Alpha40 released 1st EDIT: I reloaded the file at 23:04 CET as I forgot to change the package version number. I need a biological ram upgrade or perhaps I loved that Armagnac far too much.
Tougher Druid Grove is added to the package. The druids and Faldorn files are overwritten. In fact I patched the mod cre files, not the BG2EE files. They are so different that the vast majority of parameters are to be rewritten anyway. It is important to notice that you face many creatures and some of them (the druids) are heavily buffed but all in all they are still at low levels. This area remains a good target for a well organised and methodical team in early game (experienced players only). However Faldorn is probably too difficult a challenge for a low level charname druid.
Moreover I tried to implement a modification to make you always get a "difficult" fight against Faldorn even though you managed to take the evil path (poisoning). This mod does not modify the second druid group you meet at the entrance of the cave. The "Dalok" encounter is somewhat modified because his two companions are changed by the mod.
If you want to be able to challenge Faldorn without being a druid, please let me know I think I have spent enough time with the maze of scripts pertaining to Faldorn and I should be able to implement it.
Warning for other components. I fixed a string length mistake in several components but afaik this had no substantial impact.
Alpha41 The @WhiteAgnus release that includes Improved Sahuagin City per popular WhiteAgnus request I release it without testing - I will check it tomorrow. One funny point, we discussed about ids additional entries, here BG2EE modified at least four animate.ids entries used by this mod (they were "correct" in BG2-ToB). This is taken into account: sahuagin spelling and new names for the salamanders. This component does two major things: -It redefines the average sahuagin creatures, now they are skilled archers using their original paralytic bolts. Skeletons are also spawned when the sahuagins die. -It introduces Sekolah who can imprison you on hit (or poison you etc...) A great opportunity to use your thieving and hunting skills... or wands. The vast majority of the named creatures is unchanged and that makes the area a bit weird as they may look easy when compared with the usual sahuagins you fight. The Sekolah priestess still drops the clock of ultra cheese when you kill her.
One warning, with this mod I realized that the kit parameter in the cre files is written in big endian. I checked all my files and found no errors but please let me know if you see something wrong with a creature kit.
Alpha42 release I added the smarter beholders and the improved oasis to the package.
Improved Oasis : bluntly, don't use it. This is an old version. It modifies 6 creatures. A couple of weapons are changed as well as the armours. EDIT: The main modifications pertain to the creature stats and they have a minor effect and they seem non legit. No AI change at all. One must admit that fighting an "army" of lvl 8 creatures on your way to Amkethran is a kind of non sense in the vanilla game. The QuestPack which was already modified to run on BG2EE includes a more developped version of it. Use it instead. Otherwise let a general component such as Stratagems help increase the difficulty without specifically targetting this part of the game.
Smarter beholders. I tried to modify some AI triggers as I think the logic is better. The scripts also had a few syntax mistakes. I also gave Vaxall (Twisted Rune) its proper Elder Orb settings otherwise it remains a beholder and this does not seem the first intent from both vanilla and mod perspectives. I propagated the gauth/beholder weapon enhancements to the Hive Mother too. All the elder orbs and hive mother get their colour tint modification. Nothing for the Death Tyrant, please let me know if you have an idea about the matter.
Oops, sorry for not responding to the requests for more information, I totally forgot about this thread. Glad to see that you managed to resolve the issue anyway.
Alpha43 release Now you get Improved Torgal and I also modified the streamlined trolls which has an impact on it.
Streamlined trolls. The original behaviour and my first transcription was weird. It was a kind of trade off : remove the ring that grants at least one HP to the trolls and add a boost to all physical resistance. Unfortunately that ring is re-created by a little dance, the starting point of which is another item. That item controls whether the creature is below 12 HP, cure the creature from all effects and put it in sleep mode for 20 sec and during that period the protective items are removed then readded... readded even if they did not exist in the first place. The net result is that if you do not manage to kill the troll outright or if you do not kill it during its first sleep moment then it comes back with all the vanilla features + the phy.resistance boost. I removed the "remove / create" item sequence for that particular ring and I hope it is ok for all the testers. There are four cases : Torgal, the fire trolls, the blizzard trolls (probably uncommon), and the general troll case.
Improved Torgal Where to start ? Four area definition scripts were overwritten. The main purpose is to replace some well defined trolls or spawn point creatures with spirit trolls and it modifies the location of the flail head (cold). Doing so created at least two crash conditions, one in the external (destroyed) keep area - a spawn point, the second in the cellar (a container). + a few area bcs script changes. Now all of that is recreated based on the BG2EE files with the appropriate patch functions. The mod slightly redefines the spirit troll creatures and I used a couple of modifications to not alter what seems the correct BG2EE (and better) behaviour. Torgal has some modifications too, its AI is rewritten by the mod. The mod adds its claws as a dagger weapon, very effective but Torgal does not use it against you. Powergamers will be happy to know that I coded the strength drain per the item description (drain 3 points instead of 1 - 60 secs - save against death at -4) - powergamers will be sad to know I have deactivated that little portion of the code. For sure, I will not patch the description. Please let me know what your preference is.
A little warning I want to rework things pertaining to Maevar and the Kangaxx protectors.
No tuning of the already converted component yet but I added Ishan's mod - Always Toughest Random Spawns in Dungeons. Stratagems proposes something similar with the ability to select a "sliding" windows.
