Thanks loads Miloch there is more than enough on these links, especially the IA thread, there is a nice little tutorial on that thread which should do. Only issues is that all the 3ds Import plug-ins ( NWN to 3DS ) are for really old versions of 3ds, i think the most recent update on the NWN site is 2009, and thats a 3DS to NWN filter. If cant find more recent or if the old versions refuse to work will hunt down a old copy of 3DS and use that on a spare laptop.
Also found a few "futuristic" hak packs for NWN, quite good space ships, future world etc will see what they look like on screen. The SpellJammer models are really beautiful and VUE is incredible, apparently its used on lots of major film productions, ie Terminator3 . Go to website and you can download a free student version, or just check the torrents

damn it !!! found a few very small bugs in Vecna , not sure if will be able to upload the fix before i go on contract. Will try best

@jube
You might want to contact Huxaltec over at the french modding community Legendes:
http://weiducommando...s-of-the-realms

He's creating a rather large mod, with new areas, and some are supposed to play on spelljammer ships.
I don't know how much of the coding he's done, but he seems to be doing a good job at creating new maps.

Maybe he accepts to share some maps, or even create new ones for you.

Holy shit, these french guys are amazing.
Btw there is an illithid ship model in bg2, just cut it from the Ust Natha general map, you can use the illithid town and the mind flayer's sewer compound as interiors. Also you might be able to recycle the githyianki warships model.

good idea with the interiors, illithid ship ? A spacejammer ship ? jees where, which area? been a long time since i sat down and actually played

Am in the testing bug squashing phase of this quest, if anyone is playing it please post bugs as you go

I've got a big pb : it took me quite a while to download Vecna v 19 and the file was corrupted (at the end, according to WinRAR) !

Is it normal and may I download the v 21, or has anybody encounter the same pb ?

no not normal sounds like a bad dl to me. am dl V22 now to check everything is cool.If thats ok will check v19
Are you going to play it outside a megamod install ?

Sorry for having been so late, but yes, I will play it without any megamod.

Ah, well i hope you are a very experienced player!! Vecna is going to be quite a challenge without the extra kit and experience available in a mega mod, setting i sugest at least adding Alex Mackintosh Trader to your mod list , that store has lots of overpowered kit at stupidly low prices likewise for the Magnificent Magic Shop ( you can sell all your unwanted kit for FULL price no matter your prestige ). Please post back on your thoughts of the mod as you play,

Thanks

@jube
You might want to contact Huxaltec over at the french modding community Legendes:
http://weiducommando...s-of-the-realms

He's creating a rather large mod, with new areas, and some are supposed to play on spelljammer ships.
I don't know how much of the coding he's done, but he seems to be doing a good job at creating new maps.

Maybe he accepts to share some maps, or even create new ones for you.

Wow and wow what a mod!!! Just shows you can achieve with a shed load of artistic talent, the graphics are gorgeous !
There is a LOT of 3d starjammer stuff on the internet, i can definatly stage a battle or 2 in that setting, on a squid ship ( mind flayer ) would be cool, and not to painfull to render etc, but not exactly what am after.
Let me explain, if the players defeat Lol,Orcus and dem in the final battle and gain the hand/eye then they will have the option of searching for the next artifact in the vecna series, that is " The rod of seven parts" , the rod is actually a Traveller artifact, the search for this artifact reveals story of pre-history and specifically they end up on the AO ( the greatest and last of the traveller world ships ).
So i am looking for ship interiors, but BIG ones, ie a world ship, and REALLY futuristic, certainly not techno-punk.
If not pre-rendered then in 3d ( but rendering a scene as big as what i am thinking is gong to take about a week !!!! ) I believe the original bg2 graphics were hand drawn.

Uploading V23 now, have a dubious connection so fingers crossed.
I would say this is now past beta into RC1 ( although that is a personal opinion ) the adventure plays well and the party can get to the end without bugs impeding progress, played it for the first time with sound on and its VERY quiet !!,needs music and many ambients and effects added, will get to that later.
It is way to hard, but not impossible,the monsters are a bit dumb, and prone to well timed clairvoyance / dimension door / timestop attacks.
The finale i am very pleased with, have made it a true final confrontation with the mother of all battles, but again with timestop immunity and a cool head it is possible.
Have started a small amount of work on the spelljammer stuff but not to a screen i can show of yet

Hey there Jube,

I've play tested a whole bunch of this mod and I think it's a stellar idea! I have a bunch of feedback from crashes to play-ability, but I'm not sure if you want it all posted in this particular spot. Is this the best place for all of that, or would you prefer an e-mail back and forth?

