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[Cruxador]

Generally the answer to "how do I change the paradigm for this spell" is "you can't". A lot of stuff is totally hard-coded. I'm pretty sure that includes everything where a creature changes from one unit type to another.

Oh gods why is the code box tiny.

It isn't for me

It is for me as well. I'm on Chrome, maybe it's a browser thing?

[gman8181]

@gman
I've thought about testing if the polymorph (it is the curse of the frog prince's) effect works in rituals but I haven't. It is also unknown what it will target as a ritual.

Spoiler: Curse of the Frog Prince (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Spell #596: Curse of the Frog Prince
    Research Requirement {Spl: #school} {Spl: #researchlevel}: Alteration 7
    Magic Path #1 {Spl: #path 0} {Spl: #pathlevel 0}: Nature 2
    Effect {Spl: #effect}: Polymorph [54]
        Monster {Spl: #damage, Wpn: #dmg}: 2222
        Modifiers {Spl: #spec}: [Total Mask: 546197504]
            Magic Resistance Negates {Wpn: #mrnegates} [4096]
            Ignores Shields [16384]
            No Effect on Mindless {Wpn: #mind} [131072]
            Affects Enemies Only {Wpn: #friendlyimmune} [262144]
            No Effect on Undead {Wpn: #undeadimmune} [524288]
            May Use Underwater [8388608]
            Affects Health (?) [536870912]
        Range {Spl: #range, Wpn: #range}: 20 squares
        Sound {Spl: #sound, Wpn: #sound}: Elf Shots [29]
        Flight Sprite {Spl: #flightspr, Wpn: #flyspr}: Medium tailed missile of colorful lights [10081] (Length: 0)
        Explosion Sprite {Spl: #explspr, Wpn: #explspr}: Falling shimmering colors [10001] (Length: 9)
    Number of Effects {Spl: #nreff}: 1
    Precision {Spl: #precision}: 100
    Fatigue {Spl: #fatiguecost}: 20

Hmm. Some time tomorrow I'm hoping to find the time to do a little more modding. I'll try changing the spell to a ritual to see what happens. A quick check does confirm that the damage "2222" is the id for "Frog" so at the very least it should be interesting to try.

That might actually work out even if I can't make it a functioning ritual. As long as I can change the id to the creature I want, then make the spell a self targeting one, it might be able to transform the caster into what I want during battles. If that works, I'll see if I can make an item that autocasts the spell in battle so it kind of works like the item that autocasts twiceborn except the mage doesn't need to die.

Thanks again for the help! I'll post here with the results either way after I try it out.

Generally the answer to "how do I change the paradigm for this spell" is "you can't". A lot of stuff is totally hard-coded. I'm pretty sure that includes everything where a creature changes from one unit type to another.

Oh gods why is the code box tiny.

It isn't for me

It is for me as well. I'm on Chrome, maybe it's a browser thing?

It was small for me as well so I just quoted it to read. I use chrome as well. That aside, yeah it's a shame so much of it is hard coded. I just started getting into the Dominions modding recently and it's quite fun and easy to do but it's a shame you can't do a bit more with it.

[EnigmaticHat]

IIRC, polymorph and transformation both use a hardcoded creature group (I forget what its called exactly, but you enter a negative number for a creature value to represent a random group of creatures).  If you change what's in this group you can make transformation spells, but then you have to remove the spell you changed from the game (or it will do something different than originally intended).

Its similar to how you can change what blood slaves and soulless are by modifying their entry in the creatures list but you can't edit the list of creatures used for those reanimation/blood slavery.

[E. Albright]

Transformation is tag-based. If you add a unit with #transformation 1 (or -1), it'll be a new random result added to the pool of possible good (or bad) transformations.

[E. Albright]

Of curiosity, there wouldn't be anyone particularly Python-saavy around here, would there? I'd dearly like to be able to use sprites.py to be able to extract Illwinter's graphics from their obscure .trs format, but have met with no luck whatever. It's probably because I'm running Python under Windows, but figuring that out was at the very limits of my virtually-no-existent Python expertise.

[Disclaimer: I don't actually want to extract Dominions' .trs files - there are up-to-date sprite dumps available for those. What I really want to do is get access to those sweet, juicy new (well, okay, SOME of them are new) CoE4 sprites...]

[Further disclaimer: per the verbal say-so of KO, said sprites are freely usable for modding purposes, so this is on the up-and-up as all I wanna do with them is cannibalize them for NationGen...]

