BGTuTu sgSeries Readme

SOME NOTES BY YOVANETH, Journeyman-Mage at Candlekeep

Last Update:

v1.0

First release of BGTuTu-specific scripts - the btSeries.

These scripts are derived from the sgSeries for Shadows of Amn and so almost all of what is written here will be familiar if you are using those scripts. The only real differences between these scripts and the sgSeries is that these have been re-worked to use the corrected items that BGTuTu installs. Those items are all prefixed with an underscore.

These scripts will not fight your battles for you. There will still be many times when your character is attacking/defending in one style and you wish to make him/her do something else. What they will allow you to do is to 'take your eye off the ball' and attend to another problem on another part of the screen without you coming back to find most of your party has been slaughtered.

NOTE: If you install these scripts after you have started the game, for reasons unknown the script descriptions do not show up in the Customize screen but are all announced as 'btXXXXX (Custom)' with no description. This seems to be a side-effect of the BGTuTu conversion; if this happens to you then use the descriptions below to help you allocate the scripts.

Features

Co-operative healing out of combat
Healing assessment
Immediate poison healing
Potion passing in combat
Threatlevel assessment
Co-operative targeting
Priority targeting
Wand use
Backstab for all thief classes
Auto-hide'n'detect for all thief classes
Raise Dead when out of combat
Force weapon selection by character
A certain amount of self-preservation by the characters when badly hurt!
Party-summoned monster threatlevel assessment and co-operative targeting

Pause Game

The game will auto-pause if a character is poisoned or is near-death. If the GUI bars are hidden then they will be automatically recalled.

Druidic Shapeshifting

Pure-class Druids such as Jaheira (okay, so she's a Fighter-Druid!) will now only shapeshift under the following circumstances:

Their strength is less than 18
Hitpoints are less than 30 percent
They are being attacked in melee
They will only shapeshift to black or brown bears

Shapeshifting to wolf form is reserved for running away when combat gets too hot. Druidic Avengers will check for enemy resistances before shapeshifting e.g. they will not shapeshift to Wyvern form if the enemy is resistant to poison. Druidic Shapeshifters will also use their shapeshifting ability as a form of healing if no other healing is available; they will wait one minute after combat and if HP are less than 30 percent, they will then shift to Giant Troll or Wolfwere form, depending on what is available. Once they have regenerated, they will shift back. If combat starts while they are in these forms then they will attack in shapeshifted form. From a role-playing point-of-view, I think this makes more sense.

Raise Dead

Clerics are smart enough to register when a party member is killed. When combat is over, any surviving cleric will tag any dead clerics or druids for revival first. Resurrection is the spell of choice; otherwise Raise Dead will be used. Jaheira's Harper Call is also scripted here. If the dead cleric is an elf or half-elf and Resurrection is not available then they will be ignored. Once any dead clerics and druids have been revived, any other dead party members will be revived in the order Player2 - Player 6. Apart from Resurrection, no character is ever deliberately completely healed (although it does happen depending on how the calls are registered) as this is considered to be wasteful of healing spells. Potion use is restricted to combat only as they are considered too precious to use otherwise. Healers will heal themselves first and then concentrate on the most injured.

However, I have found that if 'too many' (number unknown) combat rounds have passed after the clerics have registered the dead, then they will 'forget' who's dead. This seems to be a problem with the Infinity Engine rather than the script.

Hide and Hide'n'Detect

All thief and ranger classes will make use of Hide(). In addition, thieves will also make use of the hide'n'detect trick whereby they will go into shadows and immediately begin searching. Just before they finally leave shadows, they will hide again. With v2.0.1 of these scripts, rangers and thieves will no longer Hide or Hide'n'Detect continously. They will hide only under the following circumstances:

The areatype is a dungeon
The areatype is a forest
It is night time in any area

Again, from a role-playing point-of-view, this makes more sense. I'd like to stop them hiding in shadows when entering a lit building at night but there is no flag or sequence of flags that will allow me to detect inside a building. During daylight hours when not in a forest or a dungeon thieves will continously detect traps. In addition, pressing the H HotKey will cause the intelligent Ranger or Thief to come out of shadows without stopping the rest of the AI script. This gives healers a chance to get to them if, for example, they have been level-drained. However, if nothing is done within ninety seconds, the thief or ranger will automatically go back to hiding, displaying the message "Usin' me 'ead" as they do so. The same message will be displayed if you force them back into shadows early by use of the HotKey.

