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[horred the plague]

File Name: BP Series Party AI for BG
File Submitter: horred the plague
File Submitted: 16 Dec 2012
File Category: BG:EE Mods

<b>WARNING: If you have a previous version of BP Series installed, please uninstall completely before installing BP Series v 0.3100+</b>

<p>Love the game, but getting sick of incessant party micromanagement every time you run into a mere kobold? Then the BP Series Party AI Scripts are just for you. Sit back and watch the fun, instead of pausing every two seconds to make sure Minsc isn't off picking daisies in mid-battle, nor if Edwin is casting Meteor Swarm at a pair of goblins five feet away from himself.

Over a dozen scripts specialized for your party's needs, support for every spell, kit and Bhaalspawn ability, as well as many popular items. An intricate series of Hotkey Toggles puts powerful in-game auto-management at your fingertips. Systems include Undead Turning, Bard Song, Set Traps, Backstabbing, Party Healing, Spell Sequencing, and more!

Fully utilizes Detectable Stats system, the ultimate in advanced AI for spell/item/effect detection for the IE engine. Fully compatible with enemy AI mods using the same system. Adds many IDS file entries from BG2:ToB that were missing in BGEE. All this allows for some of the most intelligent, logical decisions and spellcasting choices possible in IE scripting.

As of version 0.3024, BPSeries not only supports BGEE but also BG2:ToB w/ or w/o BGT! That's right, we'I brought the shiny new chrome version of these classic scripts back home where they belong. Note that these are currently a nice clean Vanilla set of scripts. That means, they don't try and support the added content of 101+ mods. This support will likely come in the near future, but not before I have all the kinks in the core vanilla system ironed out. They've come a long ways already since I started this rework a few weeks back, but there's still room for improvement. They are running clean, mean, and most efficiently. In my opinion, this is the best version of the BP Series scripts to date!</p><p> </p><p>As of v3053, BPSeries now supports Mac OSX

 

New Mac Instructions (by Rathlord & me):

Place the setup-bpseries.tp2 file, and the weidu.exe, in your Resources folder.
Open a terminal in your Resource folder.
Type: .\weidu setup-bpseries.tp2 --log setup-bpseries.debug


 </p><p><strong>Mac OSX Installation Instructions (by mlnevese):</strong></p><p>In Finder, go to Applications/Baldur's Gate-EE/Game Data/00777/. Right click on "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition" and select "Show Package Contents." Go to Contents/Resources. The Override folder will be there, along with the game data.</p><p>Unzip bpseriesxxxx inside the Resources folder</p><p>Open a terminal window.</p><p>Type, or just copy and paste the foollowing command:</p><p>cd /Applications/Baldur's\ Gate\ -\ Enhanced\ Edition/Game\ Data/00777/Baldur's\ Gate\ -\ Enhanced\ Edition.app/Contents/Resources/</p><p>Once inside the Resources folder type:</p><p>./bgee_install_BPSeries.sh</p><p>Follow the prompts on screen.</p><p> </p><p><strong>NEW:</strong> BP Series v3100 and up have full support for BG2:EE!
 </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
<span><strong>The History:</strong></span>
This script set was taken right out of the Big Picture mod for BG2:ToB. Don't worry, I asked the author first (in the mirror, the morning before). But its history is much older. It started off as a breakdown of the U-Series script into smaller/more specialized scripts, as early as 2003. Cirrerek was responsible for this effort, and this is where his e-Series came from. I even did a revision for the e-Series, back in 2005. Some time in early 2006, Seanas (who formerly assisted with the Big Picture mod) took the e-Series and added a bunch of mod content to make it compatible with the Big Picture megamod set of mods (before BWP even existed, besides as a twinkle in Leonardo's eyes). I came out of retirement for a while in 2008, found and liked the set, and I've been chiselling at them on and off since. When BGEE came out, I saw the opportunity to start from scratch, build for a new vanilla game where I didn't have to account for the additions of 200+ mods at once. This is allowing me to really clean up the core system, and make it much more efficient for all subsequent versions (BG:EE, BG2:ToB, and now BG2:EE).</p>

Click here to download this file

[ShadowSmuggler]

Sorry if this is the wrong spot, but I found a bug when using these scripts for BG:EE. I gave imoen the thief script and on random occasions (so far only in beregost) She either randomly backstabbed a commoner who was just sitting there enjoying his drink.. or she decided she didn't like officer Vai and the way they looked at each other and backstabbed her. I should point out this was for .3034 version. I'm DL the new one to test. oh and my reputation in game is about 18+ (probably closer to 20).

 

also 3040 has a missing string. Whatever script is supposed to be between mage and multi is missing (assuming Monk). I've completely uninstalled the old scripts and installed the new ones.

