Slawbug

I think it's the opposite of what you're saying, Random.  They weren't sellable in the beta when they were worth zero, so Jeff gave them values because the game hands you extras (it does) (and some of the artifacts are not great) and people wanted to sell them instead.  He gave them values so that people could sell them, not the other way around.

Zero cost items weren't sold in the release version of Mutagen, and they still aren't sold in Infestation.  Regardless, I'm not sure why you're saying Jeff gave them high gp values to prevent them from being sold.  That just doesn't make any sense.

Yes!  This only changes one file and the update didn't touch it.

The update did actually add skill-based damage increases for Searer and Chain Lightning, which is missing from those tooltips.  It sounds like Jeff is planning some more changes (and possibly updating his own tooltips) so I'm going to wait and see what happens before updating this mod again.

There are no changes in the mod.  Jeff's 4/4 update made changes to some of the same files that the mod replaces.  Mod v1.01 simply merges those changes with the mod.

Mod updated for 4/4 Steam update.  You'll need to reinstall the mod as Steam just overwrites existing files.  (You will not need to repeat the steps for double walking speed again.)

"The high value ingredients was a change Jeff made to prevent them from being accidentally sold if you forgot to remove them from the junk bag."

"Sell all" sells anything with a value greater than zero.  What are you saying here?

Yeah, it's literally just .txt files.

Some of these are zone files which include little bits of Jeff's scripting, which looks almost identical to (some pretty basic) code.  I'd guess that has something to do with Firefox's suspicion, but I have no idea.  Does it actually say "contains malware" or is it just a generic "may contain malware"?  Maybe it doesn't like attached files on message boards?  Who knows.

Quality of Life Mod

v1.01 - Updated for 4/4 Steam update

Changes:

1. Double Walking Speed
2. No Equipment Switching for Mechanics
3. Reusable Missile Weapons
4. Portable Campsite
5. Portable Item Storage

Installation Instructions

1) Close the game.  Locate your G2 "Scripts" folder.  Sample path might look something like:

        C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Geneforge 2 - Infestation\Geneforge 2 Infestation Files\Scripts

2) Back up the folder.

3) Download and unzip the attached file.

4) Copy all text files into the Scripts folder, replacing the existing copies.

5) Use at your own risk 🙂 This is why you're backing things up first!  Also, don't bug Spiderweb, they aren't responsible for this.

6) Request: for everyone's sanity, please do not release altered versions of this mod, or copy and paste from it into your own.

Double Walking Speed

- If you start a new game, your PC, creations, and joined allies (like Zora) will walk at double speed automatically.
- For existing saves, read the sign at the south end of Drypeak Gates to upgrade the PC's speed.
- For existing saves, absorb and recreate your creations to upgrade their speed.
- For existing saves, manually dismiss and rehire allies (at their original location) to upgrade their speed.

- This is a massive time-saver!  The only real gameplay effect is that it becomes easier to Stealth past things.  So I recommend not using this mod for a pacifist or stealth-based playthrough 🙂

- Side effect/drawback: if you click many spaces away in combat, through an extremely cluttered space (with characters or terrain objects like rocks), sometimes it will cause a pathing hiccup where you stop short and waste a couple of AP.  This only seems to happen in cluttered areas, and can be avoided by moving just a few spaces at a time in such areas.

No Equipment Switching for Mechanics

- Mechanics/Leadership equipment now give their bonuses just for sitting in your pack, like a charm.
- This affects the 3 Infiltrator items, the Tinker's Gloves, and the Girdle of Leadership.
- The Infiltrator's Ring and Girdle of Leadership no longer add to Dexterity and Intellect, respectively.

Reusable Missile Weapons

- Javelins and batons now come with infinite charges.
- They aren't really any better than melee weapons or spells even with this mod.
- The purpose is just to remove the annoyance of having to conserve/micromanage ammunition, and make missile-specialized play more fun.

Portable Campsite

- The "Bedroll" item now has a reusable ability which restores all your essence.
- The purpose is to replace the wasted time walking back to town to recharge your essence.  Since almost nothing respawns, there's no penalty for doing this -- it's just annoying.
- Please use your discretion to keep this from being a cheat -- don't use Bedrolls in combat.  (I mean, somebody could really get hurt.)

