Arcanum UAP combat/weapon mod

Hello everyone!

I'm new here, but I have been playing Arcanum since it hit the stores (well, not erryday ofcourse and there's been some long breaks), but recently (two days ago actually) got interested in modding it too. I have this idea of a combat mod that would make combat more fun by reducing speed of every weapon, but increasing damage with most highest damaging weapons being firearms as they should be lore wise. For gun changes I based damage on weapons of Fallout 1&2, since well, Arcanum is kinda like Fallout in fantasy world. Minus the TB-only combat ofcourse.

Basically I have been experimenting with editing prototypes, but was devastated when I realized I couldn't change all weapons in the game. I guess to change all the weapons I have go to into every location in the game world, poop (hehe) every NPC/container and change the stuff manually. Hard work, but I'm already experimenting with world editing and willing to try it, so far I have edited Shrouded Hills and couple of dungeons. Realized also that while doing it could add more guns to NPCs, so player would face more gun wielding adversaries. IMO that fits better with lore than just (almost) everyone being melee crazy.

Anyway I want to share this very It's extremely "work in progress" (and has no world changes, only prototype stuff), so don't expect it to be anything spectacular, but it allows people to test new speed/damage mechanics and have general idea what my vision is. I'd like some feedback and opinions whether Also if you like it and would be willing to help, then feel free to join my quest as this pretty large endeavor and I'm not sure I can handle it all by myself.

Anyway, DL-link here:
http://www.speedyshare.com/jgXtd/Combat ... T-BETA.rar

(link fixed in 06/26/2014)

 

The vast majority of items that don't have a proto file (the ones you have to change in world editor) are cursed/evil items, unique versions of items like the special ones worn by some merchants (fleet helm, etc.), extremely powerful/different magic weapons (staff of xoranth) and certain size variations of armors.

So you don't have to go through every barrel in Arcanum, you could focus in on those and get about 99% of them.

As far as your changes go, if every weapon has extremely slow speed then you'll just always go for the one with the highest damage right? So if that's going to be guns, why would anyone use something besides guns? Sounds like there would be little if any room for much weapon choice, especially in turn based where weapon speed only matters at certain intervals.

Another limiting factor is that Arcanum shops are generic instead of specific, so when you get to Caladon you can buy essentially the same equipment you could at Tarant. This is different from other rpgs, where better weapons are introduced by your ability to reach better shops as you advance through the storyline. Probably the only real signficant differences are the dwarven shops, which is first available at the Wheel Clan. You would probably want to change this as well.

 

This would be generally good idea and would work, but when I personally betatested (speedplayed all up to isle of despair) this mod I noticed lots of places having speed crazy non-unique weapons, especially shops in tarant are stocked with weapons that actually have altered speed not governed with prototypes. That approach works well with damage and stuff, but since I'm mostly about making combat slower (just think of haste potion in TB, it's not really fun, just crazy) I have much more work to do with checking out weapons in game.

Good point, but kinda fits in with the lore. You know how the knights were gunned down, how Doc Roberts shot the angry mage and even ancient organization like Molochean hand uses gunmen etc. Besides with melee you get damage bonuses from strenght (and probably from training too?), so it's still useful. I mean even in Fallout games where guns are generally extremely powerful (sometimes even almost buggily so, those normal assault rifle bursts doing 300 damage, although it's raw and realistic, so it's somewhat nice) when compared to anything melee, melee skill still useful because of bonuses and perks (don't mean just the perks) it has. There is also the ammo issue with guns. Ammo in arcanum is generally very rare especially during beginning (when you lack money) unless you use duping glitch.

Also mages are still way more powerful than any gun. I kinda like this though. If mages were to be nerfed too much, there wouldn't be much point playing one. Even if they rule in combat and travelling, they suffer heavily in terms of story and cool stuff when compared to technologists.

In my mod basic (not fine) revolver does 5-12 damage versus 3-10 of standard sword. I meant that in overall terms guns>everything else then magic, but it definitely doesn't make melee and other weapons unuseful. Xena-stuff get more speed than both melee and guns. While bows have few magical better ones and compound bow actually has been made more damaging.

