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Author Topic: Number of uses remaining - ability to display?  (Read 5770 times)

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August 16, 2011, 05:48:17 PM
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PRC class features (spells, maneuvers, psi powers) are given to the PC as feats, and are often placed in the quick-slots for use. Unlike core NWN items, these ones don't show the number of uses remaining - so for example a Warblade PC just has to remember if they used or even readied a particular move, as there's no numeric counter.

I was wondering: Is this because there is a technical limitation, and feats can't display counters on the quick-slots?


August 17, 2011, 12:37:40 AM
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PRC class features (spells, maneuvers, psi powers) are given to the PC as feats, and are often placed in the quick-slots for use. Unlike core NWN items, these ones don't show the number of uses remaining - so for example a Warblade PC just has to remember if they used or even readied a particular move, as there's no numeric counter.

I was wondering: Is this because there is a technical limitation, and feats can't display counters on the quick-slots?

Those feats are added to characters skin, and feats added as item properties can't display counters. When I asked about that on PRC chat, Strat told me to ask BioWare why ;)


August 24, 2011, 06:32:38 PM
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Thanks for the info!

Are all PRC feats granted to the character's skin, or are some on the player, and some (like the Maneuvers/spells) on the skin?

I ask because I love the psionic characters, but I had trouble with remembering how many power points I had left - if there were a feat granted to the player that could have a counter on it, there might be a way to display current power points in the quick-slot bar. Right now I'm using an item with a pseudo heart beat: every 6 seconds it checks my current PP and updates its charges to match that value. This has a drawback of begin limited to 50, and not allowing the display of 0 (because 0 charges destroys the object), but its serviceable enough.

I suppose that a counter on the feat would have to be able to handle 3 digits to really satisfy high level psionic characters, and I don't know if counters can go that high.


August 25, 2011, 09:15:29 AM
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Ignoring the 0 charges problem for the moment, can you do something like this?

P = Powerpoints remaining

P/10 = A
P - 10A = B

Charged Item 1 is set to A
Charged Item 2 is set to B

1 will display the tens and hundreds value for your power points, and 2 will display the ones place, allowing you to monitor up to 509 power points.


August 25, 2011, 12:21:46 PM
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I'll try to add a chat command that will check power points/spells from new spellbooks.


September 20, 2011, 01:36:39 PM
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Are all PRC feats granted to the character's skin, or are some on the player, and some (like the Maneuvers/spells) on the skin?

I noticed that Archivist's Dark Tactics feat has a counter, so I'd guess the answer to my above question would be that some are granted to the player and some are on the skin.

Now the big question is which are which? Specifically I was hoping that Gain Psionic Focus might be granted directly to the PC and not on the skin. I'd gladly open the code and look, but I could use a little direction as to where to look specifically for that info!


I still need to determine what the max value of uses is for a feat - if its stored as a 'char', maybe its up to 256, which would be pretty much enough for a pp counter. I am thinking I can run a quick test and just set the number of remaining uses for say Dark Tactics or Turn Undead to a large number and see what shows up on screen. :)


I like the idea of a chat command to display pp available at will. I think that would be useful.


September 20, 2011, 02:15:14 PM
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In general - feats that you select via conversations (maneuvers, invocations, psionic powers, new spellbook spells) are added to the skin.

You can tell if the feat is added to skin by checking cls_feat*.2da file. If ie. feat has 99 in "GrantedOnLevel" column then it's impossible that this feat will be granted at level-up.

If your character has levels in psionic class than Psionic Focus is on character (wild talent feat will add Psionic Focus to skin).

The maximum i've seen in feat.2da was 99, i've never tried to increase that. The number of uses can never be greater than the number set in feat.2da.


September 21, 2011, 12:50:57 AM
Reply #7
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Thanks for the location info.

I tested things with Dark Tactics since i already had it on a character. I edited the 2da for the feat to allow up to 199 uses, and created a quick test item to increment the feat uses. I found that the feat can indeed display up to 99 uses, but anything over that the counter goes blank - I think it is still tracking the number, but nothing displays. So for my purposes, 99 is the highest display limit on feats.

Editing the item 2da seems unable to push the charge counter past even 50.

So 99 on a feat is better than 50 on an item, but only marginally. I suppose I can take the suggestion above and use, say, 2 feats side by side in the quickbar to handle up to 9,999 power points :). Or even a feat for up to 99 and an item for upper numbers.


The drawback to using the feats seem like the clunky Increment and Decrement functions - only changing the step by one at a time instead of a real SET function to set the value. I can see the potential for an instruction overflow if I tried to call Increment 99 times in a row in the same function just to set the value to max.


One thing I noticed about in testing was that when the feat was completely used, to turned gray (which may be a DUH! moment since that's the way it should be), but I was just thinking about how that might be applicable to, say, martial maneuvers. Since # counters don't display on item-granted feats, maybe they also don't gray out when 'used up'. But if they do, it would be cool to see them grayed and thus know they weren't available. I may have to play around with those and see.

(If you can't tell already, I likes me my visual cues) :)


EDIT:
Tried out setting a warblade move to have a limited number of uses, but the game seems to ignore that all together. I guess not only do feats on items not display counters, they don't even track them. Bummer, but not totally unexpected.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2011, 02:28:22 AM by Atalsen »