Mod Ideas?

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Thu Mar 02, 2017 4:14 pm

I'm still plugging away on The Conquests of Chaos, and plan on including some of the known cuts back into the game. But I'm curious what some of the most-wanted restorations, additions, and changes are?

New party members?
A way to get to Claw?
Kilrathi or their descendants on Claw?
Add back the glowing cat body and a longer sub-plot?
Living glowing cats?
Add back the fishnet stockings sub-plot?
Add back the shimmering wine bottle instead of the ice wine?
Add the pumpkin as a storm exchange item?
Add schedules for the Silver Seed NPCs?
Add a few brass automatons as standard NPCs with schedules to Patrol?
Add back the Blink spell?
Create a manor for Selina / Celennia / Selenia?
Add the second layer of Moonshade?
New sprites?
Add back talking to the captured Banes in the Black Sword?
Add a blank face for Dream Smith?
Improve the introduction / ship landing for higher resolutions?
Move all NPC functions to 0xB00+ range to allow more shapes with functions?
New non-Britannian books?
Easter eggs? Random treasure chests?
Spells?

Already done but unreleased:
New easter eggs for using this-on-that. (Not spoiling it.)
New magic chest shapes and Unlock Magic usecode.
Function to create permanent new shapes with one command.
A script to create an entire boat (~20 pieces).
New artwork for statue bases.
Recolored bears, black, reddish-brown, etc.
Caladin's paladin in white and green.
A female Ophidian solder.
A few new eggs.

Planned:
More new NPC shapes: Leopards, wolves, Gwani, etc.

I wonder if I should get a Patreon and spend a day a week on requests? It's all going to be open source so everyone will win in the end.

Gotcha! · Post by **Gotcha!** » Thu Mar 02, 2017 4:40 pm

Hmm. I know the Monitorian pike men are all in green, but personally I'd prefer Caladin's original colours, for nostalgia's sake.

One of the things I love most about the Ultima 7 games is the insane amount of caves, dungeons and other locations to explore. I'd love to see more of those.
Serpent Isle especially has massive grassy fields, just waiting to be filled with crumbling buildings, farms, towers, camps and so on.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Thu Mar 02, 2017 5:59 pm

Jorvin and one of the Mint Loafs will still have the original paladin shape. I am just adding an additional shape for Caladin.

WJH · Post by **WJH** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 2:11 am

I'd offer some Patreon support!

Francois424 · Post by **Francois424** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 3:36 am

Oh seems I posted this into the wrong thread... Ok repost here

#1 - I would like your mod add extra party members ?
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The lack of quality party members from the original Serpent Isle really blew

- Boydon - Excellent party member... Unless he dies, Pagan-style (Really wish you could just drop him back into Erstam's machine w/o a phoenix egg to revive him. Would be annoying, but better than now...

- Petra - Excellent party member... Quite late as I remember, and won't stick around unless you cheese the game (Easy to do tho). Recruiting her the first time you go in Moonshade would be very interesting.

- Gweno - Excellent as well, will only join after Dupré's demise (so very late)

- Wilfred - Such a coward and it's unrealistic to hope to get to keep him.

- Automatons : all look the same, can't be trained, won' join party if already 3 companions

You can ask Luther to join you, but he always decline the offer.
Cantra was planned as recruitable? I remember seeing some art with her in the party. Kinda female version of Spark.

Getting Selina into the party as a permanent possibility would be nice too, unfortunately she's only a temporary companion.

I like the sprite for the female Monitorian knight and female ranger. Could make original companions out of them as well if you want to do it.
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#2- Maybe with the adding back of enough companions we could get an 8-party like in ultima7 ? Of course when/if the combat gets fixed to vanilla SI levels it will bring back a touch of strategy, but more pack mules are fun.

#3- The Black Sword kinda blows in this game. Okay it's +1 a regular SI GreatSword, but in U7 it was what? 25 power? Maybe 13 power when empty, then add +4 power for each bane it hold. I agree about the conversation with the Banes. Man that would rock.

#4- Home is where the heart is. In U7p2 I merely took Monitor's ship hold and dropped it between two columns (NW) in the Dark Path. It serves me well but is no home ( It is practical tho). I wonder if there would be enough room around an exterior Serpent Gate somewhere... to actually make an abandoned (in good maintenance) mid-size house. With place for a store room (oooh, we can fill it ourselves), shelves for putting interesting books I gather during my adventures, and a nice bedroom. The house added with the key-ring mod in U7 was pretty good if only lacking a storeroom but you had mark/recall to get there quickly. This is entirely optional.

