Ammunition in BG:EE

[leania]

Hello. I'd like to discuss about Ammunition since several Ammunition has been added in BG:EE; Acid/Fire/Ice/Electricity

 

The types of what has been added in BG:EE deal with 1D6 additional damage according to the element type, like 1D6 fire damage from Dart of Fire (Save vs. Spell for none). The damage value is not same with the IR's standards, so I think those need to be modified based on the IR's standardization.

 

Furthermore, each type of Ammunition doesn't have whole element type. For example, there is no Dart of Electricity and there is only Bolt of Electricity (Actually the true name in game is Bolt of Lightning though). In my opinion,

 

1. Each type of Ammunition should have whole damage types such as Fire, Ice, Electricity, and Acid.

 

2. The damage value should be standardized.

 

The latter is must imo at least. What do you think about these?

[CrevsDaak]

The latter is must imo at least. What do you think about these?

I agree on that, but I don't see the need for a Dart of Electricity IMO. I do think that the darts of Acid should cost more (they're far more better—consider the enemies immune to fire and cold vs the enemies immune to Acid...) because Acid damage's pretty much better than Fire/Cold.

[Jarno Mikkola]

2. The damage value should be standardized.

Hmm, do you mean 1) set to each element as the same or 2) set to a set of values according to the element.

So for +1 darts, the elemental portion could be... values takes from no where, don't not look at each exact value, but how they are distributed as this is for the example:

Fire: +1d6 vs. +2d5

Ice: +1d6 vs +5

Acid: +1d6 vs +4d2

Lightning: +1d6 vs +1d16

Cause I am always for the variety and the second option.

 

And in my mind, if the dart would be a dart of an elemental, it would actually do just 1 normal damage, but that could be odd to some. See it's just a small medal piece that explodes, gets really cold, conducts a jolt or sicks to your skin and the material liquidizes in the contact with air.

[Ardanis]

I once suggested it for arrows - use different effects, saves and values for different elements.

E.g. fire does 1d6 damage on failed save, cold lowers ac/thaco/str/whatever on failed save and does 1d2 damage. Net effect - fire ammo is better for dispatching weak low-level enemies with poor saves, while cold is preferable against strong opponents.

[kreso]

I once suggested it for arrows - use different effects, saves and values for different elements.

E.g. fire does 1d6 damage on failed save, cold lowers ac/thaco/str/whatever on failed save and does 1d2 damage. Net effect - fire ammo is better for dispatching weak low-level enemies with poor saves, while cold is preferable against strong opponents.

+1.

[Demivrgvs]

...several Ammunition has been added in BG:EE; Acid/Fire/Ice/Electricity

 

...there is no Dart of Electricity and there is only Bolt of Electricity (Actually the true name in game is Bolt of Lightning though). In my opinion,

 

1. Each type of Ammunition should have whole damage types such as Fire, Ice, Electricity, and Acid.

 

2. The damage value should be standardized.

 

The latter is must imo at least. What do you think about these?

1. I do not agree. It's not like you have mace with each elemental type. Not even a common weapon type like the long sword covers all the possible dmg types.

 

2. I agree that those EE-only ammos stand out from vanilla ones when IR is installed, but not even IR ammo has a single value. See below.

 

I once suggested it for arrows - use different effects, saves and values for different elements.

E.g. fire does 1d6 damage on failed save, cold lowers ac/thaco/str/whatever on failed save and does 1d2 damage. Net effect - fire ammo is better for dispatching weak low-level enemies with poor saves, while cold is preferable against strong opponents.

Well, considering what I did with Acid Arrow it's obvious I'm not against it.

 

May I ask what's the "availability" of each ammo type within BG1? And what about BG2 when Store Revision is installed? Ideally I'd like them to be not-common. Powerful ammo types in particular like Slaying, Dispelling, Piercing, Lightning etc. should be kinda rare as loot but available in decent amounts from a dedicated fletcher.

[Jarno Mikkola]

May I ask what's the "availability" of each ammo type within BG1? And what about BG2 when Store Revision is installed? Ideally I'd like them to be not-common. Powerful ammo types in particular like Slaying, Dispelling, Piercing, Lightning etc. should be kinda rare as loot but available in decent amounts from a dedicated fletcher.

