GF2 Infestation Mod - Junk Stacking / Leadership and Mechanics Items as Charms

[mikeprichard]

Based on mod author Waladil's permission for me to link to the mod here, the author has just released a game version 1.0.1-compatible mod I (and perhaps others) find extremely useful:

1.0.1 QOL Junk/Hoarders mod, AKA Drypeaks Effective Recycling Program :: Geneforge 2 - Infestation General Discussions (steamcommunity.com)

Summary of the mod (current as of the time of writing; for any updates, check the above linked Steam topic):

1) Almost every junk item in the game (except sticks, which double as weapons) now neatly stacks in player inventory, with one stack per type of junk item.
2) Every junk item has had its value reduced to 0 (matching food and base javelins), while tunics, sandals, and cloaks have had their values set to 6 (so they'll now sell for 1 coin each).
3) +Leadership and +Mechanics items operate as charms in your pack to provide those bonuses without needing to equip them. To maintain game balance, the +Agility/+Intellect bonuses of the Infiltrator's Ring and Girdle of Leadership, respectively, are removed. However, Waladil may update the mod to include separate versions of each of these items - the standard unmodded version when equipped, and the new modded version when used as a charm in the pack.

As noted by Waladil in the Steam topic, the mod is recommended to be installed on a new game for best results. Full credit for the mod goes to Waladil.

July 6 2024 EDIT: See also a more recent Steam topic/link at Junk Bag is NOT infinite :: Geneforge 2 - Infestation General Discussions (steamcommunity.com).

Edited July 7 by mikeprichard

[Waladil]

Hi there, I'm the guy who made this  

(The rest of this is cross-posted from the Steam discussion:)
 

I just wanted to update that I have been working on further updates to this mod, but I probably won't release it until after the next game patch. I feel like that's going to be soon and I'll have to update the whole thing then anyway.
 

The big change is that instead of changing the various infiltrator/tinker/leadership items, it adds dialogue with Sharon to take away the items and give you a charm version of them. (No takesies-backsies; it's permanent.) This means if someone wanted to use any of those items you still can do so, and I could remove the pure attribute bonuses (and the armor in case that's relevant) from the charm versions. Then, as an added bonus, once you collect all five of these new charms, she can combine all of them into one super-charm to save four inventory slots. 
 

I'm considering including more charm combinations for more space savings, but that's definitely not guaranteed.

I just finished testing for the first four items, and it's really good I waited to test it myself because I Learned Some Things about how the game's item imports work. (The initial version wound up giving way more stats than intended.) I also found that the Infiltrator Vest and Cloak aren't unique items; you can carry and get the benefits from multiple copies of them. I could fix it, but I think I'll leave it as-is and let the player decide if they want to do the extra cheese. 

[Snowwhite]

Brilliant idea.  I am finding inventory management in Infestation to be VERY annoying.  And I don't remember having so little space in any prior games (good be wrong here)

 

I do remember that I used to have the ability to sell things from the junk pack on an item by item basis so I didn't have to sell everything in the junk pack at once.

 

Can this be brought back please.

 

 

[Lorn]

It would be also cool if you could merge these items. It's very annoying to have half of the inventory occupied by this stuff.

[ZorroDragonslayer]

On 6/27/2024 at 6:42 PM, Snowwhite said:

Brilliant idea.  I am finding inventory management in Infestation to be VERY annoying.  And I don't remember having so little space in any prior games (good be wrong here)

 

I do remember that I used to have the ability to sell things from the junk pack on an item by item basis so I didn't have to sell everything in the junk pack at once.

 

Can this be brought back please.

 

 

I feel the same way. Junk and pack management is such a petty aspect of playing the game as a whole. And petty junk is everywhere in the game and some junk items look like or similar to charm icons. Does junk really need to be active items and not just pics on the floors? Finding really good useful items is a rare event and exaggerated by digging through so much nothingness. Selecting one of the three options when first creating a character seems to make no difference in finding items specifically useful to that character type, making much of the items equally annoying.

[alhoon]

On 5/1/2024 at 5:09 AM, Waladil said:

Hi there, I'm the guy who made this  

(The rest of this is cross-posted from the Steam discussion:)
 

I just wanted to update that I have been working on further updates to this mod, but I probably won't release it until after the next game patch. I

 

So, how is this going? Is this updated to 1.02? 

Also, could others use your mod as part of theirs? Permissions or lack of permissions should, in my opinion, be transparent in the mod's thread or download link. 

From my experience, mod permissions for submods are: No permission, Permission after someone asks in an email or message (i.e. not automatic), automatic permission (my mods are there). 

