Llama8

Not to self: PAY ATTENTION MORE NEXT TIME! Thanks guys, I'd not noticed that they do drop now. Some are legendaries & the others are uniques...

Yes, since it's easier (kinda) to get multiple-elemental damage batteries than for most other weapons (except pistols, which the TG can also use) you can use the battery ranged attack to proc multiple elemental effects more easily. In Ice and Blood, Damage Lore affects non-weapon based attacks as well as weapon based attacks (& the battery ranged attack is a weapon-based attack).

It's just a pity they don't/won't drop, still, that could be fixed in the CM mod/patch.

Some fairly significant differences between 2.43 & 2.65, not least of which being a shed-load more stuff (including monsters).

The announcement was here & the submission thread was here. Well fudge me if they didn't actually put them in the game! I present you with... First prize: Gladiator's Grimace (id = 2648) Second prize: Tervon's Might (id = 2649) Third prize: Forbidden Punisher (id = 2650) It brings a little tear to my eye, knowing that they were actually implemented (albeit not with the originally proposed skin). The image names contain the ID of the weapons in blueprint.txt & the following code will spawn them (change the number in bold to the item ID): eiStateName = "cSpellCast", fxTypeCast = "FX_SE_BEEEFFGEE_C", fxTypeSpell = "FX_SE_BEEEFFGEE", fxTypeCastSpecial = "FX_SK_CAST_L", duration = 10.000000, animType = "ANIM_TYPE_SM06", animTypeApproach = "ANIM_TYPE_INVALID", animTypeRide = "ANIM_TYPE_INVALID", animTypeSpecial = "ANIM_TYPE_RIDESM06-SPECIAL", causesSpellDamage = 1, tokens = { entry0 = {"et_summon_level", 10, 10, 0, 8 }, entry1 = {"et_summon_item", 1000, [b]2648[/b], 0, 5 }, entry2 = {"et_life_buff", 125, 125, 1, 9 }, entry3 = {"et_life_regen", 20, 20, 2, 41 }, entry4 = {"et_baseVW", 100, 50, 3, 5 }, entry5 = {"et_regThisBuff", 250, 5, 4, 8 }, entry6 = {"et_chance_evade", 200, 2, 5, 41 }, entry7 = {"et_damping_phy", 50, 3, 6, 41 }, }, fightDistance = 0.000000, aspect = "EA_SK_HARDCOMBAT", cooldown = 0.000000, soundProfile = 0, cost_level = 250, cost_base = 250, focus_skill_name = "skill_SK_heavy_combat_focus", lore_skill_name = "skill_tactics_lore", spellClass = "cSpellSeBeeeffgee", spellcontroltype = "eCAtype_t_buff", sorting_rank = 5, }) There are also a few other "contest" weapons: name = "unique_contest_hammer_2h_lars", id = 2444 name = "unique_contest_hammer_2h_shugrok", id = 2445 name = "unique_contest_axe_2h_regnif", id = 2446 name = "unique_contest_hammer_1h_thorien", id = 2447

I've bolded the line you'd want to change to one of the more "aggressive" behaviours. It would be interesting to see if the dangerclass & rank lines would affect their aggression as well (though I don't think so).

Not sure about the aggression, though you could change their HP/XP/etc using Balance.txt. I'd imagine that the behaviour specified by the creatures.txt (per creature ) would determin how "aggressive" they are, though I think you'll probably only be able to choose from the set number of behaviours that Ascaron put in (though you should be able to replace, say, a Kobold's behaviour with a Daemon/Undead behaviour). IE, replace any "cowardly" behaviours with "brave" behaviours.

True, but it's one thing to pick an item up & chuck it in your back pack & another to be able to skillfully wield it in combat...

All of the weapon choices that the classes are allowed are thematically driven. There's no coding reason why a Dryad couldn't use energy weapons, it just doesn't fit with the tree-hugging-lover-of-nature-hater-of-technology image if she can use energy weapons (or anything metal TBH, but lets ignore that). Ditto with the SW being the only one that can use the big two-handed axes/hammers, all of the other classes are puny weaklings that can't even lift them let alone stick them into the opponent's nice bits.

Just checked, with one nekkid level 200 TG, a white Niobium battery (level 216, 204-277 damage, no other mods) & a grey Bronze battery (level 1, 13-18 damage, no other mods). All CAs are level 1, no skills, no item mods or anything. Furious Emblazer did 107 damage with no battery equipped, the Bronze battery equipped & the Niobium battery equipped. Battle Extension did 262 damage with no battery equipped, the Bronze battery equipped & the Niobium battery equipped. Primal Mutation did 144 damage with no battery equipped, the Bronze battery equipped & the Niobium battery equipped. The only damage a battery will directly increase is that of the ranged arm cannon. The only way a battery can effect any CA is by the mods it has (including sockets).

What happened is that there wasa bug which allowed you to prolong the XP bonus from statues (+100%) by taking mentor pots. As long as the mentor pot bonus didn't run out, you got the benefit of the statue (as well I think). So if you had enough mentor pots you could keep the statue bonus indefinitely (or at lest until you logged off). The current situation is the result of the "fix" for this bug. So I think the bug/fallout/collateral damage is that gear, CA mods & mentor potions don't stack as the user would expect them to.

The wiki needs to be updated then... I've never really understood how KS works properly, I'm not sure if the damage it does is related at all to the amount of weapon damage you're doing (as the description implies/states), since I don't think I've ever had more than two pulses & I've usually been too busy to note how much damage the pulse does (to see if it's getting a damage bonus from the weapon damage you're doing). Edit: As to the poll, if you can make the SW a caster, anyone can be a caster...

