Does anyone knows (questions about modding) ?

[FfuzzyLogik]

Hello ! Thanks for your answers !

So basically as "effect" Confuse, War Cry, Calm, Brandish & Blow Horn does the exact same right : if they succeed, they make ennemy "fear" = flee the party members. I thought "calm" just made them "not offensive", not flee the party. But at the end, its quite the same as they will no longer serach to go find the group to kill them. I'd say I haven't used these that much but when you're cornered, its pretty effective !

You know which one is the "more effective" ? I mean for the same level/rank, which one have the greater chance of fearing and the less chance ? And is the "stronger" the one who have the higher duration ?

Nice to know for action n°3 and window. I can use the spots to make new item types so.
I used n°14 and n°18 (nothing to do with any war) because they were not affected to any weapon in game. Its very nice to be able to add new "item types". Thanks !

I'm desperately trying to add "more useful spells" to cast as "invisibility", "footprints" & "See through walls" have veeeeeeerry niche use...

I added "Make Ful bomb" in the spell list (replacing the light "bis"). The program intended to le you make other potions, just had to point witch one with ADGE and voila ! I just struggle to make a monster gives "flasks" to get party have "enough flasks" to be able to make some of them... You already could make Ven potions with caution because of that. But I fear ADGE have problems to replace items loot (probably a category problem ?)

So I hoped it could be a way to do the same for "antimagic aura". As an action let you "cast the spell", it could be a way to "make a spell" action do the same than the item with a "switch" in spell table. Samely I hoped to make a weapon to be able to cast "Armour shield". If it can be done its nice, it might not be possible aswell...

Does any of the Kath, Pew or Ra bomb does anything ? And the Mon, Um, Des, Sar, Zo potions ? I tested but not all of them.
As I'm sure I can add a "replacement spell" who makes one of them, if there is a way to make one of them "work" or do something, I'd have a new priest spell.

Again² thanks for your answer dear Encyclopedist !

[ChristopheF]

Confuse, War Cry, Calm, Brandish & Blow Horn have no associated duration. They immediately either succeed or fail to make the creature flee. Then the creature behavior code decides whether creatures continue to flee or not (for example if you keep attacking a fleeing creature, it might decide to fight back again).
Here is a ReDMCSB source code snippet with the values for each action.
The creature is tested against the fright amount of each action + the champion's level in skill #14 Influence.
Note that the experience amounts below are added to skill #14 Influence, in addition to the experience gain associated with each action and listed on http://dmweb.free.fr/community/document ... nd-combos/

Code: Select all

                case C008_ACTION_WAR_CRY:
                        L1229_ui_FrightAmount = 3;
                        L1231_ui_Experience = 12; /* War Cry gives experience in priest skill C14_SKILL_INFLUENCE below. The War Cry action also has an experience gain of 7 defined in G0497_auc_Graphic560_ActionExperienceGain in the same skill (versions 1.1 and below) or in the fighter skill C07_SKILL_PARRY (versions 1.2 and above). In versions 1.2 and above, this is the only action that gives experience in two skills */
                        break;
                case C037_ACTION_CALM:
                        L1229_ui_FrightAmount = 7;
                        L1231_ui_Experience = 35;
                        break;
                case C041_ACTION_BRANDISH:
                        L1229_ui_FrightAmount = 6;
                        L1231_ui_Experience = 30;
                        break;
                case C004_ACTION_BLOW_HORN:
                        L1229_ui_FrightAmount = 6;
                        L1231_ui_Experience = 20;
                        break;
                case C022_ACTION_CONFUSE:
                        L1229_ui_FrightAmount = 12;
                        L1231_ui_Experience = 45;
        L1229_ui_FrightAmount += F0303_CHAMPION_GetSkillLevel(P0769_i_ChampionIndex, C14_SKILL_INFLUENCE);

Kath, Pew or Ra bomb and Mon, Um, Des, Sar, Zo potions do absolutely nothing.

[FfuzzyLogik]

So in case of sucess, they do all the same or the "Fright amount" changes how far a creature will flee ?
If so in a way its a kind of duration if they flee more far.
If not, is the value a kind of "power" for "comparison" to check if it suceeds ? Compared with creature "bravery" or modulo a "randomizer" to get a "chance" of success or failure ?