[Kagus]

Oh yeah, another thing regarding the recent patch(es)... I also find it very amusing that they've added the "made of iron" tag to a lot of weapons, to indicate that they can be rusted by spells or by just being underwater for some time.

...and then they still kept in all the underwater units and nations that use those iron-based weapons and armors.

[soyweiser]

@gman

I think there was a dom3 mod (the awesome mods series) that changed the ritual of rebirth to have different effects. It could only change the body type of normal humans, if you tried to rebirth something that was big or flying you still got a mummy.

Look at the dom3mods forums (dom4 modding is also talked about there). Might want to ask for more help there.

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?act=idx

[gman8181]

Alright, here are my results so far.

Tried making "Curse of the Frog Prince" a ritual spell. Didn't seem to do anything. Probably needs further modding to specify a target. I guess something like how "Gift of Reason" allows one to select a unit might work. Not sure how to do that but using the #copyspell command and then changing the rest of it to match up with "Curse of Frog Prince" would probably bear results.

Made a new spell similar to "Curse of the Frog Prince" except set the damage to the lich's id (178). The spell did indeed turn enemy units into liches instead of frogs.

The next step I suppose is to try and make the spell a ritual that targets commanders. Or at the very least a battle spell that targets the commander casting it.

Unfortunately here, I'm not exactly sure how to make self targeting spells. Not sure if it has something to do with precision and range or if it goes under the category of #spec (special abilities). I guess I'll toy around with some things and see if I make progress. The easiest solution I can think of here unless someone has some helpful wisdom to impart is simply for me to try copying an already existing self targeting ritual (teleport comes to mind) and then further modifying the spell so that it has the effects that turn the unit into the desired new unit.

Thanks once again for the continued help. If I can't get things working here, I'll check out the site posted by soyweiser.


Sadly I can't help with the Python stuff. No experience with working on sprites yet. The people on the Desura Forum might be of some help though.

[E. Albright]

Yeah, I whined there a week or two ago. I'll probably have to wait for the supposedly-forthcoming update that adds modding and at that point someone will feel moved to spring the sprites...

[Kagus]

Another thing you could think of looking into is the spell Twiceborn, although that's likely its own, hardcoded effect. There may potentially be some possibility of triggering the "on death, resurrect as this unit type" flag first, and then killing the caster directly afterwards to activate it... But I'm not sure how well that'd work out, to be honest.

Heh, speaking of, I remember one time I had a pricey mage cast twiceborn and then go get assisted suicide from some local indies so he'd come back upkeep-free...

Naturally, the killing blow left him feebleminded and incapable of anything.

[Micro102]

If you're trying to get things to turn into other things on death, then I suggest looking at things like the serpent king pretender, or lamias. They change into snakes when they die, so you may be able to turn that into ritual.

[Majestic7]

Doom Horrors have multiple forms, at least some of them.

[E. Albright]

Those don't really work for what gman is trying to do. Second shapes are unit-specific, whereas gman wants something that would work for any unit casting the spell.

[gman8181]

Alright, I talked with some people on the Desura forum and from what I've gathered there, it seems as though the unit targeted by rituals might be hardcoded by the ritual's effect.
For battle spells, it's probably linked to the spell having no range and possibly the #spec 4194304 which sets the spell to only target friendly units.

Looks like the only way to work this out will be as battle only spells and not as rituals. Still better than nothing though. I'll try and get some more testing done with this sometime within the next few days and I'll share the results in case anyone here wants to make similar spells of their own somewhere down the line.

Also yeah, thanks for the replies but as E. Albright said, those are tags for changing specific units into other specific units. I don't believe you can use them in that way.
For example there's
#firstshape #secondshape #secondtmpshape #shapechange
These commands allow a unit to change shape depending on their hp values or as a command like with dragon pretenders. I don't think they'd have any effect with spells. Maybe with items but I'm really not sure. I suppose I could slap it on some item and see if it does anything. I'll try that as well when I'm testing the new spells to see if it has any effect.

[EuchreJack]

Oh yeah, another thing regarding the recent patch(es)... I also find it very amusing that they've added the "made of iron" tag to a lot of weapons, to indicate that they can be rusted by spells or by just being underwater for some time.

...and then they still kept in all the underwater units and nations that use those iron-based weapons and armors.

Yeah, I thought that was funny as well.