Followers technical displinces

Is there any way to mod their leveling schemes so that they can learn their full technical colleges? Since we know they only reach level 4 >though I heard Sebastian masters his, never tried so can't say< is there a way to make it so they'll reach level 7 without editing the saved game? Seems kind of flakey they never get to the highest points. Really makes it difficult to do things, I would like the idea of running around with a full tech squad and I can handle having to use the found schematics myself however much it sucks. Just curious and all as to whether its been done or is planning on being done in any mods.

 

Yes.
First you need to undat Arcanum3.dat. In the resulting rules folder, you'll find gamelevel.mes. Open this with notepad, and you can edit any of the leveling schemes.
Now, to use those schemes in the game, you can either move Arcanum3.dat to another directory and just play with it undatted, or create a new dat file with your updated gamelevel.mes in it. Personally I've had some difficulty getting new dat files to work, but somebody(rroyo or Drog) could probably help with that. If you intend to edit things, you can always play with the game all undatted though.
P.S. Sebastian does not master his.

 

according to http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin ... 4155/14388
just undatting arcanum3.dat, editing gamelevel.mes and placing it in Arcanum/data/rules should work. did anyone run it this way ?
P.S. hope a month old thread isn't considered dead and gravedigging

 

It is, fucker. But I'll let you go with that.

 

oh come on. if I'd start a thread, u'd tell me off for spamming and not using search. if I use search, find corresponding thread of reasonable age (ok, I admit, the one with Black Tooth was dead and buried), I still get told off. am I supposed to start threads weekly?
and for the question at hand - does the much simpler solution without deleting arcanum3.dat work ?

 

It works. The game engine reads stuff in the data folder last and adjusts as needed.

Also - Do not delete the Arcanum3.dat. There's other files in there that's needed for the game.

 

Precisely. The hope is that you use the search, solve your answer, and not start a thread. Anything more than 7 days old is considered gravedigging, with few exceptions made.

 

@rroyo:
sorry, might be a noob's question, but I'd like a basic example.
let's say the original gamelevel.mes inside arcanum3.dat has for Magnus MaxHPS 300 as the last entry. so as far as I understand, Magnus will spend his char points from the last 4-5 levels on maxing HP, because 300 is rather far away from current 200. in general, most skill trees end with some high value of max HP or fatigue, so that the follower uses the last skillpoints up.
so I've inserted smithy 7 and mechanical 7 before that entry in his skill tree. now he should start with raising IN to 15? and then maxing the technical disciplines? and then use char points to max his HP (I'm with the level 127 level cap hack)?

edit: so the game will look for information (maps, audio, skill trees) in the .dat files first, and then check the \data folder and have it override the .dat files? or is it the other way round - look in \data folder first, then check .dat files if the info is not there?
a little offtopic, but the patch-hack that silences the permanent spells (the stat boosts etc.) is just a file called ArcanumXNoNoise.dat. so the game checks for all files called arcanum?*.dat and then has certain priorities?

 

Fair warning - My two attempts to tweak the gamelevel.mes didn't work as planned.

What you're proposing for Magnus sounds right and is what I would do.

If this works for you, I'd like to know. Maybe I can figure out what I was doing wrong.

 

oops - bad time for editing. I'll throw the molochean Hand hack in, to make their random encounters more difficult, level up to 55 or so and check Magnus' skills every level. he should get new schematics somewhere between 45-55, if my assumptions and that guide from gameFAQs are correct.
if that fails, it might be wise (for me) to rewrite most of skilltrees into something better aligned with the plot (e.g. Magnus going into firearms, gunsmithy, smithy, and mechanical without dodge and melee - he is a city dwarf after all) and restart the character.
my problem right now is to set reasonable HP and fatigue values into skilltrees.

 

Sounds like you're heading in the right direction.

It reads the .dat files first, then uses any files in the data folder to overwrite the original info.

Rename it to Arcanum6.dat if you're using the UAP or Arcanum5.dat if you're not. The rest of the original name was to make the file easily storable and identifiable. (Older versions of the UAP had an Arcanum6.dat.)

And yes on the second part of that quote. The higher numbered .dats overwrite any commands that were found in lower numbered .dats.

 

How do you do this?
The link to the download to undat something in this link is broken

I was unable to tell from the names of the downloads in the download section if any of those can undat.

 

Welcome to the forum, Ainorli!

1) Ok - I just tried the link to DATBuilder.zip (the easiest to use) and it worked perfectly.
Downloads - Arcanum Modding Tools - .dat utilities - DATBuilder.zip.

The names can be a bit cryptic, but they are grouped together and sorted by type.

2) That's a decent reference to have but the download info is out of date. Direct downloads went out when the download section was reorganized.

 

here are minor results of my experiments.
1. the MaxHP values set in the regular gamelevel.mes are, as already suggested, extremely high for the game capped at level 50. Magnus hardly makes 200 HP at level 52, though his last entry is MaxHP 300.
so rewriting the gamelevel.mes is a good idea - all HP values can be set to 60-50% (depends on healers available), so that followers gain useful skills instead of raising HP. if in doubt, replace HP values with points to constitution.
EDIT:
2. the actual skill rewrite from gameFAQs.com seems to work.

this is Magnus level 55, with the smithy level 5 schematic added to his skilltree and working. I've been rather off on where to insert desired skills
3. the AI which decides on skill use is actually pretty poor. keep ALL throwing weapons (bumerangs etc.) and either ranged weapons, identified or not, and their corresponding ammo away from followers who are supposed to go melee. the AI will cause ranged attack if the nominal damage exceeds melee, regardless of follower's skill. e.g. Virgil will wield bow & arrow, if you give him a powerful unidentified bow and arrows, instead of casting Harm.
4. Virgil has no AI presets to deal with regular and magical healing. he will try to spell-heal Magnus (who has 60 techno) and will waste bandages on Dog and my 100 magic PC if someone has experience with Dante and Jayna, and maybe ideas how to incorporate the magic/techno attitude into the healer's AI, feel free to post.