Spawned creatures. In fact, the game runs specific "spawn" scripts on a number of occasions (not many) - this is unrelated to the area Spawn Point structure and this is also different from the "random" spawned creatures that goes with it. The game detects charname's XP and based on that value it selects an appropiate set of foes. Four ranges are implemented thanks to three script harcoded limits (always the same) : 400000, 1000000, 2000000 XP. What Tactics2 (originally Ishan's mod) does is that it always forces the creation of the toughest group (more than 2 million XP) independently from your real XP. Stratagems gives you the opportunity to shift the ranges from one or two or three (Ishan's equivalent) slots. One particular spawn group (undead) comes with a lich. As you probably know Stratagems makes the casters (arcane in particular) much more powerful that the other creatures and fighting a lich early in the game might be too difficult. Therefore it offers a special option to use a different shift for the undead script. What I do is to provide the user with the opportunity to directly give her/his input at install time (menu): all three limits + the lich case. This is more flexible but also prone to misunderstanding if the user does not pay attention tp it. There are some controls with a fallback to something leaning towards Ishan's settings if a mistake is detected. Let's see what the feedback is. As always, I welcome any remark pertaining to my text. I am sure my spelling and grammar will certainly benefit from the review of a native speaker (Noticeably in the eetact2/lang/american/setup.tra file).
Specific areas. Both Ishan's mod and Stratagems modify a few area scripts to disable various code blocks aimed at decreasing the difficulty under particular conditions (can be XP, average level in the party, number of party members). This includes: the ranger quest / Umar (Ishan's) the tanner encounter (both) WK lvl1 statues (both) WK lvl2 a few random creatures declared in alternative area spawn points (both) WK lvl3 Tahazzar and Ka'rashur friends (both) - I added a new change pertaining to the Demon Wraith (exit).
Stratagems modifies the Illasera encounter to make that all her friend are created. Stratagems modifies the first challenge in the ToB pocket plane. (this is significant).
I haven't implemented the Illasera stuff because such a modification naturally comes with Ascension improved Ilasera. I haven't implement the change to the pocket plane (I am convinced this is to be done) because I want to explore all the challenges first. The challenge #1 is mostly controlled by the area bcs but the following challenges are scripted in cutscenes and I haven't looked at those yet. The basic code to modify this ar4500.bcs (pocketplane) is written at the very end of the t2ishan.tpa file - remove the comment tags if you want to install it.
Last remark, both mods also edit the "chapter 6" series of script which are no longer restricted to the chapter 6. That is not a difficulty modifier in itself. I am much less convinced by this modification. 1) Not sure that they are all used, not to say consistent. 2) some are transformed by other mods anyway (in Improved Torgal I implement its additional guards). 3) I don't want to break the plotline by ignorance. As a net result I skip it. That is part of W.Weimer's version of the mod but this is not included in the original Ishan's mod afaik. I will reassess it at some point.
In the previous package I forgot to include the specific "tanner" script change. This new package includes Kensai Ryu's Random Wilderness Encounters with hopefully less bugs when installed on BG2EE (or even BG2-ToB). I tentatively replaced the silver dragon with the yellow one (the odds to meet such a creature are very low and actually null if you don't have a low reputation). Reason being that the silver dragon uses the "Adalon" script even though the creature is different. If someone wants to propose a combat script for a silver dragon, please let me know. I changed a bit the logic as I don't think it was fully consistent.
When I deal with G.Blucher's equivalent package (for the city maps) I will likely re-modify this package for consistency reasons.
Four components to go. Bodhi should be easy and fast to transfer, the other three will take more time. I put that effort on pause for a few days (travel etc...), perhaps a week long. Meanwhile I would appreciate to know who is trying to test what, even if this is still an alpha package. I will not try to contact the original author to ask him what to do with those fixes if there is no one really playing some of those components. I think it makes sense.
However, since I can only play a limited time per week I likely won't reach most of them too soon.
Is there a good reason to install v0.46 alpha, or should I wait for a bigger upgrade? Updating is a little cumbersome because I've got other mods installed after it, like Item Revisions and Stratagems.
@ineth Thanks for the reply. That's a long list! No, you have no reason to move to v46. The next version (hopefully tomorrow) will include Improved Bodhi and probably no other modifications.
Alright I finished playing through Improved Ilyich with this mod, and then watched a youtube Let's Play of the original Tactics version to see what was different:
The first Duergar group on level 1 (the ones in the bright yellow corridor) didn't have war dogs with them. In the Let's Play they do. (The next two groups did have their dogs though - just not the first one.)
The south corridor leading to the central chamber on level 1 had two goblins in it (like in the unmodded game), rather than two Duergar like in the Let's Play.
I dealt with the Duergar at the back of the forge room on level 2, by letting my Fighter/Thief sneak in and backstab the Duergar mage. When he came close to them, the "Wh-what?!" text appeared, but they did not go hostile because they couldn't see him. When he backstabbed the mage, they all went red circle, but did not attack or defend themselves - I could simply slaughter them.
The Ilyich fight itself, seemed fine.
PS: It's possible that some of those differences were cause by the difficulty setting and/or Stratagems though.
The first Duergar group on level 1 (the ones in the bright yellow corridor) didn't have war dogs with them. In the Let's Play they do. (The next two groups did have their dogs though - just not the first one.)
The Duergar party guarding the portal on level 1 was smaller for me, than the one in the Let's Play.
There are three types of (EDIT)random opponents - almost the same odds for each group: 2 male berserkers and 1 female conjurer + 1 berserker or 1 conjurer or 5 wardogs. This is the original mod behaviour.
The south corridor leading to the central chamber on level 1 had two goblins in it (like in the unmodded game), rather than two Duergar like in the Let's Play. Same with the small corridor leading from that central chamber towards the dryads.
I will crosscheck but this is not implemented by my modification. If you use Improved Ilyich, make sure you do not use another mod specifically modifying this area (or vice versa and skip Improved Ilyich) EDIT: I mean this two groups of goblins are implemented in both BG2EE and (unmodified) Tactics2.
I don't think there was a pair of Duergar near the portal on level 2 like there is in the Let's Play.
With Improved Ilyich there is no additional or "static" duergars near the portal on L2. However it is possible that those two duergars were simply triggered by a general timer which creates such groups every 6 hours after the first 12 hours. Just guessing...