In this second case, Confuse is stronger (12) than Calm (7) than Blow horn & Brandish (6) than War cry (3). I'm surprised because Brandish is a Firestaff effect and Confuse a Staff of Claws' one. But It uses charges for the second and not Firestaff right ?

Well thanks again²² !

[ChristopheF]

Second case: the fright amount is tested against the creature's bravery (= fear resistance) in the following way:

If creature fear resistance > (random value between 0 and fright amount) or if creature fear resistance = 15 (= immune) then the experience is halved (the experience added immediately, before the action experience gain which remains unaffected) and the creature is not frightened.
Otherwise, the creature starts fleeing from the party for a delay of ((16 - creature fear resistance) * 4) / creature movement ticks (a value defining the speed of the creature)

[FfuzzyLogik]

Sweet to know !
I heared about ppl who made Lord Chaos' fear. But according to your last sentence, only the Confuse ability should be able to work as his bravery is 10. So randomize anything between 0-7 cannot work. Confuse can work for 10-11-12 so 3/13 of times.

But I'm quite surprised ; the only creature with 3 is Rusters (and 0 for Gigglers)... Ant mens have 4 and Oitu have 6.
If you randomize 0-6 with lets say Blow horn, you have 1/6 chances to make fear an Oitu.

But you definitively can "war cry" some creatures in the game, no ? Here War cry shall be able to work only on Rusters (and Gigglers bu who may try to fear a leaver )... Is there something missing ? Maybe a bonus if you have some "skill" level in that ability ?

Have a good day !

[ChristopheF]

Read again.
The creature is tested against the fright amount of each action + the champion's level in skill #14 Influence.

[FfuzzyLogik]

Oops, sorry !
I just took only care of the last sentence "If creature fear resistance > (random value between 0 and fright amount) or if creature fear resistance = 15 (= immune) then the experience is halved (the experience added immediately, before the action experience gain which remains unaffected) and the creature is not frightened." and forgot the previous one (and the last line of fonction).
I'm too bad to find how it works AND I don't read well answers !

I summarize for any other reader. Test of fear resistance :
- If creature's "Bravery" = 15 you fail to fear him but get halved experience.
- If creature's "Bravery" < 15, compare it to "Fear" = random number between 0 and (Hero's influence skill + Fright value [depend on action - see previous posts]).
- If Bravery > "Fear" you fail to fear him but get halved experience.
- If Bravery < or = "Fear" you fear him and get all experience.

So if you've level 15 on influence skill, you'll automatically fear any creature is not immune then ! Quite strong.
Thanks for your patience !

[ChristopheF]

I have edited your summary to slightly fix the description of step 2

[slickrcbd]

I don't recall creatures fleeing from "calm".

Also I never see "Window" when equipping The Conduit in the Apple IIGS kid's dungeon. I only see "swing" as an option. Given that I've given it to adept wizards and priests (Gothmog and Elija), what are the requirements to get Window?
Note that I've only used The Conduit in the IIGS version.

Also could you give me a link to the thread that describes exactly what spellshield does and does not protect against?

[ChristopheF]

As listed on http://dmweb.free.fr/community/document ... nd-combos/
the 'Window' action of 'The Conduit' appears only if your champion is at least level 4 (Apprentice) in hidden wizard skill #18 (Earth), and if the item has at least one charge left.
But the item they placed in the kid dungeon has no charges left, that is why the action does not appear.
You must create a custom dungeon for it to appear.

[FfuzzyLogik]

Nooooooo, you corrected my imprecisions !

In DM, there is not many ways to train "earth" subclass of magic to get that level 4 and be able to use the "window" ability.
The spells you can cast for training that subskill are : Footprints and Antimaterial.
The "see through walls" spell is a "priest" class spell and "defend" subclass. Quite a strange choice IMO, they "fix" it in all other versions than atari ST one and its "earth" on those. (And guess what ? That's the one I have. But I edited that.)

So not that easy to level up this precise subskill.

