Polished Car Arcanum.

Not that I've ever noticed. I've played the game through about eight times as various characters and encountered little difficulty even with the pregenerated PCs. I'd say create one of your favorites and have a go at it.

One thing you will discover with Car-Arcanum is a large number of new charms which are horribly over-weight but are useful at times - electrical resistance, strength boost, beauty, etc. But to counter that, Chris added antigravity diamonds - each one negates 10,000 stone. Just the same, perhaps go with a strong PC for your first time.

As for the CAR: it is a woman who was magically transformed into a car. While as a machine, she has tremendous carrying capability, and you have a safe place to sleep in dungeons, sewers, and wilderness. After she turns back into a woman, she becomes a nicely powerful mage with summoning powers. So the PC's carrying strength isn't quite as big of an issue as the stamina needed for the more difficult additions to the game.

Enjoy!

 

Thanks!

The car is a woman who turns into a car through magic?

That seems contrary to the spirit of game. Doesn't magic mix with machines about as well as oil and water if not much worse in Arcanum?

I wonder why the car wasn't just a car.

Any recommendations for a new character I plan to have specialize in thrown and tech skills/gear? I'm not even sure as to which race I should select, much less which companions to plan on retaining or picking up first.

 

You're right about the mixing of tech and magic but that's part of her story. In an attempt for immortality she somehow got changed into the Car and now you're her last chance to change back.

As for the PC character - my personal favortie is the lawfully neutral technologist/gunfighter type. It allowed me to stand off from most of the opponents and therefore take less damage.

As for the followers: Playing the good guy, I went with Virgil, Sogg, and Magnus; plus I always tried to get two of the new ones. Althea and Helena Sent. Both are lawfully good.

Althea is a Swiss Army woman - equally deft with guns and swords plus is not too hard to get to join you at the beginning - just run around the crash site until you go up a level. Whatever you do though, don't let Virgil die or she will leave the party even in battle.

Helena is a bit more difficult as she looks for a level 40 tech before she'll join. After that, she's one hell of a gunfighter but tempermental. If you're not careful about running into deadly situations, she will quickly begin to hate you.

BTW: Another new character is the Mechanized Slave of the Master. It's a giant mechanized Arachnid. Great carrying capability, can use the Aerial Decapitator, carry a lantern, blah, blah, blah, - but is slow as hell getting into the battle. Still, I almost always got it before going to the Black Mountain Mines.

 

whoah

Ok just started playing as a sorc and a few things are apparent right away.

1. traps are everywhere! The blimp crash site wasn't littered with traps in the original was it? Do the traps just keep getting worse from here on out? Maybe skill points need to be invested into countering traps almost from the beginning?

2. Deadly encounters far earlier than I remembered. A huge group of kites ambushed us almost straight away and between them and the traps the whole party was dead almost straight away.

3. Kites seem to be Harm Immune! I couldn't damage them however I tried. Maybe sorcs are much less viable as damage dealers in car arcanum? Is it just harm? perhaps all the spells are changed in car arcanum?

4. Althea (virgils friend) has a book in her inventory. Is this something I need to get from her and read to unlock a quest? I'm not too keen on taking anything from her inventory since it sounds like I won't be able to give anything back if I do.


Any other advice for playing this mod? Is there a comprehensive list of changes available somewhere? doesn't seem to have been in the original download or on Chris's web site.

thanks in advance for any more advice!

 

Let's take this in order.

Investing points in perception is a good idea because the traps do become more numerous and deadlier. However... the is a new cave right beside the old cave in which you can get Spot - the Trap-Spotting dog. He comes in really handy.

As for the kites - Chris made them all poisonous, and the crash site is home to a large number of them. Watch your step and stock up on poison cures.

Harm - I must admit, I rarely tried magic against the low-level opponents, so I really can't say what would work best against them magically.

As for Althea (and her book) once she's your follower, yes you can remove anything you want from her inventory and with a lot items even give it back. She'll gladly accept any weapon, most armor, bandages, most gems, jewelery, lava rocks, heartstone, etc. - but not rubies.

In order to get her to take something she doesn't want - like Ressurection Potions - have the rest of your party wait somewhere, take Althea a little ways away, the drop the item on the ground and walk away. She'll then stroll over and pick it up. Reclaim your party and go again.

A little spoiler for you: as you get near the cabin along the east wall of the crash site, she'll pick up a charm that looks like a mechanical trap. The thing weighs a ton and the merchants consider it a stolen item. The first cave you go into, take it from her, drop it into a barrel or chest and forget about it.

Finally, the closest thing to a list of the changes is the other Car-Arcanum threads in this section. Take a few moments and read through them. You'll be glad you did.

 

Thanks again!

I thought I would do a sorc since I've done one before (in vanilla arcanum) but in light of the difficulty I was having with my old standby spell Harm I think I should consider your suggestion of a gun fighter.

What sort of character creation and early skill selections served best for your gunfighter?

