4udr4n

13 hours ago, sirnicklaus said:

That point makes some sense if the end goal is to make all ranged weapons equally effective.  I guess in my mind the sling should be a less appealing option.  One that mages, clerics, etc. may have to resort to because they can not use some of the more impressive ranged weapons. 

In my current playthrough I have two dual class warriors.  One with grand mastery in axes and the other in slings.  Their attack rate is the same, but the sling user's THAC0 and damage output kind of make the throwing axes look like a joke.  Especially after casting Draw Upon Holy Might or consuming a giant strength potion.  I'm skeptical that a slung stone would be even AS deadly as the blade of a thrown axe, let alone much more so.  Feels very off.

Slings are ridiculously misrepresented in games generally. They are longer ranged than bows and at least as deadly, probably in many cases much more so vs armoured opponents. Here's more from Todd:

I think the issue with them is that it takes a huge amount of practice to become accurate (having tried!), particularly vs moving targets.

In a battlefield context, I'd much rather face archers than slings, the hails of stones/bullets would be terrifying even in armour, but as a skirmishing adventurer I suspect a bow would be more of a threat.

Slings are also common, cheap, biodegradable and unglamourous, which harms their historical reputation and preservation.

8 hours ago, sirnicklaus said:

The link you provided goes to a music album.  You meant to paste a different one perhaps?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK96h2dyJfI&t=610s (also corrected above)

8 hours ago, sirnicklaus said:

The idea that darts are too light to carry the force is interesting.  Being light would just mean that the dart could be thrown at a higher rate of speed than a heavier implement.  Unless they're more lobbed than hurled.

Exactly the point I was trying to make with the link! Darts in AD&D are not modelled on modern sport darts or shuriken, but on plumbata (think lawn darts made for war!). Strength is extremely relevant, and you can throw them very rapidly (though probably no more rapidly than throwing knives).

8 hours ago, sirnicklaus said:

Would you point me towards the specific mod that removes the bonus from slings? 

That would mean searching through the readmes of quite a few tweak mods. I'll take a quick look this evening.

3 hours ago, jmerry said:

Then the EE also has a flag which applies only the damage bonus; this is used for slings and thrown axes/daggers/hammers, but not other ranged weapons (in the BG series, anyway). I don't think there's a clean way to get the damage bonus for strength in a pre-EE game without also getting the attack bonus.

I've always though that all thrown weapons should get a damage bonus for strength and THAC0 bonus for Dex, but that it is more complex with bows:
If we're shooting for realism, bows require a certain amount of strength to draw fully, but they can be drawn partially by a weaker user. Below full draw they will be both less powerful and less accurate. Excess strength makes no difference (overdrawing a bow can also make it less accurate and will end up breaking it) except to help the user not get fatigued. You could show this in game by giving bows a low minimum strength but penalties to THAC0 and damage below a higher strength number.
Light crossbows are generally reloaded using strength, whereas heavy crossbows (windlass/arbalest) use a mechanism that is not strength dependant, so arguably light crossbows should have a strength requirement but heavy should not.

Pretty sure this has been discussed ad infinitum.

There are number of mods that add strength bonuses to thrown weapons (often excluding darts, which seems odd, worth watching this:

) and I think I recall seeing one that removed it from slings.

6 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

that will mean that your fork isn't really a fork in GitHub terms and you lose the network traceability (something which I'd consider relevant for transparency)

Ah, gotcha. Perhaps not an issue in cases like AstroBryGuy's account deletion, but relevant for others.

1 hour ago, JohnBob said:

Should we consider a more community-based backup on github ?

Something like this but in an organisation github with several repositories.

Of course it's just an idea... It might be interesting to open a thread dedicated to this topic.

I would be in favour, though ideally I think the backup should be private/hidden to prevent confusion about the appropriate source for users with backed up mods only made public in the event of the OG being lost or falling out of maintenance.

3 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

You can't use Wayback to rebuild the git history, unfortunately and that's what I consider the most value here. Also, last I checked, public repos can't be forked off privately.

Yeah, I only included wayback links to confirm which mods.

I'm very much just learning git, so happy to be wrong here but: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10065526/github-how-to-make-a-fork-of-public-repository-private

3 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

planned to roll the NWN2 sets into my NWN pack

Sounds sensible.

My local copies are here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/lo05nwf1eqj3i9ck11d8e/h?rlkey=14mv73km4uwxglvwkg3i7xnuw&dl=0

5 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

...AstroBryGuy deleted his GitHub...

We're still going over how much this affected the scene (atm I'm only aware of Jaheira Recast losing it's git history)

That's sad.

