RELEASE: Circle of Eight Mod Pack 3.0.0

6o1...

either solution would work. there are less npc's than there are items, so if it's me doing the mods, i vote for modifying the share field in the protos.tab.

 

That would work. It might be easier still (might, I can't say for sure,) to edit the rules governming NPC looting, and tell them all that items are off limits.

 

er, yeah... that's what the share field does; tell's npc's what they can and can't loot.

 

Oh...

But I thought you had to recode every NPC...

I was figuring that there was a set number of 'templates' defining looting behavior, and each NPC referenced it's own template; ergo changing the template they all already reference to get their looting would be easier than pointing them ALL to a different template...


But that's not how it works, is it? They all have their own individual instructions. Doh, hehe.

 

yup. that's how it works. each has their own entry in the share field to control looting behavior. same for items and the npc pickup flag. hence my preference for modding the npc's instead of items.

 

Hehehe, okay, okay.

 

Unless I'm very much mistaken the looting was already fixed in an older version of the Co8 mod. It was in version 1.10 where in protos.tab the hirelings share amount was set to half money share. Why was it taken out? Why dont use the protos.tab from this version?

Because I was not sure what has changed since then I changed the protos.tab from the 303 beta and set all NPC's to half money share. I did a few tests so far and cant find any bugs.
If you want I can send you the modded protos.tab.

 

@Xiskio:
Indeed. It was taken out because Troika claimed they had fixed looting and we felt that having this modification on top of their fixes was unnecessary. JHunz and Exitium didn't have much time to recheck whether looting was really Ok and so took out the changes when Troika announced the fix list for the 1st official patch.

They have discussed the thread in more detail here:
http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=668

At any rate, putting it back in is not difficult at all. I just feel that NPCs used to loot everything and now we are already limiting them to only gold and jewelry with Shin's fix (putting OIF_NO_NPC_PICKUP flag on items) so further limiting them to half money share would be quite restrictive.
It would also eliminate certain advantages between NPCs such as Elmo who already starts by looting only half money share.

However if that's what most people want, I will abide by the decision of the majority.

 

When I played RPG where I had a party, one of the Chars always was the imaginative leader of the party.
This leader was by my mind the person who was responsible for the loot and how it is to distribute between the chars.
And the leader is always incorporated by ... myself (who would have imagined that ).

It is fine if an NPC takes his moneyshare without asking the leader of the party, but all other things should be distributed by the party leader.

This could be further improved if it would lead to discussions between the party members during the loot distribution if some feel they should have get more or better things. But I dont think that something like that can be implemented/modded into ToEE.

Said that I think it will be great if the hirelings can get a different amount of money share, depending on their greed, value or whatever, but nothing more. The rest is distributed by the party leader, e.g. the player.
I think this is not only easier to live with, it too sound realistic for me.

Have fun
Xiskio

 

What you say is very true for many PnP games for actual loot distribution. However we are quite restricted here because the looting column can only take on certain fixed values. Additional values may need an exe change.

These fixed values are:
normal
half_share_money_only
all_arcane_scrolls_nothing_else
one_third_of_all
one_fifth_of_all
nothing

As you can see there's not much to choose from.

 

It appears that there are some undocumented changes when I used Fred/Shin/rex_blade file as template for v3.0.0.

They are mostly minor tweaks/quirks but I think people should be aware of them in case queries arise regarding these issues. The only one I find objectionable is Spugnoir's addition of 3 craft feats in protos.tab. The rest of them are:

1)Addition of some odd weapons in the tutorial (character's inventory). One blade (Egyptian sword) gives a peculiar image on top of the bearer like a dancing blade. Checked through the tutorial thrice and made sure these do not crash the game upon use. Could have potential as a modded item though... (hint, hint)

2)Meleny's Wis changed from 14 to 15. This enables her to use Druid level 5 spells which was a gripe among a few players. Admittedly Troika may have wanted this to be strictly 14 but I think for the sake of fun, we should consider keeping the change.

3)Meleny's looting parameter changed from normal looting to looting arcane scrolls only.

Anyway, we should keep these in mind for the next patch update if most of us think that further correction is needed.

 

ouch! meleny loots arcane scrolls?? er, she is a druid type yes? at least with spuggy looting scrolls he could make copies.

 

ya know, i see a problem occuring whereupon it is easy to change the protos.tab file, but not so easy to distribute those changes without overwriting the original protos file.

was anyone working on an "installer" before to insert modified field data into protos?

 

I've never handled installers before. For the main mod pack Exitium used to tackle this previously but I think he has his mind on other things nowadays.
As for a more specific tool that would allow different versions, I wonder if RufusAtticus's toeepatch.pl is what you are looking for. Haven't really tried it yet but you may want to give it a whirl to see how it goes:
http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=137

ToeePatch.pl and ToeeExtract.pl:
http://www.co8.org/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=3450

 

....so.....does that mean we're getting that looting patch then..?