They are very rare in BG1, the Fire Arrows are a bit common, as the Goblin Commandos have them, And Ice Arrows are found on the Black Talon mercenaries, both are rarely found in the original game, but both numbers are increased in optional mods, as they replace existing regular mercs who have no special gear and other creatures, so the vanilla game doesn't have that many of them either. I think the best source of any of them are shops, and there's not that many that even sell them, the Hobgoblin Elites have "poison" arrows(arow12.itm), but none of them are actually dropped as they are non-drop-able at least in BGT-weidu... so unless you rummage all the shop adding mods and then you have a full flood on your hands, but that shouldn't surprise anyone.

[kreso]

 

May I ask what's the "availability" of each ammo type within BG1? And what about BG2 when Store Revision is installed? Ideally I'd like them to be not-common. Powerful ammo types in particular like Slaying, Dispelling, Piercing, Lightning etc. should be kinda rare as loot but available in decent amounts from a dedicated fletcher.

 

Acid arrows - rare, usually must be bought

Fire arrows - commonly found

Ice arrows - very common

Dispel - fairly rare loot, usually bought

Detonation - very rare, must be bought

Slaying - must be bought iirc

Piercing - rare, usually bought

Lightning bolt - rare, found in Durlag and some dungeons, usually bought

Poison bolt - bit more common

Poison arrow - Sirens drop a batch of 5 if killed before they use them, otherwise rare (can be found in Durlag, but anything can be found there)

[thehug0naut]

Hi all - not been lurking very long, but glad to see Gibberlings back up again

 

I've not long rediscovered BG again after a long time away and I've been experimenting with mods to find a selection that works for me. Currently using BGEE with IR (master branch from Mike's github) + SR (also github master branch) + Rogue Rebalancing + BG1NPC + SCS + BG2 Tweaks (for NPC + cosmetic tweaks) + aTweaks and so far that mod combination is working great. I also use linux so a big thumbs up from me that it works there!

 

One thing I wanted to clarify though, the main component of IR reduces the raw BGEE ammo stacking (80/20 for projectile/thrown) back to original BG2 levels - is this by design or just a hangover from the mod being designed for Bg2+Tutu? I only ask because I can't find a mention of this change anywhere in the changelogs/readme and I thought maybe it should be mentioned somewhere for the benefit of folk like myself.

[Mike1072]

Yeah, I don't think we were trying to change anything here. It's just the stack amounts from BG2.

 

I think we might want to make the stacks larger on EE games to match the default (so the stack sizes don't surprise anyone). Users of regular BG2 are used to using the Tweak Pack if they want increased stack sizes.

 

It's good to hear the mods are working well on Linux.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I think we might want to make the stacks larger on EE games to match the default (so the stack sizes don't surprise anyone).

Might I suggest for an insert from an .ini file ? And set the default somewhere from 80 to 200... I hate those, but I can install the BG2 Tweaks, while the common rabble doesn't need to.

[thehug0naut]

I'm guessing the stack sizes change because of the overwriting of items in the main component? As I understood it they must be specifically changed at that point otherwise the stack sizes would be the BGEE default? Just clarifying if I correctly understand why the change happens (because curiosity).

 

Also (and I'm not sure if its entirely relevant for this particular thread, but I am sort of replying) in terms of my linux build I actually dont use tolower at all - some people had reported issues with it breaking the game folder on forums so I avoided it entirely.

 

I had experienced similar case sensitivity issues with installing mods for Civ5 on linux and the community fixed them by mounting the relevent folder in the case insensitive file system ciopfs. I simply replicated the procedure for BGEE (and I'll do the same for BG2EE). I did post some details on the Weidu forums but nobody ever responded so I wasn't sure if I was wasting my time informing people.

[Demivrgvs]

The stack size "change" isn't intentional, it's just a legacy of the original BG2 upon which IR has been built around for a decade. Conceptually I'm not sure I like the idea of a quiver allowing 3x 80 arrows/bolts, but I guess I'm pretending too much considering you can carry up to 4 two-handed swords at hand and multiple full plate armors on your back pack.

 

P.S G3 downtime contribuited to screw my plans but expect a new IR build to finally be up within 2-4 days.

[thehug0naut]

Yeah I figured as much. I'm guessing (since the main component overwrites items) not setting a value would break stacking rather than default to the game engine standard value? Maybe you could add an optional component to offer the BG2 or BGEE values for ammo stacking? That way people could keep the old values in the EEs or opt for the new ones in BGT etc.

 

That is awesome news Demi!

[Mike1072]

It's not hard to add code to set the stack amount differently when installed on an EE game. We just weren't aware of this issue previously. Thanks!