My new "Made in Heaven" mods

[Angel]

2 hours ago, Endarire said:

For your Quest Pack readme, I think you made an oopsie:

Enhanced Firkraag's Lair
This component enhances Firkraag's lair in the Umar Hills. The Umar Hills spawn a wider selection of slightly stronger monsters, and see the return of a dangerous monster not seen since BG1, so better be prepared! Inside King Strohm's tomb you will now encounter some creatures that were previously unused in the game. The rest of the lair is mostly unchanged, but you may see some more orcs than before.

Note how you mentioned a tomb for Firkraag's Lair.

That entry does need to be updated, but King Strohm III's tomb really is in Firkraag's lair.  (The part with the genie guardians.)

[Endarire]

I totally forgot about the King Strohm's tomb being in Firkraag's place.

[Endarire]

@Angel
Since you mentioned weeks ago you were considering releasing a beta, what about releasing this beta so you get more and better feedback you can use to shape your mods in the near-term?

[Angel]

10 hours ago, Endarire said:

@Angel
Since you mentioned weeks ago you were considering releasing a beta, what about releasing this beta so you get more and better feedback you can use to shape your mods in the near-term?

Mm, it would be more of an alpha than a beta, as there are large parts yet untested, and a few bits still unfinished.  But you seem really eager to, so why not.

EDIT: It's up, v4alpha is available for those foolish brave enough to test it.  Just to be clear, this is an untested version.  Also, for old BG2/BGT, InfinityAnimations with at least the IWD animations is now required for several of the components.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Angel

[Endarire]

Thankee!

What makes it an alpha to you instead of a beta?

[Angel]

15 minutes ago, Endarire said:

What makes it an alpha to you instead of a beta?

A beta is in the final stages of development, has been tested to some degree, and just needs the last bugs flattened.

An alpha is an early concept that has received little or no testing and may have key features missing.  That's pretty much what this is.

[Austin]

Hello! The version available at the link contains the final texts, can we translate the mod into Russian? Or will the texts change in the future and we'd better wait?

Edited September 17, 2020 by Austin

[Angel]

Some parts are still unfinished, so there might be more text depending on what I decide to do with them.  I'll probably not change the current lines though.

Specifically, these parts are still unfinished:

• Enhanced Battles: Amkethran (only Vongoethe is finished, more or less)
• Enhanced Battles: Watcher's Keep (still have to do the deeper levels)
• Enhanced Battles: Sendai's Enclave (not even started yet)
• Enhanced Battles: Pocket Plane (only good part of Retribution is done)
• Enhanced Battles: Durlag's Tower (got some stuff planned for the demon knight)
• Enhanced Battles: Balduran's Isle (not even started yet)
• Enhanced Battles: Zombie Farm (still thinking on what to do with this one)
• Enhanced Battles: Athkatla Liches (haven't gotten to Kangaxx yet)

And for those interested in playing, these parts haven't had proper testing yet:

• Revised Ghoul Lords
• Revised Golems
• Revised Liches
• Revised Spiders
• Enhanced Battles: Undercity (recoded the old version with SFO, content mostly unchanged)
• Enhanced Battles: Spider Plague (rewrite from scratch)

Edited September 18, 2020 by Angel

[Endarire]

@Angel
More specifically, what do you want people to check/test/report regarding this mod version?

[Angel]

20 hours ago, Endarire said:

More specifically, what do you want people to check/test/report regarding this mod version?

I didn't really share it to be tested, more to show what I am up to, as it seems a few of you are quite curious. ^^  To be honest, my modding is rather haphazard, I do what seems to be a good idea at the time.  Too much planning makes it too much like work, and unless Beamdog wants to hire me as well I prefer this to remain strictly a hobby with no obligations. ^^

That said, if you want to test it the questions are of course:

1. Does it even work at all?  (I did smoke tests on old BG2, BGT, BGEE and BG2EE, but barely any functional testing.)
2. Was it too easy?  Too hard?  Just right?  Anything you'd like to see different?
3. Did I make any awful spelling- and/or grammar errors?  (English is not my first language.)
4. Anything else that might be of interest?

[jastey]

32 minutes ago, Angel said:

To be honest, my modding is rather haphazard, I do what seems to be a good idea at the time.  Too much planning makes it too much like work, and unless Beamdog wants to hire me as well I prefer this to remain strictly a hobby with no obligations. ^^

Very well said. +1

[Endarire]

@Angel
Does your "de-greening" also mean the removal of Evard's Green Tentacles in favor of black or dark gray ones?

[grodrigues]

Some suggestions for and questions about the new alpha compatibility, mostly with SCS.