Portable Item Storage

- In Geneforge, zero cost items in the Junk Bag are never sold, even when you hit "sell all" at a merchant.
- This mod takes advantage of this by changing the cost of numerous items to zero, so you can freely store them in the Junk Bag, rather than spending forever swapping items around, stockpiling them on the floor somewhere, etc.
- This does mean you can't sell those items.  Despite the high price tags some of them have, you'd be surprised what a relatively small portion of your cash income this makes up.  Regardless, the game is pretty generous with money.

- Zero cost/stowable: unpurchasable quest items like those annoying library books
- Zero cost/stowable: collectible ingredients that are generally not bought (like Mandrake, Perfect Glaahk Scales, Wine, etc.)
- Zero cost/stowable: Shaper Equipment*
- Zero cost/stowable: all unique (or nearly unique) top-tier equipment
- Zero cost/stowable: most unique mid-tier equipment*

- Still buyable/sellable: generic weapons and armor (including batons and thorns); charms; consumable items like pods, spores, crystals, and wands; gemstones; Shaper Records, Bars of Iron, Fine Mined Crystals, Living Tools

*a few of these show up in stores, but never in places where it would make sense to buy them normally, so just continue to ignore them 🙂

I have tested these changes for a few days, so they should be pretty stable.  If you do experience anything strange, please let me know!

G2 QoL Mod v1_01.zip

Here's a tiny mod.

This very simple mod corrects inaccurate and/or misleading skill/ability tooltips in the game.  Some of these are minor clarifications, but some of them correct statements that were completely wrong.

The corrected tooltips all appear when you hover on one of three screens:

- Player stats/skills

- Creation stats/skills

- Player spell/weapon shaping skill levels

To install:

1) Close the game.  Locate your G2 "Scripts" folder.  Sample path might look something like:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Geneforge 2 - Infestation\Geneforge 2 Infestation Files\Scripts

2) Back up the folder.

3) Download this file and put it in the folder, replacing the existing version.

Start up the game and you should see the fixed tooltips.

Please let's try to keep mod threads on the topic of the one specific mod, so they don't become confusing when other players are looking for a mod.  Thanks.

text1skills.txt

4 hours ago, alhoon said:

I remember that quote! But are you sure it was the PC to Khyryk? 

It's in G4, and yes.  (This is a screenshot of where it was copied and pasted into a web page back in 2006.)

Infestation definitely has some more challenges than Mutagen IMO, and maybe it's easier to wander into hard areas without realizing it.  So don't feel discouraged.  You're thinking about the right questions, and I bet you'll ramp up soon enough!

That is known, and if there's going to be an in-depth discussion of script definitions, I suggest a new topic for it.  Let's keep this one just concerned with the mod itself.

Additional comment: although in this case the damage numbers for that cheat are actually what I would expect with 102, the game expects skill values to be single digits, so I wouldn't assume everything is going to behave linearly when you make them that high.

EDIT: the "3 squares" text is hardcoded.  Not something I can edit.

In a perfect world, I'd love to have tooltips that are both comprehensive and clear.  In reality, when the mechanics themselves are a little bit convoluted and there are edge cases, sometimes you can't get both of those things at the same time.  Trade-offs have to be made.  The priority for me is to make sure the player gets a clear picture of what the skill does so they can make fair choices about whether to invest in it.

My other comment, though, is that "each point of this skill increases the damage by a miniscule amount" doesn't actually have anything to do with Searer itself.  That's just how literally every damage skill works -- it's hardcoded.  It doesn't belong in an individual skill description any more than "Intelligence increases the damage of this spell" does.  So if anything, what your plea tempts me to do is to remove that mention from Chain Lightning 🙂 

I meant everything besides level.  I was going to add besides level at the end.  In parentheses.  I was going to.  The best laid plans...

Which is interesting given that there is actual mention of other plant-type enemy creations in the story.

Oh, and Mech -- the issue isn't that spell/ability level doesn't ever influence buff duration.  It depends how the definition is written.  For many spells it's written in such a way that it does impact it.  For those weapon shaping disciplines, it's not.

Oh, interesting!  That 1% makes sense -- I think everything that used to (in older engines) give 5% accuracy now just gives 1%, right?

I suppose I could change "nothing" to "nothing special."

The math on Quicklash is really bad, honestly.  You give up a chance (eventually a >50% chance) of an impactful spell, that does more damage to more targets and/or applies strong statuses... for basically a guaranteed free Firebolt... and you pay out the nose for it.

