetting in the process

New component: a BG2 version of the "modified shapeshifting" component from SCS

New component: Improved Irenicus in Hell (tactics remix)

New component: improve the Spellhold fight with Irenicus

New component: randomize the teleport maze in Watcher's Keep

New component: give enemies a saving throw against Carsomyr's dispel-on-hit power (idea borrowed from Demivrgvs and Mike1072)

New component: nerf resurrection rod

New component: nerf Insect Plague (this is partly borrowed from Demivrgvs' Spell Revisions)

New option in the "antimagic penetrates invisibility" component: restrict it to only affect some spells

New component: slightly harder Irenicus's Dungeon

New components taken directly from Taimon's exe hacks: fix MI, fix Dispel Magic, make Stoneskin not change avatar colors

New component: slightly increase the power of Mantle and the like

Split the "detectable spells" component in two, so that players who don't want their items to be detected by the AI can choose for this not to happen

Added new set of components to let the player choose exactly which strongholds s/he has access too (this is basically a fine-tuned version of the component in BG2Tweaks)

"Remove arrows of dispelling from stores" is now its own component and not part of "improved minor encounters"; it now removes arrows from mod-added stores too

Fll'yissetat and Adalon added to "smarter dragons"

 

Optimisations and minor tweaks and additions

 

Elder orbs no longer use Spell Shield

The default for wizards is now only to force-cast Stoneskin when they go hostile, not as soon as they are created

The disguised drow at Sendai's enclave now ignore calls for help from non-disguised drow

By popular request, ulitharids are now >12th level. Blame Coaster.

Following a suggestion of Galactygon, innate-casting creatures no longer have a casting animation

Lizard Man shamans' contingencies now use 2xCreeping Doom, 1xADHW, not the other way around

Slight tweaking of "improved random encounters": no encounter now occurs more than once, and the tough encounters occur one level later

Golems are now listed as unintelligent

The yuan-ti mages in the d'Arnise Keep have been slightly toned down (if you prefer the original ones, set the "DMWWTougherDarnise" global to 1)

The "prevent characters from dying irreversibly" component has been renamed to "make characters less likely to die irreversibly"

Dragons now use breath weapons on summoned enemies

Dragons are less inclined to randomly run away

Melissan's cambion had been left off the list of demons to be flagged as immune to pro/evil

The Demon Knights in the Underdark now have proper help scripts

Flagged lots of components as identical to components in SCS, so as to avoid duplicate installations on BGT installs

Modified the move-Boo component so it's better suited to BGT installs

Beholders now only use Simulacrum spells if the clone component is selected

Under-the-hood change: the core melee and ranged-combat scripts now get new names rather than using the default names (WTASIGHT and WTARSGT). This should lead to various small smoothings - notably, it ought to stop joinables getting potions.

The "move Boo" component now works for BG1 versions of Minsc (for BGT purposes) and allows for the "Kidnapping of Boo" quest in UB

Some optimising of Genie scripting

Tweaked black and shadow dragon breath-weapon use to hopefully be more effective

Tweaked dragon melee strategy so they don't get locked into an only-attack loop and forget to use magic and breath weapons

Enemy mages and priests now summon alignment-appropriate fiends (Baatezu for lawful evil, Tanar'ri for chaotic evil, random - but consistent - for neutral evil)

Shapeshifted druids always go to melee (assuming "improved shapeshifting" isn't installed)

The drow duelist mage and Qilue now get boosted by "improved Drow"

The drow duelist mage no longer teleports out of the pit

Irenicus in Spellhold now remembers to trigger his contingency before starting the spawn-clone tricks

Mildly against my better judgment, added compatibility with SR Glitterdust

Demiliches now can use their Trap-the-soul power even if they're spellcasting in the same round

Irenicus and the Asylum mages now use magic against one another

 

Bugfixes and compatibility fixes

 

Wand of Spell Striking is now edited so as not to penetrate invisibility in a manner compatible with Item Revisions

Replaced a number of erroneous instances of "SPELLFAILUREMAGE" with "SPELLFAILUREPRIEST" in ease-of-use AI

Corrected a few readme typos

Incendiary Cloud traps no longer crash the game (second time lucky, I hope)

Minor typo in the "remove sphere from cloak of mirroring" component (caught by Avenger_RR): the removal effect was labelled as "permanent", not just "while equipped"

Corrected a few typos in the English version of the translation file

"Smarter Gromnir" component now allows for players who have the core Ascension component but not "Tougher Gromnir" (or vice versa) installed

Sendai's Enclave now installs even if "smarter mages" isn't installed

Fixed some typos in "improved general AI" and "potions for NPCs" which were preventing some non-droppable potions from being used

Killing the green dragon outside Abazigal's Lair in nothing flat will no longer prevent the red dragon from spawning

Fixed a typo in Sendai's Enclave that was preventing Odamaron's traps from firing

Fixed a typo in the transfer_item_abilities_to_spell macro (caught by Galactygon)

Due to an error in my version of Near Infinity, the macro to make casting innate was erroneously giving immunity to Turn Undead(!)

Thieves no longer hide in full view of invisible PCs (thanks to Kromgart for the suggestion of how to do this elegantly)

Drow on the surface no longer have adamantine weapons

Joinable NPC priests are now exempt from having their level altered by "smarter priests"

The component that improves Ascension demons now requires Ascension to be installed

The Yellow Dragon Armor now blocks thief skills

Detectable Spells no longer crashes if ToB is not installed (not that SCSII supports non-ToB games, but still...)