 

Just to be clear, at the present time, and being so far into the game, I don't think I would use the mod. I just ask for clarity and to help the discussion.

Edited July 2 by alhoon

[Snowwhite]

7 hours ago, alhoon said:

 

So, how is this going? Is this updated to 1.02? 

Also, could others use your mod as part of theirs? Permissions or lack of permissions should, in my opinion, be transparent in the mod's thread or download link. 

From my experience, mod permissions for submods are: No permission, Permission after someone asks in an email or message (i.e. not automatic), automatic permission (my mods are there). 

 

Just to be clear, at the present time, and being so far into the game, I don't think I would use the mod. I just ask for clarity and to help the discussion.

 

I did install the mod but because I am over half way through the game it didn't make any difference (or I installed it incorrectly - am a little ol' lady and not all that tech savy.  But I am unfortunately ready to give up on the game because of the inventory management issues.  Quest items have disappeared and I may have sold them by accident or they may just have disappeared.  I don't know.  But I am about to give up on this game and that saddens me.  I have been a Spiderweb Software customer for over a decade and this has just got too hard.

 

Especially cause - and this is a second topic - I finally took the difficulty to easy (something I have never done before) and am finding that me and my creations miss over 70% of the shots while the enemy misses about 10 or 15% and I am tired of dying and I am tired of using the cheat code.  So I am doing something wrong and I don't know what.

[alhoon]

You should simply head to easier areas. What level are you?

[Lorn]

On 5/1/2024 at 4:09 AM, Waladil said:

Hi there, I'm the guy who made this  

(The rest of this is cross-posted from the Steam discussion:)
 

I just wanted to update that I have been working on further updates to this mod, but I probably won't release it until after the next game patch. I feel like that's going to be soon and I'll have to update the whole thing then anyway.
 

I just finished testing for the first four items, and it's really good I waited to test it myself because I Learned Some Things about how the game's item imports work. (The initial version wound up giving way more stats than intended.) I also found that the Infiltrator Vest and Cloak aren't unique items; you can carry and get the benefits from multiple copies of them. I could fix it, but I think I'll leave it as-is and let the player decide if they want to do the extra cheese. 

are you referring to a 1.03 patch?

Would be cool if you could make it so that items could be merged / are "merged" (even in values): you wouldn't find multiple copies in this case. 
 

[Snowwhite]

On 7/3/2024 at 10:19 AM, alhoon said:

You should simply head to easier areas. What level are you?

Level 17

[Mea Tulpa]

What level are your creations?  If you're making low-tier creations with low shaping skill, they'll be at a lower level and will have accuracy problems.

 

However, with your PC at level 17, your PC's personal attacks shouldn't really have accuracy issues.  (On any difficulty!)  If you yourself are missing 70% of the time, something else is going on.

[alhoon]

1 minute ago, Men are from Slars said:

However, with your PC at level 17, your PC's personal attacks shouldn't really have accuracy issues.  (On any difficulty!)  If you yourself are missing 70% of the time, something else is going on.

 

That. At level 17, I don't think there are many things in the game that would be 4-5 levels above you, for you to consistently miss. 

[Snowwhite]

As a general rule the vampire staff thing misses about 40% of the time.  The creations miss substantially more - easily 60 or 70% of the time  The cryoas are level 13 as is the roamer.  The fyora is level 14 and he vlish is level 8.  I didn't realize till now that if I highlight all the icons at the top of the edit creation page, that raises the level of the creation.  I am an enthusiastic amateur (and less enthusiastic than normal as described earlier)  - So I am not doing this correctly I gather.  Sigh.

 

Increasing the levels of the creations has made a huge difference.  They hit around 60 + % of the time now.  makes the game a lot less annoying.  Thank you

 

 

Edited July 4 by Snowwhite

[alhoon]

52 minutes ago, Snowwhite said:

As a general rule the vampire staff thing misses about 40% of the time.  The creations miss substantially more - easily 60 or 70% of the time  The cryoas are level 13 as is the roamer.  The fyora is level 14 and he vlish is level 8.  I didn't realize till now that if I highlight all the icons at the top of the edit creation page, that raises the level of the creation.  I am an enthusiastic amateur (and less enthusiastic than normal as described earlier)  - So I am not doing this correctly I gather.  Sigh.

 

Increasing the levels of the creations has made a huge difference.  They hit around 60 + % of the time now.  makes the game a lot less annoying.  Thank you

 

 

By far the best way to increase Creation level, is to increase the relative shaping attribute, not the creation level directly. Concentrate in one type. Like Fire Shaping since your Fyora's are much higher than your Vlish. I am perplexed as to how your Fyoras are higher level than your cryoas.

