I was curious. I've heard of all the different mods and add-ons that people have created for bg, and i was wondering if there would be a way to creat a custom party formation. I'd like to have a main character as a mage and have him be in control of the party, but i dont want him to be at the head of the pack. Would it be possible to create or edit the staggered six-pack formation:
1_
_2
3_
_4
5_
_6

to where the main character is still in charge and does all the charisma effected things, but that he stands in the 6 slot instead of in the 1 slot?
I have faith in all of you computer geniuses...geniusus...geniusai...smart people.

Hhmmm, you could possibly script it, so that the six slot (position six, not you SixOfSpades) would talk automatically when you have everyone selected and slot one goes off to talk to somebody. You'd probably have to re-script position one too, by default I'd guess.

I don't really know enough about it, so I could be talking nonsense. Still, why break a forum habit of a lifetime, eh? :D

Thinking about it, it's essentially the reverse of what you've already got I suppose.

[ 10-15-2002, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: Lord Brass ]

I think I am playing in an alternate universe because I have never seen the staggered six-pack formation.

It's there alright. It's basically an offset of the standard formation. (In IWD its next to the single line column formation, but can't remember in BG.)

You know that there are more formations avaible then those that show up in the quick buttons right? You can change the buttons to one of several formations.

Underhill, my old china, have you right-clicked on the list? You'll find it under that section of available formations.

I don't think that you'd have to go through all the work of making the #6 slot the leading position, but rather, just to make it so that the person in the #1 slot, stood in the back of the party. That's it. No other changes to dialogue scripting, charisma rolls, or anything like that.

oh freaky. I just became a borg.

I'm not sure how the scripting parameters work with regards to formation. The default position is to have slot one perform all of the talking. As that is the case, you must need to reassign that value to slot 6, and remove it from slot one. How you'd make it so that slot one stood in the "back of the party" I don't know. Anyways, I thought you wanted to lead from the rear! [img]smile.gif[/img]

There you go...just one more thing that I had no idea that you could do in BG.

Actually ryaldin, the acronym is: CLDWTVBOOHS (Creepy looking dude with the veins bulging out of his skull).
Being the CLDWTVBOOHS does not preclude one from being a member of BYOB or KAK. :D

And Mr. Baggins, I learn something almost every day on this forum.

I do. I was just thinking, that the character whom i would want to lead (e.g. my mage) could still be in the 1 slot, leading the party, but instead of the 1 slot being in front, it could just be in the place where the six slot stands, not moving all the parameters for the one slot altogether. See what i'm saying?

The ideal solution would we to allow the player to choose both the shape of the formation, and ALSO the marching order of the characters within that formation. For instance, they may choose between six-pack, straight line, oval, pentagon, triange, etc., and there's also a button that lets them cycle the "Slot 1" position through each of the 6 spots in the formation. For instance, I like the pentagon formation--but in BG1, the party leader is always in front, so if I want to lead the party I have to be a good Tanking character. In BG2, however, the pentagon formation places the leader of the party in the very center of the formation--rather a stupid place to put your Tank. The solution described above would fix both problems.

brilliant six!!!...but how do we do it?

I'm not sure that it can be done. There's the suspicion that it's hard-coded into the game, and whilst you can fiddle around with a lot of things, this may not be one of them. Further investigation is required on the topic I think. :confused:

Essentially, at the very least, you would have to change the interface for the player, as how would the computer know which slot you'd like to have as "number one"?

[ 10-17-2002, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: Lord Brass ]