I feel what's most missing are big party and recruitable companions. Heck when Dupré sacrifices himself and you have Luther in the Party, he could have a long c0nversation with you about that and changes his dialogue because he aspires to be responsable/honorable like him (stuff like that).

Thanks for dedicating your time to make SI better. Until Ian Frasier is able to remake U7+U7p2 in one huge game as he'd like to do, Exult +mods are just the best !

Francois424 · Post by **Francois424** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 3:58 am

Ah just remembered something (maybe easy, maybe not. If you pick the blonde/blue eyed avatar, on her paperdoll she has light-brown hair. Dunno if possible, but change her her to blonde ?

Tiny little thing and way down the list of add-ons you could do, but it might be a quick thing. Thanks again

Incriptus · Post by **Incriptus** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 4:01 am

Wedging in more party members would indeed be nice. In addition to the above maybe let Mortego stay on the team as well (although that may be edited with an expanded moonshade plot)

Maybe make the exploding kegs a bit more user friendly. Instead of just exploding on double click, give you a target icon and choose what you're targeting (instead of hoping it was close enough to that door because the isomeric view left you a few pixels off target)

Francois424 · Post by **Francois424** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 5:45 am

Another thing I inquired about last week... About the +10 STR belt.

I have confirmed that in SI it gives +10 STR up to 30.
We already know LB was able to buff to 60 (so it works).
How about the belt allows the wearer to exceed 30, obviously up to 40 ?

Again it's a nitpick, especially with F2 - modify str to 40 (and drop belt in a barrel somewhere), but would be nice.

Targeting seems a nice Idea (still does AoE damage tho). I never play much with powder kegs myself, most likely because I never manage to blow-up what I want and hrt myself in so doing. Haha.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 5:49 am

The blonde female Avatar has brown hair in the portrait. Not sure how to add a new Avatar shape.

Kegs:
I could expand the area it uses to blow up the door? But there's a lot of powder kegs too.

What if the inaccessible eastern doors could be blown up too?

I am planning at least three new party members, with some the the obvious ones there.

Francois424 · Post by **Francois424** » Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:45 am

Haha... I knew I was not crazy.
Just found a picture online of the back of Serpent's Isle box.
Just zoom it and look for the picture with the sea turtle battle.

http://bigboxcollection.com/images/2khi/Ultima72.jpg

We have Cantra, Kylista (I think), and some dark-haired monitor knight (who's holding her shield ? Wow too bad that didn't get in), and some red shirt dude. A female automaton as an enemy on the turtle as well, maybe Petra, maybe not.

Probably some pre-alpha/beta testing that they screenshot to print the boxes for releasing the game.
- - - - - -
Other (new) thoughts :

I read somewhere that no one know if the amulet of protection actually provides protection... but if not that is more something for the "SI fixes mod" than your new mod.

A "bag of holding" that would not have item number/size limit that could be put in it would be fine (put a hard limit just before the game crashes, it's either 127 items or 255, not entirely sure). a "magical blue hue glow" around the bag might be enough, or changing it's color to a "blackrock-sword-darkgrey" could do. For me, the bag would be mainly used to store gold/gems/jewelry/gold bars in a pouch-belt location, up until the caracter runs out of weight anyway, and without cluttering the main backpack... It's going to be less important when we have 7 party members, then one of them could have his/her main pack dedicated to carrying that loot. Still the "Won't fit" message would be alleviated from that... I mean you could throw 4-5 pikemen bodies in there, should you need to, or carry nearly 6'000 monitari.

Bringing back the triple crossbow? Make Iolo start with it (so incentive to get it back even tho it's easy), and if not so already in "The Black Gate" (haven't noticed to be honest), consumes 3 bolts for 3x the bonus from enchanted ones as well. There was attack graphics and for the Triple XBow itself from Exult/U7 so that could work.

That's it for tonight's thoughts. Sleep well all.

Dale · Post by **Dale** » Sat Mar 04, 2017 4:28 am

Yeah I was always intrigued by that turtle photo, too... I remember being really nervous about going to Erstram's island for the first time. My first playthrough always had me wondering when that would play in..
But i think it's pretty clear at this point that it was never a plot moment... just them having fun cramming as many things into one image as possible. I mean.. aside from there actually being interesting battle formations (definitely not a thing... that female monk (?) clearly commanding the attack from the turtle head?), she's also attacking with the serpent staff.. and I don't seem to recall a bronze ophidian shield at the moment, either....

BUT! Good call on the shield showing up as equipped! I had never noticed that! I don't know the ins and outs of the code like some of you, but is it possible this is why we have "wall hanging" versions of Dupre's Shield? Could those frames have been meant for when the various shields were equipped from the different angles?

