Dr. Meinst Ally Powers -- How did he do that?

[eugee]

In the Dr. Meinst EB Farm by @TheZag, the ally has a ton of powers that he buffs you with, but it seems like they are from three or four different sets!  How did he do that?

[TheZag]

He did that with the npc customization options that were added to AE.  It involves editing the text file for the custom character to add each ability.

 

[TheZag]

I pulled the relevant patch notes from page 4,  August 23, 2022.

 

Architect Entertainment [Focused Feedback: Architect Entertainment]

• The Architect Entertainment tutorial NPCs and mission arc that were formerly found in Atlas Park & Mercy Atlas have been moved to Port Oakes & King's Row AE buildings.
• Fixed a bug with Experience Boosters granting too much experience in non-Dev Choice AE missions. 1.5XP was giving double XP and 2XP was giving triple XP. These have been corrected to the intended 1.5x and 2x, respectively.

Custom Enemy Changes

• Power point values for all Custom Enemy powers have been normalized. Some powersets in the same category were set below standard point values and some were set above.
• This means existing AE arcs may need adjusting if any custom enemies were using the bare-minimum power selection for max rewards with powersets that were above the standard values for that type.
• Primary sets now have lower recharge timers than secondary sets.
• Custom Enemy powers that require the target be grounded are no longer calculated as ranged attacks for point value purposes.
• All Custom Enemy ranged attacks have a minimum range of 80ft.

Advanced Enemy Power Customization

 BACK UP ANY OF YOUR ARCHITECT FILES BEFORE ATTEMPTING ADVANCED CUSTOMIZATION EDITS! 

• You can now manually assign extra powers to Architect Custom Enemies by using a text editor program (like Notepad) to edit their .critter files found in the Custom_Critter folder where your Homecoming install is located. This allows them to have up to 25 powers from any available custom enemy powersets.
• Be aware the AI is not any smarter for this, and it may completely ignore powers you give it depending on its attack chain. Expect to experiment some to get intended results.

 

• Any custom enemies that are using advanced power customization will give no rewards. This restriction was required in order to prevent farms from being created using only enemies with broken attack chains.

 

• Advanced power customization was added exclusively as a tool for writers/creators to give unique-functionality to enemies for the sole purpose of enriching their story arcs and missions.

 

• Any extra powers can only be picked from the (linked) Mission_Maker_Attacks and Mission_Maker_Secondary power definitions.

Opening the critter file in a text editor should look something like this.

• If successful, the game should immediately recognize the custom critter's powers upon loading them, keep in mind this will not update arcs that may have been using that enemy definition until you reload the arc in the editor.

Wow, that sure is a lot of pets! Hope he's not too difficult...

• Note: When saving your custom critter after editing, or the mission that uses the critter, the list of additional powers will be collapsed to a single comma-separated line like this:
• Power  Mission_Maker_Attacks.Earth_Control.Animate_Stone,  Mission_Maker_Attacks.Ice_Control.Jack_Frost,  Mission_Maker_Attacks.Fire_Control.Fire_Imps,  Mission_Maker_Attacks.Illusion_Control.Phantasm,  Mission_Maker_Attacks.Electric_Control.Gremlins,  Mission_Maker_Secondary.Plant_Control.Fly_Trap

Edited February 16 by TheZag

[eugee]

Wow thanks so much!  This is fantastic!  Would you share what the full power list for the ally in Dr. Meinst has?

 

EDIT - I got it working on my guy, though I probably went a little overboard:

 

 

The idea was that this guy will have 90%+ resist to almost all damage (75% toxic), and 30%+ defense to everything, then every PBAOE defender toggle, plus 3 extra PBAOEs (acc met, farsight, and chrono shift).

 

In testing him however he definitely wasn't using many if any of the defender toggles.  It looked like he had at least Temp Invulnerability going so I'm going to apply toggles one at a time and see if he uses them, and hopefully find the limit of toggles he will run.

Edited February 15 by eugee

[eugee]

Weird replying to myself but in case someone is following this, so far it seems like he's using every one of the defensive powers I gave him.  I went through and started a test mission with just one power added at a time and I could see the effects for them (all 3 dark armor, all 3 electric armor, by the time I got through invulnerability I got impatient and just loaded them all, and the massive overlap of sparkles, smoke, glinting armor, and crystals leads me to believe they are all loading).

 

Then I tried adding just Force_Field.Dispersion_Bubble and after he stood there letting a boss swing at him for about 60 seconds he FINALLY turned it on.  I thought maybe it was just too many powers to pick from, so I removed all his powers in game, and left him with just Dispersion Bubble... same thing, he still let a guy attack him over and over and eventually he MIGHT turn it on.  Next I tried giving him Dispersion Bubble in-game, and he immediately turned it on.  Seems like it does not use Toggle Powers very well when added this way.

 

I noticed him using Accel Metab, Farsight, and Chrono Shift pretty regularly so maybe it's just clicks he will use reliably?

[Maris]

Honestly I think people way underutilize the text file power stuff. I'm glad to see someone using it, even if it's for a farm buff NPC. 

It's a really good way to add extra flavor to custom factions and AVs, too (yeah, they don't give XP that way, but, whatever, i figure if you're playing an SFMA arc for the XP what are you even doing)

[eugee]

I've really been fascinated with the AE stuff.  This one is for a farm buff NPC for sure, but I've learned so much about mission building doing this, I've got some cool ideas cooking up that I'm excited to try!

 

 

This monster here was the final result.  His primary is gravity control (just the aoe hold) and time manipulation (it was the toggle I wanted most, plus saved the most non-toggle picks).  Defensively he has 90% resist to smashing, lethal, and fire, plus 31% defense to melee/ranged/aoe.  Then he has six +dmg powers (which give +end/rech/spd/etc also), four aoe heals, 4 aoe holds, and ice slick for hilarious knockdown fun.