- Graveyard Catacombs: does it play well with SCS improved Bodhi? A suggestion: independently of compatibility concerns, separate the catacomb encounters from Bodhi.

- Firkraag: how does the beef up of Firkraag play with SCS dragon enhancements? We will face something like a super Firkraag?

- Underdark: SCS touches and beefs up the Illithid Lair, including adding no-rest at hardcore level, as well as the numbers in the Beholder hive.

- SCS already revises several creatures on your list: spiders, golems, vampires, basilisks and probably a few more that I cannot remember right now. Expect compatibility issues?

Edited September 24, 2020 by grodrigues
typos

[Angel]

On 9/23/2020 at 5:09 AM, Endarire said:

Does your "de-greening" also mean the removal of Evard's Green Tentacles in favor of black or dark gray ones?

I'm sorry, but no.  This is mostly about the icons in the spell lists of the readme.  I did try to recolor the spell, but I couldn't figure it out, sorry.  I really don't understand bam/vvc/pro interaction very well, and there is precious little documentation on it.

49 minutes ago, grodrigues said:

Some suggestions for and questions about the new alpha compatibility, mostly with SCS.

- Graveyard Catacombs: does it play well with SCS improved Bodhi? A suggestion: independently of compatibility concerns, separate the catacomb encounters from Bodhi.

- Firkraag: how does the beef up of Firkraag play with SCS dragon enhancements? We will face something like a super Firkraag?

- Underdark: SCS touches and beefs up the Illithid Lair, including adding no-rest at hardcore level, as well as the numbers in the Beholder hive.

- SCS already revises several creatures on your list: spiders, golems, vampires, basilisks and probably a few more that I cannot remember right now. Expect compatibility issues?

In general, my mod plays very well with SCS in my own tests.  SCS concentrates mostly on AI enhancements while I do very little with AI scripts.  I wrote them in such a way that they can actually be installed in any order, so for those concerned it is possible to install the alpha after SCS in case you have to remove (parts of) it.

"Graveyard Catacombs" does not affect Bodhi herself at all (but Revised Vampires does, although only in a minor way since Bodhi is a very non-standard vampire), it mainly deals with what you face before encountering the mistress herself.  In my own experience it's not too difficult, to the point that I'm ramping it up much more radically.  (Thinking IWD Tomb of Kresselack level.)

"Firkraag" works fine with SCS.  The extra creatures spawn through the area script and thus don't directly affect Firkraag's AI at all.  They are some golems (type depends on difficulty slider) some fire elementals, and a steady stream of 12th level orc warriors and archers.  I don't know how it compares to "Super Firkraag" as I never tried that mod (something that is on my to-do list), but I found the battle an entertaining challenge.  However, the effect of my new "Revised Dragons" component on this battle is currently untested.  The main effects of that are to give him a proper claw/claw/bite routine and legendary status that comes with more HD and an improvement to AC and thac0. Default "scion" rank: +10 hd (+60 hp), -6 AC (-11 => -17) and -3 thac0 (-5 => -8, not counting his 25 strength).  Again, I do not change his AI scripts.

"Underdark" currently does not affect the beholder hive at all, and the illithid lair in only a small way.  I make the ogre jailer and the mad dwarf 20th level fighters, toughen up the umber hulks in the first arena battle (lesser scion legendary rank) and place a few extra creatures here and there, but not that many.  I could play through it combined with SCS with not too much trouble.  However, my new "Revised Golems" may have an effect on the battle with the Elder Brain, as I improve brain golems quite a bit.  The biggest effect of the Underdark component is actually on the kuo-toa which I make several levels higher (as I found them pitifully weak compared to the drow, beholders and illithid), and on the battle with Deirex the lich in the mage tower of Ust Natha, who will now constantly spawn undead minions.  (As with the Firkraag battle, they spawn through the area script and don't affect his AI at all.)  I actually planned to give him a few additional powers, but I haven't gotten to it yet.

There should be no trouble with SCS as far as I know.  SCS affects AI and I affect everything but AI.  Briefly: Spiders get +3 hd (BG1 already partially did this, so the difference shouldn't be too big), golems and vampires get a few additional resistances (biggest for vampires is probably their resistance to turning), greater basilisks their deadly gas cloud, liches gain turn immunity, resistance to edged and piercing weapons and their special abilities (fear, paralyzing touch) are a little harder to save against, jellies get their proper P&P abilities as do dread wolves and winter wolves, and ankheg gain their proper combat abilities and get flagged as the 8 hd creatures they actually are, making them immune to sleep.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Angel

[Endarire]

@Angel
I talked with @Grammarsalad (author of B_Spells) about this and he likely knows more about color changing.  Talk with him about spell recoloring.