alhoon

I am at a bridge with a bunch of Sholai in the area. I don't know the language of the Sholai and I haven't found the Takers yet. The bridge has a named mage, Sofya that has a ton of hp, an lolz-powerz Sholai (20th lvl, and he has some zap-teleport ability and a storm of swords) and a bunch of turrets. Using two waves of 3 pyroroamers, and of course several death-load-try-again attempts, I have weakened them enough to be manageable. However... this area is clearly not for a level 8 Shaper. Is there a way to befriend the people on the bridge if I go to the other areas I can find? PS. Is it me, or the Sholai are like the Barzites from GF2? The random dudes that patrol around are level 12 and also have a ton of abilities.

Well, I plan to replace it with a Rotdhizon in a mod, so...

I went there at level 6.

I think he refers to the mines in the tombs or the place with the Alpha colony (the one you have to explain to the Alphas that they should put things on the shelves and not throw them on the floor) that you have to quickly click on the mine or it goes booom.

But you can travel to town as easily as you walk out of a zone... There's IMO no difference in the towns being 5 zones away from where I am to being next to where I am.

Ehh... what? Nope, in my current party, my Shaper goes second after the Roamer.

I think the widower is a Lifecrafter in GF4. That has a Spawner in his backyard asks the PC to deal with it.

I went to the Hill of Jars. Servant Mind Pak told me about Trakov (finally!) but that he was no Shaper, according to the Servant mind. I guess the "Not a Shaper" meant Trakov could shape but was not a Shaper. Maaaarvelous. Trakov, who the Trakovites are named of ... can Shape. And he was Shaped to be able to Shape. No surprises there. Perhaps Litalia were closer to what the very original 'trakovites' had in mind. A shaped shaper that hates shapers. I also found something that made me happy: a cannister of mechanics and sometihng that made me sad: a servile that starved to death in a corner, because he couldn't find a way across the mines. When I finally went to the Spiral Burrow to face Warp the Vlish, I found out that I have grossly overestimated his prowess. Still, I felt insulted that the Vlish tried to control a Shaper... It didn't feel right. I also learned from the text that ... Vlish decay over time, when Shapers don't help them. Interesting. The safety mechanism discussion was mostly absent in the other games. I think I have heard that battle creations are sterile somewhere in GF4 or GF3, but never that Vlish would decay on their own. And what do I find just around the corner? A servant mind. A weakened one that I got a dialogue option to tell it to... die? Lol. Why is that option there, completely eludes me. However I did get some answers finally!!! When the shapers packed and left, they left Servant minds behind to control the creations from going rogue. Right. That didn't work that well, did it? Still, I fed the poor servant mind... only to find out in the next dialogue that it sabotages the Awakened, my buddies. Regardless, I was moved by its plight and its apology for all the rogues, asking me to not kill it and then begging me for sustenance. Moving on from Pentil I kept hearing about Trakov and the Solai. He is spamming Spawners and mines. I have to figure out the reason why he does that if he has access to canisters and/or the Geneforge. He could do as he pleased and take canisters without spawners and armies of rogues.

I tried but it is simply too different. Now the levels have sublevels. That alone puts a ton of changes to the format. Not only you need more than one "layer" for terrain and floors, but there's probably something in the coordinates for items to denote the layer they are in.

I think it is a conscious design, the inventory. This is not an inventory management game, but it gives it such an element.

You should press t to see the log.

Talk to @TheKian

I pray that happens, but it took @TheKian a lot of his free time to make the modding suite for GF5. Asking him to go in practically blind since so many things changed in GF1-M to make a new one is a bit... you know. What could be done is export the files and figure where the "items" list ends and add a chest in the end. But that requires a lot of time as well. Last but not least: if you turn green a lot of areas, you could easily run back to the area you would declare as "my base!". I use the Awakened but you could do it in any place you like. Say, the ruined school. You can put a script there, which is just a couple of lines of code BTW, so you are healed when you go there. Or the abandoned docks. Or the Hill of Jars. Or wherever you like. What I mean is that it is much more 'time efficient' to "adopt an area" as your base than figure out how to add a few chests. Of course, I am not negative to the drive to create more chests, far from it. But as far as this issue is concerned, I think it is better to use the existing chests.

Base with storage boxes: Can't we use the actual storage boxes in the zones? I keep my gear in a chest in Vakkiri. In previous games, nothing would happen to them. But I have not checked for this game. Also, I am a Shaper and I also find the inventory somewhat limited. Sure, I don't have to carry 3 batons and 3 thorns, but I carry crystals and an extra ring and an extra belt for higher versatility as I don't know what I will find in a zone. And then, we have Shaper notes etc that I want to keep. When I find tinker gloves etc, I will also hold such things in my inventory. As such, the junk bag will sooner or later be used for "I should keep that in my box, thus not sell automatically"

On a similar vein: Does a level (at normal difficulty) towards the end matters significantly for a Shaper? For example, as a Shaper in GF5, I saw no serious change in my power with the last 2-3 levels or so. It was all about the creations. However in this game the Shaper's level is important for control of creations and it's level is basically two levels because of the skill points.

