At the risk of being blunt: I'm delighted and flattered that people want an iPad version of SCS, but (a) I think it's fairly premature to do any significant work to create it since this is still a beta version of the PC version; (b) there is virtually nothing I can do to help, since I know very little about the iPad under the hood and have no desire to jailbreak my own.
You are right that it is premature. But if I can make this work, I can learn a lot along the way. Not t mention SOMEONE has to start paving the way. I figured for the first time, "why not me?".
Take THREE. Again, with the --yes mod I have yet again received different results. Obviously I am not doing something consistently.
Candlekeep was there, Gorion did have visible stone skin, Tarnesh did pre-cast armor and mirror image as well as follow up my glitterdust, horror, and magic missile. Oh and that bard... Eldoth is it? I never used him, was present in his altered location (no spoilers here).
No errors this time, nothing strange. Just a few things that don't work as I expected with --yes. Next I will do a completely manual install and see what happens but it seems like the mod may actually work on the iPad and I was simply doing something wrong.
@mars0124 - Any chance you can add some spoiler tags to some of your previous posts? This is an announcement thread and I'm sure there are some of us who have never used SCS before and would prefer not to have spoilers. Thanks.
Take THREE. Again, with the --yes mod I have yet again received different results. Obviously I am not doing something consistently.
Candlekeep was there, Gorion did have visible stone skin, Tarnesh did pre-cast armor and mirror image as well as follow up my glitterdust, horror, and magic missile. Oh and that bard... Eldoth is it? I never used him, was present in his altered location (no spoilers here).
No errors this time, nothing strange. Just a few things that don't work as I expected with --yes. Next I will do a completely manual install and see what happens but it seems like the mod may actually work on the iPad and I was simply doing something wrong.
I can try doing an install if you think it would help?
@wowo Sure! I used the iFunBox method for my tests this time as its so much faster than SAMBA.
@DavidW I think I know why the Stoneskin animation didn't work. I read it on your site but it wasn't mentioned in the logs at all! Ie, it's not not (double negative) working.
As for skipping Candlekeep, well, with --yes it defaults to 1 (don't give the option to skip). I manually set this to 2 (skip).
The short version... It is working with a clean copy of BG:EE on the iPad.
@wowo Sure! I used the iFunBox method for my tests this time as its so much faster than SAMBA.
@DavidW I think I know why the Stoneskin animation didn't work. I read it on your site but it wasn't mentioned in the logs at all! Ie, it's not not (double negative) working.
As for skipping Candlekeep, well, with --yes it defaults to 1 (don't give the option to skip). I manually set this to 2 (skip).
The short version... It is working with a clean copy of BG:EE on the iPad.
**** YES!
Now I just have to bumble through it myself ...
With the ifunbox method is a PC version of BG:EE required to be installed?
@wowo not at all. You can just copy Baldur's Gate.app from the iPad to the PC and apply mods there. On PC place \lang\en_US\dialog.tlk in the save dir as data, override, etc. I'll try and do an official write-up today.
Also, I've mostly finished writing some scripts that automate the transfer portion of Override/dialog.tlk, so I might get to delete most of the text in the iPad Howto.
Not sure if this is the right place to ask/report, but since i couldn't find any other threads on SCS here...
When you set the Smarter Mages setting to option "2", only mages that are created in sight of CHARNAME should get pre cast protections correct? I've noticed that mages like Tarnesh or Silke, that turn hostile after a conversation also get pre-casted protections when they turn hostile. Is this a bug? Or feature?
I don't know SCS very well as I'm new to it, but I'd guess that it's a feature. To me the wording sounds like 'Pre-cast when you see a character, not when battle begins' (don't Pre-cast if they are hidden in fog of war)...
@KingGhidorah Selection "2" in Smarter Mages component only affects short buffs. This means enemy mages cast long buffs like Stone Skin that lasts 8 hours no matter what you select in SCS. If they get short buffs like Mirror Image in the beginning of the battle then it's a bug, otherwise it's a feature.
