Arcanum Arcanum Multiverse Edition

[Drog Black Tooth]

What exactly are the modifiers for called shots? Manual is vague.

The called shot penalties for head, arms and legs are -50, -30 and -30, respectively.

All called shots provide +10% better chance than non-called shots for generic effects, like doing bonus damage. Otherwise, the effects are as follows:
- head with no helmet: +25% stun, +25% knocked out, +15% blinded (in addition to all other effects, like crushing or electrical damage has increases for stunning or knockout)
- head with helmet: No bonus chance to stun or knock out, but +10% to blind. Plus, if doing crushing damage, 15% chance to knock off the helmet.
- leg: +10% crippled leg, +25% knocked down (bipeds only)
- arm: +10% crippled arm

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Hey Drog,

I kind of want to write an open source engine reimplementation for Arcanum (ie, kind of like OpenMW).

I did get a small stub going that can open the archives and print the names and paths of all files inside it (shouldn't be too hard to open them from here, problem is figuring out how to pass them to zlib...).
But I am much too intimidated by the daunting task of having to reverse engineer all the file formats (I have 0 skills at this) to continue...

So I'm wondering, do you have any documentation on how to read the file types? ie, the art assets, the maps, the item/character prototypes, etc.

It's a very bad idea honestly.

What we should do really is make a ddraw.dll hook that would convert the game to D3D9 and apply all the engine patches on fly, including the high resolution patch. It would run on all systems perfectly in full 32 bit color and proper scaling for menus, and we could set up a framework for conflict free engine patches, so that eventually we could iron out all existing bugs, improve the TB combat, add party control etc. Basically exactly like sfall for Fallout 2.

But if you really want to go down this road, Crypton got the furthest with his OpenArcanum project.

 

[Hirato]

Hey Drog,

I kind of want to write an open source engine reimplementation for Arcanum (ie, kind of like OpenMW).

I did get a small stub going that can open the archives and print the names and paths of all files inside it (shouldn't be too hard to open them from here, problem is figuring out how to pass them to zlib...).
But I am much too intimidated by the daunting task of having to reverse engineer all the file formats (I have 0 skills at this) to continue...

So I'm wondering, do you have any documentation on how to read the file types? ie, the art assets, the maps, the item/character prototypes, etc.

It's a very bad idea honestly.

What we should do really is make a ddraw.dll hook that would convert the game to D3D9 and apply all the engine patches on fly, including the high resolution patch. It would run on all systems perfectly in full 32 bit color and proper scaling for menus, and we could set up a framework for conflict free engine patches, so that eventually we could iron out all existing bugs, improve the TB combat, add party control etc. Basically exactly like sfall for Fallout 2.

But if you really want to go down this road, Crypton got the furthest with his OpenArcanum project.

Just 2 problems with that.
1. I'm a linux fag, so I'd much rather invest in a crossplatform solution
2. I don't have any of the skills needed to do some sort of library injection like SFall or SKSE.

I'm aware of Crpyton's work, but he has disappeared off of the face of the earth, and he hasn't release any source code, or file format documentation - He did make a forum post describing the DAT files though (albeit it was incorrect as he missed an extra 4 bytes for some unknown field).
Which is why I was going to do it completely in the open once I've gotten it far enough to be able to load and display ART assets akin to the sprite viewer in OpenRA.

I was hoping you might have some fileformat docs, since you did among other things, fix up the ART converter utility.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

wtf is drog returned to making mods.
AND found a way to make mods without messing with assembly?

 

[luj1]

Is 1.3.0.9 the latest version?

On google drive it's still 1.3.0.0.

 

[Average Manatee]

What exactly are the modifiers for called shots? Manual is vague.

The called shot penalties for head, arms and legs are -50, -30 and -30, respectively.

All called shots provide +10% better chance than non-called shots for generic effects, like doing bonus damage. Otherwise, the effects are as follows:
- head with no helmet: +25% stun, +25% knocked out, +15% blinded (in addition to all other effects, like crushing or electrical damage has increases for stunning or knockout)
- head with helmet: No bonus chance to stun or knock out, but +10% to blind. Plus, if doing crushing damage, 15% chance to knock off the helmet.
- leg: +10% crippled leg, +25% knocked down (bipeds only)
- arm: +10% crippled arm

ehh, yuck. Sounds like a horrible trade off to take -50% to hit and potentially only get a 10% chance of crit and 10% to blind. Guess its a good thing its such an obscure feature.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Drog, any chance you could make it possible for players to customize velorien's blessing?

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Drog, any chance you could make it possible for players to customize velorien's blessing?

Why "customize" an ancient god's blessing?