I dealt with the Duergar at the back of the forge room on level 2, by letting my Fighter/Thief sneak in and backstab the Duergar mage. When he came close to them, the "Wh-what?!" text appeared, but they did not go hostile because they couldn't see him. When he backstabbed the mage, they all went red circle, but did not attack or defend themselves - I could simply slaughter them.
Thanks for the info, I will check. Just reading the code, the added duergars (two and mistakenly a dog) in the forge room should already have the red circle when you see them. The other 4 duergars in the back-room are not changed by this mod. I may still change them if required/wanted by you and other testers. I suspect you dealt with the latter group. One of them has a script overriden by the area file and in that script there is the "Wh-what? ... " string.
Additional note (EDIT): Tactics2 Improved Ilyich and SCS "Make the starting dungeon slightly harder" are not meant to be compatible. However I modified Tactics2 (see the instalation menu - option2) so that the AI script of the Conjurer and Berserker can be overriden by the general AI components provided by SCS (smarter general Ai and smarter mage). Previously you always got the mage "upgrade" by SCS but the berserker was left unmodified (and with a minor bug preventing him to act like a berserker). This still requires more testing though.
Alpha47 This is a dump of my current package. I stop the development here because there are many things I want to test before continuing the conversion. This may look weird as 4 components remain to be converted. However I have much less free time and the general testing session (all components deployed vs one by one) must go first to make things more consistent and standardized. (Ineth, I remain fully availble for your questions).
I added Improved Bodhi but it is not 100% finished. A few notes as usual.
First, Bodhi's version in stratagems. This is supposed to be a direct translation (there is also a toned-down version). Perhaps a case where more is less. The hardcore AI script has 5K lines but most of those lines are inherited from the generic vampire component (SCS is not only a mod this is also a framework) and a large amount of them just to deal with the protection from magical weapons stat. On the other hand only four of the seven component-specific spells are used by the script (there is another spell corresponding to an enhanced fireshield but this is linked to Bodhi's weapon, not scripted). The vampire part of the script also likes to trigger actions based on the magic resistance and sometimes there are code blocks triggered with up to 99% MR as a validating condition. That was a quick read so I might have misunderstood some elements.
All in all I really prefer the straightforward approach of the original mod. Beyond the usual UTF-8 translation and the patch versus overwrite approach, there is a couple of things which have been modified so far. In the AI script, the beginning sequence is a bit messy because the same script is used by both Bodhi in chapter 3 and Bodhi in chapter 6 whereas the creatures are different. In particular it tests the presence of an allocated potion to basically discriminate which creature uses the script! I coded the chapter checks instead. There is also an issue with the "double" death of Bodhi in chapter 6. You normally bring her close to death then she regenerates but loses her "min hit point" immunity and she starts a second and final fight. A strange thing is that the journal is updated when you put her down the first time (same thing with SCS). In other words the quest is done but Bodhi is far from being dead yet. A little modification for that but it is not correctly fixed yet. Bodhi tries not to attack characters with an item protecting them from "negative plane". This can be coded with a more general approach - done. A final and long remark. W.Weimer very efficiently modified the general nature of Bodhi from Undead to Humanoid. Doing so, the creature becomes immune to several attacks on undeads (mace of disruption for instance) and she is not affected by the "protection from undead" scroll. The Stratagems mod keeps the undead classification unmodified and it uses a trick based on new spells and their new secondary class. I also set (unmodify) Bodhi as undead and I add appropriate protections (old and new + hopefully a better efficiency for her spells). Moreover, for the intellectual pleasure, I took another path to deal with "protection from undead" based on an added scripting state and the removal of the whole set of effects created by the item (here a scroll). I need to extend a bit the way it is used. Is there a way to dynamically mark a creature in an area bcs file ?
I'm sure there are a lot of folks lurking on this thread and checking progress, and I just want to say that I appreciate all of the time and effort people are investing to mod this mod. Tactics has long been a favorite of mine, and I'll be glad when the testing is complete and the finished version is available for download. Thanks!
@xscott71x Thanks. "a lot" is a relative, contextual notion . There are about 15+ views when I release a new package, excluding the views which are subtracted a few hours later (perhaps the spider programs or administrator's views). I would do the conversion with no reader at all, not a problem. When I started to post the packages here, some guys wanted to help test the components but they are just like me with not enough free time at the moment. With that extra help I thought I could release a first solid beta very early June. It looks like I will be a good month late , probably a little bit more. Again I don't think this is a problem. A test of the whole package is better anyway.
Alpha48 added Gebhard Blucher's Random City Encounters because I need it for a global testing session. Patch versus Overwrite, as usual + several fixes. Compatibility with UB unverified. It looks OK (whatever the status is, it is not modified by this release).
Which guards are supposed to be spawned by the "Improved Copper Coronet" component?
After watching the gladiator fight, I attacked the announcer, and walked along the corridor to the slave cells and on to the beastmaster. Along this path, I only met 2 enemies: One archer guard standing on the wooden platform near the cells, and one wolf. If memory serves correctly, there should have been many guards there, even without the tactics mod.
After killing the beastmaster and freeing the slaves, I did meet a whole bunch of guards though, along the way back to Lethinan.
Chances are that some mod incompatibilities are causing problems, as I have multiple mods which affect the Copper Coronet installed. However since I installed eetact2 after the other quest/encounter mods (except for stratagems), I had hoped it would still work.
Character encoding
During installation, the name of the "Göran Rimén's Improved Nymphs" component is printed as "G�ran Rim�n's Improved Nymphs" in my console, because eetact2/lang/english/t2titles.tra uses the WINDOWS-1252 character encoding, whereas BG2:EE expects its .tra files in the UTF-8 encoding.
The English-language .tra files used in the actual game only contain ASCII characters (for which WINDOWS-1252 and UTF-8 is identical), so they're not a problem. However, the non-English translations do use many non-ASCII characters, so I suspect that installing eetacts2 with any language other than English will be quite broken right now (though I haven't tested it).
