Soloing thief character build?

I've been working on it, just don't know 1. where Arcanum quality crossbow graphics are 2. don't know EXACTLY how to add them to a .dat file.

 

A ninja-to is a ninja shortword. It's a striaghtblade, sometimes two-edged, somewhat similar to a wakizashi. It would do shortsword damage. What's cool about it is the hilt and scabbard. Both usually have compartments for poison and other nasty stuff (you could even add a poison blade for arcanum). Also, the scabbard usually doubles as a blowgun.

I'd say blowgun would be archery, bascially because firearms add to tech and blowguns aren't exactly high-tech. Constitution (lung capacity) could give the damage bonus.

For concealed weapons, you don't actually have to do anything crazy. You could just have the element of surprise give an automatic backstab bonus to the weapon. Like one of those belt-buckle blades. They think you are unarmed, then *snick*.

I always thought the scissors katana was kind of cheesy, but hey, your mod, cap'n!

 

Well, modlistically, you could equip a weapon, have it give a backstab bonus, or a trigger that automatically triggers the backstab script, or hell both if you want to be a devious little sob, then edit the graphics so that when you enter combat mode you look unarmed. Attcking would look the same as normal.

Of course this backstab bonus could only happen once per combat. Maybe upon entering combat mode you get a counter, if counter is set you get the bonus script to trigger on attack, when the script triggers the counter resets. Of course you could abuse this if you found a way to get in and out of combat mode during a single battle. But I think there is something that prevents exiting combat mode if an enemy is too close, so it should work.

 

Actually, I've given this a lot of thought while I've been in a forced offline state due to a little boobytrap I found in a file. :x

I've come up with several ways to make hidden weapons work effectively by using scripts triggered by entering combat mode which would then transform them from what appear to be harmless things like normal leather gloves on an otherwise unarmed thief to some really nasty glove-weapons. I've come up with a few other tricks, but I don't want to give away all my secrets in here because then there wouldn't be any surprises. Still, the combat mode trigger for the enablement of the concealed weapon is, as Blinky observed, the key to making any type of concealed weapon work.

Thanks for the info on the ninja-to, labyrinthian. I had never heard of that one before, although I am familiar with a wakizashi. If you have any pics of one, I would appreciate it if you would share them with me so I can implement it. Sounds like a good weapon to add. As for the scissors katana, I was asking for your opinion and that's what I wanted, so thanks. 8) I'll think on the blowgun, too, but if you have any pics you would like to see used for that, I could use them as well. :thumbup:

Blinky, the Arcanum graphics files are mostly in Arcanum1.dat and Arcanum2.dat, but you need a program that will convert them to an editable format and then back again. Chris uses Art2BMP and BMP2ART, but I have yet to get the latter program to convert ANY file to a useable ART file for me. :thumbdown: In a couple of months, when I can build another computer, I plan to finish my own ART file convertor program and I'll be making the beta version available for testing to anyone who's interested. :roll: Unfortunately, I'm on hold until I have a separate computer for programming because VS .Net doesn't play well with mIRC and I run mIRC 24/7, so the programming will have to wait because my anime is important to me.

jankiel, in the time-frame for Arcanum crossbows should have been invented, so I will probably be adding them. Don't be surprised if there is more than one form or if there are a few new forms of ammo for crossbows and bows.

I welcome any and all feedback and suggestions, but I may or may not use them depending on whether I have the time or just plain don't care for the particular suggestion. I won't implement anything that is rude or obscene or otherwise likely to be seen as offensive. I WILL give credit to anyone who supplies me with prototypes or pics plus specs and use the names you give in those cases, if I include them in my mod.

 

Well, actually the graphics are the only thing holding me back from making a prototype. So if you don't mind your crossbow looking like a shotgun, I could make it in like 5 minutes.

I have Art2Bmp and Bmp2Art, that isn't my question. This is.

After I get the files out of the dat, do any converting, edit them, convert them back, how do I implement them? How do I get my edited art files into the arcanum1 dat so the game uses them? Or do I just do a description.mes thing and keep them on the outside.

 

Actually, no other civilization except the European one came up with a crossbow idea. Neither the Chinese nor the Atztecs had crossbows. So, even though Arcanum is a Europe-like civilization, it is not at all necessery for them to be familiar with crossbows.

 

A good pick of a ninja-to with scabbard is here:

http://ninjutsu.webcindario.com/gifs/armas/Ninjato.gif

BTW, they also often keep blinding dust in the hilt.

Also, ninjas used modified tanto (dagger) scabbards that actually concealed one-shot guns, kind of like Penguin and his umbrella. That would be another way to do concealed weapons. Ranged weapons that look melee, or the other way around.

 

Since you are dealing with items, you would have to deal with them in one of a couple of different ways. If you want to add them to the original dat files, you are going to have to add them to Arcanum2.dat, but it's not as simple as just adding the ART file to that dat file. There are some mes files that need to have entries added to them, as well. You can also add them to a new dat file, like Chris has done with Hard Arcanum and like I will be doing for my mod, but you still have to make those mes file entries. If these are totally new items, you will need to add entries to item_inven.mes from Arcanum2.dat for each ART file, but if they are not using one of the standard ground images, you will also need to add an entry to item_ground.mes to tell it where to find that image.

