alhoon

It's OUT!!!! 

(For me. GMT+2)

11 hours ago, mikeprichard said:

I do suggest that just your detailed instructions on this would be great to have prominently linked somewhere in the good ol' Strategy Central when that goes up.

A single line that is copy-pasted doesn't make a good mod. 🙂 Perhaps we could make a thread about modding GF1M similar to the one for GF5. 

7 hours ago, Felix_Felicis said:

As GF becomes more mod friendly, I wonder if we'll be able to update art assets with our own personal projects.

That's already possible. This thread is about updating the art assets (green UI) with different assets (blue UI).  

I have updated the sprites for serviles in GF2-3 with those from GF5 for example. Or Mike Prichard changed the art assets (Fyoras) with his own personal project (smaller fyoras). 

It is possible to put different sprites in there if you do the work in the right txt files. For example, You can get a giant spider sprite from here. Then, you "cut it up" in the right sprite files for moving, attacking, dying etc, name the new files appropriately, and add the giant spider in the GFfloorster.txt. Then you make an entry in the file for the creatures about giant spiders. 

In GF4-5 you can add them to the game using theKian's modding suite. In GF1-3 and GF1-M you have to figure out how to do it using a hex editor. 

But it is possible. If you know what you're doing, it would take a couple of hours to add giant spiders as monsters in GF4-5. If you want the player to make giant spiders, you swap out another creation the PC can make. For example, you could have the player make spiders instead of clawbugs or something. 

PS. The spiders are an example. There are more free sprites out there. 

15 hours ago, mikeprichard said:

I've now finished the job to reduce fyoras and cryoas to 60% of their original monstrous size; the temporary link to the .zip with the seven files is below. This took me 15 hours of painstaking manual edits in paint.net, so I won't be doing any more work on this, but I'm posting the files here for the next couple days in case anyone miraculously comes up with a very quick and simple method to correct the slight "wobbling" in the idle animations (per file G2500.png, as I detailed above) that I wasn't able to fully fix by my method. After the game releases on the 24th, I'll post a permanent link to the files in a new forum topic, under the new dedicated Geneforge 1 - Mutagen forum I assume the admins will create at that time. For now, enjoy trying this in the demo!

https://ufile.io/ff1bveqd

Ehh... friend? I hope you will not have the urge to kill me after those 15 hours but... there's a stat in the GFitemschars.txt. It's called... "cr_scaling " 

It does exactly what you wanted. Put:

cr_scaling = 60;

under the Fyora's name. Like this: 

// imported for all fyora types

    import = 0;

    cr_name = "Fyora";

    cr_scaling = 60;

    cr_graphic_template = 150;

The purple is the added line. It does the trick. I changed Fyoras to up to 190% to make them big as dinosaurs and back again. It works. 

Keep in mind that there are some Fyoras in the game that are larger or smaller. You need to adjust them too. I.e. if you see cr_scaling = 90 for the Enraged Fyora, you need to change it to say 55. If you want your drayks to be impressively large, tweak them too to be 130 or something. 

What time does the game release? Is it at midnight? Is it "when it is ready"? 

No no! Do not assume it because I made an off-the-cuff remark without having even installed GF1-original. I am sorry I gave you the wrong impression. What I meant is that if you copy-paste the right images and tweak the GF1-original graphics to have the right sprites and the correct sizes, it should work - but I have not done it for GF1, or even checked whether it is possible.  I have done it with Serviles for GF2-3 and for Battle Alphas in GF3 but never for GF1. 

Please remember that when I post here, I often post in a relaxed manner. Many (probably most) of my posts are not heavily researched with lots-of-thought posts. 

Got it. You have my sincere thanks. 

Dear Moderators: Could we have this mod added in the mod list for Geneforge 1 - Mutagen?  (Not to mention that I think it works for the original GF1 with a bit of text editing.)

EDIT: Going by the images at least, the "wobling" you describe is like 2 pixels. I thought I would have fun with the "drunken Fyoras" but it doesn't seem noticeable (again, going by the images, have not put it in the game yet). 

Man, you're awesome. Thank you for the hard work. 

