Null Item Mod (1.1 released)

[Alneyan]

The mod has been updated; it looks like I haven't been paying enough attention when squashing those bugs.

[Ighalli]

Thanks Alneyan! I was hoping someone would pout this together!

[Endoperez]

Alneyan, would you care to describe what you noticed about those bugs? And what are the item numbers you talk about?

I thought magic items linked to an item, so that the elemental bonus and cost of Staff of Elemental Mastery was in the item, and it linked to an item that was the actual weapon. The same weapon would then be linked to by both Staves of Elemental Mastery, and possibly other Staves (like the one of Dying Treelord).

[Alneyan]

Well, when using the actual item name (say, Sword of Sharpness), only the one-handed sword is altered. For the Staffs, only the first one (Water/Fire) is altered. It looks like they share the same construction level however, so making one unavailable removes the other.

The number I am referring to is the weapon/armor number, as per the modding manual: "Magical items can only be selected by name, not by their corresponding Weapon or Armor values". This part should have changed with version 2.16, but I cannot select items with their numbers. Both #selectitem 238 or #selectweapon 238 do not appear to be working. I do not know how selecting items by using those numbers is supposed to work however, and I may have got the syntax wrong.

The Swords of Sharpness and the Bane Blades are two different weapons (and two different items), each with its own weapon number, so they are wholly separate for the game. What is odd, however, is how the two Staffs are handled: they share the same number, even though they have different caracteristics (the resistances). I guess it is because the stats of the weapon remain the same, and only a miscellaneous ability is altered.

It makes it impossible to alter the second Staff of Elemental Mastery however, unless I am missing something; removing it should work, though I haven't checked it since my "remove all items from the game to check for misspellings" test. A last oddity about those weapons: the actual name of the weapon is "Magic Staff", and not Staff of Elemental Mastery. #selectitem "Magic Staff" doesn't allow to alter the second Staff though, either when it is used alone or in conjunction with a #selectitem "Staff of Elemental Mastery".

[Endoperez]

I see.

I had similar problem with the Nation Replacement, or Null Nations (which would suit it better now that there is Null Items and Null Spells) mod. Few magic sites of the base and special theme share same names. As an example, Caelum base and Caelum RoR have sites of the same name, but I cannot choose the RoR sites as starting sites.

[quantum_mechani]

Another little moddng issue I discovered, while we are on the subject, it is that it is impossible to edit the recruitable units for Rl'yeh costal forts. Well, you can edit the units (which also edits the units for underwater forts), but you cannot have more or less units than the original number.

[Endoperez]

I think you could mod some of them to be free but aquatic, so that they wouldn't be of any use. That might screw up the computer (=AI), though...

[Johan K]

Alneyan, #selectweapon 6 works for me. The number you use here is not a weapon number but a magic item number. 6 is for two handed sword of sharpness. I guess some way to see magic item number in Dominions II would be useful, but there is none. But if you have the manual you can count yourself, fire sword is number 1, ice sword number 2 and so on.

[Alneyan]

I see; I had expected this number to be the regular armor/weapon number, as it is the only one we have direct access to. Of course, it didn't make much sense.

Thanks for the information; I will probably add that information to the Null Item mod, though selecting by the number should only be useful in the case of those Three weapons. I gather the item number is equal to the place of the objet in the list of items? So, one-handed weapons, then two-handed weapons, and so on?

[Johan K]

Hmmm, I think I was wrong in assuming they would be in the same order in the manual. One and two handed weapons should be mixed randomly