Dark Side Modding

[reinartz42]

Hi, I cracked open the DarkSide ses.kfs file and can't seem to find what I'm looking for.

Where are the ATOM files for most of the units? I can't find Imps, Demonesses, Vampires or any of the older units. I've just managed to find a couple of the new ones.

Where is the Companion/Pet rage skill file? Does that include the maxLevel or upgrade choices per level? If not where are those?

Also where are the Wife/Armorbearer files?

-=Advanced=-
I tried copying dragon_rider dive attack to dark_sprite_lake it froze in combat. If anyone has tips how to alter troop skills I'd be very interested. I wanted to give dark_sprite_lake a weaker version of the dive attack with magic damage instead of physicial as a test.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Most of the ATOM's are in data.kfs for any of the KB games including TL, AP, CW, WotN, I&F, and DS - I mentioned it here.

I cover adding an ability to apply after a unit's attack it here - this doesn't necessarily apply to what you're trying to do, but you need to understand how attacks / abilities are specified and then you're most likely going to have to go into the LUA code to determine what it is doing to see if there is anything specific to the Dragon Rider unit.

If you look at the above example, you will note that the Bone Dragon ATOM specifies the Bone Dragon's attacks via the "attacks=" line. You probably found this, but you also need to copy the actual ability section as well. Following the example in the linked post (although I don't show the code), there is a "poison_cloud" section of code later in the file that describes the "poison_cloud" attack. I will use this to mean the Dragon Rider Dive ability.

You will need to go into the dark_sprite_lake.atom file and add the name of the Dragon Rider Dive attack to the end of her "attacks=" line and then copy the "poison_cloud" (dive) attack ability code to her ATOM as well.

From here you need to find the LUA file that contains the code from the "script=" line of the ability. A GREP tool that searches contents of files is really helpful, although as a guess it is probably in an ADDON_*.LUA (probably special_attacks or unit_features) file. Once you find the function, you'll have to go through it and see what it is referencing from the Dragon Rider ATOM and determine if there is unique information that the Sprite ATOM lacks.

I'm guessing that there are unique animations that the Dragon Rider has that the Sprite doesn't - perhaps this is why the game locks up / crashes on you. As an alternate, you can look at the Giant's ability as you may find that is more generic and not as specific as the Dragon Rider code is.

Good luck - feel free to ask questions!

/C\/C\

[reinartz42]

Thanks, that helped alot. The only thing I still haven't found is the wife/armorbearer/companion file... probably because I don't know the name. But I have searched both in ses.kfs and data.kfs.

As for the dive ability, it is too unique to the dragon rider. There is no script= value. I figured because the lake sprite could also fly the animations were already in the game it was just a matter of the y/z axis increase/decrease to perform a "jump" animation. If that worked similarly the blood_priestess could be modded into a dragoon with her lance and a pseudo jump ability.

After playing Legend, AP, CW,WotN, FnI I thought it might be cool to start changing units and playing around making noloss impossible harder but fair. I do want the wife file location, but I'll have to dig into the older posts and learn the limits of changing/creating new troop and possibly pet abilities.

[MattCaspermeyer]

They are in items.txt.

Search for "companion" and you'll find them all.

/C\/C\

[ShadowTek]

Nice info
Is there a way I can make the Demoness fly?
I know changing the move to 1 kinda works, traps wont affect her.. but she walks instead of flies. I thing there's a animation for it because when she kills something she flies into the air for a few.

[MattCaspermeyer]

The simple answer is yes, but if you want her animation and sound to match, then that's a whole other story.

The demoness info is in DEMONESS.ATOM (in DATA.KFS) and then you can just change her movement type from 0 to 1 (float - like beholders or sprites) or 2 (fly like dragons or girffins). Note that Ghosts are a movement type of -2 (allowing them to move through obstacles).

Now if you want to make their animations and sounds match, then that is a whole new story, but the animation that makes her fly is "avoid".

Note that in my H3B mod, I made Demonesses and Archdemons flit when Giants do their earthquake so that they avoid damage just like dragons and griffins since they both have wings to avoid it. The Archdemon's "fly" animation is "special".

If you look at the animations {} section in the ATOM, you'll see there are at least a couple dozen animations. To change how a unit moves, you'd at least need to change the move animation (this is the move= line and is usually the unit's name followed by an _move.bsa - the demoness' is demoness_move.bsa (BSA files are located in ANIMATION.KFS)); however, it is usually more complex than that - if you check out the dragon's movement, they have a takeoff, flight, and land series of animations.

I don't know what edits *.BSA files, maybe someone will post that information here.

Then there is also the sound. Pretty much all the sounds are WAV files and they are located in SOUNDS.KFS. When the Demoness moves, her heels make a sound on the ground, so you'd have to fiddle with that, too. Sounds are in the attachments {} section of the ATOM and then a numbered section that has typically several sound{} sections. Each sound{} then identifies an animation the sound goes with and the file= line identifies the wave file to play when performing that animation. For Demoness (you guessed it!) it is demoness_move (the .wav is omitted). You can change it to point to another WAV file (i.e. demoness_fly) or add a different WAV of the same name to the mods folder to make it sound differently. Note that you may need to change other sounds if they don't match.

Good luck if you want to go change them to fly around in combat with proper animations and sounds - let us know how it goes!

/C\/C\

[ShadowTek]

Thanks for all the great info! I'll take a shot at it
Right now I just have her set at a move=1 which I just imagine her flying over traps and when ever she needs to "fly" but would be nice to have her actually fly since she has wings.

BTW.. good idea on the earthquake idea

[budist]

Hello, i would have a question also, how can i mod the level caps for the pet and hero, couldn't find them. Thank you

[budist]

Hello,

Can somebody help me and tell me where the maximum level for the hero and Blackie are?