I see dead people (NEW question added!!)

Edit: New question in post #5 - any help is appreciated!

First let me say that I'm a beginner so go slowly and use small words. ;-)

Alright, I'm attempting to change some of the spells in the game and so far I'm muddling through with moderate success. The problem I seem to be having is that now when I kill people they frequently don't appear dead. They are dead, but they don't fall down go boom. They just stand there like statues. Here's the spell I'm currently having this problem with. Any ideas? I have a feeling the knockback animation is overriding the death animation, but I dunno how to fix it.

 

Have you tried removing the knockback lines to check if the problem persists?

I have found with a few of the spells I worked on that the engine won't process some lines for whatever reason. If you find you have a problem line try putting an empty line before it.

e.g.
{1204}{AI_Offensive: 4}
{1205}{}
{1206}{[Begin], AoE: Tgt_Obj_No_Self | Tgt_Obj_Weight_Below_5, Type: AGoal, anim_goal_knockback}

 

Putting an empty line caused my game to crash in this particular intance, but that is good to know for the future.

Moving the knockback line to the end of the sequence seemed to fix the problem so thanks for keeping me on the right path....although I'm embarrassed my first post was something I really should have been able to work out on my own LOL

 

Got another question (and probably not the last).

How can I summon multiple creatures with 1 casting? What I want to be able to do is summon a pack (3) of Wolves (whithout hex editing) but I'm not having any success. Help?

 

Well the first thing I was going to say was: Hex edit.

The other thing you can do is simply repeat the proto summon line of a spell.
e.g.
{1705}{[Begin], AoE: Tgt_Tile_Empty, Type: Summon, Proto: 28310}

{1706}{[Begin], AoE: Tgt_Tile_Empty, Type: Summon, Proto: 28310}

{1707}{[Begin], AoE: Tgt_Tile_Empty, Type: Summon, Proto: 28310}

No guarantees that this will work though as I haven't tested it and I'm not sure how the callback line will behave with more than one critter. You may have to repeat other lines as well.

Another method could involve making use of the proto spell tables.
Example from succour beast:
{3655}{[Begin], AoE: Tgt_Tile_Empty, Type: Summon, Proto: 0, List: 4}
I cannot locate these tables and I believe they are hardcoded into the game.
If you can find and change them then let me know!

 

Protos are editable. If DK and I ever get back to that editor and get the next version out, you'll be able to edit most items. We did this by creating new protos edited from old ones. Spells were probably going to be made possible at a later point in time, at least the ability to edit existing spells.

 

I was talking about proto spell tables. Some spells summon creatures (and sometimes effects which are counted as critters) using proto tables.
In the example I gave above, Proto 0 from List 4 is summoned. I cannot locate these lists so I believe they are hardcoded.

Back to talking about standard protos:
I've seen many old posts which state the game cannot handle new protos (brand new, not old ones which have been changed). This is not true. I have created several dozen new protos and have yet to hit a limit. However the inventory system cannot handle new protos. If you try to put a home made proto in a shopkeeper's inventory (using invensource.mes) the game will crash or the inventory will be completely empty.

As for new spells, there are about 20 unused spell slots which can be altered to add new spells. However the total number of spells is hardcoded. I really wish that could be altered as it is cramping my mod.
Same with effects. The game will only accept 399 effects. If you try to add effect 400 the whole thing goes to crap.

I have this picture in my head of some guy at Troika, 6 years ago, saying to himself "Hmmm, 399 will be more than enough." -Hits enter-