-Jax

Excellent mate, here would be fine, there is a separate thread i set up for bugs etc, but since your the only playtester at the moment, here seems more convenient. Yes any and all bugs, crashes etc, also a bit of detail on your installation, and which other mods your playing with. All the bugs will be simple ( they usually are ) but its your comments on difficulty, gameplay that are vital, as they will influence the vacna mod a LOT, remember that music/sound is not yet done, also part2 with all the sci-fi stuff is not started in v23

I noticed while play testing with your party that you are way underpowered comming into Vecna, big congrats for having done so well!!! I think thats at the heart of the number of reloads, within a BW setup you can get really uber kitted out before getting to Vecna, making the TR complex a lot easier ( less reloads ) and Loloths complex do-able. If you get pissed off with the difficulty, post a saved game and i will kit your party out with some choice items from a BW install and see how you do? But if you enjoy the slog, have a damn good search round the TR complex after getting the TR master key in AAR031, you will find a hint of the kit to come and some very usefull stuff, also check the bodies.

Hi mate,yep definatly a crash in area 31, really wierd, does not crash in a Big World setup,but does crash in a vanilla setup, anyway after much work found it was due to AACRE038, could NOT fix the creature no matter what i did so had to replce it, the hotfix is pasted below, extract it into your overide directory. Should clear the crash in 2 areas where AAcre038 appears.

Doing the rest of the areas as per your observations, when sould i post the updated areas ? say when you have finished the TR complex?

Unfortunately the game crashes before I can ever meet Lolth to get the eye/hand. Similarly, I can get to the map with Android 1 and then it crashes immediately, so feedback for end-fights will hopefully be coming once we get those bugs sorted. =)

OK!! Feedback from AAR017:

-The Nambassu "Welcoming Committee" is perfect, just enough princes to keep you interested, not so many demons you feel claustrophobic. Just right for the introductory fight.

- The Marilith Prince (AACRE066) needs a bit of a weapron tweak, as it can't take down a summoned skeleton lord right now...doesn't make much sense as a normal Marilith can (and it makes the fight too easy)

-The group of Mariliths outside the sphere are almost too easy (due to mass dispell of their stoneskin and protections). Solutions I thought would bring the heat a bit more: Group the a.i. so if you pull one, you pull them ALL (though this zerging doesn't scream "inspired tactical solution," it sure would make it harder. OR if the Marilith Prince was a caster and you felt the NEED to get through the marilith horde to kill him quick. If the Prince is re-made to a caster you could thin out the reg. Marilith mob a bit, as killing 3 or 4 while taking down a special "Prince" casting character sounds pretty tough...

Feedback from AAR043 (inside sphere, Hand of Evil encounter)

-You might want to prevent exiting the area once the fight begins (just noticed that I could leave, which would enable cross area pulling which is cheesy. Anvil had lots of inhibitors like that which made sure you took the fight at face value, not sure if you want to, just posting the observation.

-The game really would benefit from a pause when the Hand of Evil is talking to you...it's hard to focus on text when the cambions are mincing your mages.

-Ok the two main fights here had a few loopholes, but taken face-on they were pretty darn tough. I've been trying to come up with ideas but I'm kinda stumped on solutions so I'll just comment on the dynamics:

1) Cambion Rush was hard as heck on my first try, but after a second go I found a pretty big tactical loophole: I could just throw my fighter/mage up front with Prot. from Magical Weps. and Immunity: Abjuration and just whittle the cambions down in the choke. I thought that perhaps fewer cambions and harder displacer beasts might make the fight a bit more dynamic, but that would depend on the displacers.

2) I was scared like heck when I saw those displacer beasts (AACRE079) because I didn't know what to expect, but since they have no magic resistance my first 2 horrid wiltings very quickly cleared the room of them. For such an engaging and new creature I was almost sad to see them go so easily, so maybe some tweaking or magic resist?

3) Ok, the night-hag fight went much like the Cambion fight, crazy hard at first, then swung to too easy upon further exploration. I found it pretty odd that they just stood there neutrally once the Hand of Evil left, but I also can't see anyone being able to clear the area with both the hags and cambions going at you in such a tight space, so I dunno :/ . Anyway, having the chance to summon a horde and spread my party out just about nullified the whole fight. I think Keldorn took 10 dmg total, but that was it for the party. I just kept summons up while the hags burned down their entire spell roster, then waltzed in for an easy kill. Their spell rosters were wicked hard when I tried the fight without summons however, and found the fight to be much more engaging and timing-sensitive (almost overwhelming with so many hags, especially the mass creeping doom, but do-able with 5 or 6 reloads and the right party/spells).