As far as researching Car arcanum through the forums, the biggest hitch seems to be that all threads below about the first 10 are at least 2 years old. None of the threads that are as new as car arcanum seem to have much info about it. I did see one thread by chris from about 2 years back in which he says that it should no longer be possible to do as well using fire flash or harm as it was in vanilla Arcanum. Since his mod gives sorcs more fatigue I'm guessing he must mean that he altered the way the spells work, which matches my recent experience with Harm. How can I make intelligent choices of which spell lines to invest in if I don't know how they work or are altered?

I wonder if it's possible to pick through the files themselves to find the exact nature of the changes made to spells.

 

What I ultimately found best for me was to start with was a half-elf, inheritence background, no level scheme and then apply points to wherever they were most needed - alternating between perception, dexterity, herbology, and gunsmithy, all the while useing every possible aid and trick I came across to advance in strength and constitution. Slow going on the build-up but that made it a nice challenge.

As for the threads: My mistake. They are actually in the Arcanum Hints and Tips section.

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12635
http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12923
http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12767
http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12798
http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12825
http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12654

These seem to cover about 90 some odd percent of everything that is found in Chris' mod.

And yes, if you're willing to take the time to unpack Car-Arcanum, you can learn from side-by-side comparison what Chris did. I am.

 

I can't find spot

The new cave had a crazy spider herding halfling in it. Is that the cave spot should be found in? If so is he somewhere behind the locked gate in the chain link fence that is down there? Is there a way other than lockpicking to open it? Because my party had no luck whatsoever busting it open. In fact come to think of it we no longer appear to be able to bust anything open at all anywhere period. I wonder if Chris made locked objects far more durable than was the case in vanilla arcanum.

Could you maybe double check your game to see where spot was found?
-Thanks!

 

You're in the right cave. In the barrel as you enter that level is a set of lockpicks. As a rule - those worked for me. In order to get spot, you'll need to go through the first gate and down the tunnel. At the end is two wrought-iron enclosures. Spot is in the one on the right. Wait until you've gone up a few levels before tackling the big enclosure.
Fair warning - there's plenty of traps between you and Spot. The good news is that he'll join regardless of your level.

As for Chris making the gate more durable - that's a distinct possibility because it's so easy to do.

 

How high was your dex and lockpicking skill?

I've had zero luck with 2 full points in lockpicking and 12 dex using the lockpicks you mentioned. jamm, jamm, jamm, jamm....doh! :-(

 

Two full points as in your meter went up or two full points as in you went from novice to expert?

 

as in I spent two skill points to raise lock picking from zero to 2 and went and got apprentice training from the blacksmith. No luck with the lock though.

I even tried dynamiting the gate. the stick of dynamite knocked a paltry 7 points off of the gates durability out of a total of 500 and attempts to simply bash it down don't have any effect whatsoever.

I guess spot won't be joining my group any time soon. There *was* a shovel lying somewhere else in the cave, is it possible that chris means for the player to somehow dig underneath the gate or something?

 

It seems that I kept getting lucky with that gate. Two to three points towards lockpicking and thirteen dex always let me in - after some effort.
If the gate jams - come back tomorrow or just reload.
As for the shovel - there's no use for it anywhere close by, but it does keep you from having to buy one if you do Stringy Pete before going to Caladon.

 

can you confirm that you were able to unlock it using 13 dex and 2 points of lockpicking?

I don't have any illumination yet, and it is dark down there. does that make much difference?

 

If you have a fate point, and you REALLY want Spot, then just spend the fate point to give you a critical success at lockpicking.

 

yeah, that's what Im trying to decide on.

 

I can't believe I didn;t read that part before! Yeah, if your character can't see what they're doing, you'll almost always fail. There's a slight chance that you'll get it to work, but, most of the time, the chance is negligable. Get yourself either a lamp or a lightbulb and then have at the lock.

 

THanks!

I think I would have been stuck trying to puzzle outthat gate for a long long time without a light source. When I finally returned with a lamp I was able to get the thing unlocked without a fate point for the first time.

I also observed something interesting. Even though it didn't seem to work without light it also wasn't working however many tries I gave it until I had 12 dex and a lockpicking skill raised to 3. However when I trained to that exact point I was able to unlock it the first time every time, no matter how I reloaded and reapproached the lock, even switching to a different save gmae with a different character gave the same result!

I wonder if CB has managed to take the luck factor out of lockpicking? Maybe lockpicking now *always* works when your skill and lighting is sufficient and then *always* fails when either your skill or lighting is insufficient?

 

Zebulin, I owe you a bit of an apology - Sunday I fired up the game for the first time in three months and ran into the same problem you were having. As it turns out, I cheated. With almost every game I played, I'd use the character editor and give myself a couple of fate points. That's how I was always able to get in.

Sorry for the bad advice.

 

hrmm, just now i tried using the editor and although it seemed to allow me to give myself a fate point, when I reloaded the fate points were unchanged. Is it possible my editor is too old for polished car arcanum? The editor is something I downloaded a couple years ago wehn I first bought and played the (vanilla) game.