TheKian

To expand on what Triumph said, Shaper records are given to the librarian in Pentil, but only if you say the pro-Shaper line when you talk to the Servile for the first time. You can give Shaper equipment to the Serviles in the Junkyard. Concerning the rough crystals, there are (I believe) three machines which turn them into items; terror wands for 25, shaped blades for 50, and swarm crystals for 5. I seem to recall reading somewhere that there are about 100 scattered through the game, so there should be plenty for your needs.

To join the Obeyers, you must A. have anti-servile relations (from treating Serviles like servants) and then B. complete their quest to restore control four.

I would recommend reading Matt P's Geneforge 1 walkthrough for information on the mind nutrients and canister locations, if you're into that kind of thing.

You'll want to get a little later in the game, where Alwan has left (otherwise he's actually unkillable). I've had success baiting a few enemies into my party (admittedly playing as a Lifecrafter with a bunch of wingbolts) and killing them before running out of the zone. You'll eventually kill them all and be able to grab the sick loot, bro.

I would personally go for the Guardian Claymore, but it really depends on whether you want the extra 2 strength/quick action or not (assuming I am recalling correctly - I believe that the shaped blade has higher damage). If you already have high strength and quick action, you may want to use the shaped blade instead (although I would recommend waiting until you can kill Koerner in Poryphra for his puresteel blade). If you're using the infiltrator, you'll definitely want to use the Guardian Claymore.

Also, in regards to your question a little ways back in the thread about the best sword, the Puresteel Soulblade does the best damage in the game, but it is only found in the endgame challenge area in the Pit of the Titan, which requires having already reached Northforge.

6 minutes ago, JackEKnoff said:

Does anyone have an answer to my question?

In regards to your questions about crystals, take a look at this post.

In regards to your question about spellcraft, I do not believe it would be worth it to pump it up to 15. The stat that scales best is mental magic, and once you have a decent grounding for your other magic skills, you should put your points into mental magic as a primary-magic character.

In regards to your question about editing the save, we don't know a lot about the save format and it would take a while to figure it out. It would be easiest for you to just edit the scripts (see one of the posts in my signature if you want to learn about that) to give you a new copy of the sword and then just discard the old one. However, there are better weapons than the oozing blade and you may want to save the golden crystal for one of those.

5 hours ago, Damp Annals said:

I'm not sure what you mean here.

I assume he's referring to the soft cap on stats, which I believe is only present in Geneforge 1.

There are very few places in Geneforge 4 where a magic-heavy character will be running low on spell energy. When I've played a Lifecrafter, I've only ever had issues with spell energy right after learning and switching to ice spray, and Infiltrator gets even more spell energy than the Lifecrafter does. Do you mean essence?

On 6/12/2019 at 11:40 PM, Aleister said:

 

*very snip, such text, much wow*

 

See? Seems like we get conflicting information in GF4 from the two of them. Unless this theory is correct.

The simplest way for it to be consistent with G4 would be for Greta to leave after the second island because you kill the rebels, and Alwan to leave you after the third island because you repair the creator.

29 minutes ago, RMV RNG said:

I'm with alhoon.  I have it as pretty solid headcanon that the G3 PC is the G5 PC.  Makes more sense than anything else, and nothing really makes it not make sense.

Except that the G3 PC never used the Geneforge in the game, and isn't indicated to have used one later one (not to mention the Geneforge the rebels used was fairly weak and only gave you the capability of Shaping). When you use the Geneforge in G5, it explicitly tells you that you've used the Geneforge before. Since the canon ending for G4 is the rebel ending, it's more likely that the G5 PC is the G4 PC.

On 5/30/2019 at 2:59 PM, alhoon said:

Doing some guesswork, in case anyone wants to do some serious modding of GF2 or I decide to take on it in the future (although I would guess GF2 remake would be in the works in like 4-5 years making such work kinda redundant) the creations probably start 25500 in the hex editor. In the Drypeak zone, I can see Shanti's z1 script a little down, leading me to think that indeed the mass FF FF FF FF things are for creations, hopefully in the format found in GF5. 

 

EDIT: Nope, they don't follow the same format. The creation entries are somewhat shorter for GF2. 
So... yeah, a lot of guesswork. 

FF FF typically indicates a null entry in the data (since 0 is used as an index), which could be a lot of things.

In general, game editors will function across Geneforge games, since the scripts haven't changed much. If you look at editors for other Geneforge games (for example, my Geneforge 5 editor), it's pretty easy to just add something to an obelisk or sign in the first area to get you free money, stats, whatever.

In regards to Alhoon saying "adding a creation in the game is too much effort", that's not quite right. It is, in fact, not at present possible to add a creation, since everything involved with Shaping a creation in-game is hardcoded. Since nobody has ever (to my knowledge) looked into the code (and would probably not be allowed to post it on the forums regardless), the required information to do so does not exist.

Also, adding too much money to yourself will cause your money to reset. Max amount of money is 30000, and if you have 30000 and try to add 30000 more with a script, it goes back to 0.