In that case, it's a bug. On "2" Tarnesh had both Armor and MI pre-cast on him but on "3" he only had armor pre-cast. I've also noticed that on difficulty "3" the thayvian wizards in the eastern woodland map also have stoneskins.
These conditions suit me fine though, but they were not what i expected based on their description in the readme. Then again, English is not my first language..
Feature (I think). "Created in sight" probably isn't as clear as it should be. It's people who are in some relevant sense waiting for you. In Tarnesh's case, the way BG1 handles it is that he's already at the top of the staircase, but the BG2 version would create him as you entered the area.
Having said that, this is a BG2 component making its way into BG1. It might well be that odd things happen, so keep an eye on it.
The stoneskin on the red wizards is definitely a feature. Option 3 says no short duration prebuffs. Long duration prebuffs happen whatever. I think the readme is reasonably unambiguous on this.
I have actually played a bit ... Your mod is so nicely done, i had to play with it on BGEE !
A few comments and suggestions for SCS, based on my experience so far :
- SCS doesn't seem to apply to the new quests of BGEE. For example, the red wizards in Neera's quest are really not using the"smarter mage" option. I'm not sure if they used the better basic AI, they seemed really dumb. But for sure, they didn't use the pre-buffs like other mages i met.
- some strange thing were happening but i'm not sure if it's coming from the mod or from BGEE. The most annoying thing : Domination spells, when cast by opponents, made my dominated NPC just stand there doing nothing. I remember they used to attack my other characters in BGT / BGII. It seems a script is missing somewhere to make them attack and cast spells when they're dominated.
- overall, SCS seems really solid so far. It plays the same that my last game with it on BGT. Despite what you said, SCS for BGEE is not so buggy ! Nice work.
- SCS will apply to new content if it uses the old scripts, but not otherwise. There are two reasons for this: (I) I wanted to give the EE devs a chance to show off their own AI, rather than just automatically overwriting it; (ii) I couldn't extend SCS to cover the new content without becoming fairly familiar with that new content. I don't want to do that until I've had a chance to experience it myself in-game. (And I don't expect to have time for that for quite a while.)
- Domination: are you sure you're not just seeing Charm Person spells? As I recall, Charm Person just makes you stand around; Dire Charm and Domination makes you attack your allies. In any case, I haven't changed the spells so you're probably seeing BG:EE default behaviour.
IIRC: Quayle is at the carnival. Viconia is south of Beregost. Eldoth is in the woods off the FAI-Beregost road. Tiax is in the town square in Beregost. ... is that the lot?
Hmm, random encounter with a cave bear, looked like he was on steroids, I ran for my life and he clang to Aj's leg like a dog on heat he was moving so fast.
Human speed? Looked more like human+haste speed, WAI?
@wowo + @DavidW While I would hate to outrun a bear, I do think that some things SHOULD be faster than your party. Consequences? You die if you are unprepared and have to reload. Maybe things should not be as fast as if Haste was cast, but some things should definitely not provide the option to flee.
ETA on level 0 NPCs, NPCs to Inns and separating pairs? Mod is working great! Some lag from time to time but certainly playable though haven't gotten past Mulahey yet as keep dying ... good times.
Install was smoother this time. Zipping the override folder let ifunbox handle it fine and it's easy to unzip with ifile once it's on the ipad.
I had to use the setup-strategems file to install as the autoinstall one didn't work, something about either not unpacking the archive correctly or it being a zipped folder (neither of which was true I don't think).
BTW @DavidW, I did not notice it being said, but the autoinstall does not work for me at this time. Not for the iPad or on the PC version (error listed below). That being said, I moved stratagems\auto.tp2 to the BG folder and renaming it to stratagems_autoinstall.tp2 did the trick to fix it.
That being said its output seems drastically different. Is it based on an earlier version of your work?
