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Before we go any further, I've read every thread on scripting that I could find and the questions I'm about to ask weren't covered in those threads. For the most part I've been successful with my modifications and reverse-engineering how the scripts work. I've been playing spiderweb's games since whenever G1 came out, it was one of the first games I remember playing, actually.

 

The questions I have are more about what is and isn't possible than how to code stuff except for a few specific issues. I'm working on G3 at the moment, but starting on G4.

 

I know you can't add new creations, only replace them, but I have discovered that there's room to add new spells, there's unused numbers and I had no issue making a multi-target seater and a cool disruption breath attack with the reaper impact effects. I was wondering if there's room in the scripts to add new items like you can with spells, it's not like how with the spells it tells you which numbers are reserved for what up front and it's easy to check.

 

second- can you make a spell that causes multiple status effects, like say poison and acid at the same time? can you cause something to do two kinds of damage at once?

 

Also, what I'm having trouble with now is making AOE damage spells like Aura of Flames. I tried to make an acid based version to give to the Rothzidon, and an energy based one for shits and giggles. I assigned them each to a wand to test them, and while they aren't totally broken, they only work as single target spells. I tried a couple different things, copy and pasting from aura of flames and just changing damage types and visual effects, and the same method with the acid rain that was already there. After these didn't work I tried using the import function and still didn't work. I don't think its an issue with the wands since they work fine with the regular aura of flames in the wand of inferno. This is really bothering me because it's the only thing I haven't been able to figure out on my own.

 

 

In terms of modifying creatures, I've had some issues assigning different attacks to them when I change more than one at a time. I had no problem with most of them but a few creation types were begin weird about it. I made a modified roamer and it seemed like I just couldn't change it's ranged attack. I eventually got that to work by changing where I put the line (further down than normal) but then I couldn't get the melee attack to change.

 

I'm almost afraid to try adding a ranged attack to a melee creation (like giving the acid aura to the Rothzidon) for fear that the animations will be broken or something.

 

Also, I don't think I've been able to find a reference as to what the numbers for each status effect are. I've been ok copying and pasting so far but it'd be nice to have a chart to look at like I do for damage types and stats and such.

 

 

a couple things regarding items: could I give stat bonuses to ranged weapons like Thorn Batons and Javelins or would that break something? and item enhancements, how the hell do they work?

 

I think there's some other stuff I'm forgetting but those are the most pressing questions.

 

 

 

If anyone's interested, I can put up my current tweaked files. Some of the items I've changed are a touch OP, but in terms of creations mainly what I've tried to do is make sure all the upgraded versions you get with three points are actual upgrades. After reading a bunch of analysis's that pointed out how a lot of them were just recolors with a higher base lvl I was quite distressed. I think some might be slightly overpowered now but with some minor number tweaking they'd be well balanced. I gave Searing artillas an extra AP and a 3 target searer spell (which I might want to reduce the damage of), and a poison bite. The plated bug got some armor and a poison attack. The Thad shade which was already pretty good I gave the icy touch attack that all the other shades have and gave a nice blue color. The useless exploding roamer I replaced with a "Disruption Roamer" it has a 3 target breath attack that does disruption damage (so it slices through most creation's resistances but is totally useless against quite a few enemy types) that looks like the ice breath but makes the cool reaper explosion when it hits. I may reduce their health to make them more of a glass cannon because they're sort of OP for how low their essence cost is . Also they're teal and they glow. I want to give the rotzidion an AOE acid aura.

 

Balance wise, I think my modded creations might be too good relative to other higher tier creations you can make, but relative to the foes you fight they aren't so powerful that it unbalances the game. My thad shade and first searing artilla are crazy powerful just because I kept them the whole game and they're really high lvl, and in G3 leveling up creations makes a huge difference, but when I initially shaped them they weren't out of balance. Even in the end game they only manage to hold their own and aren't just slaughtering everything. A freshly shaped one definitely wouldn't be able to compete in the end game. the plated bug is still rather weak, and the disruption roamer doesn't do anything to a lot of enemies at all, and the damage isn't super high. My main concern is that they make all the third Tier creations obsolete. 4th tier is still stronger.

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Oh, thought of another good one regarding items: What stats can I give to creations? I know I can give the four basic ones, resistances, and the bonus to attack skills and armor, but what about stuff like hit chance and other miscellaneous stuff like that, particularly in G4&5 where there's new ones like energy conservation and stuff.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Im not sure where but im sure i've seen a thread on mods some years back. I also think it would be easier to work them in geneforge 4 as its sort of a new engine so it likelly has more empty spaces. A good thing you can add tp clawbugs is spines or what. But im not the best person to adress this. As i gave up on modding since i ended up corrupting my copy.

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Im not sure where but im sure i've seen a thread on mods some years back. I also think it would be easier to work them in geneforge 4 as its sort of a new engine so it likelly has more empty spaces. A good thing you can add tp clawbugs is spines or what. But im not the best person to adress this. As i gave up on modding since i ended up corrupting my copy.

 

There are a bunch of threads on modding and I've read them all. They were quite helpful.