 

Also: Fyoras and Cryoas don't cut it at level 17... You would need Drayks. 2 Drayks are easily as good as 3 Fyoras. 

Edited July 4 by alhoon

[Snowwhite]

Thank you.  I will go find out how to get the Drayk creation spell.

[Snowwhite]

Thanks for your help.  I now have the drayk creation ability.  Re why the fyoras are higher than the cryoas is because I click on some of the attributes for the fyoras.

[Mea Tulpa]

You may also be ignoring other bonuses and penalties to accuracy, which can make a difference:

 

- War Blessing is +10% to hit, you want to cast this (and other buffs!!) before any difficult battle

- If you get cursed in a battle and don't bother to cure it, that's a -10% penalty

- Some armor comes with penalties to hit.  Weigh the bonuses and penalties of your equipment thoughtfully

- You get tiny bonuses from other skills; unless you're a Guardian, you will probably do better with spells (Firebolt is effectively free) than the Vampiric Lance

 

10% doesn't sound like that much but it can add up.

[mikeprichard]

Re: this brilliant mod - having briefly checked in here and on Steam, I noticed Waladil just posted to Steam a different mod file link from that found in the Steam topic linked in my OP above; see the new Steam topic Junk Bag is NOT infinite :: Geneforge 2 - Infestation General Discussions (steamcommunity.com). I'm not sure whether these are different versions of the mod, or if more mod updates are planned, but I defer to Waladil here in case he'd like me to edit/do anything with this or the top post for clarity. Cheers.

[Snowwhite]

I do use war blessing, protection and speed before battles.  And as a shaper, am using armor that increases creation resistances

 

Question on the steam post about the mod - what counts as a new area?  A different one from where you were when you put the mod in, or a completely new area you haven't been in before?

 

[mikeprichard]

24 minutes ago, Snowwhite said:

Question on the steam post about the mod - what counts as a new area?  A different one from where you were when you put the mod in, or a completely new area you haven't been in before?

Per Waladil's recent Steam post: "There is a small problem with putting this into existing games, any items already created by the game (i.e. in any zones you've already explored) will not get the stackable tag. You have to go to new areas to get stackable items." Waladil's earlier April post also notes: "The game gets funky about making items stackable in a game that's already started. All of the old items are saved as unstackable and this will only apply to newly-found items. I don't know if there's a way to fix this, so the mod is best applied to new games if possible."

So, if you install the mod in the middle of a playthrough, it seems it will only affect items in areas you've never visited/entered before.

Edited July 6 by mikeprichard

[Snowwhite]

Thanks for writing back.  I have wondered around a lot and so there are few areas (maybe none) that I have not visited before - even if it was just to poke my nose in.  Sigh.

 

Shame cause I realllllllllly hate the inventory system.  Hopefully it will be corrected in Geneforge 3.

[mikeprichard]

You're quite welcome. As to the underlying inventory issues, I've come to expect wonky inventory systems from Spidweb games over the years; though Jeff has made some gradual improvements in this area, it's never seemed to be a priority for him, which is unfortunate given how much time players spend managing inventory through the course of play. He has noted in various Steam topics where these issues have been raised by several players - see e.g. Inventory and other feedback :: Geneforge 2 - Infestation General Discussions (steamcommunity.com) - that he's considering how to handle inventory in future titles. Like you, I'll hope for the best, but I don't expect too much.

[Snowwhite]

I don't remember inventory issues being this hard to handle.  But of course, I have gotten older and most games now require more math than I am able to handle these days.

 

 

[MaddyE]

You know, what would be useful is some kind of sparkle effect for charms and other unique/named items.  Similar to the sparkle effect you could apply to hidden switches in Avadon.

 

Found it: https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/14836-a-cheat-to-make-secret-switches-more-visible/?hl=switches

 

Not sure about how to apply it here as I think you would have to mod every item individually.

Edited July 20 by MaddyE

[MaddyE]

Any update on the update?  With all the charms and charmed items, I now have 2 free slots in my pack...

 

The other potential for the in game charms (as opposed to the charmed items) is to make them a special item like the keys and tokens so they don't take up inventory slots in the first place.

 

In terms of inventory, I totally agree that micromanaging stuff is a painful and pointless chore, especially late game when you've accumulated so much...

[MaddyE]

Had a thought about future charm handling: how about a new item, the Charm Bracelet?  It has to be created, perhaps by Sharon, and works like the Fang Bracelet but as a charm not a wearable item, and it's enhanced by adding charms using an Enchanted Anvil.  

