Quaid's Modding Questions

Sinbad added NPC portraits?

Which mods/downloads are Sinbad's?

 

I had to double-check but he did add NPC portraits.

As for his mods & hacks: This is the only one I recall for certain:

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/hacks/sinbads-ship-cabin-and-cargo-hold.exe

It has the portraits and a rather fancy ship's cabin + cargo hold. Among other things.
A lot of people had trouble getting it to work right though.

 

I just checked, not 100% sure (I vaguely remember some tile scripts from the last time I fired up WorldEd, back in '03) but it appears that it is the HB script that is responsible.

Originally, Virgil was supposed to run up to the PC, and Radcliffe was supposed to initiate dialogue the old fashioned way. (Easily deducible by the unused 01325 HB script for dear Voghhkloorh. And, yes, I did look up Virgil's dlg file just to rip that gem from it. *sigh* the memories...)

Virgil actually has script 1100 on his heartbeat point. Radcliffe's script. Irony of ironies. You could easily reuse script 1100 for this purpose, as long as the script you attach to the dialog point on your NPC is padded with 'do nothings' or some such to make sure that there are at least 5 lines (lines 0 through 4).

Sample dialog script that would work in conjunction with script 1100 (and hence make your initiate dialogue on module startup.):

Code:

0. IF npc Attachee is a follower of pc Triggerer
       THEN goto line 1
    ELSE goto line 3
1. dialog 1000
2. goto line 5
3. do nothing
4. dialog 1
5. return and SKIP default

If you're using SockMonkey create lines 1, 3, 4 and 5 FIRST. Then add the gotos and IF. Modify as necessary.

Padding files with crap to reuse scripts for things that they were never intended for... kludgey? Of course, but since you don't seem to have much coding experience it's probably faster to reuse code.... even if it involves kludging it up somewhat. I used a similar method to fix the busted Machined Platemail recently... without requiring proto editing or touching effects.mes... I don't like it, but it's less of a kludge than the alternatives...

 

@xoid - thanks for the tip. kludgey is fine for me if it gets the job done. we're all trying to work with a program that has a nice but incomplete manual (which isn't bad considering Troika made one hellavu game and worked to add in both multiplayer AND a modding tool!). right now i've got it so it is an optional dialogue (i.e. the player would need to click the npc to trigger it) but i'll test out your suggestion and see how it works.

i am new to coding mods like this, but not to programming. though my programming experience is from ancient languages - basic, turbo pascal and fortran, the ideas are still sound. the 'goto' lines remind me of the 'spaghetti programming' of basic, and the scripts appear to be like subroutines. i very much like object oriented programming as it seems to make good sense.

i also notice this tool Troika left us can do so much and i realize i am only scratching the surface.

oh, and welcome xoid

 

I'm somewhat glad to see I was a bit presumptuous then; glad to see that people with an active interest in programming are still becoming interested in this game... I thought most had left years ago and that new-blood with previous programming experience simply didn't come along any more.

You're definitely right about the nature of scripting in Arcanum; it's an abysmal mess of spaghetti coded subroutines. Your experience in BASIC will actually be a plus then
While I wish Arcanum had more of an object orientated scripting language for purely selfish reasons, I'm glad that it isn't purely because I believe that it wouldn't have much of a following at all... new blood with the right sort of mentality for coding is often scared off by OO stuff, unfortunately.

Thanks for the welcome btw.

Also, to try and answer another question you had earlier (so as to make this post not entirely off-topic) there is a kludge I just tried to get men to wear dresses. And women nice-suits. Select a dress. Click edit and select the nice-suit graphic. Place in the world, then shift-drop it into the person's inventory. I got black-screened when I tried to start the lil' test module I whipped up though. This could be used in a similar fashion to get people to wear 'rags'; though they would only appear as such when perusing their inventory. That is, of course, as long as the black-screen I got was purely due to me stuffing up the test module I whipped up, as opposed to the game engine choking on attempting to run this tomfoolery.

 

I bought the original Fallout in 1997 when I read the back of the box and it said 'Remember Wasteland?'. Then I heard members of the original Fallout team formed a company named Troika.

I was excited when I heard about Arcanum, and I've been a fan of the game since it came out in 2001. The two games I've played from Troika have been gold - Arcanum and Bloodlines. It is too bad they didn't get to finish Mystary! The demo is money.

I toyed with WorldEd back in 2005 when I first came up with the idea for my mod. I only got part of the way through AMTUT and then was distracted by other things that I don't exactly recall.

I fired it back up last month and have been on a mission to see my mod become an actual game!

 

Little snag. Help would be greatly appreciated:

Teleportation in a script. I have things working fine. Teleporting the player, OR teleporting someone the player is talking to, but not BOTH.

I try to teleport the ATTACHEE and the PLAYER, but it seems only the player arrives. If you leave the area and come back, the ATTACHEE shows up where it is supposed to, but I don't want the player to have to leave the area and come back for this to be the case.

I've also got it so the script sets the Day and Night standpoint in the spot I want the ATTACHEE to teleport to (so it doesn't try to wander back to its original spot).

Any ideas?

 

Figured out a work-around. If you make the NPC a follower, when you teleport he comes with you. A little clunky, but it gets the job done. You can always remove him from being a follower afterward.