ADGE.net does not recognize some versions, and the ones who have "more sounds". Is there a way to edit a version with those sounds (I mean a tool like ADGE or a version who supports dungeons with those sounds) or add the sounds on existing version who have not ?

[ChristopheF]

ADGE edits the binary items in graphics.dat. These are only used in Atari ST versions.
For other versions, the corresponding data is in the executables themselves. There is no user friendly tool to edit their data, you must use a hex editor or compile customized versions from the ReDMCSB source code.

[slickrcbd]

Nooooooo, you corrected my imprecisions !

In DM, there is not many ways to train "earth" subclass of magic to get that level 4 and be able to use the "window" ability.
The spells you can cast for training that subskill are : Footprints and Antimaterial.

What's antimaterial? Is it "harm non-material" or ZoKathRa?
So basically as "effect" Confuse, War Cry, Calm, Brandish & Blow Horn does the exact same right : if they succeed, they make ennemy "fear" = flee the party members. I thought "calm" just made them "not offensive", not flee the party. But at the end, its quite the same as they will no longer serach to go find the group to kill them. I'd say I haven't used these that much but when you're cornered, its pretty effective !

You know which one is the "more effective" ? I mean for the same level/rank, which one have the greater chance of fearing and the less chance ? And is the "stronger" the one who have the higher duration ?

I could have sworn that "Blow Horn" and "Brandish" have a higher success rate than "War Cry" at least against trollins and magenta worms. I could also have sworn that the Staff of Claws' "brandish" was more effective against Couatls than "blow horn" or "War Cry". I hadn't played with brandishing anything else to compare it to Staff of Claws when I was a kid and I didn't know how to do a proper statistical analysis when I was in 5th or 6th grade, I just looked at what seemed to succeed more than other things. So I sort of had the basics figured out despite not even being in pre-algebra when I did the percentage calculations (With AppleWorks Spreadsheet to do the math for me, but the data was recorded in a mini-spiral notebook and transcribed).

[FfuzzyLogik]

Hello,

I'm here again ! Not sure its a good new... ^^

Actually I try to work on some creatures. I reworked the "Ruster" and took the "toe eater" graphics, mod it and try to use it ad replace the "not very used" Ruster and place that creature quite at start of dungeon.

Problem for me, the Ruster have "front, side and back" graphics. Is there a way to "say to the game" this graphic is "attack graphic" instead of (lets say back ?) and use it properly ?
My attempts with ADGE did not work and its possible its far more complecate than only "change definition" of graphics.
I changed accordingly in creature graphics (no more back and and attack instead) but when creature attacks, game crashes. Is search probably something who does not exist...

Other question is about sounds. I changed some of the existing ones (ADGE.net does not do that but DM1GED does). It works fine even if some alteration of sound (.wav) happens in the process. Just some tests to check if its nice with the small modifications. I changed the "bonk a wall" sound to something a bit more soft and some creature's attacks.

I'd like to know if there is some way to edit the "table of attack sounds" ?
As described here : http://dmweb.free.fr/community/document ... -details/
"Attack Sound Ordinal
If this value is 0, the creature does not have an attack sound. Otherwise, the value - 1 is used as an index in the ‘Creature attack sound definitions’ table."
There is some table who defines what sound refers to a "value" of sound when you attack.
For example, the 8 is the "swing" of normal attack (sounds like a blade) and also for Skeletons ; the 1 is "groaarr" used by Red Dragons and Hell hounds and the 7 is the "bonk" used when you hit a wall but also for Trolin and Golems.
I'd like to use some other sound (aivable in the game) instead of this "bonk" for the Golem.

The hope is this one : Recycle lets say two of the 4 "get hit" (sounds 7, 8, 9 &10) and use them to be creature's attacks for example.
To do that I need to make the game uses only two of the "get hit" sounds and then define the recycled one to be in "attack table".

Probably a bit too complex of a task for a "non programmer" modder I'm. But I ask if tables are known. If not I'll do as I can.
Have a good day !

[ChristopheF]

What you want to achieve would only be possible by modifying and recompiling the program.

creature graphics definitions allows you to specify additional graphics for the ruster. However, the additional graphic in graphics.dat would shift indices of all the following graphics by 1. All creature graphics must be consecutive in the graphics.dat file, so inserting one would break many things because indices are hardcoded in the program.