Ok I'm about out of time for now, but I've cleared 2 of the first areas of the Twisted Rune Complex as well, so I'll throw up the notes some time this evening. (I did make a note of the area one of the crashes occurs in though, AAR031, as soon as the load screen finishes I see my party and a room of skeletons and the game crashes. Might be an animation thing, I really don't know). I'll be keeping count of reloads for the tough fights as well so you can get a sense for the learning curve (or at least my learning curve, heh). Feel free to let me know if this is the type of thing you're looking for, if not I can try and focus the feedback differently =).

All the Best,

-Jax

Doing AACRE066, thanks

Mariliths outside the sphere--- yes will give em a group shout, so no pulling one at a time. Will do that for some other encounters as well,

Hand of evil talking to you ????? Will check but on my game when the PC gets near enough a dialog initiates and thats an automatic pause, hmm maybe there is something going on with your installation, especially since i have never had a crash at AAR031, with my single character it plays fine.
Can you please post your Weidu.log and SETUP-VECNA.DEBUG and your saved game, and details of you OS ( windows type ) and computer, i will set up a duplicate installation on a spare similar pc and try to recreate the crash, diagnose and fix, if i cant then we have to go into your game crash dump and work from there.

AAR043

Yep left the cross area pulling in there deliberatly on this area, am lulling the player into false sense of security, later that tactic will backfire big-time

1,2) I think giving the displacers 50 magic res should do the trick what do you think ? I cant get away with making them a lot harder, they are originally 5hd monsters and making them super powerful is stretching the P+P core to far ( they are already way beefed up from their P+P base ), but yes agree a shame since their anims are so damn good !

3) Hmm damn ! they should have cleared the summons with death spells, i pulled the mu scrips from tactics2, will check their spell lists have enough Dspells and that the script is functioning proper.

YES this is perfect perfect !!!! do not change anything about your commenting style

you are in for a real ride ! by sounds of things you have only done 15% of the mod you wait till you get to loloths complex on the astral plane ! Do you want me to post a list of treasure and locations so you can try all the cool kit or is it better that i give no hints and you play through "blind" so to speak ?

Allright then let's get to it!

First thing's first, you've created a really neat mod here! My hat's already off to ya for adding so much content. I had a bunch of other mods installed on my first run but because of the crashes I'm starting a fresh planar stride today. Just Vecna and Teleport are added, so any glitches will be easier to deal with (full bg2 install, patched, yada yada). I had plenty of ideas and questions about mod compatibility, (like how Valen's level drain would affect the run, or merging the Mortis undead transformations) but that's down the road.

-Party I'm running with for the fresh run: Main (Fighter/Mage Duel), Keldorn, Mazzy, Jan, Nalia, Anomen

Ok, a few observational notes from my first run-

-This would be really really hard with an evil party, as I had to rely pretty darn heavily on Keldorn's super dispels (mostly because of it's area of affect...) On that note, the mods I usually run nerf the Inquisitor's dispel, so if you want to keep things die-hard difficult you could consider doing something similar. (I find it still quite challenging with it at full strength, however.)

-As it currently plays, the sheer number of bad guys that are stacked (and that have true seeing) means that rogues, bards, and just about anything other than a pally, warrior, or mage with weapon protections will do down in a flash. Some modders don't mind this, (a la improved anvil) and others do. Just an observation.

-The Staff of the Ram+6, Full Plate +2, and Darksteel Shield all dropped a whole whole bunch off bad guys. While it did seem a little like Christmas come early, for the items to remain special and truly "unique" the bad guys (mostly the fodder mages and fighters I think) need to keep these items on death. (I'll make a note of the .CRE files on this next run)

-You've added some freaking amazing bad guys! That being said, I think some of the finesse and wonder of these beasties was lost due to a semi-common tendency of "mass groupings". Ex. I was really excited to see a Demon Hulk, but not so much when there were 8 of them in a "Demon Hulk Ball." On this fresh run-through I'm about to start I'll try and give a more play-by-play of the encounters to help hone-in on specifics of fight gameplay.

-Without Timestop (A lot...lot..lot of Timestop) I don't think I could have done my first run. Just a tactical note I made on the first run, but I relied on it pretty heavily. Also, I thought it would be a nice touch for some of the more powerful cadre of the plains to be immune to Time-Stop (I can't imagine some of the gods and demi-gods to be hampered too much by a wizard's little time bubble).

Now about the crashes, I made a note of the 2 places the game crashed in the Twisted Rune complex, but I'm sure you'll want to see the log files when I run this fresh run. I don't remember the specifics of documenting crashes in the BG2 directory, so if you could give me a refresher on that I'll be able to shoot you the logs for any crashes I run into.