Besides the damage melee weapons generally have higher speed than high damage guns, with focus on magic weapons. IMO makes sense to have more perks for magical melee users rather than tech-melee (which in vanilla is just crazy and almost compares to harm spam in terms of raw damage, especially with haste potions), since guns are (or atleast should be) the magic weapons of technology. Also hitting wise game mechanics favor melee, so the fact that guns have higher damage kinda fits in.

Ironically enough, I also nerfed some (too) POWERFUL guns like hand-cannon which had ridiculous speed with damage higher than looking glass rifle. It doesn't make much sense either game wise or immersion wise, since LGR is much more late game stuff and it's full blown long range (thus high power cartridge) rifle rather than just pistol shotgun. Would be interesting though if you could make damage range dependant (for shotgun stuff), but guess that would be in vein of having reloads and different ammo for every gun. Would be finest gun mod ever, but probably impossible.

Also, I hated how fine revolver, hand cannon, elephant gun and warbringer (in that progression, though LGR is better than HC in unpatched vanilla, patched just sucks though if you have access to EG) were the only useful guns. With this mod even other guns have their perks and don't lose so much in terms of damage. Though not sure if everyone likes the idea of making machine guns single burst-fire weapons with high damage, but IMO it works wonder making them way more useful (in terms of bullet economy) and you can get feeling of machine gunning stuff even in turn based.

Yeah, was thinking about this. Fallout-style item progression would be generally good idea. Though it changes the spirit of game more than modding combat itself, since even in vanilla (if you have money) you can buy crazy semi-OP (sword of sickness, oh yeah!) late-game like stuff from the first gypsy you encounter. Though pretty much all the truly superiour stuff you get in the game you have to either craft or loot from high-level dungeons/ruins and story areas. This is same with my mod. I'm not planning to add more crafted weapons into game world, but more store buyable guns, just to make encounters with human NPCs feel more varied.

Ps. tested your mod too, like it so far, though I think many guns were bit overpowered compared to rest of guns and melee weapons. Also what's with machine gun bows? Tattered bowmen gunning my character down in seconds with their weak shortbows was kinda crazy, but fun for a while. :lol: Anyway, it's nice mod and worth playing. Especially liked new magic system stuff. :thumbup: Though I tested awip with it, so I'm not entirely sure where awip did end your mod began.

(edit: some typos)

 

Doesn't appear to be working. The 60 second countdown is the last functional stage of the downloading process.

 

Sorry for that, let's see if this works:
http://depositfiles.com/files/330hlws9g

 

From my experience the shops all rely on prototypes heavily, without editing. You might want to be sure that you are comparing the items on a same-training basis, as in when you edit a weapon for speed 15 it's speed is shown as 20 after your test character gets apprentice training. I know I've made that mistake myself at least once after hours of modding and testing.

I think what you're going for is not an absolute or near absolute balancing of weapons, but a reasonable utility in each. When I made my changes to Arcanum, I went for as close to balance without sameness as possible, and so that's why my mind was still stuck on that idea when I was reading about your mod.

I think your approach sounds just fine, it seems like you've thought about it a lot, which is a lot more than most people do when they consider redoing weapons for some reason, so well done my friend. It sounds like melee won't be insane anymore, and guns while the best won't be unmatchable by melee, and that sounds pretty good to me.

The editing of guns so that there are not only the few best ones to choose from is a good way to go as well. It's a real shame when a game developer makes a plethora of weapons, and then makes 4 or 5 so good that none of the others matter. Fixing that is an obvious necessity and it's good to see it on your list. A recommendation I'd give is you can have guns with equal dps but different elemental damages to creat variation and utility vs monsters (while making them better than equivalent dps weapons because DR is so prevalent).

Overall I'm just really glad to see someone else who decided to make Arcanum combat a lot less silly.

