Mod idea and a request
 

Okay, so I've been hacking around with some of my favorite mods to learn the ropes, and I think I have an idea for a mod. My concept is "Crystal Power!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

It's sort of a combination of New-Age style crystal magic with various underground fantasy themes (especially Discworld dwarves). Crystal healers and various types of crystal mages would be the majority of the commanders. Most of the troops would be regular human infantry (with darkvision), but there would also be a few elite troops with some bizarre crystal-powered weapons. Maybe even crystal cyborgs? Then I'll add a handful of nation-specific spells -- mainly in the Construction school -- to create various crystal-powered constructs.

I'm thinking Middle Age, simply because that era doesn't seem to get quite as much love from modders. If I like it -- and I can actually get it done -- then I will be sorely tempted to make some EA and LA variants. But first, I need to get a mod done. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Which brings me to a couple of questions for our experienced modders in the house:

• Is there a comprehensive list of modding commands available anywhere? I have the PDF that came with the game, and I also have Edi's excellent DB (thanks for that!), but I think I'm probably missing something. Is there a complete modding reference anywhere?
• Is there a mod tutorial anywhere? I'm learning a lot from ripping apart Sombre's and Amos's mods. (Thanks, guys!) Should I just keep doing that, or is there an actual tutorial that someone has made? I'm especially clueless about spell modding....

Thoughts? Anyone? Bueller...?

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

There are only few commands that aren't in the pdf, and they are quite minor. I think #clearspec (for clearing special abilities) and #clearmagic are the only ones, but there could be few others as well.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

Endo, thanks for the response.

Indeed, #clearspec and #clearmagic are in the manual. I've become very familiar with that manual over the past few days....

I'm actually done with all of my recruitable troops, most of my recruitable commanders, and a custom pretender. I still want to whip up a buncha summons and a few new spells.

Frankly, the spell modding is utterly inscrutable to me. I'm hoping that I can gain some clarity when it's time to actually start that phase of the mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Oh, and there are still many sprites to be drawn. My art skills are not the best, but I'm going to give it my best shot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'm sure I won't be up to some of our other modders' standards, but I'm hoping to make something work.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

Where spell modding is concerned, you're not the only one who's stunned by the power of the runes. I'm not going near that subject with a ten foot pole, it makes my head explode.

DrPraetorious is the preeminent spell modding expert, so if you run up against a seemingly insurmountable problem with the spells, you should ask him for help. He's also made a DB type list of all the various stuff related to spell modding which lets you see a lot of the stuff that is talked about in the modding manual. So that's bound to be useful. It requires some puzzling out if you want to tinker with stuff, but without it, one might as well be shooting in the dark.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

I also find the spell modding to be vexing. That said, despite my continued bewilderment, I have managed to hack a rather enormous number of spells into the mod I am working on myself. So don't worry too much about your confusion. It may never completely go away, but you can do the work despite it.

A trick; 'steal' other people's spell mods and hack them into whatever semblance you want them for your mod.

Some notes I made for myself to help me understand some of the entries:

#newspell
#name "Template"
#descr "Description."
#restricted 75
#school 1 -- Conjuration, Alteration, etc.
#researchlevel 0 -- Level of research required to learn this spell.
#path 0 4 -- The magic path for casting, IE: fire, water, etc.
#pathlevel 0 3 -- Level of the caster required for casting.
#fatiguecost 1000 -- Every 100 fatigue costs a gem.
#effect 10039 -- What the spell does, 10000 range are ritual spells.
#nreff 1 -- Number of units summoned for summoning spells.
#end

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

Thanks for all of the good feedback about spell modding. I just finished my last recruitable commander, so I'll be starting spells very soon.

Another question: Is there a modding command which will cause a critter to reduce dominion? Following Pratchett's example, my dwarves are not terribly religious, so it would be fitting for them to reduce the dominion of whatever province they happen to be inhabiting....

Aha! Found DrP's spell list:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...195#Post555265
That will certainly be handy.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

If such a command does exist, I do not know of it. That is not to say it doesn't. I am just confessing my ignorance because we seem to be online at the same time. Er... ;-)

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

I wonder what #spreaddom -1 would do? It's worth a shot, right?

