Mechanized Arachnid Slave

I am hoping to add to my game the Mechanized Slave of the Master that Chris had used in Car-Arcanum.

Now there is a dlg file for a mechanical mule in Arcanum, but no obvious critter that I can seem to utilize. I've tried starting with a barrel and changing the art - that didn't work, of course. Pasting a mech spider and linking it to a copy of Chris' script and dlg didn't work either - I did get the dialog, but no joining my PC or inventory on the spider. I'm fresh out of ideas at the moment.

Would anyone be kind enough to tell me how to add or make one?

 

Well I don't know how Chris did it as I haven't actually played / studied CarArcanum in any great detail.
The way I would do it is pretty simple. Take an Arachnid. Uncheck the "Mute" flag. Attach a dialogue which has an access inventory option.
That's it.

 

You have my eternal thanks.

Edit: 5-14-06

In addition to clicking off the mute flag, also clear the "Is Mechanical" box as well. Otherwise you have to speak to the machine anytime you want to access the inventory rather than being able to right-click the thumbnail and access it from the menu.

BTW: This also works well with converting automotons into fighting pack-mules.
They can run faster

 

The reason I did not advise turning off the "Is Mechanical" flag is because that flag affects several other things. If you turn the flag off then you'll find your automatons can be healed with heal spells, damaged by poison and a few other things which simply don't make sense in the game.
So to avoid that I'd just use the dialogue option.

 

Ahhhhh...

I hadn't tested it that far.

Appreciate the info!

 

I hope enough time has passed on this.

For any junior modders who wish to create a mechanized slave like Chris Beddoes did: He too ran into the problem of accessing the inventory by right-clicking, and solved it the same way I did.

He clicked off the "Is Mechanical" flag!

 

But did he do anything to fix the problems I mentioned?

 

Nope! The spider gets poisoned, can be healed, etc.

Update: May 31. To match Chris' spider size, set the scale to 165.

 

Hmmm. I'd have to say that I'd rather go with the realism of "Is Mechanical" rather than the convenience of quick inventory access.