Traveler's stone

[berelinde]

Got an idea for a new component of my hideous cheats mod, b!tweaks, while trekking up Aran Linvale's excessively long halway: a "traveler's stone" that lets you teleport to places that you need to go often. For example, if you're working for Aran Linvale, you can go to the hallway outside his room. If you're working for Bodhi, you can go to her lair. If you've been to the Adventure Mart once, you can use the stone to travel back there at will. I could probably also set it up so that people could use the stone to teleport to their various strongholds. The PC would have had to have been there once already, but after that, repeat trips wouldn't require a lot of walking. OK, it's cheesy, but then, so's the whole mod. Anyplace else a player might want to return to often enough to set the stone up for it?

 

I was thinking of adding this stone to Ribald's store, and making it expensive, like 12-18K.

 

I could make it so that the stone would teleport the party back to their starting location, as well. This wouldn't work if the player saved and reloaded, but that isn't really much of a big deal, since they would still be able to use the stone to travel somewhere else. Naturally, I would have to disable the stone in places that cannot be exited easily, pretty much anywhere in Chapters 4 and 5, Hell (naturally), and probably Suldanessellar.

[DavidW]

Naturally, I would have to disable the stone in places that cannot be exited easily, pretty much anywhere in Chapters 4 and 5, Hell (naturally), and probably Suldanessellar.

 

And the pocket plane, and the astral prison, and possibly WK. (And Saradush if you extend it to ToB.)

[Jarno Mikkola]

I was thinking of adding this stone to Ribald's store, and making it expensive, like 12-18K.

I would put the price to 9-10.000, and let the other mods and enhancements determine the real price...

[igi]

Rather than a pre-set list of your making, you could let the player set a number of markers (say five, as a nice round number) so they can choose themselves.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Rather than a pre-set list of your making, you could let the player set a number of markers (say five, as a nice round number) so they can choose themselves.

That would be really nice, but as I have no idea what would be involved with that, I have a question, how would we go about doing that? Would you use summon creature to make the points etc. or?

[berelinde]

@DavidW: I've got those. Also, the Planar Sphere, the Circus Tent, the Twisted Rune, the Elven Temple Ruins, and the Drizzt Do'Urden encounter area. I'm reluctant to include WK areas because IIRC, it's possible to leave once you've entered. You aren't locked in. Since I'm setting a global in Suldanesselar and in the stone heads area for ToB only games, there's probably no reason the player can't leave in SoA... unless I'm forgetting something about not being able to leave.

 

@Jarno: Thanks for the feedback on the price.

 

@igi: I thought about that, and it just got really complicated. I'm doing this through script area moves, so I'd still have to set up all possibilities. Since I'd need coordinates for every possible destination, it became impractical. So I would rather people just told me what locations they want to include.

 

So far, I've got the Adventure Mart, the Copper Coronet, the Mithrest Inn, the Five Flagons, all of the strongholds, and wherever the stone was last activated, using StorePartyLocations() and RestorePartyLocations(). I'm thinking about adding the temple of Ilmater in the Slums, as well.

 

 

Anyone have any other destinations to suggest?

 

So far, everything is working exactly as it should... apart from the fact that I can't get "Use Item" text to appear on the converse with item button.

[igi]

That would be really nice, but as I have no idea what would be involved with that, I have a question, how would we go about doing that? Would you use summon creature to make the points etc. or?

 

Pretty much. I had a concept teleport mod back in the day that did it; I'll see if I can dig it up if you're interested.

[Arashi Kai]

So far, I've got the Adventure Mart, the Copper Coronet, the Mithrest Inn, the Five Flagons, all of the strongholds, and wherever the stone was last activated, using StorePartyLocations() and RestorePartyLocations(). I'm thinking about adding the temple of Ilmater in the Slums, as well.

 

 

Anyone have any other destinations to suggest?

 

So far, everything is working exactly as it should... apart from the fact that I can't get "Use Item" text to appear on the converse with item button.