To fix it, maybe take a look at how the "Edwin Romance" mod uses the HANDLE_CHARSETS action function to automatically convert loaded .tra file to UTF-8 if needed (using iconv.exe behind the scenes).
If that doesn't work out, you may have to run iconv.exe directly, on each .tra file:
Copper Coronet. I started a code review (I have covered half of the content). In my current package I now create the twelve additional guards in the middle of the script (not entirely sure this is the issue you experience but that will be better in any case). Could you please attach your override/ar0406.bcs file here on this forum ? I can send you back a modified version (no reinstallation required).
Charset Encoding I do use handle_charset, no need to add a function from another mod, this is fully integrated into weidu 238. Incidentally iconv is part of the package, that's why this package size is 4MB However I intentionally do not translate the t2titles: I think I just cannot fix the problem for everyone. Simply because I cannot detect the code page used in the installation console. This is a todo I wrote down a while ago. What I can do is to try to detect the OS and convert t2titles if I detect Linux (and perhaps MacOS) but in the windows case, the program is likely to be launched in the usual cmd console which is not UTF-8 enabled. I may also try to convert the "english" (US->UK) version of t2titles if I can find what is to be done but that won't fix it for other English encoding flavours. All in all you may be right and I can force a total UTF-8 conversion and let people manage the codepage on their console but I haven't really worked on the OS portability yet. So please just give me some time to find a better setup.
Two remarks: 1- (very minor) I created the "english" folder just in case someone wants to propose a UK/English "translation" but at present time it just reuses the original american files. Perhaps more a problem than a solution. 2- (more important) t2titles contains the names of the components, nothing else. All the strings used in the game are located in other files which are UTF-8 converted.
Copper Coronet: I tested it again, this time walking straight up to the lone guard and told him "I go where I want", and sure enough 7 other guards spawned near him (4 clerics, 3 fighters by the looks of it). I think the reason why they didn't spawn before, was that I backstabbed the lone guard so his dialog never came up... (Just in case: ar0406.bcs)
Charset Encoding: Ah I didn't realize that you already used handle_charset, sorry for making assumptions. Regarding the conundrum of printing non-ASCII characters to the console in a cross-platform way: How do other mods solve that?
Gnome Fighter/Illusionst in the Docks: Just got to this encounter; it worked fine from what I could tell.
@ineth Please find two files attached hereafter. One as a replacement for the copper coronet area script, I simply use the existing triggers to add 12 new guys (yes if you backstab the guard before he can say a word that won't happen). The second as a fix for the redbadge component (a wrong flag even though I detected nothing when I initially played it - up to you, if something goes wrong you can overwrite this file or you can directly copy it in your override - you won't interfere with a game file, its 100% custom).
Gnome Fighter/Illusionst in the Docks: Just got to this encounter; it worked fine from what I could tell.
That's one of the components I have reassessed. There are small things to be fixed. - The simulacrum (25% probability to appear when the gnome is running low on stoneskins for the first time) does not correctly work. I think I will simply disable it for now. - There is a missing spell for the gnome but I already fixed it in your version. I also normalized some stats. - Wrong weaponslot selection. - One the familiar tries to cast a spell she does not know - The familiars attack you before the dialog starts (not sure I am going to do something about that as it always ends up in a fight). - Familiars again: the offensive / defensive behavior selection may not trigger and may require another AI update to work
However, all in all, the fight looks normal and the pseudorandom contigency + sequencer make it fun to replay. Ah yes, the gnome does not use his scrolls but I think it is intended. Huge loot.
@Edvin Thanks! I am running many tests and I have found many things to fix. Therefore I am afraid you will have to be patient a little longer. Btw Bodhi is not ready in the last released package so that's even three components to convert. I think I will release an intermediate package in a few days and I will include a comment about the state of each of them. Just in case people want to try a few components.
He had some skeleton warrior minions, and used his fear effect. However, contrary to the component description he never called for more backup.
Improved Guarded Compound in the Temple District:
This fight was quite a handful, so I guess that means it works? Is there any aspect of it in particular that I should pay attention to, if I test it again?
Hello @ineth I modified the Improved Crypt King. In fact this is a very short script but the modification pertains to the spawn point location. I also altered the Gebhard Blucher's mods (very nice coding in those very old components) and Kensai Ryu's mods (let's say it was a less advanced coding even though the ideas are great). I had to renounce to several modifications (for instance the illusionist gnome is clearly an unfinished work in the original mod). I have tried to re-enable the Kangaxx guardians features. Even if I am not done with it, I believe there is a clear improvement. At this point in time, if I exclude Ritual, Improved Bodhi, Improved Irenicus, I have altered everything but I have not performed all of my own tests and in particular I haven't appropriately covered Twisted Rune and Guarded Compound yet (sorry - working on Torgal and Faldorn at the moment). Probably tomorrow, you are a bit ahead of schedule and I cannot thank you enough for your tests and reports.
I know this is a bit arrogant but if you want to re-test something, then please wait for my next release. Tomorrow evening at best, more likely Tuesday evening CET.
This is the current Crypt King script (attached hereafater). Really a nano mod (only 3 blocks !). Just in case you want to test it again, it is safe to drop it in your override folder. In my own test it does spawn additional skeleton warriors every six rounds.
Kensai Ryu's Improved Crypt King: Tried it again with your bhcrypt.bcs - you were right, after a while two new skeleton warriors spawn. I think the last time, I killed the crypt king before that could happen; 6 rounds is plenty of time to take down an enemy who doesn't have magical protections, if you focus your whole party on him.
"Kuroisan", the Acid Kensai: Oh boy, this encounter is crazy - but that seems to be intended. At first I thought these two things were bugs:
After I breached his Stoneskin, he ran half-way across the map to find a door to disappear into.
He kept spamming the line "Ooooh, this is not a good day!" in a female voice.
But looking at some youtube Let's Plays, this does in fact seem to be the original behavior of the component.
---
In any case, I'll wait for your next version before I do more testing.