The old 'dumb' always-on hide'n'detect thief is still available too. To fall back to this method of working, you need to select the H key first which will generate the DisplayString "Stopped hiding" and then use the T HotKey. This will display the message "Hide'n'Detect". Once the 'dumb' thief is enabled, pressing the T key again will force them out of shadows but they will not automatically return. You need to do that.

You still have the option to force a hide from the toolbar for both types. This will be useful for the intelligent thief when you need a period of hiding in a non-shadows area. All hide-enabled classes will use potions of invisibility (if they have them) when the threatlevel is 3 or above. Note that the default type is Intelligent, so if you want the original always-on type, you will need to set it each time you load a game. I accept that this is a PITA but there is no way of storing a state between games.

Mages

Mages will automatically go after downed trolls to kill them, first with Melf's Minute Meteors, then with Flame Arrow or Melf's Acid Arrow. If they have neither of these two spells then they will revert to the far-less party-friendly Burning Hands and Aganazzar's Scorcher.

Rangers and Paladins

The ranger/paladin scripts also includes cleric spell support up to level 4 as per the game. Paladins will also use Lay On Hands, first to heal themselves and then to heal anyone else that needs it.

Force Weapon Selection

Hotkey(X) will force weapon selection for whichever character(s) is/are currently selected. It will cycle ranged-melee-normal and if selected ranged or melee, will stay with those weapons until changed again by use of the HotKey. During forced selection the highlighted character(s) will show a DSH of 'Ranged Weapon' - 'Melee Weapon' - 'My Choice'. Note that this shows what the character will select at the next battle; it does not happen immediately. If set to 'My Choice' then the most appropriate weapon will be selected for the job in hand.

I found this ability particularly useful when up against large numbers of skeletons such as those in High Hedge and Ulcaster when Sword Coast Strategems is installed with BGTuTu. Melee weapons will always take down skeletons faster than ranged weapons.

If the character is forced to select a weapon type that he/she does not have, then the command will be ignored. You will also find that immediately combat ends, the entire party will select ranged weapons. This speeds up the response time when the next enemy is sighted. If you have forced the selection to melee for any character, they will switch back to that weapon type before entering the next combat.

Minions

Party-summoned monsters ('minions') will switch to threatlevel assessment and co-operative targeting to support the party. Spellcasters (such as nymphs and simulacrums) will use all the spells at their disposal in accordance with normal threatlevel processing.

However, I would highly recommend grabbing the latest version of gMinion from Cirerrek here. Cirerrek's gMinion is in a constant state of development whereas my version is Sarkyn's original and its code was frozen a long time ago. Install it after the sgSeries and it will overwrite the gMinion carried with these scripts.

Class Scripts: (with some suggested NPC examples)

	sgBard	All Bards e.g. Garrick.
	sgBHunt	Thief Bounty Hunter kit.
	sgBmstr	Ranger Beastmaster kit with support for Druid Summon Animal Summoning spells
	sgFight	Use for pure Fighters e.g. Khalid.
	sgFtMgCl	Use for Cleric-Mages and Fighter-Mage-Clerics.
	sgFtMgTh	Use for dual or multiclass Thief-Mages and Fighter-Mage-Thieves.
	sgFtrClr	Use for Fighter-Clerics e.g. Finch and Viconia.
	sgFtrDrd	Use for Fighter-Druids e.g. Jaheira.
	sgFtrMge	Use for Mages and Sorcerers, Fighter-Mages and Kensai-Mages e.g. Edwin and Indira.
	sgFtrThf	Use for pure Thieves and Fighter-Thieves e.g. Skie and Imoen.
	sgInquis	Use for Inquisitor classes.
	sgPaladn	Use for Paladins e.g. Ajantis.
	sgRanger	Use for Rangers e.g. Minsc (why does everyone use him as a tank?).
	sgSshift	Druid Shapeshifter kit.
	sgStalk	Ranger Stalker kit with support for Stalker Mage spells.

Tested Mod NPCs:

	sgFtrClr	Finch.
	sgFtrMge	Indira.

If anyone successfully uses any other mod NPCs with one of these scripts, please let me know and I'll include them here.

Use the following keyboard commands:

	B = Buff before combat
	D = Disable AI for selected character(s)
	E = Enable AI for selected character(s)
	H = Enable/disable intelligent Thief or Ranger
	S = Summon monsters
	M = Enable/disable Move To Combat. Disabled by default. If enabled, as soon as one party member sees an enemy or is attacked, the entire party will come running. Otherwise known as the 'cellphone effect' as it calls party members that are out of hearing range.
	T = Enable/disable 'dumb' Thief or Ranger

Updates:

v1.0.0

First release of BGTuTu-specific scripts - the btSeries.