Version 16 released

[DavidW]

Version 16 of SCS II is now out. This is the biggest update for about eighteen months; the most visible changes are a totally overhauled vampire component, a new set of options for beholders to make their anti-magic eye a bit more like the PnP antimagic ray, a new Improved Unseeing Eye component, full compatibility with Spell Revisions, integration of ToBEx, and a new Korean translation.

 

Full changelog:

 

New or heavily modified content

Korean translation added (courtesy Menocu)

Major overhaul to Smarter Vampires: vampires now get slightly faster regeneration, can summon rats, wolves or bats, can drink blood as well as draining levels, and make much more use of their shapeshift abilities

New Beholder options: beholders now, optionally, use an antimagic ray that's closer to PnP beholders (in which case they have a different targetting script for it)

New component: improved Unseeing Eye

New component: slower reputation increase

New component: give better proficiency choices and kits to fighters (and also sort out various errors in fighter files)

New component: spell triggers etc are now schoolless

New component: a few extra spell scrolls in stores

New component: Truesight grants immunity to blindness

New component: 10th level and quest spells are learned as innate abilities, not as memorisable spells (thanks to Vilkacis, TheBigg and Ardanis for help here)

SCSII mages and priests now make full allowance for Spell Revisions if it is installed. The new mage spells used are Conjure Elemental, Conjure Lesser Elemental, Create Undead, Disintegrate, Ghoul Touch, Knock, Larloch's Minor Drain, Summon Death Knight, Summon Hakeashar, Summon Nishruu, Symbol of Weakness, and Wyvern Call; the new priestt spells are Cause Critical Wounds, Cause Serious Wounds, Conjure Air Elemental, Create Undead, Sphere of Chaos, Summon Death Knight, Summon Shambling Mound, and Sunscorch. Targetting is revised for some other modified spells, and spell books and spell triggers are selected differently if SR is installed

SCSII mages and priests now allow for changes to the High-Level Abilities system made by the Refinements mod. High-level abilities used include Foresight, Aegis, Create Boneguard, Divine Shell, Malavon's Fury, and Spell Worm.

Added "hardcore" version of the Spellhold Items component

"Allow antimagic spells to penetrate Improved Invisibility" component now has a single-target option

Consolidated various fixes into an "initialise" component that also installs Detectable Spells and ToBEx

The core "initialise" component now fixes Spell Shield so that it works correctly (coded by Ardanis)

Deprecated the item randomiser in favour of Wisp's Item Randomizer mod

ToBEx integration

Minor tweaks, optimisations, and additions

The dwarf warrior in the North Forest now gets a melee weapon (thanks, DrAzTiK)

Priests now cast low-level healing spells as part of Ease-of-Use AI (thanks to TheBigg for code)

Shade lord now casts as a spellcaster of his level rather than as a 1st level caster (thanks, Polytope)

Beholders no longer use their telekinesis eye on creatures completely immune to magic (thanks, Guest)

Under-the-hood change: Ease-of-Use AI recoded to use SSL

The Beastmaster's beasts now get help scripts

Improved Starting Dungeon tweak: The elemental-air region in Irenicus's dungeon is no longer a safe place to rest

If "Smarter Fiends" is installed, liches are no longer invisible to summoned demons (this feature is in the vanilla game to make sure liches could cast Gate safely)

Power Words are no longer used in Timestop (we had problems with iterated targetting of the same creature; also, save Timestop for more disruptable spells)

Under-the-hood change: some old macros updated to properly allow for the possibility of spells with extended effects

Under-the-hood change: externalised mage and priest spell lists

Change to smarter general AI: Enemies should no longer be able to locate players they've never seen yet [technical detail: change to chase.ssl]

Illithids are a bit more willing to use their non-mind-affecting psionics on summons

Illithid detonation now destroys skeletons (this can be overridden at the console)

Spiderwebs are now single target

Tweaked mage targetting so that area-effect spells are cast a bit more randomly

Beholders no longer use their dispelling eye to remove fear effects from their fellows (it was causing false positives with morale-broken beholders)

Spell shield integrated into mage spell choices

Fighter/mages use Tenser's Transformation slightly more readily

Precast spells now have their animations hidden

Zallanora now flagged as a necromancer, in accordance (I'm told!) with FR source material

Streamlined mage spell scripts a bit, to cut out blocks that weren't being used by a given type of mage

Added Glitterdust, Vampiric Touch, Blindness, Energy Blades and Animate Dead to the list of spells used by mages

Mage scripts tweaked to take advantage of Truesight blocking blindness

Mage and priest scripts now deal a bit better with blindness

Spellhold convenient ammo no longer removed, for a better mesh with Remove Spellhold Items component

