OBoE Suggestion List

[Ishad Nha]

The Character Editor not only has no provision for custom items, it has quite a few errors in its listing of item characteristics. One key problem is found in the icons, a sapphire has the icon of a mug... Short of re - compiling the program, the only obvious solution is to use the Scenario Editor. Create a new blank town and leave the desired items lying around. Then the party enters the town and can pick up the required items.

 

Also it could do with provision for setting sdfs and giving special items.

[Prince of Kitties]

The chief use of the character editor, at least for me, is preventing myself from getting permanently screwed - for example, removing the party from a scenario when I've managed to get stuck with no way out, or replenishing my mages' SP if I've managed to save during a fight that I was losing badly. Those things can't be done with the scenario editor.

 

(The PC editor is very buggy though. I've found other items that don't work properly, e.g. you can't give the party smokey crystals, at least on the Windows version, and the editor's version of Aescal's Ring apparently never runs out of charges.)

[Drakefyre]

I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about outdoors time - 10 steps in town equal one step outdoors.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Drakefyre:
I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about outdoors time - 10 steps in town equal one step outdoors.

The problem is that although this holds true for the passage of days, it doesn't hold true for scenario timers, so an event that's supposed to happen, say, twice a day will get out of sync with the day counter due to moving between town and outdoors.

[Ishad Nha]

The list of items contains a few errors, it seems especially flawed in the area of item graphics. When the program is opened in the MS-Dos Edit command the list of items starts on line 4,910 column 51 and goes through to line 5,254 column 20. (This is based on the default line length of 70 characters.)

 

When line length = 65, the lists start on line 5,288 column 26 and go through to line 5,658 column 25. Each entry starts in column 26 of the relevant line.

 

The item records are contained in “Itemdata.h”, while lines 119 thru 127 of “Global.h” contain the definitions. (Here I am referring to the official Spiderweb source code.)

 

One of the source files adds 20 to the picture number, for certain pictures.

 

Not only does the Character Editor contain errors, it also uses different ways of storing item information, compared to the Scenario Editor.

 

Now that the Editors are open source you can correct errors in the Edit command. Aescal's ring has 0 charges in the Character Editor for example.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Quote:

Originally written by Arachnid:

- The Edit Statistics node lets you edit any stat except HP or SP. You should be allowed to edit both.

Raising the maximum SP is especially important if Ritual of Sanctification is required early in the game in a low-level scenario. In particular, it would allow you to "teach" RoS by raising the SP of a PC.

Quote:

Originally written by Crynsos:
I just noticed that the Uncurse Items spell doesn't seem to work (after 2 uses) and I doubt that I need higher INT or something...

Well... I'm not exactly sure how this spell is supposed to work, but this what I remember from the few times I've used it:

• It only uncurses one item at a time.
• It only seems to work on equipped objects (for fairly obvious reasons). By this I mean you can't uncurse, say, a lodestone (I think).

Quote:

Originally written by The Almighty Do-er of Stuff:
I don't know if any of these have been fixed already:
On the Windows version of the scenario editor and the main program (not sure about the Mac version), the smaller Alien Beast graphic does not appear when selecting graphics, when placing the monster in a town, or when seeing the monster in the main program (haven't tested outdoors, but presumably it would be no different). Rather, it is replaced by the Mind Crystal graphic.

This is a problem on the Mac version.

Quote:

Originally written by The Almighty Do-er of Stuff:
The Strength Potion cannot be made via alchemy.

I've made a Strength Potion before. Maybe this is a Windows bug, or a bug from an early version that has already been fixed?

Quote:

Originally written by Robsta:

I also have a few ideas to increase the possibilities in the race/traits window.
- Return the disadvantage Passafist, a disadvantage from Exile II that I liked, but was removed from its sequals.
- How about an advantage speedy - like sluggish, but the opposite, the PC gains 1 action point! This is powerful, so how about + 20 - 25% XP per level
- More races, *...*
Some races I'd suggest -
Goblin - *...*
Orc - *...*
Ogre - *...*

I also liked the Pacifist trait in E2 even though I would never give it to one of my characters. I would instead use it for one member of a prefab party.
On the races, I generally see Orcs and Goblins as the same thing, and in any case Orcs don't fit into the worlds (as Crynsos & Thuryl said). If three new races were added, I would want Goblin, Ogre, and Vahnatai. Another candidate is Troglodyte, though I see no reason to make it a playable race.

Quote:

Originally written by Crynsos:
Another minor improvemet: Make it possible to use custom scenario icons.

