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Need Help Making Arcanum Mod

Cruor

Barely Literate
Joined
Aug 13, 2022
Messages
2
I first played Arcanum in 2001. While I loved the base ideas behind the game, the world and the atmosphere, the gameplay fell short in comparison to Fallout 2 IMO. Fast forward 21 years and the game popped back into my head, I have modded a lot of games (mostly for myself but I have published mods too) and thought I'd give modding Arcanum a try.

First off, this game is a beast to mod vs other things I have tried. I did a mod for Fallout Tactics which is just as old and it was cake vs this. Anyway, though a lot of reading and trial an error, I have managed to do a lot, but one thing fully eludes me and I can not let it go because it bothers the hell out of me: Random Encounters. I loved the encounters in Fallout 2, I liked killing the endless swarms of mercenaries, bandits, raiders, press gangs, super mutants, death claws, floaters, wanamingos etc etc. I liked getting encounters where I was like "oh man, this might be rough...." Arcanum was a HUGE let down in that regard. Ailing wolves, little spiders, 2 orc bandits, 1-2 Molochean Hand... YAWN. Awful. I was able to make powerful enemies to fight but I can not figure out how to put them in encounters. I have looked over the WMap_Rnd.mes file (in rules, after you undat Arcanum.dat, also found elsewhere) Since it is in rules, it should have an effect, but it doesn't. I change Ailing wolves proto number to a tougher npc, no dice, still flooded by Ailing wolves. I changed Orc bandits from 2 - 5, still get 2 all the time. etc. I have concluded (perhaps wrongly) This file does nothing and the encounters are handled elsewhere. I have undated Arcanum.dat, and Arcanum 1,2,3,4,5 I have examined all the files. I have googled. I have downloaded CArcanum which claims to have buffed encounters and looked its files over, I can't tell how he did it. I have asked in Arcanum discord. This one has me beaten. Can anyone here help me with this? Thanks if so. In a nutshell, I'm looking to make random encounters MUCH more dangerous, more rewarding, and more interesting.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
I have downloaded CArcanum which claims to have buffed encounters and looked its files over, I can't tell how he did it.

Never heard of this, didn't you get some contact info with the mod? Or on the website you got it?
I'd say contact Drog from Terra-arcanum, he probably doesn't know how to do it but he probably has some contacts but he's awol, as far as I know...
 

Cruor

Barely Literate
Joined
Aug 13, 2022
Messages
2
Yup, as Modron said, a lot of these people are LONG gone, so there is no way to contact them. The author of Equilibrium did speak to me a little and helped me get started, but again, he made his mod like 9 years ago and had long moved on with life. I msged Drog on Discord a while back no reply, everything I have been told he is fully AWOL. I'm hoping someone smarter than I am has some time to kill and can look over Arcanum files and then just tell me where to look, then I can likely figure out the rest.

I have another question maybe someone can answer. In worlded, I can open SOME maps, but not others. For example, I can open "BMC" but not its lower levels, BMC 1 2 3 4. They are just black screens. I use Worlded 1070, as the tutorial suggested. I tried 1074 and it didn't work either.
 

blessedCoffee

c3RyYWl0amFja2V0cyBmb3IgaW50ZXJuZXQgdXNlcnM=
Patron
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
328
Location
Here
Strap Yourselves In
I know right...
Random encounters felt uninspired in Arcanum, compared to classic Fallouts.

In Fall2 you had crazy stuff like (plasma) grenade tossing Hubologists killing people in the name of the Star Father, spitting fire, mutated lizards, and italian mafia shooting Yakuzas in the outskirts of a town.

Grinding in Arcanum is tedious.
 

TheFilthyJack

Educated
Joined
Apr 16, 2013
Messages
54
There are still some modders out there at terra and lurking arround so if you need help maybe I can give some insight.

Cruor: If you want to open maps in worlded then you may want to actually extract the main campaign, this is the only way to edit the main (top level) map afaik. To do this you can either follow the tutorial made by RRoyo and Shiin at terra-arcanum or use arcanum factory (WorldEd -> extract campaign).
I've never messed with random encounters but this is trivial compared to other things, if your changes don't seem to be active then maybe you have to put your modified Wmap_rnd.mes in the approriate Arcanum\data\* folder, Arcanum can be kinda sassy and sometimes you need to repack (.dat/.patch) the .mes file in order for it to take effect. If it doesn't work then maybe you can pm me and I'll help you figure it out.
 

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