 

[Anomander Rake]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ultiverse-edition.114150/page-13#post-5102645

 

[Anomander Rake]

Goral if you disagree with my request know that i m not forcing the customization down your throat. I asked for a chance to make the Player change it. If you like it the way it is good for you. Just dont change it

 

[Goral]

You want Drog to waste time on something as insignificant (plus you're linking to a post instead of posting it here to save time but whatever). It's a stupid idea IMO and I'm just showing my disapproval. The whole god blessing is just an interesting feature in Arcanum and a HUGE bonus but completely unnecessary to be successful. You might as well use cheats to become a demi-god. And it's better IMO that some builds are better than others, that's how it should be.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Just open effect.mes with notepad and you Will have the blessings right in front of you. I just need to know if it is possible to switch the last one with allocation points. The end

 

[Black Angel]

Guys, I'm kinda retarded and not following the entire process of Drog taking over the Multiverse Edition mod's thread for himself, so does ME and the new HR patch separated from each other and had to be installed one after the other? Or is there some special steps that has to be taken (kinda like making compatibility patch)?

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Guys, I'm kinda retarded and not following the entire process of Drog taking over the Multiverse Edition mod's thread for himself, so does ME and the new HR patch separated from each other and had to be installed one after the other? Or is there some special steps that has to be taken (kinda like making compatibility patch)?

This Multiverse mod originally started as a Russian language translation project, then they stuffed it with as many mods as they could find online + back-translated the whole thing into English. It's pretty buggy. IMO, no reason to bother with the current (possibly last) version of this thing if you're not a Russian speaker.

Just one example, they didn't understand the way the the UAP patches prototypes, so a lot of items have broken stats. And then their "former" meth head (seriously) modder/project leader decided it would be a good idea to mess with p much every single map location (this blade of grass is 2 pixels off, must fix!) leading to probably numerous fuck ups all over the place.

But who am I to tell anyone what to do with their game.

 

[Master]

Hey sup Drog. Say is it possible to restore that "walk on water" spell? So we can add yet another way to pass the bridge thieves in Shrouded Hills.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Hey sup Drog. Say is it possible to restore that "walk on water" spell? So we can add yet another way to pass the bridge thieves in Shrouded Hills.

Yeah, there's a water walking spell flag in the game which is set by the Body of Water spell. In the final game it simply makes your character sprite not "sink" into the tiles with knee deep water (e.g. sewers). It's possible to add an extra check in the engine to make one able to walk over the "deep" water tiles with this flag. The water elemental is slow af, so this wouldn't be too game breaking, it would take an absurd amount of time to walk to any of the world map borders or even just the Isle of Despair. But you'd be able to walk over some rivers and what not, which could be fun.

 

[Master]

If its possible, it would be cool. You could access northern part of the map earlier through Vendigroth Wastes, get to Caladon by sea and some other cool stuff.

 

[Yrvyne]

Greetings, Travellers. A comment on Reddit saw me here... Imagine my surprise when I finally come across RPGcodex to find living, existing threads of Arcanum. My efforts to liberate Terra Arcanum gone up in smoke...

Enough... Kerghan.


Just like most players, I have been playing Arcanum for over a decade. Along with Doom (1996) and Front Mission 3 (PSX), Arcanum forms my Top 3 Games list.

My only sensible contribution to the Arcanum community was the following gameplay video (and a couple more that suck widely!).



Meanwhile, I thank you, Drog Black Tooth, for your mods throughout the years. Two weeks ago, on my discovery of RPGcodex Arcanum threads, I was ecstatic that you were modding again but shat all over the place on reading your notice that you were (re-)abandoning the project. Now it seems that you're resuming... So, cheers!

I am also writing here to add my thoughts and suggestions. To put it in suck-less words: to increase your workload since I am unable to create/edit extensive code or imagery. My best is a simple script for ePSXe on Linux otherwise I can contribute by writing tutorials, for my modding skills are redundant.


Real-Time Mode

Plowing through this Multiverse thread was quite a piece of work! The general consensus is a preference for Turn-Based play. However, I am from the minority that plays exclusively on Real-Time mode.

All I ask is that RTm is not nerfed. Sure and by all means, please improve TBm but do not take away the fun from us few who prefer ganging on enemies all at once.

Should you still want to remove RTm, may I suggest that RTm is optionally restored by means of a download/patch that undoes all the improvements and enhancements of TBm and reverts to the previous vanilla battle experience.

In my case, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the game if new UAP and all the other enhancements put together completely remove Real-Time combat.

Another alternative would be to have two releases. One with RTm completely removed and the other with RTm reinstated but may be disabled by default (for those inclined towards TBm but would rather have both).


BUG: New Virgil Cheat Mode

Brilliant idea to finally put to good use GB's ring!

At Caladon's cemetery, on the Tsen Ang Book main quest, Virgil strays from the party <spoiler>to proceed to his brother's tombstone</spoiler>, however, he automatically starts either the Blimp Crash dialog if GB ring is not equipped or the cheat menu if GB ring is on.

