Need testers: More than 5 PCs patch

Hi all,

I have a new version of the PC-count patcher ready for test. I'd like those of you who like to play this way (and know the ins and outs, especially of having the game crash under these circumstances) to give it a try before I upload to the board.

Like before, this one allows you to choose between 1 and 8 PCs in the game. But this one will auto-adjust the NPC count down so that the total max party size is only 8. It also *patches the followers_at_max() call* so the scripts that try to add NPCs won't fail and cause a crash.

Please PM me if you want to test, INCLUDE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS, and we'll handle things through there. I'll update this thread once the new utility has been tested as is ready for release.

-- dulcaoin

 

I've been asked a couple times in PM whether the patch requires a game restart (starting over with a new party).

It does and it doesn't.

Here is what the patch does:

It reads in the value check made by the "add_pc_to_party" routine (this is the byte discovered by spOOL originally). It allows you to change this read value to anything between 1 and 8. At the same time, it keeps track of a count of NPCs allowed, and makes sure the two always equal 8 (in other words, if your value is x, the second count is kept as 8 - x)

When the patch is written out, that byte is adjusted to whatever you chose (x), and the byte used in a compare in the "add_npc_to_party" routine is adjusted to be 8 - x.

In addition, the byte used in the call for "followers_at_max" is adjusted to that same npc count (it starts at 3 in the released game).

What that means is, once you've made the patch, you can't add more PCs than you've specified in the patch. If you already have more, the patch won't affect that, but once you go below x, you can't go back above it again.

The same goes with NPCs. If you already have more than 8 - x, the patch won't do anything about it, it just won't let you add more (it also wouldn't tell the game scripts that there is room for more).

My suggestion is to either start a fresh new game, or, if you're going to try patching and then restoring a save game, to adjust your PC and NPC counts down to the values you plan to set (or lower), and then save a "test" save to work with, then patch, and then try to load from there.

Experimentation is encouraged, of course. The better tested this is, the better the image will be in the long run of a solid patch. So doing "weird" things MAY help. Or it may create complicated conditions that I can't reproduce. Let's hope for more of the former over the latter.

-- dulcaoin

 

One more point of clarification:

This patcher does all the same things my original did; all this new one tries to do (so far) is block the game crash that can happen when NPC's are "forced" into your party by the game scripts. If I'm REALLY lucky, then the party_pool crash won't happen either. But that's what the testing part is for... (to figure that sort of detail out).

-- dulcaoin

 

Sounds good D-

Hit me when you're ready, I'll test it.

 

ok i got your pather and extracted it to the main folder and tried it. now it let me change the pc count to what ever i want but the npc count is still 3. isnt that suppose to change too?

never mind i got that to change after changing the pc count again. but when i clicked on the patch button i get an error

access violation at address 006C6C64. read of address 006C6C64.

im not sure what that means but ill try loading a 6 member party and see if it still works.

 

ok everything so far has worked fine. im using a game i had started just before this and no problems. still get that error when i use the patcher but it all seems to be working no matter how many pc's or npc's i use

 

Totally stable when attempting to recruit NPCs over max number (so far any way) = top modding!

Same access violation as already reported.

CTD (no error message) when attempting to use the party management book in Hommlet inn and Nulb. (Party size=8, not tested with other party sizes yet).

edit: just a thought, a warning to reset the count patch if you change your mind about NPCs is probably needed. If you set party to 8, and then use only 5 PCs you cannot then recruit any NPCs whatsoever.

 

Will test, but I think it will work as intended for that (I tested the old version a lot using 6 and it was fine in this regard). Just thought a warning for idiots like me to reset for a new game might stop a few "WTF - it's broken" posts.

 

I've been using 6 pc and Elmo and Fruella for a long time and I've not had a bit of a problem. A nice thing about Elmo is you can drop him off at the Inn and go recruit someone else . If you watch what your doing it works good as is. Don't forget to let the other npc go when you go back to get Elmo.

 

No, you couldn't. I patch that location now. There are three locations I patch: the check for over-the-pc-limit (as released, 5), the over-the-npc-limit (released: 3), and the followers-at-max() value (3, no it's not the same check).

There is another one for the limit of number of followers too. I don't mess with that one (currently, evil grin).

BTW, the "crash" you guys saw IS harmless. I'm trying to do a "double-free" of memory. At least, I was. That's fixed now.

-- dulcaoin

P.S. sorry, this probably belongs in the modding forum

 

So, if I were to set the number of PCs in my party to eight, but only have six, I cannot get any NPCs, correct? It would be so much simpler if they had just coded for a total of eight characters at any one time and let the player decide how many PCs they wanted to adventure with!

 

BINGO! I agree one hundred percent.

 

I was playing with my six PC party, which has the number of PCs set to eight, and I had no trouble getting Meleny to marry my Paladin and join up! :-D