AstrobryGuy mods from my list to check for:

• NWN2 Soundsets v2.2 (https://web.archive.org/web/20230608064442/https://github.com/AstroBryGuy/NWN2SoundSets)
• Jaheira Recast v3.0 (https://web.archive.org/web/20221210000319/https://github.com/AstroBryGuy/JaheiraRecast)
• Sod Dialogue Banters v? (https://web.archive.org/web/20201021221244/https://github.com/AstroBryGuy/SoD-Dialog-Banters)
• Neera Banters v0.9.1 (You got this one? https://github.com/droideck/NeeraBanters)
• Chatty Imoen v1.5 (I see you and Jastey have forks but they are v1.3 - https://github.com/Gitjas/ChattyImoen)

I have (windows zip) copies of the most recent versions of all of these except sod dialogue banters in case that is helpful?

Is it worth creating a private repo with forks of mods and automating synchronisation with upstream, so they can be recovered if upstream is deleted (to the gate project or similar), or would this be a violation of the licence and/or modders right to remove their work from publication?

Big clean-up of the Non-EET section today, now sorted by category.

Mods with a green name are ones I want to check for EET compatibility.

@BlackStrapMolasses thanks for all the comments, those are all actioned now.

Ran some test installs yesterday and updated a bunch of stuff in the guide.

I hope to have some sample stable logs up soon.

44 minutes ago, sirnicklaus said:

How does the weapon they're equipped with (unless it were offering a slashing resistance modifier) affect the damage they take from the sword hitting them?

Wiki says:
using a ranged weapon against a melee attacker gives -8 penalty to THAC0, whereas the melee attacker gains a +4 THAC0 and damage bonus when engaging an enemy that uses a ranged weapon

57 minutes ago, jastey said:

I'd recommend tagging the EE Fixpack as "not released yet, install at own risk". It's listed as beta, which it is not yet.

Done.

31 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

Regarding split mod suggestion, I find the "main" definition vague. If a mod is supposed to be split, then I'd prefer the more exact "everything excluding X" over it. Regarding, SCS, I would call the "main" slots AI enhancements, because the spelltweaks should be before kits anyway, due to selected kits (Artisan Troubadour, S&S Chorister) able to inherit the healing/restoration spell buffs.

I agree, consider this a placeholder for listing the specific components.

I agree that it probably shouldn't give bonuses against characters with class abilities to shapeshift, otherwise maybe it should include Mages, Bards and Sorcerers as they can shapeshift using polymorph self (maybe Tenser's too?).

What might be an interesting idea for a modded version would be to have it +3 vs any character not in their base form. Would that be easy to detect?

3 minutes ago, BlackStrapMolasses said:

I was looking for a place where someone has compared all the tweaks made by the various tweak mods and catalogued those that change the same thing - it would be useful.

I started this in a separate doc ages ago, will drop what I have in a new column.

11 minutes ago, BlackStrapMolasses said:

I noted an inconsistency in the order for "Viconia Revamped" (commented).

Ah, this is from merging F&P with it's multiclass component, well spotted.

Hey all, happy to have you here as this is all compatibility related, but it is getting quite tangential now.

Might be worth starting/moving to a dedicated " BWP-FR & BWS-FR-Fixpack" thread? @CamDawg

In other news, I am some way through the BWP-FR install order and will have a lot of questions once I'm done.

3 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

Regarding the list - Extended Animations should be depreciated outright, it's in EE 1.3 format. Deep Gnomes should be deleted, that's a trimmed version of Aurora's Shoes and Boots.

Done, thank you.

Those were in the non-eet list which probably needs a serious cleanup. I have barely touched it in years.

1 minute ago, Anton said:

Neither SoD2BG2 Item Upgrade, nor Soundsets, which 4rdur4n proposes to put first,

I'm fairly sure I've always advised DLCmerger before everything and I have had installs circa 2020 with those functioning (soundsets partially) when installed before EET.
Regardless, they are no longer in that order in my guide so we are now in agreement.

8 minutes ago, Anton said:

Svlast (32) and Nim Furlwing (30)

Thanks for the reminder that these are the overlapping components, I've added them to my guide.

9 minutes ago, Anton said:

I don’t know what “mod checker” or “mod converter” do

They are tools for modders.

13 minutes ago, Anton said:

  Lure of Sirine’s Call (everything, since I don’t do graphics overhaul)

Can you link to discussion of incompatibility please, I wasn't aware of this.

17 minutes ago, Anton said:

Back to Brynnlaw (I don’t use Tactics so incompatibility doesn’t matter)

Is this regarding the lich room issue?

21 minutes ago, Anton said:

Skie (a pass on the Resurrection of Eddard Silvershield)

Some say that is the best bit! I'd agree.

23 minutes ago, Anton said:

Test your Mettle! (75% damage reduction; for some reason 4udr4n’s list places this here, Idk but ok)

I think that was an error, it is currently before SirinesCall.