Virgil Cheat Suggestions

Instead of adding other enhancements independent of UAP that may break the game or force you to carry a friggin' loaf of bread, could Virgil also provide for the following:

Bullets, arrows(, kettles, batteries) = no weight whatsoever
No encumbrance (carry bread cheat!)
Level cap - toggle whether level cap should be up to level 127/100 or 50. (many are against 127/100, thus, the toggle....) (I am aware of the Give 10 Experience Points cheat but having a huge level range affects mods such as Orc / Molochean (ganging)


Velorien's Blessing

Personally, I would leave the blessing as is seeing that changing it is more of a personal preference case. 'effect.mes' does the trick!

However, if you deem that it needs change, I would opt for neutral enhancements.

Vanilla-speaking the gifts give no real benefit except for the health and fatigue boost. I would never wait until Vendigroth to have my Firearms, Dodge and the other skills jump-started. Neither do I agree that it should increase Attribute Points. Speaking for myself, I usually have the required ones maxed by the time I reach that altar.

My idea is to boost under-the-hood stats that cannot be increased by dropping experience points on them.

The chosen values may seem blatantly over the top but my reasoning is that the blessing bestowed by the most supreme deity in Arcanum would be hardcore:

• maxhps +50%
• maxfatigue +50%
• healrate +50%
• ac +50
• crithitchance +50
• crithiteffect +50
• critfailchance -50
• critfaileffect -50
• damage +20
• speed +20

Add the following for GOD mode:

• resistdamage min 95
• resistmagic min 95
• resistfire min 95
• resistelectrical min 95
• resistpoison min 95

Miscellaneous:

• maxfollowers +2
• carry +5000

Can alter gameplay:

• reaction +50
• goodreactionadj *2

(in my experience while playing as an evil bastard, many benevolent folks and arc-relevant NPCs did not give the expected/scripted dialogue or trigger a fight because of an abnormally high positive alignment)

Status names are taken from effect.mes. Caution: max-of-5 limit from each type.

To mitigate such a powerhouse of a player, the final boss would need some power boost!


Regeneration Shell

Following the requests to re-do most spells, I suggest that max-leveled and fully magick aligned players are given a dialogue to unlock the Regeneration Shell (maybe at Tulla?) that Nasrudin, Arronax and Kerghan make use of.

I mean this as a side quest. And because this directly influences the game's outcome, imagine a battle between two full-fletched wizards/necromancers/magick beings companion-less battling it out ad infinitum in the Void...

Arguments against are

• magick in vanilla Arcanum is already over-powered and
• an effective and storywise method is required to defeat the final boss. Imagine how hypocritic the situation would be when neither *mancer can be defeated except that the player has the nerfing device.

Ogre vs Half-Ogre

I am of the opinion that just 2 points of extra strength (from 24 to 26) do not do justice to ogres. They are known for their unrestrained brute force which half-ogres' derives from. Maybe 30 would be a more fitting value.

Restraints in max beauty, charisma, and intelligence seem sensible to me.

• Beauty max 8
• Charisma max 9 (for possibility to recruit drunk half-ogre)
• Intelligence max 5

Argument against is the hard limitation imposed by game's code; may require some series code alterations to accommodate such a request.


Ranged Automatons

May I propose a ranged/gun-wielding automaton.
Sources 1, 2 and 3.

For their sprites, I would go the mechanical arachnid way: colour-coded.

• Melee: grey (standard)
• Firearms: brown
• Ranged explosives: red
• Ranged poison (poison gun): green
• Ranged electric (tesla rod/gun): yellow

Argument in favour is that since tech is underpowered (besides increasing guns' damage, that is) and the Summoning College summons all sorts of beasts, how about an army of ranged war mongers!?

Argument against is the need to create accommodating code and imagery in relation to their schematics. I can supply the required text (I know, the easy part!) should this ever be implemented.


Simple, simple request

Can you please add a key-ring to the start-up merchant?

Usually, the first opportunity for purchase is in Tarant, unless I bug Shrouded Hill's gnome every consecutive day.

It is an indispensable utility for key collectors, like me...


End-Of-Game Merchants

I am aware that certain items, weapons, and armor will be available more frequently but may I propose that select merchants, exclusively sell high-powered wares.

Tech:

• All schematics shop
• All guns shop (including those that can be crafted from schematics)
• All high-tier weaponry and armors (including those that can be crafted from schematics)

Magick:

• All Arcane weaponry and wares
• All scrolls shop
• All accessories shop

Once the main quest hass advanced to before venturing into The Void, select Caladon or maybe Roseborough individuals have their standard dialogue altered to accommodate shopping options. Since one may have followers from both the technological and magickal disciplines, the merchants are not to be affected by the player's technological/magickal aptitude.


