7 replies to this topic

[DavidWallace]

I'm ambling my way towards the next release of SCS(II) and I'd like to give some thought to aTweaks compatibility. The main issue is fiends, though if I can anticipate and deal with beholders/undead, so much the better. I don't know aTweaks at all; I welcome guidance.

The obvious minimal move is to block installation of SCS fiends and beholders if the equivalent aTweaks component is installed. If there are cuter synergies, I'm happy to hear about them. It would also be useful to know the preferred way to detect aTweaks components. (As discussed ad nauseam elsewhere, I'm reluctant to just use MOD_IS_INSTALLED unless I get a cast-iron guarantee that component numbers are never going to change.)

No urgency.

[Wisp]

RE: fiends. I would hate to make the components mutually exclusive. Maybe there are enough people who like aTweaks' fiends that aVENGER's work wouldn't be relegated to the status of curio. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, aside from the stats and abilities of the fiends themselves, there is also the matter of SCSII mages not summoning fiends unless Improved Fiends is installed, is there not? I imagine I'm not the only one who would not install aTweaks simply because SCSII mages plus fiends is too good.

My fantasy-land-and-smiling-unicorns "solution" would be to somehow make it possible to add aTweaks on top of SCSII and have that work out to a homogenisation of all fiends, instead of the current disparity. But I'm not sure how feasible that would be and I imagine aVENGER had a reason for not doing that in the first place. But if the general idea is okay by you I'll try to look over the relevant parts of SCSII and draft some sort of evaluation and/or proposal for the particulars.


RE: undead. The aTweaks component may overlap with Improved Vampires. I imagine that's most elegantly solved on my end by having aTweaks skip vampires if Improved Vampires is installed.
But I haven't yet written the vampire content, and since v4 is taking longer than I had planned (and care for) I think I may top off what I have started and possibly release more PnP-Undead content down the road.

If so, the initial release of PnP Undead will affect:

• Death Knights (Demon Knights)
  
• Skeleton Warriors
  
• Banshees
  
• Ghouls, Lacedons, Ghasts, Ghoul Lords (Greater Ghouls) and other variations on this theme
  
• Mummies and Greater Mummies
  
• Possibly simple moron creatures like regular skeletons, zombies etc.

I don't think SCS does anything particular with the Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower (correct me if I'm wrong) but aTweaks will lower its HP (among other things) to conform to PnP values. The Demon Knights in BG2 get the same treatment.

With the exception of morons the current set-up is that they all have their combat scripts replaced by aTweaks scripts. Morons will probably just have their stats altered to be in alignment with PnP values.


RE: beholders. This is probably a pretty straight-forward case of just making the two components mutually exclusive. Off-hand I can't think of any value in having both installed concurrently. However, do spell-casting beholders fall under "Smarter Mages" or "Smarter Beholders"? (I rather hope it's the latter.)


RE: detection. I can give reasonable guarantees component numbers will not change. That would be inconvenient on my end too. But obviously it is a trivial matter to clutter up that nice, clean override. How about fl#atfiends1.mrk for PnP Fiends, fl#atfiends2.mrk for Revised Fiend Summoning, fl#atundead.mrk for PnP Undead and fl#atbeholders.mrk for PnP Beholders?

[DavidWallace]

RE: fiends. I would hate to make the components mutually exclusive. Maybe there are enough people who like aTweaks' fiends that aVENGER's work wouldn't be relegated to the status of curio. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, aside from the stats and abilities of the fiends themselves, there is also the matter of SCSII mages not summoning fiends unless Improved Fiends is installed, is there not? I imagine I'm not the only one who would not install aTweaks simply because SCSII mages plus fiends is too good.

My fantasy-land-and-smiling-unicorns "solution" would be to somehow make it possible to add aTweaks on top of SCSII and have that work out to a homogenisation of all fiends, instead of the current disparity. But I'm not sure how feasible that would be and I imagine aVENGER had a reason for not doing that in the first place. But if the general idea is okay by you I'll try to look over the relevant parts of SCSII and draft some sort of evaluation and/or proposal for the particulars.

Please do. I've no desire to exploit monopoly power! If homogenisation isn't an option, I'd also be happy to let SCSII mages summon aTweaks fiends, though it would require a bit of care to make sure it worked whichever way around they were installed. (And I'd need to be confident that if an enemy wizard summons an aTweaked fiend, it can rely on it not to do something stupid like attack the summoner's party... at a guess, that would require some slight tweak to aTweaks so that enemy-summoned fiends don't check for Protection from Magic.)

RE: undead. The aTweaks component may overlap with Improved Vampires. I imagine that's most elegantly solved on my end by having aTweaks skip vampires if Improved Vampires is installed.
But I haven't yet written the vampire content, and since v4 is taking longer than I had planned (and care for) I think I may top off what I have started and possibly release more PnP-Undead content down the road.

That sounds sensible

If so, the initial release of PnP Undead will affect:

• Death Knights (Demon Knights)
  
• Skeleton Warriors
  
• Banshees
  
• Ghouls, Lacedons, Ghasts, Ghoul Lords (Greater Ghouls) and other variations on this theme
  
• Mummies and Greater Mummies
  
• Possibly simple moron creatures like regular skeletons, zombies etc.

I don't think SCS does anything particular with the Demon Knight in Durlag's Tower (correct me if I'm wrong) but aTweaks will lower its HP (among other things) to conform to PnP values. The Demon Knights in BG2 get the same treatment.

With the exception of morons the current set-up is that they all have their combat scripts replaced by aTweaks scripts. Morons will probably just have their stats altered to be in alignment with PnP values.