 

With no charms, it's just a charm with no bonuses.  Each charm you add transfers its bonuses to the bracelet.

 

My thoughts on inventory management in general:

1. Either make charms into a special item not held in your pack or implement  a Charm Bracelet which you attach charms to using an anvil. The bracelet needs to be made by a crafter, and its base ability is that it's a charm, with no abilities. Attaching a charm adds that charm's abilities to the bracelet; these are stackable so 2 charms with 10% ability A and 5% ability A give the bracelet 15% ability A (or 5% if the 2nd has -5%). That means that instead of cluttering up your pack you only use a single slot. If you want a downside to this, you could say adding charms makes you less stealthy because you jingle (probably best for Veteran or Torment).

2. Items in a quick-use slot aren't in your pack. That would make sense - you don't suddenly break off a fight to rummage for a healing pod or spores. If my pack is as full as my work bag, that item has always worked to the bottom... For items you need all the time, you pop them in a dedicated small pocket on the outside of the pack.

3. If you want situational load-outs, they must be definable so you can easily toggle between them. You can't switch them in combat, only out of combat with no enemies in sight (perhaps does't include charmed enemies?) You can only take what you are wearing plus 1 other load-out when you leave town, but you can have several for different situations.

4. Either implement some king of storage bag or make junk bag items swappable outside town. If the latter, please consider adding a do not sell flag to items you want to keep in your bag; to sell it, you have to remove it from the bag and put it in your pack where you have a confirmation dialogue. Once you've marked an item as do not sell, all matching items of that kind are automatically do not sell.

5. Make the junk bag filterable by slot type: missile weapons and missiles, melee weapons, armour etc, plus a sell these slot.

6. More containers in the game in towns! Especially in the same building. That would allow storage by item type instead of the current 1 or 2 containers in a building and drop the rest on the ground. By the end game, when I go to my store depot (Drypeak Ascent) I have to lock my creations in a room so I can look through one pile without seeing other piles as well. I did like the Queen's Wish system of linked chests, but that only works with limited items.

Edited August 31 by MaddyE

[TriRodent]

Excellent post/suggestions Maddy.  I really like the idea of a charm bracelet (or necklace I suppose), they do take up so much inventory space. 

 

The quick use being on the outside of your pack (and not in inventory) makes sense too.  Perhaps not as many slots and limited quantities available (one would look a bit strange with 30 each of healing, curing, speed, armor, etc hanging off your belt).  Something like 3 potion slots (5-6 of the same type - healing per se - in each), 2 wand, and 1 of whatever else you want immediately available.  If you want to carry more healing with you, then extras go in the pack and you can refill the slot on your belt in town/no enemies in sight.

 

I'll have to think about the (good) suggestions for the junk bag.  I really like it currently as a way to carry sellable loot.  The problem with expanding it to inventory management is that it essentially then gives you an unlimited space/weight backpack.  I really appreciate Jeff's wanting to reduce the grind of picking up/selling loot, that's good without mentally pulling you out of the game.  But if you can carry 'everything' with you, sorted and ready to go ...

 

 

[MaddyE]

I thought of it as a bracelet, because it's a traditional piece of jewellery.  Necklaces are more single pendants.

 

With the Charm Bracelet, you can make it upgradeable.  It starts as the Iron Bracelet, made from an iron bar which allows you to attach up to 5 charms using an Enchantment Anvil.  If you collect 10 silver rings, you can upgrade the Iron Bracelet to the Silver Bracelet with the rings.  That adds space for another 5 charms (total 10 charms).  The second upgrade is to the Gold Bracelet using 10 gold rings which adds another 5 charms (total 15 charms).  There's what, 15 charms in the game?  Plus Danette's Guile and 16 Tall Potted Plants (do they have an effect)?

 

You can only attach charms with negligible weight, i.e. Light.  If it has a value against weight, it can't be attached to the bracelet, which rules out attaching any Tall Potted Plant or the Infused Shrub.

 

I'd also say you need other crafting ingredients besides the metal, perhaps the herbs or raw adaptable spores?  Once you've done the collection quests, further herbs aren't useful until you get to Taker Lands and can make wands, and not everyone needs wands.  Alternatively, use mined crystals, or perhaps you use a mined crystal to attach a charm.  It gives a use to the Enchantment Anvils which are frankly seriously under-utilised in the game given there's nothing to augment regular equipment.

 

Another thing to think about is can you remove an attached charm?  I'd say yes, but you need some serious cash and craft ingredients to do so, perhaps mandrake and infernal residue, and it removes all charms, so you have to re-attach any you want to keep on the bracelet.