alhoon

Geneforge 2, Zackary: Zackary is IMO, not portrayed as a cunning and sly individual, but as an indecisive worthless pathetic coward lying with every breath to cover his mistakes and crimes. He is not a mastermind, nor a visionary nor a genius. He's the tarnished has-been, that is now a pencil-pusher that got eclipsed by the genius that was his apprentice, was tempted by power and blinded by a more charismatic personality with true leadership abilities - Barzahl, but didn't have the guts to open his wings and fly too close to the sun but neither had the courage to return to earth. He's not portrayed IMO as a foil for Barzahl nor as an excellent leader; on the contrary, he's portrayed as a someone Barzahl used and a bad leader. And in that regard, he's portrayed very well and plays the role of the used and discarded pawn very well. The person you describe, the leader with the plans, the mastermind that slowly changed his mind and works towards redemption, the shadow puppetmaster... Zackary IMO was never intended to be that. He's an inglorious idiot that couldn't follow Barzahl nor he had the guts to admit his crimes to the Shaper council so he's locked indecisively in the midst, until an agent shows up and he has her imprisoned as if that would stop her. In short IMO the game rightly utilizes Lying Zackary the Deceiver as a worth-less-than-a-glaak's-vomit.

I wanted the drakons to be much bigger, like they were in GF2-4. Then ... I ended up making plated clawbugs the PC makes bigger on a whim to see if I can do it. Now that I know I can do it, In quests I make in the future, I may put specific boss enemies as bigger variants. Like a Clawbug queen that isn't just another color or has just a different name, but is visibly bigger. That kind of thing.

Oh, we do have similar stuff and Dropbox does this automatically I think. Thanks.

I don't even know what source control systems are.

Start with small steps you just did until you get the hang of it. Read the tutorial and if you think of something or hit any problems ask and we will try to help. Remember that there are a few "hidden" limits that may cause a mod to crush. One is the size of the script file. So if you start adding items you will encounter problems. As such you can add a few items or creations but at some point you would need to replace existing ones.

Yes. Notepad++ which I recommend.

What did you try? Have you cleared the "usual suspects" ? I will list a few common problems, which are common and people commonly do. Please don't be insulted as they may sound foolish, but they are far more common than you think. - Are you sure you... saved after making the change? - Are you sure you changed the file in the scripts folder and not your back-up file? I can tell I often make this mistake. I am not calling you a fool. Please don't abandon your efforts. GF4 is my favorite Geneforge game and I would love if there were extra-content mods for it even if they are simple quests with a little dialogue here and a fetch quest there. TheKian has made a nice mod about Artifact weapons that gives another layer to the game. Even if I find them a bit OP, I can mod them down if they're in.

Very strange, it should have worked. Are you sure the item you looked the value of was a dagger? It worked for me. https://ibb.co/bR1ZTo

What sword did you change? Which value from the scripts? Also, I think loading should have worked for value changes despite it being generated.

Start with the easy parts. For example, you said you wanted more powerful enemies in GF3. Increasing their level (hence their difficulty) is very easy. Go to the zone script of a zone in GF3 and look for something like Kian posted, like this: So... Kian here tells us how to boost one or more creations in a zone. A clarification: Max_health is on top of the "normal" level-defined health of a creature. I.e. Max Health 120 is "120 hp on top of what a normal creation of that level would have". Keep in mind that many creations already have extras. Find a zone, find the boss and change his/her/its level to your liking and voila, you have a bigger level. If the creature can Shape creations, those creations' attacks are boosted by its level. So if you do that to a Shaper boss the creations he will bring up if you give him +10 levels will have bonuses to their attacks. So you will have a tougher fight.

You check theKian's modding tutorial and you make a thread so we can help you if it seems difficult. I've made posts and threads about modding too but they're a bit more advanced and quite chaotic. You'll see that in my Warrior mod I have incorporated the Artifact Batons mod from the Gamerman. Unless I recall wrong, he delved into modding after he saw how easy it was. Basic stuff after you grow over your initial reluctance is very easy. You want Battle alphas to have 10 more levels? You go to the proper txt and increase their level by 10. Then you test in game. As long as you adhere to The GOLDEN RULE of modding you'll be fine. The GOLDEN RULE of modding: Backup the file you're working on. If you mess up, you put a previous, working version on and you've just lost a little time.

