Author Topic: Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII  (Read 3009 times)

Offline aVENGER

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Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII
« on: March 03, 2008, 01:41:55 PM »
In my recent playthrough with Xan + SCSII I noticed that all of Aegnor's cohorts are level 20 since SCSII gave them access to HLAs and I think that this might be a bit too much for such an early quest. If I understood David correctly, SCSII automatically gives HLAs to any character which meets the level requirements, and apparently, most of Aegnor's cohorts do. Also, some of the characters from the Kozah quest which you fight in the Copper Coronet seem to be fairly high level as well, especially the mage who got a 3x ADHW chain contingency.  ;D

IMO, epic level characters (XP > 2950000) should be few and far in between, especially in SoA, so I'd humbly suggest toning down the levels of these guys a bit. With good AI scripts (i.e. such as the ones that SCSII provides) they can still be challenging opponents at level 16 or so.  ;)

Offline Kulyok

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Re: Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2008, 01:53:21 PM »
Yes, it definitely shouldn't interfere like that. Thank you, I shall remember to revise their levels for the next version.

I do wonder if it's possible to mark mod .cre files with a "please do not disturb" or something, so a mod script doesn't touch it; setting a flag, maybe? :)

Offline Kulyok

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Re: Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2008, 02:11:46 PM »
Anyway, for the time being, for all Xan players reading this thread:

- if you prefer SCSII's uber fight, install SCSII after Xan;
- if you prefer the final fight in Xan quest remain relatively easy, install Xan after SCSII.

Technically they're still compatible either way, so the choice is yours.

Offline aVENGER

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Re: Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2008, 02:49:18 PM »
I don't think SCSII alters your characters (i.e. the CRE files) in any way. Instead, I guess that since your characters are using generic AI scripts, the SCSII enhancements kick in and give them the appropriate spells and HLAs for their level.

Therefore, I don't believe that changing the install order will be of much help here.

Offline Kulyok

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Re: Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2008, 02:53:08 PM »
That'd be .cre patching, I believe, which is affected by installation order.

(I still won't say no to that flag, by the way.)

Offline aVENGER

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Re: Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2008, 03:27:49 PM »
That'd be .cre patching, I believe, which is affected by installation order.

Actually, I think that new spells and HLAs are assigned dynamically straight from the SCSII-enhanced generic scripts while the actual CRE files remain untouched. David can probably explain this better.

Offline DavidW

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Re: Some minor compatibility issues with SCSII
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2008, 05:23:01 AM »
Guilty as charged, sorry: I do touch CRE files. Specifically, I touch the CRE files of any creature which uses one of a (long) range of core-game scripts. So if you give your custom mage a standard mage script like MAGE18A.BCS, SCSII will change the creature file in two ways:

(i) if the level is too low for the memorised spells, it'll be changed.
(ii) the list of memorised spells will be rearranged (somewhat-at-random) to give a set of spells more optimised for SCSII's scripts.

I don't do anything more drastic than that: if you create a by-the-book 17th level mage, for instance, SCSII won't touch his level. The only reason I muck with level is because the vanilla game has lots of enemies with 9th level spells flagged as L10 (for instance).

If you want to mark a creature as hands-off for SCSII, the easiest way is not to use a vanilla-game script. Even if you don't want to write your own, you could just make a copy of a vanilla-game script and give it a custom name.

I only touch mages and priests, though: fighter HLAs are assigned at script level if you're high enough level. From the next release I'll probably mark this so it only happens in ToB and WK.

 

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