 

I've done a bunch of stuff to G4 (though not as extensive as with G3) , all went smoothly, then did most of the same stuff to G5. Still haven't gotten the AOE spells to work. You can give creations that only had melee attacks ranged ones and it doesn't screw anything up. At some point I'll have to go through the painstaking process of combing through the scripts and making note of any unused values where I could put new stuff. It's not so bad for the spells (at least not in GF1-3), but 4 and 5 added a bunch of new stuff and it's not all in order so it complicates things. Items have the same issue plus there's a ton more of them. The G5 engine looks like it has the potential to do some really cool stuff graphically.

 

I don't dare screw with the Zones at this point, just the file with the items and creatures, and the one with the spells.

 

oh, you know how you couldn't put enhancements on shields for some reason? I fixed that (well I'm sure it was intentional when the game was made but I found it frustrating) It's just one line of code you can copy and paste into the basic template for each item type and boom. All your slots are fair game.

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Meh, so there's really no way to "Expand" the games in any meaningful way, except add dialogue and scripts? I.e. I can make X NPC give me a quest about say, 5 crystals for money \ XP but there's no way to add a big quest?

 

Is it possible to script new enemies \ NPCs to appear in a zone? Like "talk to X. If A area is explored sufficiently, X has an option that gives a quest. A now holds a bunch of new enemies and there's an item in box K, that is the quest target."

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Meh, so there's really no way to "Expand" the games in any meaningful way, except add dialogue and scripts? I.e. I can make X NPC give me a quest about say, 5 crystals for money \ XP but there's no way to add a big quest?

 

Is it possible to script new enemies \ NPCs to appear in a zone? Like "talk to X. If A area is explored sufficiently, X has an option that gives a quest. A now holds a bunch of new enemies and there's an item in box K, that is the quest target."

 

No. Enemy placement data is part of the map data, which is not part of the scripts.

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another question: when I'm in the items chars/objmisc file, I sometimes see negative values and I have no clue what those mean. Like reapers (G5) it have "ab_status_effect = -1;" and while I've got a list of 1-20, I have no clue what the negative one is. And I see them it other spots where I have no clue what it means like "ab_effect_type = -1;" Actually if anyone knows, a list of what the different effect types (not status effects) and what the "it_variety = y;" values mean, or really anything besides the damage types, status effects, and other pretty straightforward values where I've already found lists for are.

 

I'm having great difficulty figuring out exactly how the coloring (cr_graphic_coloradj) system works, mostly I've done trial and error to find what I think looks good (for example I made charged Vlish purple, and plated bugs sort of grayish) but aside from 1 usually being blue, I can't seem to find anything constant between the graphics for different creations, like number X on say, a Vlish, is different than how the same #X looks on a clawbug, or Glaahk. I guess part of that probably is from them all having a different colored basic graphic, but it'd be nice to have a better understanding of how the system works.

 

I did manage to figure out some of the values for cr_graphic_appearadj, 0 is no effect (makes sense) 1 is transparent (like shades and spectral vlish and such) 2 & 4 are both glowy effects (some charged creations, battle gammas) with 2 seemingly brighter and more pronounced than 4. 3 doesn't seem to do anything, nor do any numbers up from 5-10, nor do negative numbers. I swear there ought to be more though, like the weird pixelated effect some creations had in earlier games.

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another question: when I'm in the items chars/objmisc file, I sometimes see negative values and I have no clue what those mean. Like reapers (G5) it have "ab_status_effect = -1;" and while I've got a list of 1-20, I have no clue what the negative one is. And I see them it other spots where I have no clue what it means like "ab_effect_type = -1;" Actually if anyone knows, a list of what the different effect types (not status effects) and what the "it_variety = y;" values mean, or really anything besides the damage types, status effects, and other pretty straightforward values where I've already found lists for are.

 

From experience with BoA scripting, -1 usually means "nothing to see here, ignore this entry". It's especially common to see it if the script is importing data from another monster or item that does have a non-negative value for that entry, in order to override and disregard that part of the import.

 

I'm having great difficulty figuring out exactly how the coloring (cr_graphic_coloradj) system works, mostly I've done trial and error to find what I think looks good (for example I made charged Vlish purple, and plated bugs sort of grayish) but aside from 1 usually being blue, I can't seem to find anything constant between the graphics for different creations, like number X on say, a Vlish, is different than how the same #X looks on a clawbug, or Glaahk. I guess part of that probably is from them all having a different colored basic graphic, but it'd be nice to have a better understanding of how the system works.

 

Looking at the Blades of Avernum documentation might be helpful for this too. I can't guarantee everything's stayed the same between games but it'd be a good starting point.

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From experience with BoA scripting, -1 usually means "nothing to see here, ignore this entry". It's especially common to see it if the script is importing data from another monster or item that does have a non-negative value for that entry, in order to override and disregard that part of the import.

This is correct. Note that in modern SW scripting, all definitions automatically important some of their data.

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Ah, thank you, that clears up my confusion. And yeah, I'll take a look at the BoA documentation and see what I can learn from that.

 

At some point I'm going to go through the scripts and make a note of all the unused values for spells, and for items (if any exist) where one could put new stuff and put the list up here as a resource for anyone who's interested. I thought it was really cool that I could actually make new spells/abilities without having to overwrite anything.

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