On 4/2/2024 at 1:35 PM, mikeprichard said:

1) Your Searer description states "A third point of this skill increases the duration." instead of Jeff's "Each extra point of this skill increases the damage." If your version is correct, what exactly do the fourth/fifth/etc. points do? Your text seems to imply they'd be useless (as there's no mention of either further duration increases or any direct damage increases), but I doubt that's the case.

My version is correct.  The fourth/fifth etc points do nothing except for the same "miniscule" damage increase noted for Chain Lightning.  Specifically, it adds 1 die, which is miniscule for most of the game, especially compared to the percentile increases of other tooltips.  FWIW, this is the only thing extra points in a lot of damage spells have done for Spiderweb games going back 20 years now, all the way to OG1.

On 4/2/2024 at 1:35 PM, mikeprichard said:

2) You note "Each extra point of this skill does nothing." for War Infusion/Guardian Push/Lifedrain, and "Each extra point of this skill increases the damage by a miniscule amount." for Chain Lightning. If this is in fact the case as of version 1.0, do you know whether Jeff is aware of and will fix these bugs in the next patch (and whether you would also then update the mod accordingly for these fixes and any other known underlying changes)?

Some of these might be unintentional, and stem from some subtle changes SW made to ability definitions.  However, in this case, if the extra levels did do something else, it would be to very slightly increase the duration of the statuses they cause, which is not very meaningful to begin with.  So IMO it's not worth wasting Jeff's time with.  (IMO, misleading tooltips that make people invest in things that don't work are a bigger issue than unimpressive spell upgrades.)

On 4/2/2024 at 2:39 PM, Iguana-on-a-stick said:

Wait, melee skill includes a chance of an attack costing fewer action points? Since when?

Since Mutagen -- and that was actually already in the tooltip.  Not my addition 🙂

On 4/2/2024 at 2:39 PM, Iguana-on-a-stick said:

Healing craft -> Does it also boost the recovery effect of i.e. cure affliction? The tooltip on that spell lists a percentage bonus. I always thought that meant more turns' worth of debuff would be removed. If so, the tooltip could clarify that it's not just hitpoint healing.

I didn't edit the Mechanics tooltip.  It's not an exhausting list of what Mechanics can do, but it's a representative enough list that it won't mislead players.  For Healing Craft, you are correct that Cure Affliction will technically receive a tiny increase to the number of turns removed (well, a small chance of removing 1 extra turn is how it really plays out).  However, it won't change the number of debuffs removed, and only certain removal abilities get this bonus.  I did think about mentioning this in the tooltip, but ultimately decided it would be too confusing and isn't really a plausible reason to raise the skill anyway.  So kind of like with Mechanics, the goal was to lead the player fairly, not to force a procession of every possible edge case.

I'm pretty sure there's no way to strictly prevent the unaligned ending.  If all else fails, you can just kill everyone.

A4-A6 sound like they are in the "actual remake" category along with the rest of Geneforge.

I was sitting on 60+ tools for the whole second half of the game, and I only manually raised Mechanics to 5.  (I did make a point of grabbing the Mechanics+ items, but only when I was in a nearby zone anyway.)

4 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

Also if you do the Kill Tuldaric quest for Infernal Teriel, once you turn it in he leaves so you can never kill 4 infernal for the Emissary.

He does?  That's not what his script says.  Are you sure?

I believe the only requirements for the Good Unaligned ending are

- kill Barzahl

- kill the Taker leaders

- no current faction membership

mike's plan seems fine.  Note that the Awakened Applicant quests don't really affect anything so you can safely do those; there are 4 points of Leadership from later items so raising it manually to 8 is unnecessary.

> "under 90+leadership" doesn't quite seem to convey "only if reputation minus leadership is less than 90" per the corresponding script).

I think it does?  If your reputation is less than (90 + leadership) you meet the qualification.  It's just a much simpler way of putting it.

Amazing!  That's great.

There are a bunch of smaller ones that aren't dependent on faction membership.

- Some of these are obvious: if you complete Kill Twini you can't complete the quest Twini gives you, for example.  If you complete Kill Tuldaric, you alienate the Awakened forever.

- There are things faction membership cuts off (or enables) that aren't quests, like Taker membership denying you the Fort Muck raid with its irreplaceable drop; also merchants and trainers

- There are also things that have nothing to do with factions.  If you kill key infernals before getting the special rod from Shandoka, for example, you can never complete those quests or get their rewards

- nlambert's Index lists a few other quests as faction-locked not on the list above; not sure which is accurate.  for example, Recover Mutant Drayk is listed as Takers Only.