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:04 pm

The recovery of the body of Ardiniss, the former commander of Serpent's Fang, will be included in the mod. Surok will take the body from you, give some experience and items, and comment on the condition of his corpse.

It may be possible to code calling and sailing the turtle, pending a bug fix on the Usecode creation of the barge shape. That could be one way to add Claw back into SI, and add options for other modders. Imagine having control of the turtle rather being being a mere passenger?

Too bad the artwork for the non-gray-hair female monk didn't make it out of Origin's vault.

Adding off-hand offsets for carrying shields could theoretically be possible. It would require adding those offsets in some way, since the original games only had the main-hand offsets.

Adding a targeting function to the powder keg would be possible, but tricky. It would require selecting a target area, making sure the Avatar can get there, walking there, animating placing it down, and then doing a countdown. It could also require a lit torch or other means of lighting it. Probably more work than is justifiable right now.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:26 pm

The magic wine press was hard-coded for the spot it was placed on the map. This has been changed so it works anywhere, and works with the rotation bit.

And it worked on the first test of the new code.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:18 pm

The party size limit is hard coded in a few spots in SI. Is this something that should be raised?

Gotcha! · Post by **Gotcha!** » Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:42 pm

I wouldn't mind seeing it capped at 8. Fun to have a few extra automatons around. Or to avoid having to make party members leave when taking along those two people up north who instantly leave anyway.
But if it's needed... meh, not really I guess.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Sat Apr 08, 2017 4:04 pm

The limit seems to be the Gump for party stats does not exist beyond 6. While this could be fixed, it would require changing multiple other things there.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Sun Apr 09, 2017 1:48 am

The reason Aram Dol is missing his crown in some frames is the original liche shape in BG does not have the frames. Some of the BG frames are wrong, with spell casting frames in weapon swing spots. And some of the SI casting frames are in the wrong direction. Should be simple enough to fix.

Paulon · Post by **Paulon** » Sun Apr 16, 2017 6:45 am

Thinking about the previous games, a logical mod would be to have a more complete initial set of equipment, based more on what was available by the end of U7. The initial loss of gear at the beginning of SI would explain why the Avatar and party wouldn't get to actually keep any initial stuff added in a mod, with the list of lost items just covering the unique and distinctive gear from the original game.

It might be more work than it's worth to give the party a set of gear they aren't intended to either keep or later recover, but that plot hole at the beginning, that a desperate mission to save Britannia from destruction is so ill-equipped by LB, has nagged me since the game came out.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:10 pm

Since one of the prior thread was getting long I wanted to post more updates here.

Today's code separates out the NPC functions for many of the surviving NPCs, so that changes to those do not mix with pre-Banes canon. Each area's NPCs are in area-specific folders.

There will be additional starting gear for the party.

At Dominus' suggestion, the glowing red cape will be added as a different shape number than 403. If there is interest, I may be able to add back the damaged fur cloak frames.

The PARTY_SIZE_LIMIT has been set as a global integer, which will allow 6 party members instead of just 5.

I'm finally starting to look towards sharing the updates via GitHub as well. This means adding the GPL license header and better testing.

Some further ideas:
It may be possible to set an Automaton's name via Usecode. They still would not be able to train, generally.

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:18 pm

Btw, forget my idea of adding it as a frame, you can just add it as a new shape (the glowing cloak).
Had quite some fun time tracking it all down yesterday

T. J. Brumfield · Post by **T. J. Brumfield** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:45 am

If you're looking for ideas, I always wished there was some way to undo some of the damage the Banes did. The Avatar shows up and is partially responsible for the near genocide of the Serpent Isle.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:52 pm

There will be some of that in the mod. I'm still bouncing from writing the story (townplots), cluepaths, and code.

Overall story arch is the Bane conquer each town, and twist them as intended in the pre-cut story. Each Bane will need to be defeated twice, once in their twisted town, then again in a White Dragon type of scenario.

Fawn won't be immediately accessible, requiring the Avatar to get the Serpent Tooth for it before he can enter.

Cantra will be curable and join the party. Andrio will join as well, once rescued.

Rotoluncia may survive her love nest basement death. Other resurrections will occur thanks to the Banes.

A special new Crossbow for Mad Iolo was the latest code I cooked up.

Unique items, including the Artifacts of Truth, Love, and Courage will play a role.

So far most NPCs have new post-Batlin placeholder functions. It's a lot of code.

Dale · Post by **Dale** » Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:58 pm

Ohhhh... new crossbow!? Intrigued.. .

