Schattenländer - v0.1d released (Feb 10/07)

[Winter]

Edit - answered my own question, I think.  No... but we should experiment with \xC2\xA0, the nonbreaking space.

Let me know if you have any success with that. I'd like to know!

Also, if you need any part of Craftmod for this, just send me a PM. I may even be able to donate a custom script or two if you tell me what you need.

Of course, I'll want top billing on the credits!

Opalescently,
Winter

 

[Orion]

From what I've seen so far, this entire mod-in-progress seems to be very, very organized, and I doubt it's going to die off.. but if it does... many, many people will be annnnnnngry... and homocidal, of course.

I'm really looking forward to this. Just as much as StorymodC2.

 

[Hellequin]

Thank you all three for the words of encourangement!

Winter, I can't think of anything out of Craftmod that I'd need right now; Fisheye even wrote a "camp" script which initiates a Darklands-style campsite without needing Edit mode, which is a good thing.

What I may do, however, is add you to my list of "PM with strange quandaries" experts.

One question, though... has Armagan said anything to you about continuing the mod system documentation, to work with the 0.80x stuff, or is he still anticipating even more serious changes to it in the next version?

 

[blankshield]

Status update - Fisheye and I are quietly coding up a storm back here.  Half of alchemy (the "using it" part) is frameworked, saints are much better frameworked than they were, and shops and combat are in good (preliminary) shape.  Matters are progressing well.  Haven't heard much from our sequencers; how's it going, guys?

Hellequin,

As per our discussion the other night, I can likely do some sequencing, although getting to it before the new year may be... optimistic.  PM me with details and priorities.  


James

 

[Kissaki]

Oh, and if you register, you can download lots of relevant music from Classical Music Archives, where there is a significant early music section. The sequences and performances here, too, are protected by copyright, but I imagine it's easier to get permission (as the contributors contribute pro bono). Alternately, with a music program you get the sheet music for most of those files, which in turn can be sequenced from scratch -- thereby voiding copyright. The free membership allows you access to only five files per day, though.

 

[Winter]

Thank you all three for the words of encourangement!

Winter, I can't think of anything out of Craftmod that I'd need right now

You know, I actually find that response kind-of strange, and I've been repeatedly baffled by the lack of interest in Craftmod. To me, other people's code is a gold mine of ideas and good to steal (with permission). Why do people think Craftmod's not got hundreds of generally useful things in it? I wrote all the scripts to be as adaptable as possible. Many of them you can use for entirely different purposes than I've done. And then there's the hundreds and hundreds of new meshes and textures . . .

I offered because you seem to be working on some kind of alchemy thing, and juggling/combining items is one of the things Craftmod does best.

Fisheye even wrote a "camp" script which initiates a Darklands-style campsite without needing Edit mode, which is a good thing.

I know, he asked me about it.

What I may do, however, is add you to my list of "PM with strange quandaries" experts.

One question, though... has Armagan said anything to you about continuing the mod system documentation, to work with the 0.80x stuff, or is he still anticipating even more serious changes to it in the next version?

I wouldn't know, I haven't heard anything from Armagan since I was removed from the docs.

Redolently,
Winter

 

[fisheye]

By the way, special thanks to Winter for the Camp code, I'd be hitting dead ends for an hour without his help. He basically told me how to do it, then I updated it with the new version commands, reported my success, and now both Schattenlander and Craftmod are happy chappies.

We should think hard about what pieces of Craftmod we can use.

1. Items, meshes, textures, scenes: Definitely stuff we can grab. Should use BRFEdit and dig around a bit

2. Harvesting reagents from the wild. Very interesting. Would be a terrifying adventure to go to a faerie forest to get mandrake.

3. Reagents with qualities: better ingredients, better potions, Papa John's!

... more to come, I'm sure. Shoudl play Craftmod and beat the crap out of it to wring out all the good stuff.