@ineth Your view is important. Shall I reduce the delay between the skeleton warrior "waves" ?
Kuroisan: he is a cheater . There is a special mechanics protecting him and lasting a minute long or so (real time). The voice you can hear matches the original decision (Gnome female - no modification). This is the signal saying he is no longer protected by prot from magical weapons (he does use all of his scrolls - as opposed to the illusionist gnome). Here is a slightly modified AI, just in case you want to test it again.
Comments
1st EDIT: I reloaded the file at 23:04 CET as I forgot to change the package version number.
I need a biological ram upgrade or perhaps I loved that Armagnac far too much.
Tougher Druid Grove is added to the package.
The druids and Faldorn files are overwritten. In fact I patched the mod cre files, not the BG2EE files. They are so different that the vast majority of parameters are to be rewritten anyway.
It is important to notice that you face many creatures and some of them (the druids) are heavily buffed but all in all they are still at low levels. This area remains a good target for a well organised and methodical team in early game (experienced players only). However Faldorn is probably too difficult a challenge for a low level charname druid.
Moreover I tried to implement a modification to make you always get a "difficult" fight against Faldorn even though you managed to take the evil path (poisoning).
This mod does not modify the second druid group you meet at the entrance of the cave.
The "Dalok" encounter is somewhat modified because his two companions are changed by the mod.
If you want to be able to challenge Faldorn without being a druid, please let me know I think I have spent enough time with the maze of scripts pertaining to Faldorn and I should be able to implement it.
Warning for other components.
I fixed a string length mistake in several components but afaik this had no substantial impact.
2nd edit : more explanations and less typos.
The @WhiteAgnus release that includes Improved Sahuagin City per popular WhiteAgnus request
I release it without testing - I will check it tomorrow.
One funny point, we discussed about ids additional entries, here BG2EE modified at least four animate.ids entries used by this mod (they were "correct" in BG2-ToB). This is taken into account: sahuagin spelling and new names for the salamanders.
This component does two major things:
-It redefines the average sahuagin creatures, now they are skilled archers using their original paralytic bolts. Skeletons are also spawned when the sahuagins die.
-It introduces Sekolah who can imprison you on hit (or poison you etc...)
A great opportunity to use your thieving and hunting skills... or wands.
The vast majority of the named creatures is unchanged and that makes the area a bit weird as they may look easy when compared with the usual sahuagins you fight. The Sekolah priestess still drops the clock of ultra cheese when you kill her.
One warning, with this mod I realized that the kit parameter in the cre files is written in big endian. I checked all my files and found no errors but please let me know if you see something wrong with a creature kit.
I added the smarter beholders and the improved oasis to the package.
Improved Oasis : bluntly, don't use it. This is an old version. It modifies 6 creatures. A couple of weapons are changed as well as the armours. EDIT: The main modifications pertain to the creature stats and they have a minor effect and they seem non legit. No AI change at all.
One must admit that fighting an "army" of lvl 8 creatures on your way to Amkethran is a kind of non sense in the vanilla game.
The QuestPack which was already modified to run on BG2EE includes a more developped version of it. Use it instead. Otherwise let a general component such as Stratagems help increase the difficulty without specifically targetting this part of the game.
Smarter beholders.
I tried to modify some AI triggers as I think the logic is better. The scripts also had a few syntax mistakes.
I also gave Vaxall (Twisted Rune) its proper Elder Orb settings otherwise it remains a beholder and this does not seem the first intent from both vanilla and mod perspectives.
I propagated the gauth/beholder weapon enhancements to the Hive Mother too.
All the elder orbs and hive mother get their colour tint modification. Nothing for the Death Tyrant, please let me know if you have an idea about the matter.
Now you get Improved Torgal and I also modified the streamlined trolls which has an impact on it.
Streamlined trolls.
The original behaviour and my first transcription was weird.
It was a kind of trade off : remove the ring that grants at least one HP to the trolls and add a boost to all physical resistance.
Unfortunately that ring is re-created by a little dance, the starting point of which is another item. That item controls whether the creature is below 12 HP, cure the creature from all effects and put it in sleep mode for 20 sec and during that period the protective items are removed then readded... readded even if they did not exist in the first place.
The net result is that if you do not manage to kill the troll outright or if you do not kill it during its first sleep moment then it comes back with all the vanilla features + the phy.resistance boost.
I removed the "remove / create" item sequence for that particular ring and I hope it is ok for all the testers. There are four cases : Torgal, the fire trolls, the blizzard trolls (probably uncommon), and the general troll case.
Improved Torgal
Where to start ?
Four area definition scripts were overwritten. The main purpose is to replace some well defined trolls or spawn point creatures with spirit trolls and it modifies the location of the flail head (cold). Doing so created at least two crash conditions, one in the external (destroyed) keep area - a spawn point, the second in the cellar (a container). + a few area bcs script changes.
Now all of that is recreated based on the BG2EE files with the appropriate patch functions.
The mod slightly redefines the spirit troll creatures and I used a couple of modifications to not alter what seems the correct BG2EE (and better) behaviour.
Torgal has some modifications too, its AI is rewritten by the mod. The mod adds its claws as a dagger weapon, very effective but Torgal does not use it against you. Powergamers will be happy to know that I coded the strength drain per the item description (drain 3 points instead of 1 - 60 secs - save against death at -4) - powergamers will be sad to know I have deactivated that little portion of the code.
For sure, I will not patch the description. Please let me know what your preference is.
A little warning I want to rework things pertaining to Maevar and the Kangaxx protectors.
@ineth
Glad to see you!
No tuning of the already converted component yet but I added Ishan's mod - Always Toughest Random Spawns in Dungeons. Stratagems proposes something similar with the ability to select a "sliding" windows.
Spawned creatures.
In fact, the game runs specific "spawn" scripts on a number of occasions (not many) - this is unrelated to the area Spawn Point structure and this is also different from the "random" spawned creatures that goes with it. The game detects charname's XP and based on that value it selects an appropiate set of foes. Four ranges are implemented thanks to three script harcoded limits (always the same) : 400000, 1000000, 2000000 XP.