3 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

“I don’t really see why SCS has to be last, I think maybe it could be first.”

I am very much a player, not a modder, and though I work in IT, it's in sales rather than technical.

Despite that handicap, even I can grasp that mods which aim to make broad changes across the game will need to do so after mods which add content that would be affected. I can also see the value in accepting the wisdom of others with more expertise (at least unless/until my experience contradicts it!).

It baffles me that others cannot.

4 minutes ago, Alywena said:

Hello @4udr4n

First of all, I'd like to congratulate you and encourage you in your work, because I know it's not easy.

I myself am working on a fork of BigWorldSetup, updated for EE, but only supporting mods that have a French translation. And I've done the same thing as you (read all the readme, looked for information on the forums about the order of installation and incompatibilities).

I can see that you've obtained some information that I didn't have, so I'm going to use it to improve the BWS-FR. However, I encourage you to take a look at what has already been done within BWS-FR and take whatever you consider useful. Its installations are stable, several French players have done various installations and were able to finish the game without any major problems.

One of the special features is that it also includes a Fixpack that fixes various bugs (I'm trying to create PRs on the official repositories) and improves compatibility. 

In future releases, I plan to implement a check that will warn the user of possible problems such as too many entries in the splstate.ids file, whether if the limit of 50 spells per level has been exceeded, etc.

That's a great project, also good to see that the fixpack is standalone and you are making pull requests.

I hope my list is useful, and I will review yours too. Please let me know if you notice any missing information on mine and I'll do the same in return.

It had occurred to me that adding a list of which languages each mod is available in could be useful, and I can probably add French to many of them now!

17 minutes ago, BlackStrapMolasses said:

have they been checked?

Not for a long time.

2 minutes ago, moggadeet said:

some of them are "conceptual conflicts."

And some of them are valid, but for forks that lag main branch updates because Roxanne is only really interested in a very specific sort of compatibility; that with Roxanne's mods.

I'm happy to investigate any suggestions that come from the EET Install Tool, but my past experience with it and every report I've seen since leaves me unwilling to use or trust it.

I also anticipate that many modders are already fed up with explaining that their mod is fine and the reason it doesn't work for a given user is the EET Install Tool breaking it or using a dodgy fork, so adding to that by pestering them regarding potentially untrustworthy compatibility info may not be well received.

On 10/23/2023 at 8:59 PM, BlackStrapMolasses said:

Edit: added some comments on the non-EET sheet to identify mods that are on this list

Huge thanks for these, I've updated with your suggestions.

Good enough, I'll stick it in my next install and report back.

Hi @Lava, @jmaeq is Yoshimo's remorse fully EET compatible? I'd liek to add it to my guide if so.

On 9/4/2023 at 7:57 AM, testlum said:

1. "Fare" is probably supposed to be "fair". I'm not sure whether "aright" is slang or if it's supposed to be "alright"?

Could also be "fayre" if the writer was going for archaic English, though most characters refer to it as the Carnival.
Aright is fine, it's another archaic English word, means correctly. It will look like a typo to anyone who is unaware of this though, so possibly changing it to 'rightly' would preserve the olde worlde feel but not look odd. In my head it'll be Wiltshire accent though, unsure if that's a positive.

On 9/4/2023 at 7:57 AM, testlum said:

EDIT: Another typo in this quest. Missing "to" between "explain" and "me".

Alternatively: unnecessary 'me' between explain and how.

10 hours ago, BlackStrapMolasses said:

I don't know if my knowledge is up for that, but I'm happy to assist where I can.

Great!

10 hours ago, BlackStrapMolasses said:

re, my mod suggestions, most of them are on this https://k4thos.github.io/EET-Compatibility-List/EET-Compatibility-List.html,  Is this the correct EET Compatibility List? (Edit: added some comments on the non-EET sheet to identify mods that are on this list)

I thought I'd done those, thanks! Yes that's the 'official' list.

10 hours ago, BlackStrapMolasses said:

Now, I'm new here and have no wish to reopen old wounds.  But, there is a mod author out there who appears to be unpopular around here because of her "liberal" approach to intellectual property who has a tool (also apparently unpopular) with a suggested install order.  Has anyone reviewed that install order?

I did look at that originally (2020) but it is extremely unreliable. Quite a few of the mods are actually forks with content changes and 'compatibility patches' and as soon as you try the same order with the main branch things fall apart.

15 minutes ago, phlaphee said:

  NPCEE has worked much better for me than stratagems:4100.

The one thing I like about that component is that it raises exp of NPCs when recruiting them to around your level, which allows me to swap out party members and experience more content in the games this way.
The only issue I've encountered with it is that it doesn't interact perfectly with Faiths and Power's Paladin modifications, but it's something I can easily solve via console.

Understood, though if you are happy with console for that, you can just console the XP to newly joined companions.