"table of attack sound" is stored in item 559: http://dmweb.free.fr/community/document ... efinitions
I don't know if ADGE can edit it.
It contains the ordinal of sound definitions (meaning you must substract 1 to get the index of the sound definition, indices start at 0). Ordinal value 0 means no sound.

Sound definitions are in item 562: http://dmweb.free.fr/community/document ... -176-bytes

However, the use of the 4 "get hit" sounds is hard coded in the program (one sound for each champion in the party).

[FfuzzyLogik]

Surprisingly, and IDK why or how, I changed again the sizes then "sides" then forgot to change back (because I thought it can't work) and it did work... I have a creature who have front, side and attack frames...
I didn't intend to "add one more" noticing they were specifically "numbered" 4 by for then 2 (for screamers, rockpiles and ghost) then 3 for the ruster.

Ok thanks ! If ADGE can't I'll try to hex edit if needed...

Ah, so I have only a very limited amount of sounds unfrotunately... I hoped to work with few "new sounds" as I did not find that important to have 4 get hit sounds and have more "in game" differences between monsters.

Unfortunately, decompiling programming and recompiling stuff looks out of my level...
But I'd say I made some things, the new version will be very different and I implemented quite a ton of things... Thanks again for your time and patience to explain things.
I'll continue some testings, go sleep and try to figure out the items 559 and 567 tomorrow if I have time enough.
Good knight (or sorcerer) !

[FfuzzyLogik]

Hmmm, there might be again something I missed.
The "sound table" for attacks is : 3, 7, 14, 15, 19, 21, 4, 16

The sound values are :
0: No sound
1: Dragon, Rat (its the sound N°15)
2: Ghost, Mummy (its the sound N°16)
3: Screamer, Oitu (its the sound N°17)
4: Scorpion (its the sound N°18)
5: Worm (its the sound N°19)
6: Giggler (its the sound N°20)
7: Hit 1 (like a falling item) (its the "bonk" you have when you hit a wall or a door, sound N°3)
8: Hit 2 (like champions) (its the "swing" of champions' attack, sound N°12)

Are the sounds in other order than the one in memory (begin in 533 with sound N°0 and finishes in 555 with sound N°20, giggler's "wohaha")

So I don't understand the link in values...
For example, the sound 3 (so 2 if you substract 1) is never used by creatures, its the opening door sound... There must be an other table...

Aaah, I found a table of sounds ! But its the Amiga one with 30 sounds...
N°0 : Fall of items (with is the first sound in the memory, slot 533)
N°1 : Switch/buttons ((with is the second sound in the memory, slot 534)
N°2 : Door opening/closing (with is the third sound in the memory, slot 535)
N°3 : Bonk when you click on walls, golem attack, ... (with is the 4th sound in the memory, slot 536)
N°4 : Fireball/lightning explosion (with is the 5th sound in the memory, slot 537)
N°5 : Fall in pits, die (its slot 539, a "noisy image" is placed in 538)
N°6 : Swallowing (place 539)
N°7 to 10 : "get hit" sound (four different 540 to 544)
N°11 : Dzzzzt from teleporters (item 547) [order looks to change from here but the list I took is the amiga list, hope the order is the same ?]
N°12 : Bonk in a wall (item 549)
N°13 : Wizoww of some spells (item 545)
N°14 : Swoosh from attacks (heroes, skeletons and knights) (item 546)
N°XX : War cry sound (??) [Not the good list as this sound does not exist in Atari game]
N°XX : Blowing horn sound (??) [Not the good list as this sound does not exist in Atari game]
N°15 : Screamer/oitu attack (item 552)
N°16 : Scorpion attack (item 553)
N°17 : Worm attack (item 554)
N°18 : Giggler's steal (item 555)
N°19 : Dragon and hell hound attack (550)
N°XX : Rockpile attack (??) [Not the good list as this sound does not exist in Atari game]
N°20 : Ghost & mummies (16)
The order must not be the same...

I'll search, I'll probably have to do it in testing ^^
Good evening !