What Tactics2 (originally Ishan's mod) does is that it always forces the creation of the toughest group (more than 2 million XP) independently from your real XP.
Stratagems gives you the opportunity to shift the ranges from one or two or three (Ishan's equivalent) slots. One particular spawn group (undead) comes with a lich. As you probably know Stratagems makes the casters (arcane in particular) much more powerful that the other creatures and fighting a lich early in the game might be too difficult. Therefore it offers a special option to use a different shift for the undead script.
What I do is to provide the user with the opportunity to directly give her/his input at install time (menu): all three limits + the lich case. This is more flexible but also prone to misunderstanding if the user does not pay attention tp it. There are some controls with a fallback to something leaning towards Ishan's settings if a mistake is detected. Let's see what the feedback is.
As always, I welcome any remark pertaining to my text. I am sure my spelling and grammar will certainly benefit from the review of a native speaker (Noticeably in the eetact2/lang/american/setup.tra file).
Specific areas.
Both Ishan's mod and Stratagems modify a few area scripts to disable various code blocks aimed at decreasing the difficulty under particular conditions (can be XP, average level in the party, number of party members). This includes:
the ranger quest / Umar (Ishan's)
the tanner encounter (both)
WK lvl1 statues (both)
WK lvl2 a few random creatures declared in alternative area spawn points (both)
WK lvl3 Tahazzar and Ka'rashur friends (both) - I added a new change pertaining to the Demon Wraith (exit).
Stratagems modifies the Illasera encounter to make that all her friend are created.
Stratagems modifies the first challenge in the ToB pocket plane. (this is significant).
I haven't implemented the Illasera stuff because such a modification naturally comes with Ascension improved Ilasera.
I haven't implement the change to the pocket plane (I am convinced this is to be done) because I want to explore all the challenges first. The challenge #1 is mostly controlled by the area bcs but the following challenges are scripted in cutscenes and I haven't looked at those yet.
The basic code to modify this ar4500.bcs (pocketplane) is written at the very end of the t2ishan.tpa file - remove the comment tags if you want to install it.
Last remark, both mods also edit the "chapter 6" series of script which are no longer restricted to the chapter 6. That is not a difficulty modifier in itself.
I am much less convinced by this modification.
1) Not sure that they are all used, not to say consistent.
2) some are transformed by other mods anyway (in Improved Torgal I implement its additional guards).
3) I don't want to break the plotline by ignorance.
As a net result I skip it. That is part of W.Weimer's version of the mod but this is not included in the original Ishan's mod afaik. I will reassess it at some point.
In the previous package I forgot to include the specific "tanner" script change.
This new package includes Kensai Ryu's Random Wilderness Encounters with hopefully less bugs when installed on BG2EE (or even BG2-ToB).
I tentatively replaced the silver dragon with the yellow one (the odds to meet such a creature are very low and actually null if you don't have a low reputation). Reason being that the silver dragon uses the "Adalon" script even though the creature is different. If someone wants to propose a combat script for a silver dragon, please let me know. I changed a bit the logic as I don't think it was fully consistent.
When I deal with G.Blucher's equivalent package (for the city maps) I will likely re-modify this package for consistency reasons.
Four components to go. Bodhi should be easy and fast to transfer, the other three will take more time.
I put that effort on pause for a few days (travel etc...), perhaps a week long.
Meanwhile I would appreciate to know who is trying to test what, even if this is still an alpha package.
I will not try to contact the original author to ask him what to do with those fixes if there is no one really playing some of those components. I think it makes sense.
Is someone testing a component at the moment ? If so which one(s) ? Thanks.
Just a couple of very minor changes.
I also installed the other components which affect the SoA portion of the game and aren't already covered by Stratagems:
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #10 // Improved Ilyich (requires ToB): v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #15 // "Kuroisan", the Acid Kensai: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #16 // "Red Badge" Poison-Based Encounter: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #18 // Gebhard Blucher's Lich in the Docks: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #21 // Kensai Ryu's Gnome Fighter/Illusionist in the Docks: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #22 // Kensai Ryu's Improved Crypt King: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #24 // Kensai Ryu's Random Wilderness Encounters: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #32 // Göran Rimén's Improved Nymphs: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #33 // Kensai Ryu's Improved Copper Coronet: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #35 // Mike Barnes' Improved Small Teeth Pass: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #36 // Mike Barnes' Improved North Forest: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #42 // Fighter-Class Archer Kit: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
~EETACT2/SETUP-EETACT2.TP2~ #0 #43 // Anti-Paladin Kit: v0.45 alpha 2015060602
However, since I can only play a limited time per week I likely won't reach most of them too soon.
Is there a good reason to install v0.46 alpha, or should I wait for a bigger upgrade? Updating is a little cumbersome because I've got other mods installed after it, like Item Revisions and Stratagems.
Thanks for the reply. That's a long list!
No, you have no reason to move to v46.
The next version (hopefully tomorrow) will include Improved Bodhi and probably no other modifications.
- The first Duergar group on level 1 (the ones in the bright yellow corridor) didn't have war dogs with them. In the Let's Play they do. (The next two groups did have their dogs though - just not the first one.)
- The south corridor leading to the central chamber on level 1 had two goblins in it (like in the unmodded game), rather than two Duergar like in the Let's Play.
- Same with the small corridor leading from that central chamber towards the dryads.
- The Duergar party guarding the portal on level 1 was smaller for me, than the one in the Let's Play.
- I don't think there was a pair of Duergar near the portal on level 2 like there is in the Let's Play.
- I dealt with the Duergar at the back of the forge room on level 2, by letting my Fighter/Thief sneak in and backstab the Duergar mage. When he came close to them, the "Wh-what?!" text appeared, but they did not go hostile because they couldn't see him. When he backstabbed the mage, they all went red circle, but did not attack or defend themselves - I could simply slaughter them.