Elemental lich is now an Invoker; Shade Lich is now a necromancer

The bats summoned by vampires are now kept at bay by Fire Shield if the "weaken insect plague" component is installed

Added Greater Command, Greater Elemental Summoning, Elemental Summoning, and Cloak of Fear to the list of spells used by priests

Minor tweaks to the defences at Sendai's throne room

Instituted scsii.ini, basically as a way to incorporate specialised requests without messing up the mod's overall structure too much

Moved detectable items back into the main Initialise component (this can be overridden via scsii.ini)

Added an scsii.ini option to tweak mage and priest levels globally

Added an scsii.ini option for Sendai's Enclave to only improve the end-battle, not the rest of the enclave. (This was a request from Loz, a bit too specialised to add to the main mod structure)

Deirex is now on the list of mages flagged to get HLAs

Wizards now try to avoid Webbing their own Mordenkainen's Swords

Priests use touch attacks more readily

Slight tweaks to the use of Wish

If Spell Revisions is installed, beholders use an SR-style Disintegrate; the default is now that they do use it, not that they don't

Under-the-hood change: externalised overriding of priest levels

Raised the level of several high-level priests to allow more interesting access to HLAs

By popular demand, added a shortbow to the starting dungeon

Updated to WEIDU v227

Bugfixes

Fixed a bug that prevented Sahuagin spears from being poisonous (thanks, DrAzTiK)

The lizard men in Abazigal's lair no longer have their weapons flagged as non-magical (thanks, DrAzTiK)

Oozes and jellies no longer lose their ranged attacks

Corrected a bug where necromancers got access to Cacofiend if and only if they weren't liches (exactly the opposite was intended)

Fixed a bug in "smarter vampires" that was incorrectly setting the hit points for the weakest vampires, and which could cause install failure with some mods (e.g. Gavin)

Removed (harmless) double-compilation of Smarter Abazigal's script (thanks to Ardanis for spotting this)

Removed (basically harmless) typo in Smarter Fiends, which replaced an 8-letter string with a 7-letter one (thanks, ScuD)

Fixed a typo which (in rather exotic circumstances) prevented one of Abazigal's black dragon servants from casting instantly even if the appropriate "Smarter Dragons" component was installed

The djinni in the Ring of Djinni Summoning now gets the correct script (thanks, Igneous)

Fixed a bug which (in rather exotic circumstances) could prevent the elemental-summoning tanar'ri in WK from summoning correctly (thanks, Pol)

Hive Mothers no longer continuously re-protect themselves with Mantle and Stoneskin (thanks, Pol)

Corrected typo in Smarter Fiends that was slightly mis-arranging Melissan's summons (thanks, Pol)

Corrected some typos in the undead section of Improved Sahuagin (thanks, Pol)

Calls for help no longer dispel charm effects in some circumstances

Simyaz's gith and the random Underdark adventuring party no longer support each other

Golems are no longer immune to dedicated golem-smiting items

"Give Ascension demons SCSII abilities" corrects an Ascension bug en passant: FINCAMB now gets the correct demon-immunities ring

Teleport Field no longer used in the drow pit fight (this avoids problems where the PC fighter gets teleported right out of the arena)

Mages weren't correctly pre-casting Armor

Solved a problem of missing spells when Smarter Mages is installed but Smarter Fiends isn't

Fixed a bug where Hive Mothers weren't using their enhanced antimagic ray

Fixed a bug that was preventing beholders from finishing off charmed opponents

Lavok now correctly flagged as a Necromancer

Creatures with both slings and shields now use them correctly

Shadow Thief in Irenicus's dungeon hopefully now behaves sensibly

Smarter Vampires was failing to detect whether a vampire was Bodhi

The elves at the underdark exit now get their own help script rather than relying on a generic one - this guards against possible bugs where they erroneously turn hostile

The improved Ust Natha defenders are now correctly killed by the Lesser Demon Lord

Fixed a bug where wizards allied with the party were using Remove Magic inappropriately in some circumstances

Adalon was erroneously checking for fire resistance, not cold resistance

Fixed a code ordering error in Smarter Priests that was preventing some priests' scripts being rearranged to avoid non-combat scripting being blocked

Mages now check for Spell Turning before using Power Word: Blind

Compatibility fixes

Detectable Spells can now detect the Chaotic Commands effects in Oversight and AoE kits (thanks, Pol)

Removed a typo that was preventing SCSII efreeti overriding Quest Pack efreeti (thanks, ScuD)