EDIT: Edge blocks the download as unsafe. Would it be too difficult to politely ask for a different site? Like MEGA or Mediafire etc?  

At least when playing the demo, I enjoyed the stroll, but I understand what you mean. Regardless, increasing the walking speed would (if the game works like the previous ones) increase movement-during-combat speed. Which could be dealt with by increasing other creatures speed too... which means that effectively you reduce the range of ranged weapons and the "sense radius" of creatures as everyone can move further in a round. 

In the Warrior-Captain mod, the increase to the walking speed of the Warrior and/or some troops and allies proved to be a good boost for melee combatants (getting into combat faster) and ranged combatants (moving away from combat, or moving past obstacles / doors). 

Walking speed (if it is still tied to combat speed) should not be underestimated. 

Changing the walking speed has huge impact on encounters as you can move further for the same AP. You're effectively giving yourself Action Points.  It can be modded in the previous games and I bet it can modded in this one too although I haven't tried. 

10 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Cure Affliction spell is first available in Ellhrah's Keep, outside the demo.

😞

4 more days and your hurtful words won't hurt... 

6 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

Going rogue isn't as a bad a problem as it seems. Using curing spell or spores if there are a lot works well enough. Just reload if they attack you and do too much damage. If you heal them before their turn they usually don't go rogue.

You got the curing spell? Where from? I don't have it. Curing asserts control of a creation?  Healing them before their turn prevents them from going rogue? I never had a creation gone rogue so far. 

So, you mean that if a creation goes rogue, you don't lose it automatically but you can reassert control? 

Those align well with what we're told about creations in the following games with soldiers worrying that wounded creations would go rogue etc.

28 minutes ago, Shapely Trance said:

Creations don't level?

 

It is truly, finally a Geneforge game where you can use disposable creations without being at a massive disadvantage?

 

...Neat!

As others said, creations do level when you invest more points in the relevant skill. Imagine my surprise when I raised Fire Shaping and my Cryoa got +1 level as if I had just made her. 

I still load if I lose a creation though. I am a lifecrafter at heart. I name those creations and I don't want to lose them. 

9 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

 

 

Also creations don't penalize your experience, so have none or seven gives you the same experience.

More creations = harder to control. With the auto-increase in level of a creation when you raise your shaping skill it will probably become an issue. 

I remember a guy in Geneforge 5 that controls 40 or so Alphas by changing how many he controls at each point. That guy is heavily cheating according to how Shaping works in THIS game. As things stand right now, I am not sure what it would take to keep 7-10 battle alphas under control in battle. The "Shaping skill = more control" is a misnomer since the creations raise levels too. 

3 hours ago, Randomizer said:

None are in the current demo. You probably missed one at the end in the Geneforge Research Complex.

I am 99% sure I cleared the whole of it. There were pools but I didn't get a note about a "blessing pool" or what it is... Just  the usual stuff about essence and healing pools. 

1 hour ago, OmegaNecros said:

One pool should be in the demo.

What? Where? And where is the dippable item? I have not found any such things in my demo playthrough... 

Alhoon cannot help with manually aligning reduced-sized Fyoras and he's sad about it. Making the Fyora more red ... I am not 100% sure it would work. It would influence the colors of the "Fyora-byproducts" too, I think. 

About the cones of fire and cold etc... frankly, they don't align perfectly even with the 100% Fyora if you look out for it. But my problem is not the fire of the Fyora coming a little higher than where it should be, it's the loss of transparency (which causes a lot of other problems)

22 hours ago, mikeprichard said:

Sounds good and no problem; please take your time as you need to - the game doesn't launch for another couple weeks anyway!

About the color of the Cryoras and their shadows:

I tried, I failed. 

I modify the PNG files. However, in order to save them, I save just the pixel values, not the "transparency" and other layers. The shadows you see are in the transparency layers and the color for the cryoras goes with the transparency layers. The PNG is smaller because of this. 