Ok, with all that out of the way, I'm planning on heading down to the edited planar sphere map tonight (sorry, couldn't remember the plane off-hand ), so I'll have some fight feedback sometime tomorrow! =)


Hope some of this will be helpful to ya!
-Jax

excellent!!!! It plays just about as i had envisioned it.
The grouping of monsters is a damn good point, looking to sort that by more intelligent scripts that handle group attacks/defense better and a little better placement, will wait for your full comments before committing changes to specific areas.
If i remember correctly ctrl X ( or alt x ) will show you the area name while in game, as well as coordinates, all the areas have the AAR prefix ie AAR001, so thats an easy method of locating the point where bugs/crashes hit.
Did you get all the way to the end ? Ie the final battle with Loloth etc and get the hand/eye, did you do all of the TR complex? What did you think of the android1 encounter and the dialogue with Hastur ?
Also make sure you are playing V23, you will not need teleport for that since its been integrated since v20 odd.
When get back tonight will dig up all the data we will need for crash dumps etc,

Once again thanks mate, your comments have galvanized me to polish the hand/eye quest and really push forward on the Rod of seven parts quest.

Hi all as promised VecnaV22 is uploading now. I am designating this release as "Vecna Beta 1" from now on releases will be MUCH fewer as my time for modding is now very limited, i will still be responding to bug threads but further dev is on hold, its still a beta cos there are still issues, some monsters have to high ac and THAC0, to many items early on with timestop immunity, a lot of the cutscenes could be better.

Any experienced modder is welcome to iron out any bugs they find, and or add content to the planes, a post on the vecna thread to let me know would be nice

BP Compatibility..... I think at this stage Vecna is ready to go in the BP tactics list, although designated a beta i believe it is ready. But a warning that the difficulty level is astronomic is a good idea

V22 is ready and will be uploading tonight, I will consider this as a release candidate, everything if pretty finalised, and unless i get any posts otherwise the difficulty will not change. There will be V23 in a few months time but that will only involve music, text screens etc. I have plans for V24+ which now include custom rendered tilesets ( yay 3dmax ) , you will be battling in a starship But will depend on demand, if this mod gets popular i will implement V24+ but if not i think V23 will be the final one

where is V22,i can't find it,i want to reinstall BWP 10 with V22, thank you very much

Hi mike

not uploaded yet mate wanted to finish a script for the final battle. its done now so sometime tonight

ok guys, still more comments & questions
as it comes to lolth laboratory fights - most of them are tough, especially one near the bones of dead dragon (or sth, location from P:T). But still, since I had time stop immunity (reign of virtue), killing fallen planetars in meantime was pure pleasure. Final fights - dissapointing, sorry. especially lolth (demogorgon and lolth's venegances tough, orcus not even making a move) was very weak.
questions - why can't I use robe of mmysteria when I'm a lawful-neutral kensai-mage? and what are requirements for usage of hand & eye? what is more - hand doesn't give innate abilities as it should. eye's ability to dispell all magic works on caster too and also makes all later spell animations weird (breach-like animation). and - why nothing happens after lolt's death? I mean she is dead and that's all. no signal from gods, no way to return and so on.

Hi mate as mentioned final fight not finished yet am just testing v17 which has it finished and all the bugs you mentioned done aswell ( including fixing the items ) will be posting it tonight ( euro time )

quick list of changes for V17

Android0 encounter....done
Observatory room ( AAR050 )... Stat/resistance changing machines and secondary encounter...done
Hastur and Android1 plotline...done
Loloth final fight....done
Hand and eye... done
Treasure item updates... still in progress
AI updates.... still in progress


Thanks lots for the play testing mate

Hi all V18 is up for download, the only things not checked now are Android1 encounter and final fight, all other reported bugs should be done with this version.

Thanks

Ps Hand and eye must be equiped/activated again to apply fixes

Oh thank you so much !!!! , i have been worried for so long that the fights were impossible, thank F there are experienced players out there !!

Yep use the map FROM THE ASTRAL PLANE otherwise it will be wasted.

Are you playing V16? if not download it and install, the saved games should be totally compatible, and i have sorted out a whole heap of bugs.

At the moment the whole Android1 story is not complete, and that room is still in development but it does not affect the story line at all.

Loloths complex in on the astral plane is a REAL challenge, please post how it goes.

To wet your appetite i have just finished clearing all the bugs on the hand and eye, and in all modesty i have to say they are the most powerful, scary, complex items ever seen in any BG2 mod ( and actually in many ways designed for a wizard mage, since like you i play fighter mage solo )

There are still bugs in the final fight ( and the encounter with android2 ) in V16 but am doing them now and will be sorted for V17 at the weekend

Over the next few months i intend to take the project further, adding the first part of the quest for the Rod Of Seven Parts, and clues as to what actually happened to the travelers.