Edited by ShadowSmuggler, 21 February 2013 - 04:14 AM.

[ScuD]

Repeat until you finally download the file. Unfortunately there's something wrong with the downloads here at SHS. Reported that several times, but it was never resolved.

[horred the plague]

I forgot this thread even existed. Sorry--naturally that means I don't check here much. You can get a much quicker response in the BP forums, and especially at this thread:

[cogwheel]

Most of these scripts just provoke a lot of hair-pulling.  They try to do to much, and then fail hard at incredibly simple things (which even the game's default scripts get right), to the point that it gets you killed in game or seriously handicaps you.

 

 

- Characters WILL CANCEL MID-ACTION YOUR MANUAL INPUTS!  This means you will waste spells in crucial situations because the scripts decide to force the character to do something else (like attack with a ranged weapon), even during the middle of a casting animation! Even the game's default scripts don't do this; they will never cancel a manual command, especially not one already in progress. (note: this problem is especially noticable with a dart-throwing spell-caster, presumably because of the three attacks per round)

 

- Related to the above, you will also have extreme frustration getting a character with more than one attack per round to use items with longer than a 1 or 2 casting/activation time during active combat, like scrolls or wands.  After you input the command, the character will keep automatically reseting its next action to do something the script is mandating instead, usually a physical attack on the nearest enemy.  So two rounds later you're still trying to get Rasaad to throw a flask of fiery burning that you needed him to throw immediately.

 

- The Wild Magic support seems pointless.  You get the 3-second floating-text warning that a Dweomer is about to be cast... but you still can't cancel the imminent casting by any means but disabling the AI completely, and you still must have the character selected to manually pick which spell the Dweomer casts anyway (or else the Dweomer just fizzles out and is wasted), so why even bother scripting it in the first place?

 

- Forget about using your melee characters tactically, i.e. going after specific targets.  The scripts will cancel any such specific direction.  You'll watch your boots of speed equipped fighter or speedy monk actually turn around halfway to that enemy mage in the back to go attack some low-threat mob instead.  And now the mage has his spell off and just screwed your party.

 

- Weapon-switching in every mode that allows it is unreliable. Another thing the default scripts actaully do much better. I see fighter tanks set to 'melee intuitive' using a longbow on a mob right in their face, and the cleric/druid/multiclass scripts in particular usually just ignore 'melee intuitive' in favor of attacking with a ranged weapon 90% of the time.  'Absolute Mode' works a little bit better, but still not as reliably as the vanilla scripts with the same function.

 

- One great feature of the default scripts is a function in which ranged characters will actually automatically create distance between themselves and the nearest enemies.  This is very effective for keeping your squishy characters alive.  No such functionality exists anywhere with any of the scripts in BP-series.  So many options in these scripts, and yet they ignore one of the few really robust and useful functions of the default scripts.

 

- Appropriate spell usage, even with ballyhooed 'detectable stats feature' is still... not good.  I see mages commonly wasting Glitterdust on the last puny kobold or xvart, and clerics wasting Remove Fear when no character is under a fear-effect (this happens routinely).

 

- In 50 hours of gameplay I have yet to ever see my berserker charname using Enrage or any of his innates via the script.  Yet the script claims full support of these features.  I do see Monks and Blackguards reliably using their kit/innate abilities, but some other kit support doesn't appear to be working.

 

- I have yet to ever see a character use an equipped wand on their own.  Setting them to "use all items" hasn't mattered. This feels ironic, considering how trigger-happy the same scripts are regarding using memorized spells on low-threat enemies.

 

 

Well, that's most of the bad.  A mountain of it.  In the interest of fairness, I will list what the scripts actually do well:

 

- Party healing is very robust.  Healers auto-cast their healing spells very reliably, and there is an excellent Goodberry script (makes the creation, sharing, and using among the party 100% automatic... this is quite nice in BG1).

 

- the monk's "target far opponent" option works well so long as you can accept not ever manually directing him

 

- auto-use of healing potions and antidotes is very reliable

 

- stealth and detect trap modes with thieves/monks are reliable

 

- the spell Sleep is very effective with the mage scripts, because the 'detectable stats' feature does at least seem to work in regard to knowing when enemies have 4 hit-dice less; no more guessing/hoping

 

 

But that's just not nearly enough to make up for all the bad.  Unless you're playing on Easy difficulty and thus don't need to do anything but throw your guys into aggro-range of enemies, I strongly discourage use of these scripts. I gave them many hours of gameplay to win me over, and they're just not worth the trouble.  Ironically, the only way to use these scripts safely is to micromanage disabling and re-enabling them.  Which defeats the point, really.

Edited by cogwheel, 29 November 2014 - 01:30 PM.