 

Glad it's working ! I would suggest that you can teleport only to places that you have previously visited. Teleporting a level 8 party into Suldanessellar is a terrible idea .

[Jarno Mikkola]

I thought about that, and it just got really complicated. I'm doing this through script area moves, so I'd still have to set up all possibilities. Since I'd need coordinates for every possible destination, it became impractical. So I would rather people just told me what locations they want to include.

Well, you could make it with creating invisible character to the desired destination and then move to the creature, the dialog can then be used to create the creatures, remove the not needed ones as 5 is maximum, and moving between them. Of course the destinations descriptions might brake the forth wall of the game, but so what. And yes the invisible creatures could brake it too if you wish to jail a dragon behind them... but that's for cheaters, like myself.

 

Glad it's working ! I would suggest that you can teleport only to places that you have previously visited. Teleporting a level 8 party into Suldanessellar is a terrible idea .

You didn't read the original description, did you?

Got an idea...: a "traveler's stone" that lets you teleport to places that you need to go often. For example; If you've been to the Adventure Mart once, you can use the stone to travel back there at will... The PC would have had to have been there once already, but after that, repeat trips wouldn't require a lot of walking. OK, it's cheesy, but then, so's the whole mod.

 

Pretty much. I had a concept teleport mod back in the day that did it; I'll see if I can dig it up if you're interested.

The one in here?

[berelinde]

@Jarno: Hmm. I've never tried to do anything like that, so I'm not terribly familiar with the scripting, but I'm reading the IESDP and see a bunch of ways this could be implemented. I'd just have to test them out one by one and see which work the way I want and which don't quite work the way I think they will.

 

Now, if this creature ever turned hostile for any reason, like being caught in the range of an AoE spell or something, that would be bad, but I could probably assign it a script to it to change it back to neutral...

[berelinde]

That would be really nice, but as I have no idea what would be involved with that, I have a question, how would we go about doing that? Would you use summon creature to make the points etc. or?

 

Pretty much. I had a concept teleport mod back in the day that did it; I'll see if I can dig it up if you're interested.

Yeah, I would be extremely interested if you wouldn't mind looking for it.

 

I've already got the "areas visited" method working in game, but it would be really cool to allow the player to set up 5 presets as well. For 10K gold or more, the PC had better be getting something for his money!

[igi]

Yeah, I would be extremely interested if you wouldn't mind looking for it.

 

It's in the link Jarno posted: http://www.teambg.eu/forum/index.php?topic=1043.0

[berelinde]

Thanks! I'll check it out.

[berelinde]

And I've checked it out. I like the idea very much, but I'm not comfortable with spell modding. It's just a bit beyond me, at this point. I'm better off sticking to script.

 

The good news is that I've figured out how to avoid issues if the PC is involved in combat.

 

Markers are good for one use, but there's nothing to stop the PC from placing another marker in the same place. So the PC would place the marker, go somewhere else, "teleport" back to the marker (really just MoveGlobalObject()), the marker destroys itself, and the player does whatever it was he was going to do there. If he wants to set another marker, fine. The markers are going to be invisible, indestructible CREs who change back to neutral if they're hostile, so it won't much matter if the PC decides to fireball the area. I'll test this out, naturally, but I'm thinking that it won't matter if the marker gets stuck in its own override script loop, because combat will eventually end.

 

Again, I'm going to test eveything out thoroughly before releasing this on an unsuspecting audience, but I think that allowing the PC up to 5 single use, replaceable markers in addition to a few preset areas (the Adventure Mart, a few inns, a few temples, Strongholds) will give the player the most bang for his buck... without exceeding my modding abilities.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Again, I'm going to test eveything out thoroughly before releasing this on an unsuspecting audience, but I think that allowing the PC up to 5 single use, replaceable markers in addition to a few preset areas (the Adventure Mart, a few inns, a few temples, Strongholds) will give the player the most bang for his buck... without exceeding my modding abilities.

Sounds promising, good skill.