By all of it, really.

wopah · Post by **wopah** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 3:33 am

Would it be possible to add more side quests or main quests to fawn since it only had 1 thing to do?

Perhaps adding more virtues quests as well

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 4:12 am

There will be more in the post-Batlin part, but I'm open to suggestions.

wopah · Post by **wopah** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 11:00 pm

Hey KC just wondering how your mod is coming along?

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 6:43 am

Personal life got in the way, in a cascade of punches to the gut. I've been cleaning the code for sharing slowly as time permits. Even have an open submission to SI Fixes pending.

The plot is mapped out on a high level, so once I'm settled at my new desk I'll be cranking out code again.

GrimLock Dragon · Post by **GrimLock Dragon** » Sun Oct 08, 2017 5:44 pm

Hope things get better soon KC. We all look forward to your efforts.

Ammar · Post by **Ammar** » Mon Oct 09, 2017 7:58 am

Very minor change for me. I like to use Serpent's Fang from Silver Seed as my home/HQ. Easily reachable and has all sorts of facilities (i.e. library, armory, secret passage, etc.).

But if you do the time travel with the amulet you lose all your mana points, which is really annoying. If you just go through the rush it really does not matter, so I do think the game would suffer from modding it out. Or just have the effect before planting the Tree (similar to the cooldown on the amulet), but remove it afterwards.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Tue Oct 10, 2017 3:41 pm

That sounds reasonable, after the Tree of Balance is planted.

There are some more complicated parts of the code. The Black Sword, the Amulet of Balance, death and resurrection, all have multiple connected functions.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:27 am

Since I had been away from the project for a while I wanted to start at the very beginning of the game and start sewing up things from there.

The opening cutscene has been reimplemented to show the ship flying, and crashing onto the dry ground, along with the party falling from their seats.

Next up, fixing 0x759 to remove the 176-east teleport, and add additional items for the Teleport Storm townplot. This will include fixing a nitpick, which is Lord British did not equip the party well.

The glowing cat corpse will be added back to the plot, as will fixing the unexplained pumpkin to the list. In preparation, the long what-is-this functions from Harnna, Jendon, Bucia, and Devra are newly-split files, which will be easier to update.

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:59 am

Just for convenience: I always hated when the what-is-this NPCs stopped giving answers for some odd reasons. It made it realistic but also annoying as heck!

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:47 pm

The MAKE_CLOAK_TIMER set and checked by Cellia was my pet peeve. There's only so much grinding, while waiting for that cloak, that I can take.

There's only 8 used in the SI+SS game:
Fawn Trial
Salt Tides
Asked Info (shared by all info people, except Devra doesn't not use it.)
Ethicality
Make Cloak
Mortegro Seance
Amulet Use
Olon Drunk (#12)

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Tue Nov 07, 2017 12:43 pm

The introductory sequence has been re-done, up to the storm item exchange. The disgusting amount of goto in eggGameStartTeleportStorm object#(0x759) has been replaced with a still-inelegant solution. I've added STORM_PUMPKIN and KNOW_PUMPKIN_OWNER flags for later use, and a short bit in the scroll o' items.

Since I had trouble with the 0x759 code, I put a lot of UI_error_message code in, which will be handy when I add more items later:
Item found count is 1.
Item DAGGER found in party.
Item DAGGER found on Shamino.
Item DAGGER removed from Shamino.
UI_add_cont_items returned error code 0.
Item SEVERED_HAND added to Shamino.

A small nitpick about the amount of Filari placed by the storm has been fixed. The 1-100 random could leave small amounts that wouldn't make sense with the dialog about missing money. Now the pile will be 13-100 and always use the highest frame (the biggest pile).

Next up, preventing players from "cheating" by leaving teleport exchange items on the map. Then on to the monk spell battle.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Wed Nov 08, 2017 10:04 am

Got the "cheating" part prevented by using a UI_find_nearby_avatar and then removing those items. This means the hacky triplicate western coasts can be replaced with a single one. Perhaps someday this could lead to a sail-able map?

Paulon · Post by **Paulon** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 3:31 am

I have to admit that if I was in a mood to walk through and experience the SI plot without having to worry about leveling or gear, my response to the new anti-cheating arrangements would involve teleporting to the Claw cheat room or somewhere else with a chest, dropping off the stuff I wanted to keep, then teleporting back to the intro area. Blocking all cheating is probably impractical.
Mind you, all the hard work on improving the game is greatly appreciated, especially if free sailing becomes a potential option. I look forward to seeing how it all turns out.

Knight Captain · Post by **Knight Captain** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 3:48 am

The "cheating" here being the drop items ahead of the teleport storm, not the F2/F3 fun.