** ERROR ** [SETUP-STRATAGEMS_AUTOINSTALL.TP2] not found. Make sure that you have unpacked the archive correctly and that you are not trying to run this file from inside an archive.[setup-stratagem s_autoinstall.exe] Using scripting style "BG1"
Comments
The adventure continues
Candlekeep was there, Gorion did have visible stone skin, Tarnesh did pre-cast armor and mirror image as well as follow up my glitterdust, horror, and magic missile. Oh and that bard... Eldoth is it? I never used him, was present in his altered location (no spoilers here).
No errors this time, nothing strange. Just a few things that don't work as I expected with --yes. Next I will do a completely manual install and see what happens but it seems like the mod may actually work on the iPad and I was simply doing something wrong.
@DavidW I think I know why the Stoneskin animation didn't work. I read it on your site but it wasn't mentioned in the logs at all! Ie, it's not not (double negative) working.
As for skipping Candlekeep, well, with --yes it defaults to 1 (don't give the option to skip). I manually set this to 2 (skip).
The short version... It is working with a clean copy of BG:EE on the iPad.
Now I just have to bumble through it myself ...
With the ifunbox method is a PC version of BG:EE required to be installed?
Also, I've mostly finished writing some scripts that automate the transfer portion of Override/dialog.tlk, so I might get to delete most of the text in the iPad Howto.
When you set the Smarter Mages setting to option "2", only mages that are created in sight of CHARNAME should get pre cast protections correct?
I've noticed that mages like Tarnesh or Silke, that turn hostile after a conversation also get pre-casted protections when they turn hostile. Is this a bug? Or feature?
Can anyone confirm that?
On "2" Tarnesh had both Armor and MI pre-cast on him but on "3" he only had armor pre-cast.
I've also noticed that on difficulty "3" the thayvian wizards in the eastern woodland map also have stoneskins.
These conditions suit me fine though, but they were not what i expected based on their description in the readme.
Then again, English is not my first language..
Having said that, this is a BG2 component making its way into BG1. It might well be that odd things happen, so keep an eye on it.
The stoneskin on the red wizards is definitely a feature. Option 3 says no short duration prebuffs. Long duration prebuffs happen whatever. I think the readme is reasonably unambiguous on this.
A few comments and suggestions for SCS, based on my experience so far :
- SCS doesn't seem to apply to the new quests of BGEE. For example, the red wizards in Neera's quest are really not using the"smarter mage" option. I'm not sure if they used the better basic AI, they seemed really dumb. But for sure, they didn't use the pre-buffs like other mages i met.
- some strange thing were happening but i'm not sure if it's coming from the mod or from BGEE. The most annoying thing : Domination spells, when cast by opponents, made my dominated NPC just stand there doing nothing. I remember they used to attack my other characters in BGT / BGII. It seems a script is missing somewhere to make them attack and cast spells when they're dominated.
- overall, SCS seems really solid so far. It plays the same that my last game with it on BGT. Despite what you said, SCS for BGEE is not so buggy ! Nice work.
- SCS will apply to new content if it uses the old scripts, but not otherwise. There are two reasons for this:
(I) I wanted to give the EE devs a chance to show off their own AI, rather than just automatically overwriting it;
(ii) I couldn't extend SCS to cover the new content without becoming fairly familiar with that new content. I don't want to do that until I've had a chance to experience it myself in-game. (And I don't expect to have time for that for quite a while.)
- Domination: are you sure you're not just seeing Charm Person spells? As I recall, Charm Person just makes you stand around; Dire Charm and Domination makes you attack your allies. In any case, I haven't changed the spells so you're probably seeing BG:EE default behaviour.
- Good to know!
I found a "Nome Stikka" dagger and seems it has a hidden effect of "sets attacks per round to 1" like the Chelsey crusher or something, weird.
Human speed? Looked more like human+haste speed, WAI?
I had to use the setup-strategems file to install as the autoinstall one didn't work, something about either not unpacking the archive correctly or it being a zipped folder (neither of which was true I don't think).
No idea.
That being said its output seems drastically different. Is it based on an earlier version of your work?
Make sure that you have unpacked the archive correctly and
that you are not trying to run this file from inside an archive.[setup-stratagem
s_autoinstall.exe] Using scripting style "BG1"