A bump for my friend Vinlie. May he mod forever.

I cannot do that. Not sure it's possible since I think parts of that are hardcoded. If someone can add a second upgrade to creations I would be very much interested in it. Don't be fooled by the two big mods I've done my friend; my modding skills are not too great. It is just that you can do great things with just not that much modding skills. Adding quests requires a bit of scripting and dialogue. You can try it.

Yeap, from the Arena mod. I use that to test stuff. However, that bigger Alpha is not in the mod. I am trying now to make different entries, so that I can make battle Betas larger than Alphas. The problem with the Alphas and the Betas though is... they're not worth their essence cost in the actual GF game. They are too... bland. Punch and get punched. The Battle Gammas have that area attack but they're not Creatable by the player and for a good reason. Regardless, it is possible to add new sprites and it is possible to make the existing ones bigger. You increase these: tmp_icon_width = 77; tmp_icon_height = 78; taking care that when it says 77 it is 77 + 2 pixels for the black lines and accordingly you magnify the sprite image taking care to not lose transparency. 

Nevermind, figured it.

Is it possible to change the sprite size in GF5 for some of the Creations? In GF2-3 there are scripts in the game about how big the sprite would be. In GF5 I don't remember them working. I would like to change the sprite of Drakons and battle alphas to make them bigger, but I would prefer to do it with changing a few parameters in a txt instead of going through all the sprites and manually changing them sprite by sprite, i.e. making the image of the creature for each step, fight-stance and death stance bigger inside the boxes. I have tried changing gf5floorster.txt but for some reason it didn't work. It has entries like this: begindefinetemplate 73; //tmp_name = "batalpha"; tmp_num_icons 0 = 6; tmp_num_icons 1 = 10; tmp_num_icons 2 = 10; tmp_num_icons 3 = 6; tmp_num_icons 4 = 6; tmp_icon_width = 77; tmp_icon_height = 78; tmp_horiz_offset = 1; tmp_invertible_lr = 1; but changing width and height didn't work.

Hey, that Triumph did it doesn't mean it is possible. It means that he can do the impossible.

As a Guardian I don't know. As a Vlish swarm leader Shaper it is totally possible. Regardless, I would guess that playing a Guardian unarmed would be more frustrating than nightmare difficulty.

Have you tried just... increasing the difficulty of the game? For a completionist, the end of geneforge games is always easy-ish as the last levels are designed to be passable even for those that have not gone through everything.

Wands use missile attack?

Well, the span of a servile's life is not set in stone from what I've seen at least between games. Unless I am grossly mistaken, there are 12-year old serviles in GF2 that have children of their own. I think there are mentions here and there that different "breeds" of serviles have different lifespans. As for that old Servile... it's a few years from GF2 to GF3, 7 years from GF3 to GF4 and 10 years total from GF3 to GF5. We can't be sure how long it was from GF1 to GF2, but I would bet it didn't take decades for the Shapers to come to Sucia to clean up the whole mess after the protagonist of GF1 reaches them. Zackary the Deceiver is at this "failed" colony for at least 5 years. So I would say... 10 years or so from GF1 to GF2, and 10 years from GF3 to GF5 with "not sure, but at least a few years" from GF2 to GF3. I.e. the whole thing is probably over 20 years and less than 30.

And theKian is also working on a bad### tool that would help you make your own zones. Also, unless I am mistaken, theKian's mod for artifacts in GF4 doesn't simply includes bringing the materials to a skilled crafter but you have to locate the recipes. I.e. it is effectively a bunch of story-light but ultimately rewarding quests.

We all know that the war will blow up again in a couple of generations. Long live the Rebellion!

The world of Geneforge is unfortunately light on such details. The creator of the games didn't like long texts for stuff that is not relevant to the story itself. Thus, I would say a week is 7 days and a month is 30-31 days as usual, etc etc.

If you talk with Greta in the Drakon city, after you go into Astoria's faction she more or less admits she works with Astoria. And during Astoria's quests you're sent to burn the letters they have exchanged as they are incriminating. It is a bit strange that Greta never sees much fallout for that cooperation. The Drakon guy in that cave before Gazaki-Uss is going through a lot of trouble just before he didn't reveal the Secret Access Route, but Greta is writing to Astoria, gives her information (Shadow Road etc), pauses the campaign against her and she doesn't get even a wink.