Bay 12 Games Forum

Cheers. I'll PM you my ACTUAL email address, so you can chuck it there. I've used Notepad++ a bit, but this'll be great.

I don't even know what email I used on your site. Sambojin Bojin-Sam my arse

Sounds good. I always wanted to write a script. And to think I had delusions of taking it to Hollywood.

At least this'll be a better story

Basic ideas for it. Could you tell me if any of this seems impossible currently?

New map, small randomised military base complex with a nice firing field somewhere. One building per map tile, a few weapon emplacements. A full squad (10) marines. Daemons enter from open field areas. Stupid goddamned daemons. Easy. Maybe some infiltrators in the base areas as well. Skulls/imps most likely.

Weapons: some as per normal or previously seen in other scenarios with stats tweaked. The shotgun and the BFG are the only ones I can see as remotely different from conventional Xcom style weapons.
BFG=mini handheld plasma nuke.
Shotgun=extended blast similar to plasma style, short range, different (black, small) particles, no projectile particle, no burn patch, crappy vs armour.
Shouldn't be too hard.

Armour: simple green, blue, red armours, stealing DoomRLs resistance scheme.

Enemies: Lots of enemies, several waves, finishing with a pair of bruiser brothers. Random enough to keep you guessing. The enemies will be easy to mod in, they'll just have to be tweaked for balance (although, this is a !!Fun!! scenario anyway).

The basic idea is to lose, but to put your score into positives by the amount of enemies you kill. Might have to put in knockback on a few weapons to keep daemon/skull waves back a bit. Mars will fall, but what a beautiful, bloody state you leave it in. The red planet indeed.

I'm keeping this one simple as my first mod, just to check on how hard it will be to put together. More advanced scripting etc can come later. Scaredy-cat scientists running from daemons, a base self-destruct that got auto-engaged, stuff like that. I'll have a go at a quick Syndicate mod to see how things like psi-mind-control (persuadotron) and augmentations/combat boosters work. (cybernetics/combat drugs: accuracy, TUs, something for brain). Those happy-killy combat drugs.......... Damn hippies.

It depends on what class/god combo and their mechanics on exactly what and how much you want to pick up. Some classes (dweomer-caster and elementalist) get a heap of free spell levels as they go up in level anyway, so you can pick up pretty much whatever you want. Worshippers of Azmodan also get free spell levels (especially priests), so you can afford to spread yourself around a bit, just boosting the spells you always use with Scrolls of Azmodan.

For everyone else, the advice in the previous post holds true. Between one and three main attacking spells, all of different elements, and a bunch of level 1 utility spells. Plus a summoning spell, although you don't necessarily have to level that one if you don't want to, it's handy at level 1 (especially empowered) just for the early meat-shields.

Most classes do get some free spell levels on their default attack spell (mostly up to level 10), which gives you reasonable chances of finding more power-ups for it no matter how jumbled your mix is. Less spells is better though, better chances to level what you want, plus you'll probably never use half of them anyway.

Best spells (IMHO):
Attack: Chain Lightning, Vaporize, Glass Spray, Ice Shards, Stoning, Shockwave.
Utility: Malediction, Haste, Healing Water/Remedy, Wind Walking, Invisibility.
Summoning: Conjure Elemental Servant (they're all good, but Fire is the handiest. More light and free Vaporize artillery), Summon Avatar of Darkness (yay regenning bone dragons), Summon Disciple of Light (healing, free crusades, teleporting unicorns).

The two best summons are actually Call Familiar and Call Hero, but they're pretty random on what you get. Familiars might seem hopeless at first, but no matter what you get, they're great. Give/buy them healing water with some spell regen for it and you'll always have a heal-bot on hand for when you need it (assuming you regen the familiar spell). Then dump all that crap that you'll never use onto them and be happy that it didn't all go to waste. I prefer my familiar or summons to do most of the heavy lifting in the healing/dispelling/enchanting department, so I can get on with killing stuff. Plus, sometimes the RNG gifts you something awesome as a familiar. Sometimes.

Oh, and try a Halfling Treasure-Hunter of Shaco some time. Every power-up is worth it's weight in gold. It makes the game feel very different (limited everything except run speed). Use haste, turn run on, and pray you find something good before your glass spray runs out. Lots of Fun in the new versions, and a fair bit easier than before. Shaco is better percentage-wise than Karma for item drops (200%x2 instead of 300%) and way better for spells, but Karma would probably give better items when they do drop.

If it's not too difficult to release some of the data in an easy to mod format, that would be great. I'd even say that I'd attempt to muck around enough with it that I could document it a little. Even if it's all WIP stuff, it gives people ideas for that horribly long list of features that they want for the engine (that has nothing to do with Xcom, just with coolness).

So yeah, anything that's easy to release that we can break nicely sounds good to me. But it might be worthwhile just keeping the tech demos nice and easy and not-easily-modifiable for now, if only for your sanity and not having to answer too many questions. I'm cool with choppy-hacky-hex-edity mods for now. But if you want to give us a bit to work with, I'll do some documentation (even if it's redundant in the long-run), but it might be better closer to game-time rather than tech-demo time.

15.03 is out, so grab it while it's hot. Bugfix release for the after-AARP "I guess I'll fix it" section, that happens with pretty much all roguelikes. Some exploity item sorting algorithm bug that I never knew even existed. Pity, I could have used some help in Triangle Wizard.

Anyway, give it a go. And jump on the game's site, the developer loves suggestions. It's one of those wonderful games where your input actually does end up in the game if it's a cool idea. Plus it gets updated pretty reguarly, so it will probably end up in there quite soon.

If you haven't played Triangle Wizard yet, you haven't seen just what roguelikes can be.

Yeah, NWN had the most amazing modding and DM'ing abilities. For a game that is currently cheap-as-chips, I still recommend getting it due to the massive amount of free content available for it.

I'm pretty sure there's still some multiplayer servers running with semi-active DMs about, which is pretty impressive considering the age of the game. The engine is a bit clunky, but so very well thought out for long term use.

I hope BG:EE comes out pretty soon. I was going to get it as a birthday present for myself. :-(
So I quit my shitty job instead, which made me pretty happy anyway. Now I've got so much free time on my hands, I'll be able to play some games again :-)