Glad you tried out my mod too, man. If you encountered machine gun bows, you probably played in real time vs the tattered bowmen. My mod is balanced for turn based because at high speeds real time combat gets silly, and I didn't want that to limit my weapon system. That's probably why you thought guns were overpowered too, although they are better than melee until melee gets a high enough strength bonus in turn based (which doesn't take long).

I'm especially pleased you liked the spells Nothing took longer than that, and it was so worth it. I am really proud of the spells I added, and very very happy with how much fairer spell combat is. I think I am the only person to write a guide on editing spells also? Although the search function hasn't been great in the last year, so maybe it just doesn't show someone else who has.

 

Re:

Yeah, that was the problem. Silly me. :lol:

True, "reasonable utility in each" describes my mod better, although I actually made some weapons "suck" for "immersion" reasons, this mainly means normal bows (exception being long bow, that fella actually got damage increase, since it was pretty kick-ass IRL too), normal throwing weapons and normal daggers. Magic and tech ones are more on par with mid-level guns.

Another thing I heavily based the mod on was lore of the game, like guns and magic melee being more poweful. This is also why Vendigrothian guns have surprisingly high speed (being the only high-speed guns in the game), they're semi-auto guns since that is pretty evident from the art and fits with the 20-30s pulp-scifi theme Vendigroth seems to have. I know machine guns have been already invented by modern humans too, but you have to give Vendigrothians some advantage, since they were practically gods of technology. :lol: Generally I considered the art, names and descriptions (if applicable) of the weapons heavily when deciding damage, speed etc.

Thanks, it's nice you like the idea. I haven't really thought it about that lot to be honest, but fully (every dungeon, every area, every quest I can, that is my play-style) completing the game more than five times has given me a lot of thought on workings of the combat. Hope you get to test it too, the released version should work with every version (as it's just prototypes, for now), even if it was made using UAP as base. There are also fine new sounds for many guns. Partly thanks to Krupp and his ol' mod for that. The rest are from free internet sound banks.

Spoiler

With exception of FO2 gauss rifle sound, but hey it's not the same sound, really. :roll: There is variance and it was just "inspired" by the original, no copyrights were hurt. :lol:

While that is good idea it would be too silly for normal guns to have elemental damage in my opinion, not to mention DR sorta makes sense as guns back then could be easily repelled by heavy armor as Ned Kelly demonstrates. Though it would be interesting to add some sort of "armor piercing" damage for some guns like rifles, but I'm not sure can you create new damage type. Maybe it can be scripted. It could be invisible from interface (since would be definitely impossible to add it to interface) and specified only in MES files. This could be utilised by some melee (thinking of flamberge, rapier and magic) weapons too.

Maybe for those purposes I atleast throw some versions of craftable elemental guns (pyro gun, acid gun, tesla rod etc.) around into approriate places like Wheel Clan, BMC, Caladon and Tarant. Possibly for Iron Clan and Vendigroth too, if I find some extra art from the game files. Would be stupid to use modern times weapon art for them. Already made those guns to be actually useful rather than crap they were, though I nerfed tesla rod a bit as it was insane weapon.

Still I reworked flamethrower to be VERY powerful (again based on Fallout), but it has melee range. Also Bromwyck's has been changed very usable and powerful elemental gun. The heavy damage from Fallout 2 pulse pistol split equally to ED and FD. Also it uses batteries instead of fuel, since that seemed more approriate. IMO that gun was the biggest disappoint (weapon wise) of vanilla game. Wonder of Vendigrothian science and takes some work to make it, yet it's almost as crap as some early guns. There is also Grenade Launcher that does very heavy fire damage while using 10 bullets (fuel didn't make sense), though wish I could make it to use actual grenades as ammunition.

Yeah, noticed that after a while. Some might call me crazy, but I like to use real-time a lot, just because that way I can settle all the dungeon and random combat faster, with turn based those dungeons would be awfully boring as hell, so I believe ironically enough Arcanum actually benefits from it's RT-combat as sometimes combat gets so massive. Tend to use TB only for very hard fights myself.