Priest spellcasting is no longer prevented by effects that give mages a casting-failure chance (this was causing problems in mods that allow armour to be worn by mages with spellcasting failure chances)

The second Elder Orb is removed from the beholder hive whether or not Quest Pack is installed (previously it wasn't working when QP was installed)

Slightly esoteric compatibility fix: the "mage_smart_clones", "mage_alacrity" and "mage_make_timestop" macros no longer choke on spells with an extended header (thanks, Galactygon)

Tweaked demon-summoning code, for better compatibility with aTweaks

Mod should now install correctly if Fixpack isn't installed (though I still don't recommend this)

We no longer overwrite Spell Revisions' version of Trap the Soul

We don't avoid imprisoning Player1 any more if TheBigg's or Demivrgvs's safe version of Imprisonment is installed

A section of SR's SCS-compatibility hotfix is incorporated in the game, to avoid a game crash that can occur if someone installs SR v3 but not the hotfix

Corrected a minor compatibility issue where SR was preventing certain drow high priestesses from summoning Balors

SR no longer prevents enemy-summoned nymphs from using their intended AI

We now attempt to allow for aTweaks fiends

We now detect when third-party mods have changed HLAs to be innate abilities rather than spells

[Raj]

Looks like the downloads page isn't updated yet, because I can download v15 only.

 

 

By the way, in the old versions there were a couple issues regarding the starting dungeon, namely the ''Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game'' component making life miserable for fresh ranged characters and the shadow thief mage being too lazy and not casting any spell in the cutscene-like fight against the vampire. Did you do anything about those?

 

Edit:

 

A question about the detectable items bit: does it determine my current immunities checking the item name or checking its properties? ( asking because between Item Revision and my own changes many items are no longer granting their vanilla immunities, wonder if keeping it enabled might confuse the AI ).

 

''Raised the level of several high-level priests to allow more interesting access to HLAs'': does it change anything if I install the ''only selected priests gets HLA'' component?

[Salk]

I can confirm this. Both SCS and SCS II available for download are older versions.

[Graoumf]

There are both available on its project pages.

 

David, the french translation's updates I sent you in september are not in packages. I saw there are new strings anyway. Can we hope an update, even without changing numbers, if I send you the new .tra files?

[DavidW]

There are both available on the its project pages.

 

David, the french translation's updates I sent you in september are not in packages. I saw there are new strings anyway. Can we hope an update, even without changing numbers, if I send you the new .tra files?

 

Yes, sure. Sorry about that - I mod in fits and starts, and sometimes forget I've been sent a translation update if it turns up when I'm inactive.

[DavidW]

Looks like the downloads page isn't updated yet, because I can download v15 only.

 

Sorry, forgot to do this. Done now.

 

By the way, in the old versions there were a couple issues regarding the starting dungeon, namely the ''Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game'' component making life miserable for fresh ranged characters and the shadow thief mage being too lazy and not casting any spell in the cutscene-like fight against the vampire. Did you do anything about those?

Yep, both fixed. The second is mentioned in the readme; I forgot to put the first one in, but Unrealistically Convenient Ammunition now skips the first level of the dungeon.

 

 

A question about the detectable items bit: does it determine my current immunities checking the item name or checking its properties? ( asking because between Item Revision and my own changes many items are no longer granting their vanilla immunities, wonder if keeping it enabled might confuse the AI ).

It won't. The AI is very level-headed. Provided you install SCSII after any mod that changes items, it'll work out what the items do and allow for it. (Oh, one exception: the AI treats the Cloak of Mirroring as uber even if you mod it to be less so.)

 

''Raised the level of several high-level priests to allow more interesting access to HLAs'': does it change anything if I install the ''only selected priests gets HLA'' component?

 

Yep: Ardulace, the skeleton priest at Nyalee's temple, Yaga-Shura's priest, the priestess at the Final Seal and one of Sendai's clones are all significantly higher level and get HLAs from the "only selected" component. You'll probably only notice a slight difference if you don't install "HLAs become innate"; if you do, though, it significantly impacts how many HLAs they get and use.

[DrAzTiK]

Thank you very much for this new release !

 

Sorry but considering I am looking fighters very closely, I would have some remarque about :

 

New component: give better proficiency choices and kits to fighters (and also sort out various errors in fighter files)

 

Very cool component but it seems you give 5 stars to fighter/mage, fighters/prêtres,fighter/thief barbarian, berserker (for ranged weapons), and maybe some others class who should not have 5 stars. (only 2)

 

With some tweaks altering grand mastering , I think it can make some class unbalanced.

 

thank you again

[DavidW]

Thank you very much for this new release !

