Party AI scripts, any recommendations?
Satrhan
Member Posts: 75
For my recent playthrough of BG1 I've used the BP series AI scripts. I like that I'm able to control a lot of the behavior with just the press of a few keys. For the straightforward fights they work rather well, with an okay target selection, weapon switching, and usage of spells and abilities. The occasional wasting of a spell when its really not called for (for instance casting horror at the last survivor of a pack of kobolds, or summoning a dryad at the end of a fight) I could live with, but there are some more annoying parts.
*The scripts override whatever the characters are doing at least every round. This makes manual selection of actions a pain sometimes, at some points I have to turn the AI off just to make sure my character will actually do what I tell it to do. Having a cleric heal automatically only works if it is standing right next to a wounded ally when it calls for a heal, otherwise the cleric will just forget about healing when it's halfway walking over to the target.
*Weapon switching works about 70% of the time, which forces me to check if my ranged characters actually switch to melee whenever they are engaged.
*Most annoyingly, the scripts just break sometimes. In BG1 they flat out stopped registering that my main character had a ranged weapon equipped about halfway through the game. The exact same script works fine for the other characters. Had some similar issue with Imoen at some point, where the hotkeys for casting certain spells just stopped working for her. Now in BG2 scripts with a thieving component make my main character drop all his traps as soon as the AI is active. The same scripts don't do that with Yoshimo or Imoen.
Does anyone know what is breaking the BP scripts, and how to avoid/fix that?
Or, does anyone know of good scripts to recommend? Especially some that leave some degree of control over things like item and spell use.
*The scripts override whatever the characters are doing at least every round. This makes manual selection of actions a pain sometimes, at some points I have to turn the AI off just to make sure my character will actually do what I tell it to do. Having a cleric heal automatically only works if it is standing right next to a wounded ally when it calls for a heal, otherwise the cleric will just forget about healing when it's halfway walking over to the target.
*Weapon switching works about 70% of the time, which forces me to check if my ranged characters actually switch to melee whenever they are engaged.
*Most annoyingly, the scripts just break sometimes. In BG1 they flat out stopped registering that my main character had a ranged weapon equipped about halfway through the game. The exact same script works fine for the other characters. Had some similar issue with Imoen at some point, where the hotkeys for casting certain spells just stopped working for her. Now in BG2 scripts with a thieving component make my main character drop all his traps as soon as the AI is active. The same scripts don't do that with Yoshimo or Imoen.
Does anyone know what is breaking the BP scripts, and how to avoid/fix that?
Or, does anyone know of good scripts to recommend? Especially some that leave some degree of control over things like item and spell use.
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Wrong spells at wrong time can be slightly (?, How do you deal with Edwin casting fireball on everyone?) annoying in BG1 but quite lethal in BG2, and as your mages level up their spells get more complicated, and there's increasing chance the AI will waste something (a critical spell, or a critical chance to cast a certain spell, the latter could be worse).
Imagine Charname immobilized and you trying to get some protection on him, when you discovered that the AI have wasted the next critical six seconds of your caster.
There's also increasing chance your mage will kill everyone with a single spell, including himself.
If you don't want to go down to details to control everything, then give everyone a basic AI, plus some magic protection for your fighters, then give your mages blank scripts and manually control them.
There must be some good mage scripts (written for vanilla or SCS perhaps) out there, but for me they just don't worth the effort, 'cause there's basically no way for AIs to "keep safe distance" and you have to keep an eye on everyone anyway.
Unless you simply give up all AOE damage spells but that's too high a price for me. And even that can't solve everything.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/63928/improved-scripts-for-your-bg-bg2-playing-experience
@sarevok57 Yes I've had a look a them before, but BP scripts seemed a bit more customizable with its button controls. Do yours support automatic hiding in shadows, weapon switching, and they a bit discerning in when to cast spells and when not (so not casting spells at enemies that are in no may a threat)? I'll give them a try regardless, if just the basic melee and ranged scripts are good enough that would already be a nice help.
I prefer to finish the game in less in-game time than actual time. But that obviously doesn't apply to everyone.
btw, it's not the number you kill that makes things difficult, it's the number in your party. Controlling 2-3 person is *much* easier than controlling a whole team of six, and I tend to keep a smaller party.