I don't touch the demon knight. I do take the "demon" in "demon knights" seriously, though, and cover them in Improved Fiends. (Apart from anything else, I want to cover the four demon knights in the watcher's keep Fiend Maze, which seem intended to be tanar'ri, not undead.) I'd welcome suggestions for compatibility here.

RE: beholders. This is probably a pretty straight-forward case of just making the two components mutually exclusive. Off-hand I can't think of any value in having both installed concurrently. However, do spell-casting beholders fall under "Smarter Mages" or "Smarter Beholders"? (I rather hope it's the latter.)

You're in luck, it's the latter. I think mutual exclusivity should work fine here. One caveat, though: SCS's "improved minor encounters" component makes Vaxall, the beholder in the Twisted Rune, into an Elder Orb, but only if SCS beholders are installed. It would be nice if we could arrange for that to happen if aTweaks beholders were installed too. I can handle that at my end if aTweaks is installed first (assuming that your default elder orb script plays nice with non-beholder allies?) but it would be nice if it worked both ways around. The easiest way to arrange that is for aTweaks Beholders to check for that component of SCSII (check for dw#misc.mrk in the override) and elderorbify Vaxall if it's present. You just need to do

	COPY_EXISTING ~hlvaxal.cre~ ~override~
		WRITE_ASCII 0x260 ~[your elder orb script]~ #8
	BUT_ONLY_IF_IT_CHANGES

RE: detection. I can give reasonable guarantees component numbers will not change. That would be inconvenient on my end too. But obviously it is a trivial matter to clutter up that nice, clean override. How about fl#atfiends1.mrk for PnP Fiends, fl#atfiends2.mrk for Revised Fiend Summoning, fl#atundead.mrk for PnP Undead and fl#atbeholders.mrk for PnP Beholders?

Fine with me.

[Wisp]

If homogenisation isn't an option, I'd also be happy to let SCSII mages summon aTweaks fiends, though it would require a bit of care to make sure it worked whichever way around they were installed. (And I'd need to be confident that if an enemy wizard summons an aTweaked fiend, it can rely on it not to do something stupid like attack the summoner's party... at a guess, that would require some slight tweak to aTweaks so that enemy-summoned fiends don't check for Protection from Magic.)

Barring anything unforeseen I think I'll set up PnP Fiends with three subcomponents. The first one is what we have now. The second one applies PnP-Fiends stats and scripts across the board. The third one just applies PnP-Fiends scripts across the board, but leaves stats as they are. Naturally the dw#-fiends would be tweaked as per SCSII specs (enemy, not summoned fiend, doesn't check for ProEvil etc).

Unless I'm overlooking something that should resolve the problem, provided aTweaks is installed after SCSII. Two-way compatibility without making the fiend components mutually exclusive would probably be a lot of work, so maybe we should forget about that?

I don't touch the demon knight. I do take the "demon" in "demon knights" seriously, though, and cover them in Improved Fiends. (Apart from anything else, I want to cover the four demon knights in the watcher's keep Fiend Maze, which seem intended to be tanar'ri, not undead.) I'd welcome suggestions for compatibility here.

Hmm. Is it a problem if they aren't demonic? Aside from details like that PnP-Undead Death Knights should be functionally equivalent with standard Demon Knights. They still shoot fireballs and hack at you with their swords, I mean.

Oh, right. For some added variety PnP Undead creates three new Knights each for the Underdark (fl#udkn1-3) and Tele-maze (fl#wkkn1-3) encounters. They are cloned from uddeath and deathkni, respectively.

One caveat, though: SCS's "improved minor encounters" component makes Vaxall, the beholder in the Twisted Rune, into an Elder Orb, but only if SCS beholders are installed. It would be nice if we could arrange for that to happen if aTweaks beholders were installed too. I can handle that at my end if aTweaks is installed first (assuming that your default elder orb script plays nice with non-beholder allies?) but it would be nice if it worked both ways around. The easiest way to arrange that is for aTweaks Beholders to check for that component of SCSII (check for dw#misc.mrk in the override) and elderorbify Vaxall if it's present. You just need to do

	COPY_EXISTING ~hlvaxal.cre~ ~override~
		WRITE_ASCII 0x260 ~[your elder orb script]~ #8
	BUT_ONLY_IF_IT_CHANGES

I haven't written the elder-orb part yet, but I can't imagine there should be any problems. Can do.

[Wisp]

One thing you might include wisp would be the option to have fiends cast spells like normal wizards(like they do in scs).

I'll have a look at it for a future version.

Could you give a little insight into option 3 - e.g. how much do stats vary if you don't standardise them, and how different are the stats of the scs demons.

It varies between fiends. But for example, bogstandard Pit Fiends have 80 HP. SCSII's Improved Staying Power can increase their HP by 100, if it's not already above a certain value. aTweaks gives them 104 HP. Bogstandard Balors have 120 HP, SCSII can also increase their HP by 100 and aTweaks also gives them 104 HP.
(Values are base values, e.g. not taking CON into account.)

P.S. I'm playing through bg1 with your randomiser at the moment and its making the game very fresh and fun. Nice mod!

I'm glad you like it.

Edited by Wisp, 14 January 2011 - 05:58 AM.

[Wisp]

Another change I think I will need to make is that stats of player-summoned fiends are handled by PnP Fiends instead of by Revised Fiend Summoning. So Revised Fiend Summoning will alter which fiends you get (baatezu vs. tanar'ri) and implement the IDWII-like summoning mechanism (for players) while PnP Fiends does stats and scripts.