Tutorial Update

Drog, could I please ask that the tutorial has the FAQ updated with the usage of these flags:

• -scrolldist:0
• -scrollfps:70
• -doublebuffer

This because info about these flags is in various threads on many websites and thought of having all of them under one roof.

Conclusion

I know this post is huge but I hate spamming and hijacking a thread with loads of single suggestions and ideas posts. I prefer grouping them into a long-ish one.

Future postings will be shorter, I promise!

Alas, were I not intrigued by Arcanum's mechanics and gameplay and the fact that modding is once again experiencing a strong push forward, I would have simply forsaken the game and left it to its tragic desolation.

So, let's gang up, team up and help out. We can all contribute, I'm sure. Drog Back Tooth, throughout his various threads and in this one, has fairly frequently called for assistance. So I suggest, a list with the needed jobs for completion is created and those capable to assist in implementing the required code/imagery so DBT can assimilate them into a final mega mod.

Out, now, I'm out!

 

[Macbeth]

Drog Black Tooth,

Hello bro. Long time no talk. You're not in Skype these days. Are you ok?

You're not correct in your opinion, but... hm... it's your opinion.

Well, I'll start from the beginning.

There was a some kind of pause (1-1.5 month) in our work, but now we're back to work and beta-version is ready and under test. It's not 8 years, ha? ;-)

I still don't know if you play AME or not (I doubt you played), but we DO NOT have any critical bugs. We find some from time to time (thanks to Sergio), but in 80% they are original bugs.
If you have any bugs to report - let me know, we'll make AME better, ah?
If you don't have, then what are speaking 'bout, bro?

AME is totally NOT a mess of mods-all-over-the worls. You're completly wrong with this. We're trying to implement only best features. From UAP also, you know it.

This Multiverse mod originally started as a Russian language translation project, then they stuffed it with as many mods as they could find online + back-translated the whole thing into English. It's pretty buggy. IMO, no reason to bother with the current (possibly last) version of this thing if you're not a Russian speaker.

Have no idea why did you mention this. It's true English version. We just translate from Russian to English only those parts that we add or fix. If somthing was missed we add it.
Yes, project was made for Russian community mostly, but... what does it change if we're using original English too?

And then their "former" meth head (seriously) modder/project leader decided it would be a good idea to mess with p much every single map location (this blade of grass is 2 pixels off, must fix!) leading to probably numerous fuck ups all over the place.

Corvell was very tired so he took a rest. And yes, he is very scrupulous with his favourite game. I don't see any problem with it. Sorry, can you show us "fuck ups"?

So mainly I really don't understand why and for whom did you write that post. We're not even competitors. AME has its own way, and we like it. A lot of users like it too.

I hope you're ok and we'll continue our conversation (including Skype) to make Arcanum better.

And don't forget, that this thread was made for AME. We appreciate UAP, but you can discuss UAP in your personal thread.


Guys, I'm official member of AME team. If you have any questions about AME - wright me directly. Better in PM. I visit this forum not every day.

 

[Corwell]

Hi guys! Thanks to the efforts of Junmarko it became reasonable to pay more attention at the international level (thanks for the topic, buddy!).

I will not write much, feel free to ask.

Version 1.3.1.0 is under development. At the moment, we have suspended the release of updates for 1.3.0.0, so that the release includes as many innovations as possible. Some of them have to be postponed for reassembly due to possible compatibility problems with old save-files.

Just a few days ago we started testing the beta version 1.3.1.0. It is important for us that the impressions of the game in the English version of AME are similar, therefore we welcome the help of the English-speaking audience. If desired, we could even open an English-language technical support section on our forum if such contenders were found.

Just one example, they didn't understand the way the the UAP patches prototypes, so a lot of items have broken stats.

Then why do not you explain everything again so that we understand everything?
The only errors in my memory related to prototypes have already been fixed VERY long time ago. But you've mentiond them rather often. We all learn from our mistakes, don't we?

And then their "former" meth head (seriously) modder/project leader decided it would be a good idea to mess with p much every single map location (this blade of grass is 2 pixels off, must fix!) leading to probably numerous fuck ups all over the place.

I do not understand how these facts can compromise me. Yes, I consider it a good idea to exclude visual flaws. Why not to fix it for AME, doing a large-scale redesign in SEM? And this despite the fact that each project has its own concept. So my hard work with Mapper's Mod does not take away the fact that I know a lot of things in modding Arcanum.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

 

[Anomander Rake]

I know that I may sound annoying, but I'm really looking forward to playing the new version. Please releaseeeeeeeee ittttttttt

 

[Macbeth]

You may try beta-version. Wright PM to Corvell if you want to test.

 

[Macbeth]

Sorry, I forgot that beta is in Russian only.
Anyway, release will be soon.

 

[Anomander Rake]

okay, thanks.