 

[Kissaki]

The only thing I don't like is the necessity to enable edit mode in able to camp in the wilderness. I don't want to slow down M&B more than I have to. So personally, I'd be happy with simply buying alchemical components from a grumpy old man.

 

[fisheye]

The only thing I don't like is the necessity to enable edit mode in able to camp in the wilderness. I don't want to slow down M&B more than I have to. So personally, I'd be happy with simply buying alchemical components from a grumpy old man.

Edit mode camping is a thing of the past. Not used in this mod, and it's been removed in Craftmod. Purge it from your memory! It never happened!

These days we camp by chatting with your companion and asking if you can sleep with them. And they always say yes.

If you have no companions, well you can't bloody well sleep with nobody taking a lookout, so you're outta luck.

 

[Winter]

The only thing I don't like is the necessity to enable edit mode in able to camp in the wilderness. I don't want to slow down M&B more than I have to. So personally, I'd be happy with simply buying alchemical components from a grumpy old man.

[EDIT] Yeah, what fisheye said. [/EDIT]

Won't need to enable Edit Mode ever again, starting with the next version of Craftmod. Talking to anyone in your party, even regulars, will allow you to camp. I could even make a trigger to camp when talking to prisoners, if people want that. Of course you will have to have someone else in your party for this to work. Camping alone is still only possible with Edit Mode on.

I'll also have completely rewritten the ambush code. This is a complete breeze now. What took 3 huge scripts in 0.7XX, I can now do effortlessly with 1, and now it'll actually work without errors and artifacts all over the place. I can spawn parties that are wholly invisible and unencounterable except by script. It's beautiful!

Humanistically,
Winter

 

[fisheye]

I could even make a trigger to camp when talking to prisoners, if people want that.

Well that's an interesting idea for people who want to solo Schattenlander. Take yourself prisoner so you can talk to yourself!

EDIT: More useful will be an invisible troop named "_", which rejoins your party if you disband him.

 

[jeansberg]

Especially seeing as there is no prisoner taking in Darklands.

 

[Winter]

I could even make a trigger to camp when talking to prisoners, if people want that.

Well that's an interesting idea for people who want to solo Schattenlander. Take yourself prisoner so you can talk to yourself!

. . . Why would you take yourself prisoner?

EDIT: More useful will be an invisible troop named "_", which rejoins your party if you disband him.

That could work. And we could keep him from joining battle by keeping his HP at 1. The only problem is, if the player was alone in his party, the invisible troop would still make the party show up as size 2 instead of size 1 on the map and in the party screen.

Note: I've never played Darklands for more than about 5 minutes.

Cerebrally,
Winter

 

[Kissaki]

Edit mode camping is a thing of the past. Not used in this mod, and it's been removed in Craftmod. Purge it from your memory! It never happened!

I cannot -- I'm still playing Storymod, and there you still need to enable edit mode, I'm afraid. There's certainly no "camping" topic when talking to my NPCs.


Edit: But it's a relief to hear it has been remedied in Craftmod and (possibly) this mod.

 

[Snori]

If you have no companions, well you can't bloody well sleep with nobody taking a lookout, so you're outta luck.

and then

I could even make a trigger to camp when talking to prisoners, if people want that

It sounds weird - you can`t camp alone for there is no one to watch your back, but a prisoner that you have knocked unconscious seems like a nice guard. huh?

From what I`ve read about new module system, it seems that you could bind any script to the inventory button. Why not use it to execute the "camp" code?

 

[fisheye]

. . . Why would you take yourself prisoner?

It was an idiotic idea, I wanted to be able to talk to myself to do things like:

Player: I'd like to camp. I think.
Player Clone: Hmm, yes, that's a good idea, I should camp.
(camps)

But the next idea was clearly the better one.

That could work. And we could keep him from joining battle by keeping his HP at 1. The only problem is, if the player was alone in his party, the invisible troop would still make the party show up as size 2 instead of size 1 on the map and in the party screen.

