Why Did I Write These?
You are right to ask why I'm releasing these when there are already so many AI scripts out there. To that I'd say you are correct because some of them are really good. I'd like to explicitly acknowledge Sarevok57's amazing scripts. This year, I was dissatisfied with the scripts that the game offered and looked to better ones. There I found Sarevok57's work. His scripts were really good; however, they didn't match my playstyle as well as I wanted. As a Computer Science major, I asked myself how hard can it be to make my own scripts? I used Sarevok57's scripts as a baseline and developed my own off of his work making updates and tweaks to most every area. With his blessing I am sharing these with you today.
Content
These scripts are focused on heavy physical damage parties in both melee and ranged. To me, spells are only there to protect me from enemy damage, enhance my physical damage, and strip the enemies of their spell protections. These scripts do everything to manage the minutiae of play, so the player can focus on other things. Specifically these:
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Allow the player to pre-buff before any fight by pressing the "B" key. I hate pre-buffing, it is tedious to go through all spells and manually cast. Additionally, you have to check to ensure you cast long duration spells first and such. No bueno. Know what is bueno? Hitting the "B" key and watching all selected characters start pre-buffing. This is literally the "Easy Button" to buffing saving you time and allowing you to focus on what really matters. Characters will state when they begin pre-buffing and when they complete pre-buffing. If an enemy is sighted or the "B" key is pressed again, pre-buffing will cancel and the character will announce they were not able to complete the pre-buffing. Buffs will be cast with longest duration ones first moving to shortest duration. This takes all the guessing out of it.
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Automatically using appropriate healing potions and antidotes in combat.
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Automatic use of healing spells when out of combat. Focus is on casting the appropriate healing spell in relation to the amount of damage being healed (i.e. reduced overhealing). Additionally, characters using these scripts will take turns when healing to avoid overhealing.
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Casting PfMW or Shield of Lathander (SCS IWD spell that acts as the Cleric version of PfMW) if health drops below a threshold.
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Detecting Invisibility and intelligent debuffing of enemy protections.
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Spells will not be cast in Wild Magic Areas, Dead Magic Areas, or in Athkatla when the licence to use magic is not purchased/Cowled Wizards are harassing you. The casting in Athkatla can be toggled on/off by pressing the "T" key in the event the player wants to fight the Cowled Wizards.
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Intelligent use of equipment special abilities.
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Only attack enemies that they have the capability to hit and damage. I toyed with the idea of making a more improved targeting system, but decided against it. I really dislike in other scripts if I am focusing on a target and the script reassigns my enemy to someone else.
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Enemy threat rating calculations are done using enhanced functions offered by EEex. All visible enemies will be assessed and a threat rating determined which will assist the ai in determining if the encounter is difficult enough to warrant certain spell use. Enemy threat ratings are continually adjusted in combat and reset after a fight is completed. This means a fight may start off as a challenge, but later determined as no longer a challenge as enemies are removed. If EEex is not present, or only an older version is installed, then this feature is skipped.
Compatibility
If you are upgrading from an earlier version of this mod, I recommend uninstalling all mod components and replacing all files with the new ones before doing a fresh install.
If you are installing any of the below listed mods, they should be installed before this mod. Typically, I recommend to install my scripts at the very end of the mod install order.
As of version 0.9.0, these scripts utilize custom triggers from EEex (if installed). If EEex is not installed, the scripts will still function, just without the additional triggers. Please note: version 0.9.8 of EEex introduces additional functions that allow for enemy threat rating to be determined. If an older version of EEex is installed, this part will be skipped.
These scripts cannot be installed if Olvyn spells are previously installed.
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition, and Enhanced Edition Trilogy
The mod has support for aTweaks, IWD spells (from either Sword Coast Stratagems or IWDification), Skills and Abilities, Sword Coast Stratagems, D5 Random Tweaks, Dark Side of the Sword Coast, Made in Heaven Spellpack and Itempack, Song & Silence, Tome & Blood, Faith & Powers, 5e Spellcasting, and for changes from Spell Revisions (Revised) and Item Revisions (Revised).
Before modding SoD games, it requires use of either DLCMerger or ModMerge (DLCMerger Preferred).
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
This mod has support for Skills and Abilities.
Components
Below are the components for the install allowing you to pick and choose what changes you would like to see made. Each one will provide a prompt, so you can skip what you don't want.
Main Component
This is the main component that will auto-detect your mod installations and provide scripts based on the installs listed above. These can dynamically create over 1.5 MILLION scripts depending on what spell/kit mods you have installed. You will have the option to select having either pre-buffing cast at a normal speed or an accelerated speed. Regardless of either option chosen, characters will stop pre-buffing if either the "B" key is pressed again or an enemy is sighted.
Normal Pre-Buffing Speed
It will take the normal casting time for a spell to be cast and there will be the standard delay between spells being cast. This is meant for the purists that do not want to bend the rules for expediency sake. For testing, it can take 2 1/2 minutes plus to cycle through all spells if you have all spells for pre-buffing in your spellbook.
Accelerated Pre-Buffing Speed
This is for people who walk on escalators and want to bend the rules a bit. Spells will be instantly cast and there will be no delay between spell castings. With this option, you may have spells active that would normally expire by the time normal pre-buffing ends. In effect, you may have certain spells active that you shouldn't. For testing, using the same spells as the Normal Pre-Buffing Speed testing, it took approximately 20 ~ 30 seconds to complete all pre-buffing. Just over a 2 minute decrease in time waiting for your characters to pre-buff.