[ChristopheF]

here is the sound table for Atari ST versions as found in ReDMCSB source code:

Code: Select all

SOUND_DATA G0060_as_Graphic562_Sounds[M513_SOUND_COUNT] = {
        { 533, 0, 112,  11, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C00_SOUND_METALLIC_THUD */
        { 534, 0, 112,  15, 0, 0, 3 }, /* C01_SOUND_SWITCH */
        { 535, 0, 112,  72, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C02_SOUND_DOOR_RATTLE */
        { 550, 0, 112,  60, 0, 3, 5 }, /* C03_SOUND_ATTACK_PAIN_RAT_HELLHOUND_RED_DRAGON */
        { 536, 0, 112,  10, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C04_SOUND_WOODEN_THUD_ATTACK_TROLIN_ANTMAN_STONE_GOLEM */
        { 537, 0, 112,  99, 0, 3, 7 }, /* C05_SOUND_STRONG_EXPLOSION */
        { 539, 0, 112, 110, 0, 3, 6 }, /* M561_SOUND_SCREAM */
        { 551, 0, 112,  55, 0, 3, 5 }, /* C07_SOUND_ATTACK_MUMMY_GHOST_RIVE */
        { 540, 0, 112,   2, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C08_SOUND_SWALLOW */
        { 541, 0, 112,  80, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C09_SOUND_CHAMPION_0_DAMAGED */
        { 542, 0, 112,  82, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C10_SOUND_CHAMPION_1_DAMAGED */
        { 543, 0, 112,  84, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C11_SOUND_CHAMPION_2_DAMAGED */
        { 544, 0, 112,  86, 0, 3, 6 }, /* C12_SOUND_CHAMPION_3_DAMAGED */
        { 545, 0, 112,  95, 0, 3, 6 }, /* M542_SOUND_SPELL */
        { 552, 0, 112,  57, 0, 3, 5 }, /* C14_SOUND_ATTACK_SCREAMER_OITU */
        { 553, 0, 112,  52, 0, 3, 5 }, /* C15_SOUND_ATTACK_GIANT_SCORPION_SCORPION */
        { 546, 0, 112,  40, 0, 2, 4 }, /* M563_SOUND_COMBAT_ATTACK_SKELETON_ANIMATED_ARMOUR_DETH_KNIGHT */
        { 547, 0, 112,  70, 0, 1, 4 }, /* M560_SOUND_BUZZ */
        { 549, 0, 112,  75, 0, 3, 6 }, /* M562_SOUND_PARTY_DAMAGED */
        { 554, 0, 112,  50, 0, 3, 5 }, /* C19_SOUND_ATTACK_MAGENTA_WORM_WORM */
        { 537, 0, 112,  98, 0, 0, 4 }, /* M541_SOUND_WEAK_EXPLOSION */
        { 555, 0, 112,  96, 0, 2, 4 }  /* C21_SOUND_ATTACK_GIGGLER */
        };

And the attack sounds table (8 elements, indexed from 0 to 7 that match values 1 to 8 in creature descriptors):

Code: Select all

unsigned char G0244_auc_Graphic559_CreatureAttackSounds[8] = {
        C03_SOUND_ATTACK_PAIN_RAT_HELLHOUND_RED_DRAGON,
        C07_SOUND_ATTACK_MUMMY_GHOST_RIVE,
        C14_SOUND_ATTACK_SCREAMER_OITU,
        C15_SOUND_ATTACK_GIANT_SCORPION_SCORPION,
        C19_SOUND_ATTACK_MAGENTA_WORM_WORM,
        C21_SOUND_ATTACK_GIGGLER,
        C04_SOUND_WOODEN_THUD_ATTACK_TROLIN_ANTMAN_STONE_GOLEM,
        M563_SOUND_COMBAT_ATTACK_SKELETON_ANIMATED_ARMOUR_DETH_KNIGHT };

You should really take a look at the source code, you would surely find useful information for what you are doing like this data, without knowing anything about the C language itself, by searching keywords in the files like "sound", "dragon" etc.
For example, all data in items 558 to 562 (that ADGE partly allows you to modify) correspond to variables containing _Graphic558_ to _Graphic562_ in their names.