Iron Clan, why so small?

I just finished the Iron Clan quest and I am a little disappointed as to what I saw. Sure the dwarven armour and hammer were a nice set-up for Magnus but it sure does lack something. I saw what looks like a door, but you can't go any further into the mountan.

Has anyone considered expanding on the Iron Clan location. It would be a nice place to stash some techie stuff, but not too much as to ruin the game. There would be no monsters since it's been sealed off for so long.

If this were do-able how would it be incorporated into the game? I could start by making some maps and adding chests with some stuff. But as far as putting it into the game I would need help.

There could even be clues as to what happened to them, maybe they uncovered something mysterious, like the Stonecutter Clan did.

Edit: had some ideas: Seeing as dwarves rarely leave to go top-side, the Clan would have to be self sufficient, Water delivery system for food etc.

There is the issue of the glass key being in the temple. I figured that they would have made maybe only a few keys to get in, you know-privacy and all that. What if for some reason a group of dwarves decided to leave and took a key, but never returned. A search party was sent out with the remaining key to find out what happened, but also never returned. The leader decrees that no-one else is to leave and no keys are to be made. Well, some time later the water system fails and can't be repaired with-out leaving, but there are forbidden to do so. Thus the demise of the Iron Clan. Many years later a key is found by the Panari and the rest we know.

Sounds a little like some other game we all play doesn't it?

The bracelet that Magnus has could be used for something in the mine also. A key to something possibly. Maybe a consperacy to hide something about the clan, thus making the first group leave with the bracelet.

 

I actually expected there to be more there too, but I think there's a lot of content down there if you take both Loghaire and Magnus. I think the whole point might have been that the whole clan is gone, although an explanation for this would definitely be interesting.

I haven't gotten too far into A:WIP yet, but I know that rroyo's been working on the Iron Clan for a long time, I'm not sure if it's in A:WIP 2.2 or in an upcoming release. I'd encourage you to give it a shot yourself, but I'd take a look at rroyo's mod first and see what you think.

As for modding the original arcanum game, make sure you read the topics in this forum about it - you don't want to be stuck making the changes directly, then realizing that to share it, you have to send the whole entire arcanum.dat file (which is huge) rather than just sending a .patch1 file and an arcanum5.dat file.

 

Wasteland - Try the A:WIP hack. I remodeled the Iron Clan complex and now it is massive. (It's also over-done - my bad. I was still in my exploration building stage.)

There are clues scattered here and there about one confirmed destination for the Clan - Caladon - and the beginnings of why the complex was abandoned.

Eventually, it will recieve a small reworking to set up a treasure hunt ala "National Treasure", but for a while at least, there's easily an hour's worth play time inside the mines.

No monsters?: The upper-most level has only the automatons but the mines and the crypt below have been taken over by the usual assortment of riff-raff.

There were two glass keys made. The Panarri got ahold of one, and an ill-fated band of thieves bought the second one at P. Schuylers. (Story not yet in the game)

Magnus' bracelet: There's actually dialog where he admits the symbols into the bracelet was just wishful thinking. I've never seen this in the game, but since it's in the script, I'll leave that part alone.
Heres the line in question:
{334}{I found this bracelet a few weeks ago...[He shows you a bracelet.] I tried to convince myself that the carvings on its face might be the symbol of my lost clan. There was also the Schuyler imprint on the bracelet, so I thought they might know where it came from...}{I found this bracelet a few weeks ago...[He shows you a bracelet.] I tried to convince myself that the carvings on its face might be the symbol of my lost clan. There was also the Schuyler imprint on the bracelet, so I thought they might know where it came from...}{}{65}{}{}

team a: You might be interested in seeing how I managed to incorporate the Void Island facades and a river into the mine enviroment.

BTW: I'm pretty sure that I'm only a couple weeks away from uploading the next release. Wasteland, you might want to wait until then.

 

That is just awesome. I have finished the stock game twice and WIP2.2 once(played many times, only to give up and change characters), but only just finished the Iron Clan on my last stock game as a techy( which I gave up on because I got so discuraged over my machined platemail being bugged). I am currently trying WIP 2.2 as a female thief with magic tendancies. Interesting game as a woman I must say.

Looking forward to the next release.

I was surprised that no Iron Clan expansion was discussed, I thought I couldn't be the only person to bring it up. I see I was wrong. I look forward to exploring the mine.

 

I think the Iron Clan is my very favorite part of the game, even considering how small it is, so I'm really looking forward to A:WIP. BTW, a suggestion (maybe you've already thought of this) : might the Durin Stone be "readable" like a book? I'm thinking of plaque here, but since you know how to make .art, rroyo (I tried it once, but couldn't get the art to bmp program to run on xp), I imagine you can make an image, then have the use command run that image. The historian at the Wheel Clan could just take a rubbing instead, and could maybe help with the quest. Actually, I'm so interested now, I just might try it myself...

 

wastelandhero:

It did get a small discussion in a thread that was completely unrelated to modding.

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13668

An off-hand comment led to me pretty much hijacking the thread.
The best pictures are on page 2.


team a: Your idea is good - but it has a fatal flaw.
No one has been able to get a new picture to come up in a book or a plaque.
Thankfully new schematics will pop-up but so far, nothing else.

Now there is one remote possibility. Using Artview, you can substitute the images in a .art file. Provided you know exactly what size bit of art you intend to swap, you might be able to modify the font file with the in-game maps for use in a stand-alone mod.

I haven't tried this, but it sounds possible.

 

I know you're a pro at that art stuff, so I believe it. Does changing an existing image (like a map found in a book, i.e. the map to find the iron clan) work? I think I might have heard something about that. Of course, that wouldn't help if you're editing arcanum.dat, but...

I think I heard something awhile ago about someone going around this problem. Since you can't add images to books, apparently you can change a whole page of a book, so it includes both your text and the image you want, all in the art file. I think it must have been somewhere in the scripting forum, but everytime I try to find an old post in there, I get pretty lost. Oh well. Maybe this isn't even true. [EDIT: Oh, i think this is what you're talking about. Nevermind...]

If the valid range for images is hard-coded, would that be in the .exe? I guess that would mean it can't be increased, but I don't know anything about that.

 

I don't know. I haven't tried this yet. Until recently, I didn't even know Artview existed.

Best guess, probably.
I know you can add new schematics by simply adding a new line to the interface.mes, but an attempt to swap a map image (single image) with one I created failed.
That tells me there is a hard-coded range somewhere, but I never found it.

 

What the hell was the point of that? Other that wasting a post to just quote what I had said. There is no comment made by you Peace. At the time of that post I was playing a stock game due to high tech healing issues that I had when playing AWIP. I posted in modding because it was an idea for a mod that I did not know was already done.

BTW RROYO, I have explored the Iron Clan...VERY VERY NICE JOB. :thumbup: :thumbup:

 

You're welcome, wasteland!

 

Got Dizzy in Iron clan AWIP 6.0

rroyo ill just have a question I just wonder how to can i get in the location w/ the iron clan containers and the safe in the room ive been playing for half an hour and i cant figured out whats goin on i just want to know is there a way i can explore those part of iron clan?

BTW dude YOU ROCK....

 

Welcome to the forum, marvph22!

As you've found out, it's not easy getting into that room, but if you explore the rest of the main area. you'll find a couple notes telling you where to find the key for the treasure room door and of a second entrance into the Iron Clan.

Spoiler

Bingham has the key in Caladon; but not on him; and the second entrance is just a little ways west of the original one.

And thank you.

BTW: The discussion thread for A:WIP is still active, so if you have any further questions, please post them there.