1 hour ago, Vinlie said:

I honestly don't think the queen is possible being a solo warrior

Maybe not a solo warrior, but serviles are supposedly quite powerful soloing machines.

19 hours ago, alhoon said:

What... is that the locked level that Litalia got the key? 

Yes. The key is somewhere near Jared in the main part of Northforge.

It's been a good long while since I did the G4 challenge dungeon, but if she does spawn any more hatchlings, they'll be in small enough numbers that you should probably be able to kill her before you get overwhelmed.

If this is the one in the secret boss level you get to from Monarch's Realm, you need to trigger and kill all the eggs near her before going in to attack her, because she can eat them to heal herself. When you attack her, make sure to fully buff yourself up, possibly shape just a few fyoras for meat shields, and then go into combat mode out of sight of her and charge her to make sure you get initiative. Since Serviles are very tanky and have high single-target damage output, if you just focus on her you should be able to take her down. Probably.

I believe that people have previously experimented with the Geneforge 3 win conditions and found that the game behaves as if you are pro-Shaper when you reach the next island if Khyryk has not been killed.

On 4/19/2016 at 7:49 PM, Triumph said:

For a rebel-ending-yet-live-Khyryk combo, helping Lankan and the Creator is not enough. You still face the choice of either killing Khyryk or aiding him in order to move on from Gull. I still don't know of any path to get a rebel endgame without killing Khyryk. The rebels on Gull won't let you move on until he's dead. If he's alive when you go to Spears, you're a Shaper and there's no further chance to join the rebels. Perhaps this where confessing treason to Rahul comes in? Maybe if you did that and escaped Elek would let you go on without insisting you kill Khyryk? Seems unlikely though.

On 4/19/2016 at 10:19 PM, Triumph said:

I remembered that G3 has an editor available, so I tried using that pump my abilities and then went and killed Rahul. Elek doesn’t acknowledge it, however, and demands I kill Khyryk. (Oddly, Khyryk also doesn’t acknowledge it, though all the friendly towns on Dhonal's Isle turn against me for it.) So, offing Rahul does not enable one to skip the step of killing Khyryk to become a rebel and go to Isle of Spears. Using this powered-up save, I still plan to experiment with a couple of the other possible routes we’ve discussed here.

On 4/20/2016 at 8:03 PM, Triumph said:

And the last experiment: played through Gull like a Shaper, then, before clicking the boat to Spears, went and killed Rahul. Showed up on Spears and the endgame regards me as a Shaper. So it appears that the one and only decision point for your endgame is whether you kill Khyryk before going Spears. You can, however, get a Shaper ending with dead Khyryk if you return from Spears and kill him later.

Edit: Source

I would also like to point out that giving up a ninth level spell slot (that would otherwise contain, say, meteor swarm) for a creation cannot be compared properly in terms of damage, simply because the creations are permanent, and are attacking each round. Meanwhile, the spell is only cast once for not just the entire battle, but until the end of your next long rest. Just saying.

17 hours ago, alhoon said:

 

*snip*

 

But if mid-tier creations like battle Betas are 9th lvl spell, what about Kyshaaks, War tralls, Rotdhizons etc? 

I believe he is currently including only the G1 creations. Also, keep in mind that betas are arguably not mid tier when compared against the default tier 4/5 creatures, because they are the upgraded form of alphas (although most of the time neither are very good in the game itself).

Luck slightly improves armor and, I believe, dodge and accuracy. It also is important for some special events (usually you only need about 2), such as one in Geneforge 1 that gets you free spellcraft. The only game where you should get a really high luck skill is Geneforge 1, because you can pay a Servile in one area to increase it, thus improving your character's power without costing you skill points. In other games, it's really only worth getting a couple points, if anything.

The latest version of D&D with which I'm familiar is 3.5, but I think prestige classes are still around even in 5e. Why not make it an arcane (arcane/divine distinction is still a thing, right?) prestige class with some prerequisites that would properly suit Shapers? Then wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, eldritch knights etc. could use Shaping and would be able to better fill out a variety of roles in the game.

And if you're running an actual Geneforge campaign, you could have a bonus feat or Lifecrafter prestige class that you can obtain from using a Geneforge that would let divine casters/noncasters use Shaping.

First people who train you in it should be Jared/Danell in the Fens.

On 3/27/2019 at 3:56 PM, alhoon said:

 

Sorry for the delayed answer. I can't upload the files from here but perhaps theKian can. However, as mentioned it doesn't work for geneforge 1.

Also, to be clear, the map editor allows you to make actual changes in the zone (or even add zones) not cosmetic effects. I.e. the map editor would allow you to add a new building in a map, not make building walls brighter or something.

Well, technically you can change the tileset data for the wall color and you could potentially make it look brighter (like with the photonegative effect in some zones in the games).

On 3/24/2019 at 11:39 AM, gosho said:

Is possible to modify a geneforge 1 existing map?

Not at present. Geneforge 1 has a different map file format.

Geneforge 1 appears to have a different zone format, and so would not be compatible with this.