The Ilyich fight itself, seemed fine.PS: It's possible that some of those differences were cause by the difficulty setting and/or Stratagems though.
Thanks for the report!
Now, point by point: There are three types of (EDIT)random opponents - almost the same odds for each group: 2 male berserkers and 1 female conjurer + 1 berserker or 1 conjurer or 5 wardogs. This is the original mod behaviour. I will crosscheck but this is not implemented by my modification. If you use Improved Ilyich, make sure you do not use another mod specifically modifying this area (or vice versa and skip Improved Ilyich)
EDIT: I mean this two groups of goblins are implemented in both BG2EE and (unmodified) Tactics2. With Improved Ilyich there is no additional or "static" duergars near the portal on L2. However it is possible that those two duergars were simply triggered by a general timer which creates such groups every 6 hours after the first 12 hours. Just guessing... Thanks for the info, I will check. Just reading the code, the added duergars (two and mistakenly a dog) in the forge room should already have the red circle when you see them. The other 4 duergars in the back-room are not changed by this mod. I may still change them if required/wanted by you and other testers.
I suspect you dealt with the latter group. One of them has a script overriden by the area file and in that script there is the "Wh-what? ... " string.
Additional note (EDIT):
Tactics2 Improved Ilyich and SCS "Make the starting dungeon slightly harder" are not meant to be compatible.
However I modified Tactics2 (see the instalation menu - option2) so that the AI script of the Conjurer and Berserker can be overriden by the general AI components provided by SCS (smarter general Ai and smarter mage). Previously you always got the mage "upgrade" by SCS but the berserker was left unmodified (and with a minor bug preventing him to act like a berserker). This still requires more testing though.
This is a dump of my current package.
I stop the development here because there are many things I want to test before continuing the conversion. This may look weird as 4 components remain to be converted. However I have much less free time and the general testing session (all components deployed vs one by one) must go first to make things more consistent and standardized.
(Ineth, I remain fully availble for your questions).
I added Improved Bodhi but it is not 100% finished.
A few notes as usual.
First, Bodhi's version in stratagems. This is supposed to be a direct translation (there is also a toned-down version). Perhaps a case where more is less. The hardcore AI script has 5K lines but most of those lines are inherited from the generic vampire component (SCS is not only a mod this is also a framework) and a large amount of them just to deal with the protection from magical weapons stat. On the other hand only four of the seven component-specific spells are used by the script (there is another spell corresponding to an enhanced fireshield but this is linked to Bodhi's weapon, not scripted). The vampire part of the script also likes to trigger actions based on the magic resistance and sometimes there are code blocks triggered with up to 99% MR as a validating condition. That was a quick read so I might have misunderstood some elements.
All in all I really prefer the straightforward approach of the original mod.
Beyond the usual UTF-8 translation and the patch versus overwrite approach, there is a couple of things which have been modified so far.
In the AI script, the beginning sequence is a bit messy because the same script is used by both Bodhi in chapter 3 and Bodhi in chapter 6 whereas the creatures are different. In particular it tests the presence of an allocated potion to basically discriminate which creature uses the script! I coded the chapter checks instead. There is also an issue with the "double" death of Bodhi in chapter 6. You normally bring her close to death then she regenerates but loses her "min hit point" immunity and she starts a second and final fight. A strange thing is that the journal is updated when you put her down the first time (same thing with SCS). In other words the quest is done but Bodhi is far from being dead yet. A little modification for that but it is not correctly fixed yet.
Bodhi tries not to attack characters with an item protecting them from "negative plane". This can be coded with a more general approach - done.
A final and long remark. W.Weimer very efficiently modified the general nature of Bodhi from Undead to Humanoid. Doing so, the creature becomes immune to several attacks on undeads (mace of disruption for instance) and she is not affected by the "protection from undead" scroll. The Stratagems mod keeps the undead classification unmodified and it uses a trick based on new spells and their new secondary class. I also set (unmodify) Bodhi as undead and I add appropriate protections (old and new + hopefully a better efficiency for her spells). Moreover, for the intellectual pleasure, I took another path to deal with "protection from undead" based on an added scripting state and the removal of the whole set of effects created by the item (here a scroll). I need to extend a bit the way it is used.
Is there a way to dynamically mark a creature in an area bcs file ?
Thanks.
"a lot" is a relative, contextual notion
When I started to post the packages here, some guys wanted to help test the components but they are just like me with not enough free time at the moment. With that extra help I thought I could release a first solid beta very early June. It looks like I will be a good month late
added Gebhard Blucher's Random City Encounters
because I need it for a global testing session.
Patch versus Overwrite, as usual + several fixes.
Compatibility with UB unverified. It looks OK (whatever the status is, it is not modified by this release).
Copper Coronet troubles
Which guards are supposed to be spawned by the "Improved Copper Coronet" component?After watching the gladiator fight, I attacked the announcer, and walked along the corridor to the slave cells and on to the beastmaster. Along this path, I only met 2 enemies: One archer guard standing on the wooden platform near the cells, and one wolf. If memory serves correctly, there should have been many guards there, even without the tactics mod.
After killing the beastmaster and freeing the slaves, I did meet a whole bunch of guards though, along the way back to Lethinan.
Chances are that some mod incompatibilities are causing problems, as I have multiple mods which affect the Copper Coronet installed. However since I installed eetact2 after the other quest/encounter mods (except for stratagems), I had hoped it would still work.
Character encoding
During installation, the name of the "Göran Rimén's Improved Nymphs" component is printed as "G�ran Rim�n's Improved Nymphs" in my console, because eetact2/lang/english/t2titles.tra uses the WINDOWS-1252 character encoding, whereas BG2:EE expects its .tra files in the UTF-8 encoding.The English-language .tra files used in the actual game only contain ASCII characters (for which WINDOWS-1252 and UTF-8 is identical), so they're not a problem. However, the non-English translations do use many non-ASCII characters, so I suspect that installing eetacts2 with any language other than English will be quite broken right now (though I haven't tested it).