You can see what I mean if you replace the original file with this: 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1p6d1cjpqsy9pr0/G2500.png?dl=0

No, I don't know what I am doing more than you. I know how to do what I am doing, but again, what you said helped. I have forgot that the animations move a bit. 
The good news is that I would lock it on a certain pixel so it would be hopefully in the same location. 

Also, I am not yet doing what I am supposed to be doing. I have not even started with that program... 

Hmm... it wouldn't cause wobling, but it would cause the Fyoras to be outside the circle. I.e. you would see the Fyora standing outside the circle that says to the game where she is. I'll try to center them, that was a good catch. 

The side issue is probably because I changed the number of "frames" not just their size. 

43 minutes ago, TheKian said:

Editing the image shouldn't have any impact on the color of the cryora. The game just palette-swaps the image, regardless of the bitmap file. Are you certain you didn't accidentally enable fast graphics mode or something? I haven't played the demo, but I assume it might have that setting from G5, which gets rid of palette swapping (makes everything look the same).

Well, to be honest I am not sure I have not changed something. However, the issue with the missing shadows remains. I will check again. 

This is what I managed to do:

Sorry it didn't work out. 

The other method I can try, takes longer. I will make code that reads the image, shrinks the Fyora per box and leaves the boxes at the same size. More or less what you do manually, but with a code. Then I have to make sure the images are properly transparent. It will also lower the quality. 

I will give it a spin. 

EDIT: I see what you mean with the white pixels. 

17 hours ago, mikeprichard said:

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, I've been reading the paint.net documentation, and can't find a way to remove the grid lines as the first step, since the image appears to be just a single baked-in layer including both the grid and the critters. Any ideas?

OK, I think I have it! There's no need to remove the black grid lines. I just made a copy of the entire image reduced to 60%, then copy/pasted each 60%-sized lizard from within each grid box back to each original 100% grid box. I've gotten through 1 of 7 files so far and briefly tested in game, and while some of the animation changes may be a pixel off in alignment (I'm manually copy/pasting so far), this might actually work. I assume if there were encoding issues my new resized sprites wouldn't have appeared in game at all, so I guess that's not a problem. Will keep working away and see what the final first pass results look like.

P.S. I don't want to hijack this mod thread, so if an admin wants to/wants me to move this into its own topic, please do or let me know! It may not go much further anyway if I can't figure this out, though.

Wait, you did it? 

Can you share it as a mod? 

19 hours ago, TheKian said:

Making the small Fyora sprites would be pretty EASY, but horrendously tedious. What I'd do is use something like Paint .NET to remove all the black lines and resize the image down to 60% size and then copy over each square to the original, which would take forever. The alternative would involve meddling with the tileset definitions, which would probably end up being just as tedious because you'd need to make sure that the new resized sprite sheet works for the new tile definition, since resizing won't end up with the tile borders being correct.

 

But if you have enough time on your hands, I'd suggest you try the fairly easy first method.

 

Edit: Also, in earlier versions of Geneforge, editing the bitmaps can cause serious issues if they're not encoded properly. I don't know whether the remake uses the typical encoding, but it's possible there can be issues with the color palette etc. when you try to edit it.

It is not horrendously tedious, I have made bigger Battle Alpha sprites without much of an issue and 5 minutes of work. I will put together a mod for GF1 remake as soon as I can. 

1 hour ago, Cait Slith said:

It's also just a normal trope in classic RPGs for town guards to be hugely OP.

1 hour ago, Randomizer said:

Jeff did the same thing in Exile/Avernum 3 town guards to encourage fleeing instead of fighting them.

It is  also a normal trope in GForge games for leaders of local factions to have more  hp. I am not asking why the guards have 280 hp, I am asking why Brodus doesn't have 400 hp. 

If the answer seems to be "that's the way it is" then it is not a bug. 

Perhaps those are supposed to be killable (I got a quest to go and kill the Awakened boss and I barely have walked in the island. First Taken I  meet "Hi. Can you whack some guy for us? Not a random dude BTW, the leader of this sect/" ). In that case, it makes absolute sense to make them killable for those that want to sneak in, kill them and go away.  

________________

I started the demo too early. I'm nearly at the end and it's 20 days till  GF is out.