Wonderful idea. On a related note, enlarge the record holding the details of scenarios in the scenario folder. At the moment you can only see the first 30 (I think) scenarios. This should be enlarged to, say, 1000, or even better, dynamically allocated based on how many scenarios are actually in the folder.

Quote:

Originally written by Miramor:
If it hasn't been implemented already, and isn't too nasty... Checks for RoS casting on a space should be made into a check for a spell cast on a space, defaulting to RoS. There are ways around the lack of a spell-on-space check but they're kind of ugly, and don't really allow for requiring specific spells.

Only check for spells that actually trigger the targeting mode, of course. In particular, spells like Unlock, Move Mountains, Dispel Field, Dispel Barrier, etc. Also Fireball for those slime pools!

And a few more ideas of my own:

• Allow complete editing of terrain types 63..90 at the very least. Even better to make all terrains editable, but that would be harder. In order to support this, add terrain properties for the roads and walkways.
• Make the variables for gold, food, day, level, etc unsigned so that a roll-over does not leave you in the negative (especially for gold).
• Make an option to disable the editor's automatic placement of terrains. This includes the conforming of cave wall, mountains, water, hills; placing hills around mountains; placing the second half of the 2-space rubbles. Especially when using custom graphics, the editor's conformation rules simply don't work very well in certain configurations.
• Two things that the BoA editor has already done: resizing the outdoors and importing an outdoor section.
• Possibly remove the limits of Item Ability Strength ≤ 10 and Monster Poison ≤ 8, because some default items and monsters break this rule (Exploding Missiles, Lightning Bolts, Talking Spider).
• A optional grid in the terrain editing screen so you can see where the edges of the spaces are.
• An optional target icon displayed over the central space so you know exactly which space is the central space before pressing num5. (although the previous suggestion might make this idea obsolete?)

Please carbonize the Character Editor!

[Robsta]

Another suggestion, this one concerning the item with class? Equip item with class? Item with calls (+take)? etc. special nodes.

Currently they only check for if you have one character with one such item, it would increase flexability if the 2a and/or 2b fields were used to check either how many items or how many characters with items. (the first is probably more pratical and easier to program)

[Ishad Nha]

Customizing the first 91 terrain slots is already possible, but it has to be done by hex - editing. Back in January this year, I wrote a post on how to do this.

 

http://www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=001792

 

You can also use a hexadecimal editor like Hexplorer, here the terrain listings start at hexadecimal address 7A98 = 31,384.

 

(Hex editing is basically okay for these purposes.)

[Celtic Minstrel]

Hex editing is infinitely more complicated than the dialogs in the scenario editor. It shouldn't be too hard to just remove the restriction on customizing these slots.

[Ishad Nha]

Hex editing is quick, simple and fun when you get familiar with it; my description may make it sound harder than it really is.

 

To remove the limitation on editing is a good idea, it does however require re – compiling the Scenario Editor, which I have not succeeded in doing. I am using the Ormus code on Bloodshed Dev-C++, so far the program does “compile”, it is however 300kb in size rather than the proper 735kb. It also does not actually work, like do anything.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I just remembered something about the Mac OSX release. All the resource files (Sounds, Graphics, and the .rsrc files) are twice the size they need to be because every resource in the resource fork is duplicated in the data fork. Only the ones in the resource fork are used.

 

Edit: I was also wandering: would it be a good idea to remove the password-protection option? I ask mainly because BoA doesn't have it, but also because I'd like to be able to examine some of them. (No, I'm not referring to cheating with the ScenEd.)

[Celtic Minstrel]

This may have been mentioned before, but I recommend upgrading the game to C++. Also, for variable-length arrays, I recommend the STL . I would be willing to do this myself if I had time (by which I mean lots and lots of time!) and if I had any idea how to use the source repository system.

 

This would of course also require a major overhaul of the file format, which may have already been started.

 

On another point, here's a few bugs that need fixing:

• Make the waterfalls work in town. For some reason, they don't seem to work in town, at least in my version.
• When the party is split up, Affect PC special nodes should only affect the active PC. In particular, absent characters should not have their skills etc. improved!
• When an item is placed and the Amount/Charges field is filled in with a number other than -1, it has no effect (unless the item is food or gold)
• The Alien Beast graphic bug (mentioned recently I think)

And could the labels for checkboxes be aligned right rather than left so that it is easier to see which label corresponds to which checkbox?

(Sorry about this double post - I wanted the thread to be brought to the top of the list since it hasn't been posted to in several days. If this is not a good reason to double post, tell me now!)

[Ishad Nha]

While we are at it we can have Editor support for all 30 boats and 30 horses. Perusal of the source code shows that the scenario file has provision for 30 boats, 30 horses and 20 scenario timers, not just 24, 24 and 10.

