Luna, possible to keep him a free 'merc'?

[Kyle]

I've just encountered the mission featuring Luna in Sagrada, and I noticed that if I insist that he turns himself in to the police, that once he reaches the station the player is seemingly able to have FULL control of him. Prior to reaching the station, any orders one issues to him will be ignored and he'll keep right on walking to the station.

I purchased for him one of MoreDread's night ops uniforms, but whenever I place it on him, Luna's head disappears entirely. Now the same thing will happen if it's done to Benecia UNLESS one has installed MoreDread's mod that was specially made for her.

Luna has GREAT stats for a potentially free "merc," and I'd certainly like to keep him if it's doable.

So the questions are these:
(1) Is it possible to keep Luna in one's pool of mercenaries indefinitely (that is, until he's formally turned in by the player to the Sagrada police)? If this is attempted for too long, will it result in a bug?

(2) If it is possible to indefinitely keep control of Luna, how could I go about fixing his invisible head?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Kyle
June 16, 2010

[Dr.Q]

Why, you need a suicide bomber or deranged assassin? Missing head shouldn't be a problem then :)

[Kyle]

:grin:

[R@S]

1: You could keep Luna in your team as long as you like, it wont cause any bugs. But if you do, you wont be able to progress the BSM quest line. If you play for the rebels you would have to let him go for the "Rescue Tanya" mission where you need to go alone. On the other hand, if you turn him in you'll get two other mercs for free, Kelly and Rob Yu, which both has better stats than Luna (I think:)).

2: To fix the head issue you need a new character model for him, one where the head and body is in different AZP packs. The body should use the standard AZP pack for RPC's, the 000_body or one of the other RPC packs.

Then you need to find a head that resembles the dialog pic somewhat, and that too needs to be one of the RPC ones since those are set to use helmets and NVG's.

Finally you need to add him to the RPC list in the MERCENARIES file in the ini folder so that the engine knows that the character should change model when some new equipment is worn.

So let's recap:
You need an Luna.azp archive that contains 2 files(ACTOR.ACT.DESCR and ANIMINFO). In the ACTOR.ACT.DESCR you need to call the new head and the standard merc body.

ACTOR.ACT.DESCR should look like this:
COPYFROM Body 000_body
COPYFROM Head Luna_Head
END

Then you need the new head, rename the one that fits Luna to Luna_Head.azp and call that in the ACTOR.ACT.DESCR in the Luna.AZP archive.

Then finally add the merc to the MERCENARIES file and Luna should work as a "real" RPC.

[Kyle]

if you turn him in you'll get two other mercs for free, Kelly and Rob Yu

:shock:

I had no idea that this was even possible! I deleted/restarted a new game two days ago, now that I knew how to get all of my initial equipment for free, and to get Paq and Benecia as free "mercs," and now there's two more that I can get for free?

Just last night I decided to let Luna go, to see how much cash I got out of his account. I was surprised that I didn't even have to visit a bank--instantly my cash went up by like $6,000!

But I'd be more than happy to forgo this amount for Kelly and Rob. Can I get a tip as to where I'll find them after Luna's escorted back to the Police Station?

I'm happy that I didn't pursue keeping him around as part of the squad, especially now knowing that it would've fouled up a mission with Tanya.

And a great big thank you for the nicely detailed walk through about converting Luna so that "his" body displays equipment properly. :) It's modders such as yourself that help keep the world going around!