When I said "boost stats and level" I didn't mean through the upgrades. I meant changing the files so its base level would be 7, its max health bonus would be similar to the drayk and changing the same base stats as a Battle Beta. Still... I am Fire Shaping. If I get 2 drayk cannisters (I doubt I will find the last 2 before I am 90% done with the game) and with fire shaping well above battle shaping, I would still turn to Drayks.

Meh, I guess it makes sense. For the agent, does it still affect just the skin color?

😲 So, if I boost the stats and level of the ornk to drayk-levels it becomes one of the best creations in the game? The atrocious hp scaling is an issue...

I doubt they're as useful as Drayks or searing artilae though, and that's how much they cost. Also they're battle creations.

I am the one that made a new zone for GF5. I have not head about extra zones in OG GF1. You can find the mod in my sig. Blades of Geneforge "Exist" as in there is a spreadsheet you use but it's a bit hard to use. HOWEVER... the Kian's Modding Suite for GF5 makes the creation or modification of GF5 zones easier. @TheKian

As far as I have seen, more NPCs, even just more creations, let alone new zones would require tools we don't have, and a lot of work to develop such tools. The Geneforge modding tools we already have (Blades of Geneforge and Modding Suite) are unusable for this game. You may be able, with some difficulty, to add a few trees here or there, but not to make meaningful changes. The file structure is significantly different than the ones we know and we have tools for. Now, new mechanics via scripts is possible to a degree. New creations ... I am not sure. I guess we will have to see. Swapping creations with different ones is straightforward and easy. However, making new creations on top of the 18+2 creations you can make, is something that I have not tried to do. Yet. Still, if you're willing to ditch the Ornk and put a different creation there, one you need to unlock in some way (including but not limited to the cannister), you can. If you use the script to "kill" the ornk cannister wherever it is (I have not found it and please no spoilers) and then unlock the ability through new dialogue or scripts (like for example gathering the info through using research notes and shaper tools and pods of essence and have a dialogue in a lab, requiring say 5 notes +5 shaper tools +5 essence pods) you can do it. Going by what I was told in this thread and assuming the essence cost is hardcoded like it was for the previous games (something I cannot confirm as this game seems much more modable and it has stuff that I have not checked yet since I am afraid I will find spoilers and/or break the game) your new creation that would replace the ornk would have a 12 essence base cost and cost 4 essence/upgrade putting it on par (in cost) with Charged Vlish and a tiny bit cheaper than Battle Alphas and Drayks. I.e. if you want balance that's the kind of power you should be looking at. I want to repeat here: GF1-M seems much more mod-friendly than previous installations. Simply put, we seem to have access to the text for the beginning and other things that used to be hardcoded. Changing the scale of a creation is now a matter of simple line of code instead of a whole procedure to manually change it like the previous games. And again I have not delved deeply in to modding possibilities to avoid spoilers and/or breaking the game. As for swapping creations? As I mentioned I plan to simply change the quite unispired BBeta (even the text admits it was not an imagitive change) with Rotdhizons since we now can change the text. The graphics for the Rot are quite worse than what we see in this game though. So, in the end, I may simply change the BBeta to have an acidic punch and be able to spray acid like a spawner and keep it "as is".

Just a random question, how do we make ornks in this game? Their symbol is not on the menu of the creations

What kind of mods do you have in mind? I am thinking of making a mod to give tier 2 creations +1 level and tier 3 creations +2 levels... and I plan to make a mod to make the character able to create Rotdhizons (from later games) instead of Battle Betas. After all, Rotgroths were made in GF2 but nobody there (that I found) said anything about Rotdhizons being first made there. And Rots were quite hard to control which fits.

Frankly, I liked clawbugs and Vlish in the games I've played so I will grab the canisters when I find them. But as I am at 7th lvl shaper with Fire Shaping 5, I have no issues with control in normal difficulty. However, I have not maxed out the levels and I have 3 creations.

Thanks So... considering that Roamer starts at 3, requires 1 Fire Shaping. While Battle Alpha starts at 7 and requires 2 battle shaping... At battle Shaping 2, I would get a Battle Alpha at lvl (7+1) 8 lvl for 14 essence. At Fire Shaping 4, I would get a pyroroamer at lvl (3+3+1) 7 lvl for 8 essence. At 2 upgrades, I would have a roamer at lvl 9 for the same essence I would need for a Battle Alpha at lvl 8... Hmmm... seems interesting. However, I have Fire Shaping 4, while I only have Battle Shaping 1. I would need to invest XP to make use of the battle Alpha. Do you guys think it's worth it? The way I see it: At battle Shaping 3, I would get a battle Alpha at the same level I get my roamer at Fire Shaping 4, so I wouldn't need to invest in the more expensive upgrades of the battle Alpha. On the other hand, 2 levels of Shaping ... could get me to Fire Shaping 5. But with Drayks... At Fire Shaping 5, I would have a roamer at level 3+4+1=8 or a Drayk at level 7+3+1=11 5 upgrades on roamer = lvl 13 and 23 essence. For 22 essence, I get a drayk with 2 upgrades so, lvl 13. Same level as the roamer with less essence and... a drayk. Nah, doesn't seem to be worth to "multi" I loved my other GF mid-armies with a clawbug, a vlish, a cryora and/or a Drayk, but these seem to be a thing of the past. Multi-tasking is more punishing now.