 

Here and now the six extra boats can be hex – edited into the game:

Twenty-four supported entries: 440,53 through 444,12.

Six unsupported entries: 444,13 thru 445,2.

 

The format: location X,Y, four spaces, short town number, Boolean exists and the Boolean party property identifier.

 

Edit Horses [30], unsupported entries: 448,33 thru 449,22.

 

Scenario timers

Number of moves is found from 507, 61 through 508,10.

Ten unsupported entries: 508,11 through 508,30.

Scenario state to be called is found from 508,31 through 508,50.

Ten unsupported entries: 508,51 through 508,70.

 

The same file, Global.h lines 312… also shows that there is provision for 3,100 Stuff Done Flags not 3,000.

[Celtic Minstrel]

If you use the extra spaces, does the game recognize them?

 

Really though, it's rather silly that everything in this game is limited to arbitrary numbers. If all these arrays were made variable-length (with malloc() / new, of course - or the STL vector) then there would be vastly more possibilities with the game.

(I understand that this would be a major undertaking and require a rewrite of the scenario format. But I really think it would be worth it.)

(EDIT: I'm not sure whether someone is doing this already.)

[Ishad Nha]

Yes, the extra boats I was able to generate with hex - editing. Extra sdf won't be allowed by the scenario Editor.

[Celtic Minstrel]

... I never said anything about extra SDFs.

[Robsta]

Another error that I have encountered, in reference to editing terrain, the call special when used option doesn't seem to work, when I tried to use it, I got a small message telling me that there is nothing to use.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I'm pretty sure I've gotten that feature to work. What exactly did you do? Maybe you missed something important.

[SlothMan]

Um, I dont know what OBoE is, but if its what it SOUNDS like what I think it is... then what about my suggestion in the other thread entitled "Changing the size of the playing field"? The game shouldn't have to be restricted to the same old 7x7 (i believe?) grid when you've got a huge monitor to fill. How about a way to expand the number of tiles that can be seen at one time, and something to same the same effect with the minimap?

[Celtic Minstrel]

It's on the other list , #8 under Other Minor Changes.

[Robsta]

Quote:

Originally written by Celtic Minstrel:
I'm pretty sure I've gotten that feature to work. What exactly did you do? Maybe you missed something important.

Sorry, after more testing I discovered that it will call the special (perhaps I had tested with a party already saved in the scenario or something), but it still displays the small message "nothing to use". I tried adding a small message to the chain to see if it overrode it, but it showed both my message and nothing to use.

[Robsta]

Another minor change I'd like to see if it isn't too difficult.

Add more free text space into the scenario texts. I have a tendency to like to write a lot, and if a town runs out of texts or special nodes, I use the scenario texts.

Now I have to decide which nodes to leave text off when I want to add a new one.

(one or two hundred more texts would be nice.)

[Robsta]

For signs, there should be an option for the designer to give two or more signs the same number (have the same text displayed). There are currently 15 signs allowed per town, and 8 per outdoor sections. I’ve run out of signs in a couple towns, and other designers might have the same problem. I believe this would be easier to implement than raising the number of signs allowed.

[Prince of Kitties]

A simple suggestion for the default game settings: Instant Help should be *off* by default. The game has a help file, and getting spammed with Instant Help messages is annoying.

[Ishad Nha]

It is every time that I try to access the Preferences menu after starting a new game. It is annoying for experienced users but might be handy for new beginners. Possibly alter the game to make the switch - off permanent?

[Slawbug]

Realistically, how many complete beginners are going to be using OBoE in the near future?

[Balladeer]

I'd say more then you'd think. Once a game is free more people will download it just for the reason that it's free.

[Ormus]

Originally Posted By: Miramor

A simple suggestion for the default game settings: Instant Help should be *off* by default. The game has a help file, and getting spammed with Instant Help messages is annoying.

I think that instant help should be on by default but sure it is annoying to switch it off every time one makes new group of adventurers. I've just modified the code, so that making new party doesn't reset "Never show instant help" setting. You can download executable file from my webpage. And now this setting is stored not only in savegame file but also in "blades.ini" (as "no_instant_help" variable), which prevents resetting instant help after the game starts.

[Prince of Kitties]

If it isn't too much trouble...

 

- Kill/stone/dust all should only kill PCs that exist.

 

- Resurrect all should only resurrect PCs that exist.

 

- Split party should not make nonexistant PCs visible.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I think Stareye may have fixed those things, but I think that code hasn't yet been incorporated into a stable release or something. He was in the middle of making changes that would radically alter the format of the scenarios and/or the saved games, so while you could probably find the code and download it from Khoth's site, it may not be a good idea to use that version just yet. Also, it's a Mac version, so it doesn't help you if you're on Windows.