Could be fixed by setting "don't show party size" on the main party. Works for Schattenlander (since you don't command an army, your party is always the same size and it's not hard to remember who's in it) but not for other mods.

Anyway this is very low priority since we're designing the party heroes to be pretty much essential for survival in Schattenlander so I expect everyone to have a buddy or three.

If you have no companions, well you can't bloody well sleep with nobody taking a lookout, so you're outta luck.

and then

I could even make a trigger to camp when talking to prisoners, if people want that

It sounds weird - you can`t camp alone for there is no one to watch your back, but a prisoner that you have knocked unconscious seems like a nice guard. huh?

"I will KILL you if you kill me! So watch it!" 

Anyway, clearly they're mutually exclusive, we're just tossing around ideas now. Besides which there are no prisoners in Schattenlander which makes the whole thing pretty moot.

From what I`ve read about new module system, it seems that you could bind any script to the inventory button. Why not use it to execute the "camp" code?

Already tried that. The comments in the modfile are right: the key bindings don't work outside of a mission template.

 

[bryce777]

You could equip some camping gear and then have a trigger that starts the camping that looks for that.

 

[fisheye]

Thanks Bryce. I thought of that. Problem is most people tend to have a pretty full loadout so it's annoying to unequip stuff just to camp. And then there's the problem of forgetting to re-equip it again. Nothing like showing up for a battle in your pajamas.

 

[hibbs02]

"I shot a Khergit in my pajamas. . .how he got my pajamas I'll never know." - modified Groucho Marx

 

[Hellequin]

Two more options to throw out while I work on putting some real companions into Schattenlander...

One that I had been considering, and may still use for other stuff, was a Tracking-based spawn script on the map that would periodically spawn "possible campsite" pseudotowns within a short radius of your party, and then remove them once you were twice that radius away.  And have those be your campsite.  The higher your Tracking, the more often they come up and the shorter the radius to them when they spawn.  The nice things about this one, IMO, are (a) you can't quite camp anywhere... with suitable modifications, for instance, you'd never see a possible campsite within a certain distance of a town, or (for non-schattenlander mods) an enemy party.  But you can reliably find a campsite if you want one, it just may take walking and patience if your woodscraft is poor.  The other advantage is that (b) you can actually have a campsite scene.  Standard random scene plus some 'log' props and a modified hearthfire.  And of course (c) it has no problem with solo play, although as Fisheye said we've got lots of other things in Schattenlander which assume you'll have at least one companion, generally more, so that's essentially a nonissue.

Does anybody have a "sit" (and stay sitting) animation coded in any of the mods around here, btw?  A static pose would be OK.

I may still write this script for the various wilderness features like shrines and caves in Schattenlander, so if anyone's interested in using this mode of camping we should get together on it.

The other suggestion is that rather than have a "_" troop, label it: "Packhorse."  Heck, make him an invisible companion troop mounted on a sumpter horse, with a script to repeatedly set his HP to 0% despite your best efforts (and some exceptions in the post-combat code so he never gets allocated XP), and of course lots of Inventory Management.  And some amusing one-sided dialogue, no doubt.  That would be pretty cool.  Especially if we can come up with a workaround to do companion item exchanges without money changing hands. 

(Hmm.  "Exchange items" dialogue option spawns a fake party for a fake combat, (start_encounters) it with its dummy lootable troop, puts all your companion's items on it, loots it, puts everything back, goes back to dialogue/menu where you came from?  Could work... anyone who can write a generic "trade without paying" script would be hailed as a saviour by any number of mods.)

The nice thing about the packmule being that he's optional.  Set his Riding skill to be equal to the player's (he's your pack-horse), and he won't slow you down much.  And if we can get the above exchange-items script working then we ought to be able to do "loot pool" code like Fisheye was working on, where you can dump stuff to the packhorse and then menu back to the looting screen for more.  Which would make a ten-Inventory-Management mule honestly a pretty worthwhile companion a lot of the time...