To fix it, maybe take a look at how the "Edwin Romance" mod uses the HANDLE_CHARSETS action function to automatically convert loaded .tra file to UTF-8 if needed (using iconv.exe behind the scenes).
If that doesn't work out, you may have to run iconv.exe directly, on each .tra file:
Copper Coronet.
I started a code review (I have covered half of the content).
In my current package I now create the twelve additional guards in the middle of the script (not entirely sure this is the issue you experience but that will be better in any case).
Could you please attach your override/ar0406.bcs file here on this forum ? I can send you back a modified version (no reinstallation required).
Charset Encoding
I do use handle_charset, no need to add a function from another mod, this is fully integrated into weidu 238. Incidentally iconv is part of the package, that's why this package size is 4MB
I think I just cannot fix the problem for everyone. Simply because I cannot detect the code page used in the installation console. This is a todo I wrote down a while ago. What I can do is to try to detect the OS and convert t2titles if I detect Linux (and perhaps MacOS) but in the windows case, the program is likely to be launched in the usual cmd console which is not UTF-8 enabled. I may also try to convert the "english" (US->UK) version of t2titles if I can find what is to be done but that won't fix it for other English encoding flavours.
All in all you may be right and I can force a total UTF-8 conversion and let people manage the codepage on their console but I haven't really worked on the OS portability yet. So please just give me some time to find a better setup.
Two remarks:
1- (very minor) I created the "english" folder just in case someone wants to propose a UK/English "translation" but at present time it just reuses the original american files. Perhaps more a problem than a solution.
2- (more important) t2titles contains the names of the components, nothing else. All the strings used in the game are located in other files which are UTF-8 converted.
Thanks for the report !
Charset Encoding: Ah I didn't realize that you already used handle_charset, sorry for making assumptions. Regarding the conundrum of printing non-ASCII characters to the console in a cross-platform way: How do other mods solve that?
Gnome Fighter/Illusionst in the Docks: Just got to this encounter; it worked fine from what I could tell.
Please find two files attached hereafter.
One as a replacement for the copper coronet area script, I simply use the existing triggers to add 12 new guys (yes if you backstab the guard before he can say a word that won't happen).
The second as a fix for the redbadge component (a wrong flag even though I detected nothing when I initially played it - up to you, if something goes wrong you can overwrite this file or you can directly copy it in your override - you won't interfere with a game file, its 100% custom).
- The simulacrum (25% probability to appear when the gnome is running low on stoneskins for the first time) does not correctly work. I think I will simply disable it for now.
- There is a missing spell for the gnome but I already fixed it in your version. I also normalized some stats.
- Wrong weaponslot selection.
- One the familiar tries to cast a spell she does not know
- The familiars attack you before the dialog starts (not sure I am going to do something about that as it always ends up in a fight).
- Familiars again: the offensive / defensive behavior selection may not trigger and may require another AI update to work
However, all in all, the fight looks normal and the pseudorandom contigency + sequencer make it fun to replay.
Ah yes, the gnome does not use his scrolls but I think it is intended. Huge loot.
The original game is so stupidly easy
Only last two Missing components...
I have to endure...
@Musigny
Thank you for your work.
Thanks!
I am running many tests and I have found many things to fix. Therefore I am afraid you will have to be patient a little longer.
Btw Bodhi is not ready in the last released package so that's even three components to convert.
I think I will release an intermediate package in a few days and I will include a comment about the state of each of them. Just in case people want to try a few components.
He had some skeleton warrior minions, and used his fear effect. However, contrary to the component description he never called for more backup.
Improved Guarded Compound in the Temple District:
This fight was quite a handful, so I guess that means it works?
Is there any aspect of it in particular that I should pay attention to, if I test it again?
I modified the Improved Crypt King. In fact this is a very short script but the modification pertains to the spawn point location.
I also altered the Gebhard Blucher's mods (very nice coding in those very old components) and Kensai Ryu's mods (let's say it was a less advanced coding even though the ideas are great). I had to renounce to several modifications (for instance the illusionist gnome is clearly an unfinished work in the original mod). I have tried to re-enable the Kangaxx guardians features. Even if I am not done with it, I believe there is a clear improvement.
At this point in time, if I exclude Ritual, Improved Bodhi, Improved Irenicus, I have altered everything but I have not performed all of my own tests and in particular I haven't appropriately covered Twisted Rune and Guarded Compound yet (sorry - working on Torgal and Faldorn at the moment). Probably tomorrow, you are a bit ahead of schedule and I cannot thank you enough for your tests and reports.
I know this is a bit arrogant but if you want to re-test something, then please wait for my next release. Tomorrow evening at best, more likely Tuesday evening CET.
This is the current Crypt King script (attached hereafater). Really a nano mod (only 3 blocks !). Just in case you want to test it again, it is safe to drop it in your override folder. In my own test it does spawn additional skeleton warriors every six rounds.
Tried it again with your bhcrypt.bcs - you were right, after a while two new skeleton warriors spawn. I think the last time, I killed the crypt king before that could happen; 6 rounds is plenty of time to take down an enemy who doesn't have magical protections, if you focus your whole party on him.
"Kuroisan", the Acid Kensai:
Oh boy, this encounter is crazy - but that seems to be intended. At first I thought these two things were bugs:
- After I breached his Stoneskin, he ran half-way across the map to find a door to disappear into.
- He kept spamming the line "Ooooh, this is not a good day!" in a female voice.
But looking at some youtube Let's Plays, this does in fact seem to be the original behavior of the component.---
In any case, I'll wait for your next version before I do more testing.
Your view is important.
Shall I reduce the delay between the skeleton warrior "waves" ?
Kuroisan: he is a cheater
Here is a slightly modified AI, just in case you want to test it again.