Battles With Issues

Wonderful. :bored:

Senshock is a total f-up btw, lol. I'm beginning to think there was wisdom in Troika making 90% of all opponents in ToEE tripping bugbears (a simple strategy that works). Most of their AI is really crap. :no: Who's game for replacing all casters with tripping bugbears?! C'mon, it'll be fun!

 

@sirchet, I wouldn't worry about reactivating ... nothing there should affect scripts. Obviously something is wrong with my 'failsafe' lol. You were not way out of the battle area when Cuthbert failed to show?

 

Okay, in that case it actually sounds like it's working as it should, provided that by the time the fourth round came around you were out of range of Hedrack. The big round room in the rear certainly qualifies as out of range. However, any time you get back in range of Hedrack, Cuthbert should appear on Iuz's turn. "In range of Hedrack" is probably not terribly far, really - it's just a call to the 'find_npc_near' function.

This is what I said about that in the other thread:

 

I'll put that on the backburner, thanks.

~

Well I'm slowly beating Senshock into submission. Hopefully soon he will just give up and do what I want him to.

 

Update 8 on SBD:

• Finally got Senshock wrapped. He runs through a fairly deadly full 16 spell slate - along with 5 foot steps et al - without going belly up. Amazing the kind of effort this requires.

Now I have to see what his problem is with using potions. :blegh:

 

Well it may be a bit of a different experience down the line after the NC move is all completed and you're running on a bunch less XP than you're used to, combined with Senshock's tuneup. At least I hope so.

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Update 9 on SBD:

• Shocky made a brief gasp and resisted one last time on finishing his spells but I shut him up by adding yet another strategy to his repertoire. He seems to run through it all reliably now.
• Shocky Will. Not. enjoy healing potions with any consistency. I have no effing clue what the deal is there - particularly why one mob should act differently than another in that regard - but it's just plain so, so unfortunately he will not be healing himself. Bugbears, yes - all day long. Shocky, no.
• I discovered that the intraplanar elementals are actually all that way when not summoned. e.g., the elementals in the nodes can't be dismissed. Is that actually RAW or something? At any rate, I was thinking of just getting rid of Shocky's but now the point seems moot, so they are staying, stubbornly dismissal-free.

Senshock has all kinds of problems with his Lesser Globe. If cast near the start or in the middle of his routine, it prohibits some but not all (of course not all - fool!) level 1 - 3 spells from working. If cast at the end of his routine, he doesn't want to cast it at all. He doesn't mind casting it from a new strategy though after all his other spells are done from his main strategy. He won't do it as a part of his main strategy at the end despite the fact that he has acquired his target (himself) and is not otherwise bothered. No matter, it's a no go. "F*ck that," Senshock says. Anyway, while it might seem that LGI would be a good choice early on, we can't really do that unless we front-load all his lower level spells, which is a little silly. "Who dares disturb me?! I am Senshock, Lord High Wizard guy of the Temple and if you piss me off I'll zap you with a magic missile, followed by a case of the giggles! I may even make myself invisible! Nevermind my insta-death spells just yet!"

As for Shocky's potions, I'm just baffled. He will often chug one, or none, and then refuse any others as long as he's scripted to be on the 'fix yourself' strategy, but he will magically switch to an attack strategy even though there are no attack commands anywhere in any of his strategies, and then just as magically switch back to the correct strategy. I swear, it boggles the mind. :dizzy: Anyway, to hell with it, let him suffer.

 

Well I guess we'll just have to live with that bug, as it seems to be an internal issue. As I said up the thread, flagging them as extraplanar doesn't make them extraplanar. And we can't really get rid of all the mobbed in elementals in ToEE.

[edit]

Update 10 on SBD:

• Ironed out a couple lingering issues with Barkinar where he would stay on his healing strategy even after he was healed and had a targeting issue.

I notice now that bugbears won't chug potions if they're in a silenced area. Is that RAW? I thought that potions lacked an audible element. Anyway, now it's time to test SBD all rolling together by day in Shocky's chambers, where no one dare enter and disturb.

 

Update 11 on SBD:

• SBD work together swimmingly, as far as I can tell (during those long days of plotting evil when the party visits them all together in Senshock's chambers).
• At night, when Barkinar and Deggum are alone together (sounds romantic, lol), Senshock will come to their aid in battle. And vice-versa for Senshock - Barkinar and Deggum will rush in.
• Senshock will also come to the aid of Hedrack and company. But Barkinar and Deggum won't. (This is sort of module-ish, where it's indicated that Senshock will likely show up wherever there's trouble. We don't want to do it willy-nilly though, so random bugbear encounter x will not feature Senshock.)
• Made it so that Senshock does the auto-greet dialogue if he and Barkinar and Deggum are all in the room together. (I'm assuming that Senshock outranks Barkinar.) Barkinar auto-greets if he is alone with Deggum. Deggum never auto-greets. It used to be that Barkinar would always jump the gun if he and Deggum and Senshock were together, but that seemed goofy as he should defer to Senshock.
• Added controls for heartbeat auto-buffing for above so that they only start in with that after a party member is in their vicinity. This had been problematic in that they would often start with it when you were nowhere near and the spells would wear off.

I also want to get Senshock's elementals and quasits to go KOS if Senshock is not there (like if he assisted someone else and either got killed or teleported out), but for now they don't want to cooperate.

After that it's just bulletproofing their dialogue nodes.

~

Update 1 on HIC (Hedrack, Iuz, Cuthbert):

• Overhauled the Temple mages' spells, strategies, and buffing routines. They are now primarily damage casters who focus on single targets, due to the likelihood that the battle gets spread out. The two also have nominally different spell progressions so they are not exact twins. They will also use healing potions appropriately.
• Overhauled Hedrack's spells, strategy, and buffing routine. He's much smarter now, I think. He's similiar to Senshock in level and capability, only minus all the issues associated with Senshock. I basically overhauled him in an evening and he cooperated fully.
• Added controls for heartbeat auto-buffing for above so that they only start in with that after a party member is in their vicinity.

Still have to script Hedrack's self and friend healing routine, but that should be fairly straightforward. Then also his dialogue nodes.