Hint needed, not a great modder here...

Giving back to familiar the ability to cast tactical spells

from Elemental Forums

Hi there and thanks for reading whoever you are :grin: since I think the title is pretty clear,  just being here means you like to help, and that's cool in my book!

 

Now that I've been pleasant (I hope at least!) I'll expose my idea.

The first contact I had with elemental was because of one of my friends, he had an "illegit" copy of the iso (vers 1.0) [he's now a proud owner of a legit copy, he just NEVER buys a game without having a first look at it, and in today's gaming world, I can understand the man]

 

In that early version, each creature (Bear, familiar, various elemental giants) could cast tactical spells. That was lame. Still there was a single glaring gem, the familiar. The familiar was an early summon, able to cast spells, but with low initial stats and not OP, because by the time you get it, if you rush, he would just be a melee summon, being deprived from any "natural" active ability.

By mid game the familiar was able to cast a lot of small useful spells, like Deflect. Now, one of the first thing I noticed when I too became a "Proud Elemenal Owner" was that my little red friend had been nerfed into early meatshieldedness (neologism). Since , somehow, no one noticed how OP Vigilant Minions (or wathever they are called...) are, I would like to know:

 

Exactly where should I look to restore my early familiars? I have absoutely no idea, and my xml skills are abysmal, but I'm headache-resistant and I have no fear of breaking things up in the tryout process (god knows how many times I "Broke" my Oblivion, but now, it is such an EPIC game ^_^ )

 

Any suggestion would be welcome and thanks for reading!

 

 

5,955 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Check out CoreUnits.xml (edit: CoreSummonedUnits.xml)

What you'll want to do is make a completely new file, add the whole unittype for the familiar (and the intro of the file on top), put it in your /Mods/ folder. Then you'll need to check the stats it has, and add UnitStat_Essence.

However, I'm not 100% sure that a normal unit can become a channeler any more.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

OK, I'll give it a shot anyway when I return home! I too think that normal untis cannot channel magic anymore, but still I wanted a more professional opinion, wich you gave! Thank you! At least if it does not work, I won't be banging my head in the sharpest corners of my room :D

 

Edit: No luck! Guess it isn't doable atm... Thx anyway!

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

The familar is in CoreSummonedUnits.xml. Two things I see is at level it has 2 essence and that goes to 0 at level 30. Also it only have one SelectedAbilityBonusOption of vengence. No other abilities given to it.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, I noticed that, he starts with a lowly (and useless -_- ) mana pool wich is then set to 0 at level 30.

 

This game is full of such little mysteries!

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Take a look at a fire giant in the summoned creatures to get a good feel for how mana and special abilities are used.