 

Speaking of Stareye, does anyone know where he is and if he's still planning to work on the BoE code?

[Prince of Kitties]

Hmm, it looks like the random items bug still exists... The problem is that many towns/dungeons seem to be generated the first time with random items in the walls and stuff.

 

There also seems to be a relationship between how many items are in a town, and how many random items pop up. In AC3, for instance, which uses items where other scenarios use terrain features, you get haystacks and water troughs appearing where they shouldn't all the time.

 

Ormus: if you need a savefile for this, I can have one up pretty soon...

[Ormus]

Miramor, please send me this savefile and aproporiate scenario.

 

EDIT: Oh, I haven't noticed seperate thread with links to your savefile.

[Robsta]

Another suggestion

Allow the monster editor to use custom graphics as the default talking picture.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I thought it could...?

[Robsta]

From just testing now, whenever I enter a custom graphic into the default talking picture for a monster (say 1223 for goblins) then close the box and open it again, a random number (say 199) shows up.

This means I have to manually select every individual monster and give it the same custom talking picture in the “edit creature” menu.

Ps. It would also be nice if you could give a monster a default personality. For example allow all soldiers to use personality 47 when they are placed.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Robsta

a random number (say 199) shows up.

It's not random. It's integer overflow. For example, if you enter 1223, you always get 199.

Originally Posted By: Robsta

Ps. It would also be nice if you could give a monster a default personality. For example allow all soldiers to use personality 47 when they are placed.

I dunno if that's a good idea... but you can place one soldier, assign it personality 47, and then place the rest with "Place Same Monster". Then they'll all have the same personality.

[Robsta]

I used this, but it became tedious when I was placing four different types of soldiers in four towns (or there abouts). (The idea for this came from laziness and this article)

[Celtic Minstrel]

Hmmm... I suppose it's worthwhile. I'll add it to the list.

[Prince of Kitties]

The "Magic Resistant" status effect is supposed to protect from magical effects such as slowing and cursing, but as far as I can tell it does nothing at all. A curse thrown at a PC with that effect enabled has the same chance of working as on an "unprotected" PC.

 

(Note that I'm talking about magic resistance as it pertains to the spells Resist Magic, Protection, and Avatar - not items that grant magic resistance.)

 

BTW, is Ormus still around, or is the project unmaintained now?

[Ishad Nha]

Does it reduce damage from hostile spells? In BoE Resistant is not the same thing as Immune. Thus a Resistant PC may have fewer levels of cursing than a totally unprotected one. This could be verified in a save game file, see my post

http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=27554#Post27554

 

Which I will be updating today.

[Prince of Kitties]

Doesn't reduce damage from hostile spells. If there's any difference in the level of slow/curse/etc., it's invisible.

 

I'll see if I can cobble together a save file to demonstrate...

[Ishad Nha]

Really, the limit on terrain types must go. If that is too tough to program then an idea could be borrowed from Avernum 1 through Avernum 3: allowing sixteen customizable terrain slots per town.

 

 

(I think this idea is also used in Exile 3.)

[Celtic Minstrel]

Seriously, it would be fairly simple to remove all such arbitrary limits simply through the use of dynamic memory allocation (the new operator, or, if you prefer C rather than C++, malloc() ).

 

Edit: The only difficulty would be to alter the terrain selection palette to handle it, I think...

[Ishad Nha]

In programming this the simplest course is to have multiple versions of the current terrain palette. Each version would have different terrain types.

 

I don't think we have professional programmers around here so it might be best to keep programming simple.

[Celtic Minstrel]

We have a few very good programmers (Niemand, for one, though he's mostly working on the BoA editor).

[Robsta]

Another bug for the scenario editor is about special nodes.

When a scenario special node over 100 is called by another and you click on it to edit it from the other node, it will automatically create a new special node, as opposed to editing an existing node.

I believe that this bug only crops up when a town special calls a scenario special.

[Robsta]

An annoying bug that SHOULD NOT BE FIXED is the varying effects of the general timers. I find that about half the time, general timers subtract one move from the number of moves they say, while the other half of the time they don’t. Why?

[Celtic Minstrel]

Why should it not be fixed?

[Robsta]

It should not be fixed because a number of previous scenarios have been designed with these faulty timers accounted for. If it was fixed so that these scenarios were changed, it may render them unplayable. If it were fixed in a way that did not effect any previous scenarios playability, it should be.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I don't see how fixing the bug would render them unplayable. It seems like they'd behave ever so slightly differently, but from what you've said of the bug it doesn't sound like it would render them unplayable.