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

Definitely worth a shot. That's exactly the sort of trick that 'might' work. You might find however that if that is on a 'troop', it might be way too effective. Try it, but if it works, I expect you'll want it just on certain commanders.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

It also might be very possible that #spreaddom doesn't work for troops, many, many commands don't work on troops (auto-summons for example) althought they "could" do so.
Why not take the easy way and make all recruitable dwarf commanders heretics?

Spell-modding isn't that tough exactly, as long as you don't try to create something "new". Just stick to making summoning, combat evocations and buff spells if you want to retain your sanity.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

EDIT: D'oh! No, the juggernaut is not a commander and it spreads dominion. So spreaddom does work for troops. Never tried a negative number. Negative spreaddom on a troop would instantly reduce the dominion in a province to 0 if you had a reasonable number of troops, however.

If you copy the stats off of one of the Pythium heretics, you'll get their dominion cancellation, which is somewhat milder, but still quite severe to put on a non-commander.

What do you want your custom spells to *do*? If it's just summoning, that's quite straightforward.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

I only want the dwarven commanders (specifically the smiths) to reduce dominion. Once I get the trick down, I might expand it to other commanders ... but I doubt I'd have regular troops do it! I agree that such a thing could get extreme in a hurry, especially on recruitable troops.

(Yes, Juggernauts spread dominion ... but they're a very high-end summon.)

I suppose I could copystat the Pythium heretic, but then I'd lose the darkvision that I got by copystatting the "vanilla" dwarven smith. Hmmm ... decisions, decisions.

On the subject of spells: My main goal is to create a bunch of nation-specific summons, which seems like it should be pretty easy. However, I was also thinking about some battlefield spells. For example, I'd like to mod a "crystal healing" spell, an upgraded version of Blade Wind, and a "Crystal Soldiers" troop buff.

I think I might be able to puzzle out some of these on my own. Let me give it a shot, and I'll let you know if I can't get anywhere. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Since y'all are in such a helpful mood, let me fire off another question: How could I mod a site to allow free scrying? I know there's already a site that does it, so it should be possible. But is it moddable? It would be very cool to have the Crystal College serve as a scrying site....

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

It is not currently moddable.

You could take one of the (non-unique) existing scry sites, and put it in their capital, if you wished.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

Okay, thanks for the quick response. I'll do that.

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

So, here's my first sprite ever. Behold the "stock" dwarven warrior:
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8...iordemovg2.png
Once I'm happy with him (and I'm not happy with him right now), I'll use him as the template for the rest of the dwarven warriors of Crystaldeep. The way I figure it, all of my dwarves (except the smiths) use some variant of Mining Axe + Tower Shield, so they should all look similar. A few color variations, some added embellishments here and there, and ... presto! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm done with all of the recruitable commanders and units, one custom pretender, and a handful of summoning spells. I've attached a preview of the mod, if anyone's curious.

Still to do:
* Graphics. Lots of graphics. I've only made one set of sprites so far, and I need to do a lot more.
* A few more spells: another summon, an evocation, and a healing spell.
* Heroes!
* (most important) Playtesting!

On that last step ... I'm not fussed about making Crystaldeep perfectly-balanced with the vanilla Dom3 nations. Personally, I'm not sure that all of the vanilla Dom3 nations are balanced with each other. Still, I don't want Crystaldeep to be too far out of whack. Mainly, though, my playtesting will be focussed on simply making the nation play as I envisioned it.

I'll do a more formal post when I'm actually finished with the first version of the mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Comments welcome!

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

> Personally, I'm not sure that all of the vanilla Dom3 nations are balanced with each other.

Of course they are not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Mod idea and a request
 

Um, oops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif No offense was intended. I just realized that my quip could be taken as a complaint.... It was not meant as such.

I cleaned up that graphic a bit, and I'm a little happier with it now. It could be better, of course, so I'll keep plinking at it. Pixel art is hard. (Of course, I have no artistic ability whatsoever, so that makes it harder.) Once again, I am totally blessed by having KO's sprites to use as a baseline. Drawing all of these things freehand would be too much for me, whereas hacking up someone else's work might just be within my reach.

Final summoning spell is done. One evocation and a healing spell to go, and then a few heroes....