Yeah, liked meditation and most of new spells. Awesome work there. Only problem for me was that harm was way too nerfed IMO though. Makes perfect sense for low-levels, but it should be bit more powerful on higher levels. Really liked how you added range for it though. Personally, I'm not planning to edit spells though as I want to stay true to Arcanum's lore and I believe spells are part of that. Maybe I could work bit with the damage (probably nerfing harm ), range and those sorts of things if I figure out how.

Anyway, another test-run. This time with selfish evil technology despising dark elf mage (she uses throwing weapons on top of all that), as that's something I have never tried before. Planning to play through while taking notes for the mod.

Now on wheel clan, already almost level 40 (no cheats), because mages still own everything, but Vollinger has been gunning stuff pretty good too. Also Sogg with his Sword of Sickness and ol' Torian with Axe of Lost Time still kill stuff with about same (if not more) efficiency as before. Though usually I won't let followers to do much combat since I want that EXP myself, but I still like having bunch of them for just heck of it and the little amount of dialogue they bring. Virgil still sucks for anything else than healing though. Generally it does feel more balanced than before and with these speeds real time is as playable as TB, so I feel I have achieved something. Have tried more TB than usually too, seems to work fine if not better than before, atleast can't cheat so much with haste anymore. Haven't noticed anything being too OP (besides the DOG, but DOG is DOG :roll so far.

 

How is the Looking Glass Rifle (5th schematic in the gunsmithy discipline, 15 intelligence required) more late game stuff than the Hand Cannon (6th schematic in the gunsmithy discipline, 17 intelligence required)?

Long range & smaller damage versus short range + higher damage sounds balanced enough for me. That + the accuracy bonus of the LGR makes both weapons perfect for interchangable use depending on enemy distance.

 

Good point, but I was referring more in terms of when you find the weapons in game. You can get hand cannon in Tarant, while LGR is in Ashbury. That is more late-game, assuming you play the game by plot. Crafting wise it is different.

In terms of Arcanum, range really doesn't matter, unless you plan to snipe enemies offscreen. Hand Cannon has ridiculous speed with high damage which means it can be easily either used for hardcore kiting in RT or some heavy damage in TB, especially with haste. It is pretty much overkill for low level gunslinger (tried and tested, clearing tarant sewers as level 12 character or so), especially considering that it is available right when you arrive to Tarant and you tend to stick to it until Bedokaan village, since there are no better weapons available before that. Unless you go for crafing them ofcourse. Infact speaking of guns, I have found only Warbringer, Elephant Gun, Mechanized Gun (bullet economy makes it pretty much useless though), Tesla Rod, Blade Launcher and Tesla Gun to be better than HC in vanilla.

 

That was indeed my point. LGR makes for an unparalleled sniping weapon.

Unless your character steals from every person he encounters, he doesn't know what equipment particular people have. You as a player may know a certain person in Tarant has a certain weapon, but really, how is using that knowledge more fair play than taking a train from Black Root to Ashbury and using such knowledge there?

My point being here, I don't think availability of items via metagaming is a fair method of determining early/late game weapons and what should be nerfed/buffed.

Following the logic above, it shouldn't normally be available to one. The fact that it is overkill in the hands of a low level gunslinger can just as well be used as proof that it is metagaming that makes the player overpowered.

I think ridiculous is a bit of an overstatement, seeing how nearly 20 firearms have equal or greater speed.

Haste empowers every weapon equally, so it's irrelevant. Not to mention that generally a gunslinger is less likely to cast haste than a wielder of any other type of weapon.

Which seems fair, seeing how those are about he only firearms with greater crafting requirements than the Hand Cannon.

While too impractical for a main weapon, it works charms in boss fights, where the extra kick is truly worth the increased bullet consumption. That's especially true when not allowing an enemy to even reach you is the priority (see: fire damage dealing foes).

 

Muro it seems like you're nitpicking more than a bit.

He obviously has the play style of taking what is available, not what is roleplayable, and so he wants to make hand cannon less powerful for that reason. He will probably have to make similar judgements based on all crafted weapons, which can be easily made with only tech manuals and potions of intelligence.