 

Sorry but considering I am looking fighters very closely, I would have some remarque about :

 

New component: give better proficiency choices and kits to fighters (and also sort out various errors in fighter files)

 

Very cool component but it seems you give 5 stars to fighter/mage, fighters/prêtres,fighter/thief barbarian, berserker (for ranged weapons), and maybe some others class who should not have 5 stars. (only 2)

 

I do respect the berserker ranged weapon constraint, and the barbarian constraint. I forgot about the multi-class constraint (mostly because I usually mod it away) but I'm unconvinced it will really make that much difference.

 

With some tweaks altering grand mastering , I think it can make some class unbalanced.

 

Sure, but any tweak can make things unbalanced.

[the bigg]

I do respect the berserker ranged weapon constraint, and the barbarian constraint. I forgot about the multi-class constraint (mostly because I usually mod it away) but I'm unconvinced it will really make that much difference.

Berzerkers can only get a single * in ranged weapons; moreover, having 5* instead of 2* amounts to a full extra attack with the restored rules (although I can appreciate that only a couple of bosses will be affected by that). Perhaps you could read the limitations from WEAPPROF.2DA to be compatible with mods that manipulate weapon rules?

 

I see you haven't released a Linux version - do you need more help with that?

[DavidW]

I do respect the berserker ranged weapon constraint, and the barbarian constraint. I forgot about the multi-class constraint (mostly because I usually mod it away) but I'm unconvinced it will really make that much difference.

Berzerkers can only get a single * in ranged weapons

 

Oops, I can't read.

 

Perhaps you could read the limitations from WEAPPROF.2DA to be compatible with mods that manipulate weapon rules?

 

Yes, that would be sensible.

 

I see you haven't released a Linux version - do you need more help with that?

 

Possibly - to be honest it's just been a matter of time (and the awkwardness of testing). There's a solution around that I ought to try implementing, isn't there?

[the bigg]

Possibly - to be honest it's just been a matter of time (and the awkwardness of testing). There's a solution around that I ought to try implementing, isn't there?

The discussion is split across three threads, but you need to do three things (which were enough for grogerson to report install success and quick gameplay success):

1) run tolower to make sure all your scs(ii) file names are in lowercase

2) textually replace scsII with scsii in all of your file contents

3) add EXACT to the end of this line: AT_NOW ~/usr/bin/perl scsii/ssl/ssl.pl "%filename% %sslvariables% -l scsii/ssl/library scsii/ssl/autolib"~ in scsii/ssl/ssl.tph (and, as per 2, ensure that scsii is written in lowercase).

 

I could upload Linux builds for both scs and scsii if you want me to.

 

For future versions, the only thing you need to do is ensure that you write scsii instead of scsII in your code.

[DavidW]

Possibly - to be honest it's just been a matter of time (and the awkwardness of testing). There's a solution around that I ought to try implementing, isn't there?

The discussion is split across three threads, but you need to do three things (which were enough for grogerson to report install success and quick gameplay success):

1) run tolower to make sure all your scs(ii) file names are in lowercase

2) textually replace scsII with scsii in all of your file contents

3) add EXACT to the end of this line: AT_NOW ~/usr/bin/perl scsii/ssl/ssl.pl "%filename% %sslvariables% -l scsii/ssl/library scsii/ssl/autolib"~ in scsii/ssl/ssl.tph (and, as per 2, ensure that scsii is written in lowercase).

 

I could upload Linux builds for both scs and scsii if you want me to.

 

Yes, that would be marvellous.

 

For future versions, the only thing you need to do is ensure that you write scsii instead of scsII in your code.

 

I've started doing that already. Presumably I'd have to use the Linux versions as my starting point for new versions too.

[the bigg]

Here you go: http://www.mediafire.com/?0la74vshlx492

 

You'd probably want to start a thread asking some Linux user to check whether they install and appear to act correctly (basically, devise some quick 'n dirty test to see whether SSL parameters written in MixedCase were passed correctly to the SSL interpreter).

[DavidW]

Here you go: http://www.mediafire.com/?0la74vshlx492

 

Thanks! (I'm at work atm, will sort out shortly.)

 

You'd probably want to start a thread asking some Linux user to check whether they install and appear to act correctly (basically, devise some quick 'n dirty test to see whether SSL parameters written in MixedCase were passed correctly to the SSL interpreter).

 

In practice, I think it's very unlikely that scripts would still compile if that were the case, so we'd get install failures.

[Daulmakan]

You have a mistyped acronym tag in the readme:

acronym title="Sword Coast Stratagems for Baldur's Gate II">SCS II fairly safely