Oh and if anyone is experiencing difficulties could you please download VecnaV16 and try again, this will save me lots of time setting up the environment to recreate the fault, and playing the game till i get to the fault !

Thanks

Ok from a brief Examination of the thread i can see there is an issue with a possible conflict am looking into that now.
I think! all the in game bugs are done.
V16 is uploaded.
V15 did not copy any 2da files over, so cant be that ( v16 has the lv 50 patch but as an optional component) can only be some of the resources i borrowed from BW and did not rename with the AA prefix, will rename them for v17 which is here soon.
Whatever it is will have it done for the weekend

Also i take everyones point about the lack of docs, doing that to.

I have kept the IA code which i dont see any problem with but will integrate the restores ( which actually threw me first time i set up IA )

Thanks mate, you seem to know what you are doing so am adding your setup.tra to V20 without checking, its pointless to repeat work
Yes take your point about a lot of lore ( i will call it plot ) but all of it is essential, at the moment its all in item descriptions and books, but most of it will get repeated in text screens and the journal.
I am working very hard on making knowledge of the planes pretty much compulsory when traveling off-world, and knowledge of the overall plot compulsory for completing the adventures ( if you don't Know who Hastur is chances are you are not going to give the right responses when talking to him, thus miss a key plot item et.....).
Yes there is a lot but remember it will be spread over 100+ hours of play time when this thing is finally finished, i have only populated 50% of the areas so far.
By the way think you have talked yourself into a job

@jube: thank you so much for this mod:) i wish there would be more true high level mods like this one. Although it's a little buggy for me (playing v16 or v17, dunno) and i cant finish it, im definately playing this mod again in my next playthrough.

I cant find all of the three parts of the wardstone that I need to enter the next area. What are the item-codes for them? Is anyone walking on a walkthrough? That would be nice:P Maybe I will do one, when a more final version comes out, this mod deserves it:)

Thanks mate, a few long hours went into it
Yes V19 is the only one where you can play all the way through, and gain the hand/eye at the end, the previous versions had bugs that prevented getting to the final battle. But fairly confident all sorted now, if you have played up to loloths lab complex ( on the astral ) i think you will have to use a saved game BEFORE the complex, since MANY bugs were fixed in the complex, or if you have time play it from the begining since the twised rune complex has some more juicy treasure added ( and some removed ). Also for V19 there is some unique graphics never seen in any other mod ( check out the Android1 encounter !! ).
Plese yes write a walkthrough and i will add it to Vecna documentation, but remember to play V19+ !!!! ( V20 will have some upgraded fights but all keys, plot items etc... will be identical from v19 onwards, it works now so dont want to mess too much )

Hi Dimuthu.

First lets start with the vecna mod. Vecna probability will install into soa ( only ) but it is a TOB mod. TOB contains MANY rule upgrades and extensions over the soa game, on top of the quest extensions,i am not sure the creatures within vecna will behave correctly in a soa only game. Also since vecna contains the code of Infinity Animations B5 please refer to that fantastic mod for game pre-requisits.

But note Vecna is HARD, i advise you to play it in a "Big World Project" game, i think vecna is back in the Big world lists ( jarno ? ) and that also excellent project will give you a playable game with the minimum of installation headaches, plus it has an extensive and complete set of instructions, you cannot go wrong!

Finally jeeeeez your using windows7, i advise strongly upgrading to winxp ( if you can find drivers ! ) otherwise have a look around this forum for win7, BG2 issues, jarno's notes on installing the BWP in a win7 environment is a good place to start

Hi all VecnaV21 i now uploaded, as mentioned before MUCH harder than v19, a real challenge, and have kept my original design goals, take whatever overpowered / uber / items or spells and you will still get a good fight
I am starting a new thread for debug/comments if anyone has suggestions and/or bugs for V21+ please post there thanks.

Miloch........... damn it !!!

Jarno..... Could simply add some static anims to the area but just not the same


Oh well, have so many other things to worry about. While on the subject of bugs to all modders IE Tileset map editor has a bug, dont try to save areas with >115 creatures it totally corrupts the file on save, you wont notice till you try to open with Near infinity etc and obviously you will lose the work in the area.

mike........ any day now mate, am just finishing off, there has been SO MUCH work


Am trying to get weather to work in my areas ( thick fog ) anyone know of a tutorial on the subject or any info?

Damn found more bugs will upload late tomorrow instead