Intelligent Enemy Debuffing
If an enemy has PfMW, Mantle, Improved Mantle, Absolute Immunity, or Shield of Lathander, the scripts will automatically get to work removing spell protections to take those down and allowing your fighters to do what they do best: putting the pointy end in the bad guy. The scripts use the minimum level spell necessary to strip spell protections, so you will not launch Spellstrike on an enemy when Secret Word will do (assuming you have Secret Word).
Intelligent Detection of Invisible Enemies
These are the most advanced scripts at detecting and countering invisible enemies. As soon as an enemy is detected that is invisible or stealthed, nomatter the means, characters will get to work using the appropriate spell to detect them. Many times, your characters will cast the appropriate detection spell before you even realize an invisible enemy is present. These are that advanced.
Item Usage (BGII: EE and EET Required)
These scripts will utilize items such as Amulet of the Cheetah, Ilbratha+1, Ring of Duplication, Gargoyle Boots, Headband of the Devout, Girdle of Fortitude, Ring of Spell Turning, Cloak of the Stars, Cowl of the Stars, Belt of Minor Invulnerability, Cloak of the Dark Moon, and the Shield of Fyrus Khal. Additionally, these scripts will also assist in automatically swapping items in order to cast an items effect and then swapping back to the original item. This will be done seamlessly. For example, if you have either Gargoyle Boots or Boots of Speed equipped with the other item in your inventory, then the script will automatically swap items to equip the Gargoyle Boots, cast Stoneskin (if there is a charge), then swap back to the Boots of Speed. The player will not notice any item swapping from the game screen, but they will have a seamless casting of Stoneskin. This saves a lot of micromanagement to swap boots and cast Stoneskin. Additionally, the MO-MONK will do a similar swap with Ilbratha+1 and the Scarlet Ninja-To in order to cast Mirror Images.
The Scripts
The scripts are now listed as Enhanced Powergaming Scripts listed under the previous Advanced AI option. Here, the player has the option to select multiple radial buttons to custom tweak the interaction the AI scripts have.
Attack Enemies
The character will attack enemies on sight.
Solo Buffing
The character will only focus on buffing themself during pre-buffing. For example: The character will only use Improved Haste on themself instead of other members in the party.
Group Buffing
The character will buff fellow party members in addition to themself during pre-buffing. For example: The character will use Improved Haste on themself AND other members in the party.
Use Items
The character will use items such as potions.
Enemy Debuffing/Curative/Healing
The character will use debuffing spells against enemies, curative spells to remove enemy debuffs on themself and allies, and healing spells. The spells used include Breach, Ruby Ray of Reversal, True Sight, Remove Paralysis, Raise Dead, and Heal.
Use Offensive Spells
The character will use offensive spells such as Sunray, False, Dawn, Insect Plague, and Greater Malison.
Use Defensive Spells
The character will use defensive spells such as Mirror Image or Stoneskin.
Find Traps
The character will constantly search for traps and illusions.
Hide in Shadows
The character will hide in shadows when idle.
Sing Bard Song
The character will sing a bard song.
Turn Undead
The character will constantly turn undead.
Enhanced Scripts for Summoned Celestials (BGII: EE and EET Required)
This provides enhanced ai scripts for celestials. Overall, the scripts allows the player to be more hands off with summoned celestials, and they will act intelligently in targeting enemies. Like the other scripts listed above, this script will cast pre-buff spells when the "B" key is pressed. Spell Revisions also rewrote their spellbooks, and the scripts will accommodate these changes.
Enhanced Scripts for Simulacrums (BGII: EE, EET, or IWD: EE Required)
This provides enhanced ai scripts for summoned Simulacrums allowing the player to be more hands off while the Simulacrums will act intelligently in targeting enemies, casting protection spells, detecting invisible/hidden enemies, debuffing enemy protections, and capable of pre-buffing! The Simulacrum will work with all of the hotkeys offered in my scripts.
ini file
The ini file allows players to customize certain settings to their preference.
Hotkeys
Type in the hotkey you wish to map to the corresponding action.
- hot_key_Buffing - Default "B" - toggles the key to begin and cancel pre-buffing.
- hot_key_LongBuffing - Dafualt "N" - toggles the key to begin and cancel buffing long duration buffs.
- hot_key_CowledCheck - Default "T" - toggles on and off to cast spells in Athkatla if they have not paid the bounty or finished fighting the Cowled Wizards.
- hot_key_WeaponSwap - Default "E" - swaps the between melee and ranged weapons so long as either can be equipped.
- hot_key_SoloBuff - Default "K" - swaps between solo and party buffing. This allows you to have some characters buff everyone in the party, while other characters (such as sorcerers) will not burn through their spells on the party if they are set to solo buff.
- hot_key_SwapSkills - Default "V" - swaps between the various skill modes: no special skill use, find traps, hide in shadows, singing, and turn undead.
Script Tweaks
This allows the player to fine-tune aspects of the scripts. 1 turns the feature on while 0 turns it off.
- script_dialog is defaulted to 1. This turns on or off hover text appearing when certain abilities are used in combat.
- fast_healing is defaulted to 0. This turns on or off instant casting of healing spells to speed up the healing process when out of combat.