This discussion really belongs in the modding forum, Blinky, but I'm glad if this helps you out. What you have to do is do what I did and totally extract those dat files and then take a look at them sorted by file type to find what is there besides ART files. That's how you can find the mes files you need to make entries in and then you just peek at each one to see what type of entries they have. It takes a bit of hard drive space, but if you're serious about modding, it's worth it. I'm currently putting all of that on CD-R so I have it available whenever I need it for reference without tieing up my hard drive space.

 

Thanks for the link, labyrinthian, and all the helpful info and suggestions.

As for your comment, Solaris, since Arcanum is specifically based on Victorian England and a series of stories written during that time period, I think it is safe to assume that crossbows were invented. If you are not familiar with the original stories, I am, although I am not so old as to have been around when they were published. :lol: They came out around the same time as the Sherlock Holmes stories and were very strongly rooted in the Victorian English society. In fact, if you take a close look at the non-human races, you will find that many of them are modeled after some of the cultures that the British Empire was dealing with at that time in history and many of the attitudes displayed in Arcanum are typical of the British attitudes toward non-Brits during that time. I'll be generous and not make any observations on current British attitudes, but their attitudes of the past are a fact and well documented by historical observations, along with the consequences of many of those attitudes. Sigh. :/ Please forgive the sidetrack, but I couldn't restrain myself.

 

OK try this one.

http://cnfsa.com/imagesweapons/ninja_to.jpg

 

Hey, it stemmed from a question the was supposed to be here, and unless the mods want to move it, I see no problem.

You're delving too far into my question. I know how to edit items, I know what I need to add. I just don't know how to compile them into a dat. Or if that's the wrong way to do it and if it would be easier to just inplement them through a sub folder, like the mes files I'm sure you have in your Sierra/Arcanum/mes directory

 

To put them in a dat, use the Troika dat utility. I'm not sure if you can implement art through a subfolder, but you can always try it and see if it works by creating an art directory under your Sierra\Arcanum\data directory like you should have done for anything like the inventory hack or for implementing new backgrounds. All of those require both a \mes folder and a \Rules folder in that directory. I wasn't trying to give you a hard time about it though, that's why the smiley face after the comment.

 

Nope, I am indeed not familiar with the original stories. Could you please enlighten me, so I could search for them?

 

I didn't say you were giving me a hard time, you were just answering far more than I asked, so much so that I didn't know where the answer I wanted was. Well, you did give everyone else a crash course in hacking, and you did answer my question, so thanks a bunch. Is the link to Troika's tool on this site?

Another general question, does anyone know where I could get crossbow graphics? I lucked out and found a killer sword site, but I've struck out in terms of crossbows.

 

http://coolgadget.net/crosandbowre.html

Here ya go.

 

Blinky, since the main page is down while DU works on it, I think you'll have to get the Troika dat utility from an alternate site, so try this one: http://www.rpgplanet.com/arcanum/tinkerer/tinkerer.shtml#undat2
If that link doesn't work for you, send me a PM with your email and I'll send you a copy.

Oh, BTW, Blinky, would you mind sharing the link to your sword site?

Solaris, if you notice one of the opening screens actually has a picture from the cover of the stories which were called Tales of Arcanum, IIRC. They were all centered around the adventures of Perriman Smythe and were loosely based on the British Empire, with a lot of tongue-in-cheek satire that was somewhat popular at the time as a way for commenting on the government if you didn't want to wind up in prison or worse. :roll: The Brits were never all that big on freedom of speech, no matter what they may say, so if a writer wanted to be critical he generally did it through satirical fiction. In this case, the writer also produced some pretty good adventure tales that went over quite well. These stories were published about the same time as the Sherlock Holmes stories and were about the same quality, I believe. Someone at Troika evidently was familiar with them and decided they were good enough to make into a game. You might want to check out your local library if you live in a decent size city because they will probably have them in a bound format available for viewing, although they will most likely be a reproduction of the originals like most of the Sherlock Holmes stories you find today. Afterall, it's been over 100 years since those stories were published in their original form and they were printed on cheap newsprint back then, so any that have survived are very rare and valuable by now. Hope that answers your question, Solaris.

 

Well, I can look now, it has been a good while since I found it, I downloaded all their swords so long ago. Ah, here it is, Phantasy Swords.

http://www.phantasyswords.com/main.htm

Some very beautiful swords, although, and I do have to find something to complain about, they need a little tweaking to get a nice equipped graphic.

 

Thanks for the link, Blinky. Hope I finally cut my explanations down to what you needed to know.

 

Crossbows in Arcanum ?

I am not sure that you can add them .

Will the graphicks on screen seem correct or they will look like a regular bow ?

And i do not mean on the inventory but on the character avatar.

 

I might have to add some more sprites to make them look good on the character avatars, but if I add them to my new mod I'm going to be doing a lot of that anyway. As far as I know, Chris, unless you use one of the rifle representations for the crossbow as it is used by the avatar, it won't look anything close to right on the current sprites, but a crossbow is basically a bow mounted on a rifle or pistol stock. So, you have a good point, but it can be dealt with.