The battery is a weapon (hence it has a damage converter socket, though it can rarely have some +armour mods) & is responsible for the arm cannon damage (ie, ranged damage when Dedicated Blow & Battle Extension aren't in the active slot). The only way it can affect CAs is by the mods on the item, it's never added it's damage (or a portion thereof) to the CA damage, you can check this by equipping a low level white/grey battery & comparing the CA damage when you equip a high level white/grey battery (since white/grey batteries shouldn't have any mods that boost CA damage). I'll take some screenshots when I get home. The whole battery-affecting-CAs thing is a thematic concept only, it won't actually do anything in-game (though it should have & Ascaron missed a trick there IMO). There has always been a display bug with damage converters in that it will convert non-weapon based CA damage on the tooltip, but that is only a display bug, the damage converters aren't supposed to (and don't) affect non-weapon based CAs. The damage conversion is done last in the calculation, so any +% fire damage modifiers won't boost the physical damage converted into fire with a lava rock.

If you want to do a "caster" SW, you'd be limited to the following CAs: Ruinous Onslaught, Rousing Command (though it would only boost the regen of CAs if you take the appropriate mod), the buffs, Killing Spree, Augmenting Guidon (for defence & HP regen, with the appropriate mods), Belligerent Vault & possibly the summoning CAs from Astral Lord. That is a decent number of CAs, but only RO, Killing Spree (kinda) & Vault would do any damage to opponents (unless you want to use the summoning CAs). I think a pure caster SW would definitely be a challenge, more so since he doesn't get Ancient Magic for a further damage boost.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that TBH...

I'd be interested to know how you got somethng "interesting" from the boomerang decompiler DB, I'm not really seeing much other than a page or two of code (& not much interesting either).

Ahh yes, I forgot that Sacred 2 won't run if you're using Process Monitor.... Edit, or you can just start Sacred 2 first, then Process Monitor. Edit 2: Unfortunately there's no access of the DLL's in the Sacred 2 folder while either mousing over a CA (for the tooltip) or using a CA, which means that anything in them is loaded either on startup or when you load a character (Spells.txt is loaded when you load a save). The vast majority of what's going on during play is accessing gfx & sound files (which is understandable) & TCP communications (ie server/host stuff with S2gs.exe). The only dll accesses were to Windows\system32\d3d files (either d3d8.dll, d3d9.dll or dinput8.dll). Edit 3: And the copy protection kicks in when you exit to the main menu (I wouldn't be surprised if the DRM kicks in on save file load as well). Edit 4: Interestingly, when you access the load screen, Sacred 2 attempts to open up save files 0-99. *shrugs* And yes, the DRM spits the dummy out on save file load... *sigh*

Yeah, if you monkey about with Spells.txt & change a CA such that there aren't any of the specific entites (eg, duration) that it's looking to display, it'll remove those lines, but it won't always do it. I removed the mutation token from Primal Mutation & the tooltip was still displaying the "chance to mutate 5%" line...

The text is in Global.res, but just the text. For example: "Raises a force field that partially absorbs incoming damage while enough energy remains to sustain the shield." is in Global.res, as is "Damage", "Regeneration time of all Combat Arts", "Damage Absorption" & "Ward Efficiency" (& all of the CA mod text), but Global.res doesn't say anything about what figures it's pulling through on the right (ie, the damage, regen penalty, damage absorption figure & ward efficiency figure), so you could replace all of the text with garbage, or exerpts from Shakespear & it'd still display the same figures on the right. Somewhere in the exe or the DLLs, there's a piece of code/instructions that tells Sacred 2 what to display when you hover over the T-energy Shroud icon, it'll tell Sacred 2 to pickup specific lines from Global.res & it'll tell Sacred 2 to pick up specific calculations from base CA stats (eg, the damage, shield energy & ward efficiency) as modified by other skills & item mods. All Global.res has is all of the text in-game & nothing else. No references to where that text is used (though some of it is fairly obvious), no reference to anything around the text (ie, the calculation for the damage, or shield energy, or CA regen/regen penalty). That's what's been doing my nut for the past few days.

Probably a copy & paste from pre-existing files.

Thanks mate. I had a quick look via google & decompilers (even just a home license) weren't exactly cheap... So presumably Process Explorer/Monitor would be able to tell me where in what DLL Sacred 2's being told what data to grab for tooltips & how a CA should behave based on the spellclass.

Argh, I did have a reply typed out that got eaten. Long story short, some spells (not many & several of them are buffs) get +% damage to specific elements, either as part of the base CA or from a mod. As to what's the "best" way of increasing damage, that'll likely be heavily dependant on your level & your gear (in terms of +CA, +Focus/Lore & +% damage) as to whether you'll get more effect from increasing a CA level (which end game will likely be above your Max CA level anyway) or increasing your Lore/+% damage.

Does anyone know how (since IIRC it's possible) one goes about the following: 1)I know there are tools out there that can be used to find what a process is doing (eg, what functions it's calling from DLLs) when it does it (eg, you hover over a CA & the tooltip comes up, what function is called/run & where's it getting the data from, etc), what are they & where can you get them from? 2)Does anyone know how to go about using said tools? I ask because (here & here) it seems that quite a lot of the behaviour of both the GUI & CAs is determined by stuff that's hardcoded (eg, spellClass) & if we could change these, then we'd be able to do more interesting things.

I'm trying to change some of the CA tooltips so that they display appropriate information for some altered CAs (eg, where the original CA had a duration, but my revised CA has a range). While I can change the text in the tooltips, I can't change the data that's getting pulled through (without presumably editing the exe or the DLLs, same goes for spellClass TBH).

Those CAs are unused CAs that weren't implimented, some of them have tokens in them (the Shadow Warrior ones), but the majority of them don't. As DB says, it's likely to be a coding issue/bug, ie, something that can't be fixed by the CM team, though it might be fixable by editing the save game file.