Also, In BG2 there's far too many convenient (or cheesy, put it the way you like) strategies that make impossible fights easier, and since I'm not playing the game for the first time, manually using one of those are surely easier than letting the AI do the job (and risk failing).
But I'm wandering off topic. As of your situation, if you don't have any high-leveled arcane caster, then I suppose it would be safe to go with scripts (but it'll be relatively harder to finish the whole game without one. Sir Keldorn might help, though).
Good luck finding your ideal script. Also perhaps you can write your own, it doesn't require heavy programming knowledge or what, just get a NI and you are ready.
Staff of the magi etc go unused as my mages and (non-combat specialized) clerics/druids use slings on auto attack instead of just standing there, waiting for me to cast a spell..
This is probably due to the fact that i find that 2, at the very most 3, melee chars is ideal to avoid crowded and weird pathfinding etc, but still do not bother micromanaging my party unless i am actually forced to because of difficulty of encounter.
Thief is always on trap finding and ranged attack, unless it's a melee f/t build etc..
plus these ones are pretty similar to the beamdog ones except your casters will actually cast spells above 3rd level ( last i check the beamdog scripts make it so your arcane caster will never cast an offensive spell above 3rd level, even with offensive spells on, lol? )
anyway, my scripts are a bit more aggresive, but im a very lazy casual player who always plays with a team of 6, and these scripts have been made more tiered for that, although, offensive spell casting wise, im quite pleased with them because i find them wasting spells less than say "wizard aggressive" and "cleric aggressive" , although they will still cast spells on crap weasels, i dont mind, because with power gaming parties, im still not resting that much
also i like my characters to be fixed with either melee or ranged attacks, and luckily if baddies hit my ranged characters they will actually switch over to melee attacks and once the melee threat is over they will revert back to range, although it's not perfect and doesnt work all the time, its still pretty reliable
and with thieves i dont have them hiding in shadows ( since i really see no reason to do this with my parties and actually going behind someone to backstab is a lot of micromanaging ) i do have any class who can detect traps constantly doing it when not in battle
plus the thing i like about my scripts is that characters will use their special abilities when needed as well like rangers with charm animal or iquisitors with true seeing if a baddie goes invisible ( although with this recent patch the berserker ability was bugging a little bit where they would constantly go through their berserks until they had none left, which worked fine before the 2.5 patch )
so in essence my scripts are great for lazy casual players, if you are real hard into the micro managing, than to be honest there is going to be no script out there that will be able to server your needs, and plus so many people prefer so many different tactics on how they like to do battles its hard to make scripts that everyone would like to use ( hence the reason why beamdog tried making a customizable script but unfortunately i find their script buggy and not quite up to what it should be, and i even tried making mine as customizable as possible with favoring either melee or range, and then if you wish to go offensive/defensive/summoning or disabling with spell casting)
Maybe turn it off on Mages, if you want them to hold a melee weapon.
Just select weapons and spells myself, only thing I use the script for is to keep frontliners tying the enemies up and the backliners slinging arrows/bullets/darts between spells.
I used to run Cleric Defensive on my healers, so they would use healing magic in combat. i'm much better at the game since those days though and spec all my priests with another class (fighter/ranger/mage) so they have plenty to do other than sucking at fighting and waiting to heal damage. Also healing magic in combat is outclassed by potions or just winning the fight outright through buffs + summons + arcane magic.
If you always just load up your Mages with MMs on level one, Wizard Defensive is good for keeping them slinging those when they can, and they'll run from melee at least enough to grab your attention and do something with them.
I personally use SCS due to fact that I get instant prebuffing because I can't be arsed to wait 5 rounds to casts everything before battle. Especially as I play with a lot of fighter/mages.
One thing I miss from SCS AI is that
- instant prebuffing doesn't work on sorcerer
- SCS scripts does not have option for automatic detect traps/illusions and bard song when idle
I play only on LOB/SCS so I can't let my party AI actually cast spells instead of me but I like little things from AI scripts like ones mentioned above.I also wished there was a way to make simulacrum auto attack but that's not related to character scripts.
They're really good, they make life so much easier.
Thanks mate!