It's not wrong of him to balance his game like that, especially because the difference causes such a disparity in Arcanum. It's like Morrowind: some players will steal everything for easy money right off the bat, others won't, and the difference is huge. So just try to keep this in mind. It's quite easy to forget people don't play the same as you do. To hold that against him would be like criticizing him for balancing towards real time instead of balancing towards turn based combat.

On the actual weapon stats though, you're right and he has no excuse. I had to spend a lot of time analyzing game mechanics for my mod, and so do you, sorry NamelessOne. The good news is Muro tends to answer tough questions if you ask decently enough

 

It's not necessarily even meta-gaming, if you RP as a character that likes to steal things (or atleast has no objection to it), then he/she most likely comes accross it while scouting Tarant's pockets. Same can be said about LGR. You can also get it as an alternative reward in firearms mastery quest, but IIRC you get no mastery that way.

Also generally it seems that most people do metagame, so taking that into account might not be so bad idea. Maybe you should try it sometimes too. It's tempting isn't it? Though Arcanum (even in Vanilla) is far more balanced towards it than for example FO2 and "rushing to Navarro to get Power Armurz" -type meta-gaming.

It's all about DPS, on that field IIRC Hand Cannon is better than pretty much anything aside Warbringer (or Mechanizen Gun). More higher level guns (with exception of WB) are all very slow when compared to it. Though I'm not 100% sure do they infact have higher DPS in reality, but I suspect atleast Tesla Gun does. Still, the speed of HC does give it bit unfair edge on kiting. You should try it out and see.

Foes that deal fire damage are easy to dispose of with normal guns too though, since most (if not all) are so slow you can just kite them. Only one you need to watch out is gore guard really as he tends to be quite fast fellow. I agree that it's fun to dispose off fire elemental with an MG, but normally just kiting + couple of shots from an Elephant Gun (or hell even the Hand Cannon) does the job better.

Anyway, that was good critique and I shall consider it. Although I think 15-25 with slow speed is better than 5-35 with higher speed. Considering that as a pistol weapon you can also carry shield and other stuff with it. A big plus that makes it somewhat better (for some builts) than a rifle even with lowered damage, but I don't think I lowered it too much and the fact that I raised minimum damage should make up for it.

 

Indeed, you recall correctly.

Meh, not really. I feel it breaks immersion, which for a storyfag such as myself is the worst that can happen in a game.

I've already done a fair bit of testing while - shameless advertising - creating my weapon database. I concentrated on turn-based and Average Damage per Action Point, though the hierarchy of damage-dealing efficiency should more or less translate to real time as well.

Anyway, here's a screenshot with all firearms with AvD/AP equal or greater than the Hand Cannon, starting with the Hand Cannon and proceeding with increasing AvD/AP:

 

Care to upload latest version?

 

You mean my mod? Sure, it's already on thread.

Developement has been on hiatus for long due to extreme technical difficulties. I spent several days trying (clean install etc.) to correct it, but I can't get it working. Asked about it here too, but apparently no-one knows why it happens.

See here:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16118#p257605

 

Damn was looking forward to an update. I'm no expert at resolving technical difficulties, but it seems to me like the stairways etc are referencing to go elsewhere and that reference might be invalid now due to changes. Like a shortcut to a program you place in a different folder, it just does nothing anymore.

I also asked for a new upload because the depositfiles is expired and the first link doesn't work

 

Re:

Well, all the proto-work is technically finished, though I might change some stats in the final version.

Also this new link should work: http://depositfiles.com/files/9uhgntpjg

Possibly, although I followed "easy modding" instructions to the letter, so it's very odd. There might be something wrong those instructions.

I understand you didn't do any world changes or did you? Quickly checked the archive for your mod and it seems to show only prototype-stuff. I hope rroyo or someone who has experience with it is still around.

 

Does anyone still have this mod? I'd really love to give this a go but the download links give me an error when I try to download them.