The hostile drow city component is less likely to stall now if the computer fails to notice that you've killed off the drow; we also fix a couple of typos

with the drow scripts

If Oversight's "Tougher Sendai" is installed, SCSII leaves her alone (previously, we were getting compatibility bugs)

The general AI now tries harder to pick on wounded opponents in melee

Imix's "Starfire" power wasn't working, due to a typo (thanks, Temujin)

We fix a bug in Tactics Improved Druid Grove (I was already fixing it in my version, but due to a typo - caught by Temujin - the fix didn't affect Tactics)

We generally get a bit more careful at making sure death variables get properly overwritten

Bodhi's Asylum turn-into-bat script (in Improved Vampires) wasn't compiling properly (thanks, Temujin)

Two of Melissan's Ascension spells weren't being correctly named (thanks, Temujin)

Fixed a couple of typos in cleric-mages' spell triggers (thanks, Temujin)

Fixed a few more cosmetic typos (again, thanks, Temujin)

Bodhi and the Shade Lord are now correctly flagged as UNDEAD (though they're immune to disruption and Turning)

The not-fully-working "broken potions" component is replaced with the one from SCS

DS no longer gets antimagic spells to set detectable stats to zero (this was redundant)

Ease-of-use AI is now correctly flagged as requiring Detectable Spells

Slightly modified the no-chunk component to be better at detecting PCs

Enemies can't run out of the Government District area (this should prevent some reported bugs)

Genies now correctly go into gaseous form only three times, and don't thereby regain their spells (resources borrowed from Demivrgvs with thanks)

Efreeti invisibility now hides their Fire Shield

Genie component now correctly allows for SR

Celestial component now correctly allows for SR

"More Staying Power" components now avoid double-counting if SR is installed

Corrected a glitch in the "chase offscreen PCs" block, so it doesn't fail if called twice in succession

Watcher's Keep dragon wasn't correctly getting innate-speed spellcasting

Melissan summons Bone Fiends (non-ascension version) which leads to Blood War problems. We replace them with Demon Knights

Hopefully summoned creatures really don't go hostile now

"Better calls for help" now handles situations where Ascension is installed before Fixpack

Fixed minor compatibility problem with the G3 anniversary mod: Smarter Mages no longer prevents Bev getting the Vibrissa

If UB "Suna Seni/Valygar relationship" is installed, Suna Seni is no longer present in the random city encounter

[DrAzTiK]

So cool ! Thanks a lot !

[Shaitan]

Wauv what an amount of work behind this. I thank you David. I'd also mention that it is very nice of you to make such a kind of release. I mean I practically only waits for a release of SR3, and releasing before a well deserved holiday is sweet!

[Graoumf]

Hello David,

 

I checked the .tra files... what an amount of strings! Do you think we can begin to work on the translation's update with the v10 beta version?

[DavidW]

Hello David,

 

I checked the .tra files... what an amount of strings! Do you think we can begin to work on the translation's update with the v10 beta version?

 

Yes, please do. (That gets round the usual problem that I'm not organised enough to give translators advance warning of changes.)

[Guest Shagar]

Congratulations on this release. It's always good to see so many new features and the fact that SCS and SCS II are synchronized once again for a BGT game. Superb job.

Anyway, after reading the readme I couldn't help to notice that certain suggestions such as Zallanora getting ToB HLAs, expanding the effects of the magic license in Athkatla to the buildings, restricting the bonus merchants to chapter 6 or increasing the fee for using magic in Athkatla didn't reach this version and that makes me wonder... is there any chance that we see them implemented in future versions of the mod?

[aVENGER_(RR)]

I'm getting an error while trying to install either of the "Smarter Beholders" component varieties:

 

ERROR: error compiling [scsii/mage/ssl_out/dw#image.baf]: Sys_error("scsii/mage/ssl_out/dw#image.baf: No such file or directory")
ERROR: compiling [scsii/mage/ssl_out/dw#image.baf]!

 

From the error report, I'm guessing that the installer expects to find some Simularcum/Project Image related file even though I chose not to install that component. Can anyone else reproduce this?

 

Update: apparently, this affects the "Smarter Mages" component as well.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Also, I can't seem to install either variety of the "Improved Irenicus in Hell" component due to this error:

 

ERROR: error loading [tactics2/ii/spl/ii0.spl]

 

I think this occurs due to typos in "ii.tph". All instances of "tactics2" should probably be replaced with "scsii".

[DavidW]

Following up aVENGER_RR's worry, there's some significant tangling in the way the new version does clones. Watch this space, I've probably just about got time to upload a fix.

[DavidW]

New version uploaded. (Silent update, same link.)

[Salk]

Thank you, DavidW!

 

I wish you a pleasant vacation.

[Shaitan]

I assume that SR3 and SCSII uses the same bugfixes from Taimon concerning MI and DM. Can you make SCSII check for these components allready installed from SR3?

 

Edit: I use the component from the Tweakpack which allows for classspecific strongholds (ie F/C gets both but bo more). Still this makes your new components allowing for multiple strongholds skipped. Intentional?

[DrAzTiK]

Personnaly, I also can't install smarter mage component

[Shaitan]

Have you tried the new download? I had no troubles...

[DrAzTiK]

Yes I have the new dowload...