 

He runs with all the self toggles just fine, and spams his click powers one after another, plus uses his time toggle.  I can stick him an any S/L/F farm I make and he'll basically ensure you don't die (and won't die himself, either).  Now to start planning an actual story arc!

[TheZag]

my buff bot from the Dr. Meinst mission has

 

Empathy.Fortitude,  Empathy.Clear_Mind,  Pain_Domination.Enforced_Morale,  Pain_Domination.World_of_Pain,  Pain_Domination.Painbringer,  Thermal_Radiation.Forge,  Time_Manipulation.Temporal_Selection,  Cold_Domination.Benumb,  Radiation_Emission.Accelerate_Metabolism,  Empathy.Heal_Other,  Thermal_Radiation.Cauterize,  Time_Manipulation.Farsight,  Poison.Envenom,  Thermal_Radiation.Fire_Shield,  Cold_Domination.Ice_Shield,  Trick_Arrow.Disruption_Arrow,  Stone_Armor.Granite_Armor

 

here is the original post i made about the mission.  it didnt get much attention back then but with the influx of new players i did some advertising ingame for a few days.

 

 

[Neopatch]

Hello everyone !

 

I did try to add a bunch of additional powers to my Farm Buff bots and globally it works, thanks to @TheZag for the great tutorial 🙂

 

I got a recurring problem with my buff bot not following the players around the map although he is set as follow.

I tried to set him as Follow + Fight Defensive (so he would just buff and heal) but he barely moves his ass.

I tried to set him as Follow + Aggressive and he moves a bit more, like half a block in an open map, and then he moves back to the start of the block and wait there.

Everytime the player comes back near him he would refresh the buffs and if enemies are following the players, he would act on them, but he would never follow the players around.

 

Any idea what would cause this ?

 

Edit : Adding the Arc ID if anyone wanna see it for themselves : 59101

 

Edited February 20 by Neopatch
Added Arc Id 59101

[eugee]

So this is the final fire farm I settled on after all of this knowledge I picked up here.  I call it Burninator: Burnination, and I think it's grand!  It's a standard shiva fragment patrol map (like Bloody Rainbow or others), with some tweaks:

• Buffing Ally: Burninator is on the map solo at first. He will buff you with Fortitude, Painbringer, World of Pain, Accelerate Metabolism, Forge, and Temporal Selection (108.5% dmg, 45% to-hit, 15% def, 15% res, 60% rech, 800% rec, 150% reg, and 30% spd). As he has no powers that target foes, he won't freak out and run around when surrounded. He also has 90/45 fire def/res so he won't die, and while he doesn't summon pets (which would steal some xp/inf) he does double your melee limit by staying next to him. He takes no XP/Inf.

• Clicky-to-Start: There is a chest on the ground to click which spawns in the patrols (and also completes the mission). This means you can let your ally buff you up, or get your alt securely stashed away in a safe spot, etc, before spawning in the patrols. You can even get the ally right in the middle of the map and run away to turn him blue again, then return to him after spawning, if that's your bag.

• 100% XP Enemies: At x8 each of the 16 patrols that spawn in will contain 4xBoss, 4xLieutenant, and 4xMinion, all of which give 100% xp. When running +4 the minions give me 5,664 inf, the Lts give 19,144, and the Bosses give 59,562. That's 5,147,160 influence per mission, or 25,735,800 per story arc cleared, plus whatever ehancements, recipies, and salvage drops.

• High-Visibility Targets: Minions are tiny and solid white, Lts are medium and solid yellow, Bosses are large and solid orange.

• All-Fire, All-the-Time: The foes all do fire damage, and fire damage only. No debuffs, no other damage. If you have 90% fire resist and 45% fire defense you are as safe as you're going to get.

So that's my fire farm I've been working on for some time now. I initially built it so I could have a leveling version of a fire farm with the ally, then as I got stronger I started turning the knobs to see what I could manage. I'm pretty proud of it, and want to share it with the community.

Burninator: Burnination by @ eugii #59930

[Neopatch]

On 2/24/2024 at 3:47 AM, eugee said:

So this is the final fire farm I settled on after all of this knowledge I picked up here.  I call it Burninator: Burnination, and I think it's grand!  It's a standard shiva fragment patrol map (like Bloody Rainbow or others), with some tweaks:

• Buffing Ally: Burninator is on the map solo at first. He will buff you with Fortitude, Painbringer, World of Pain, Accelerate Metabolism, Forge, and Temporal Selection (108.5% dmg, 45% to-hit, 15% def, 15% res, 60% rech, 800% rec, 150% reg, and 30% spd). As he has no powers that target foes, he won't freak out and run around when surrounded. He also has 90/45 fire def/res so he won't die, and while he doesn't summon pets (which would steal some xp/inf) he does double your melee limit by staying next to him. He takes no XP/Inf.

• Clicky-to-Start: There is a chest on the ground to click which spawns in the patrols (and also completes the mission). This means you can let your ally buff you up, or get your alt securely stashed away in a safe spot, etc, before spawning in the patrols. You can even get the ally right in the middle of the map and run away to turn him blue again, then return to him after spawning, if that's your bag.

• 100% XP Enemies: At x8 each of the 16 patrols that spawn in will contain 4xBoss, 4xLieutenant, and 4xMinion, all of which give 100% xp. When running +4 the minions give me 5,664 inf, the Lts give 19,144, and the Bosses give 59,562. That's 5,147,160 influence per mission, or 25,735,800 per story arc cleared, plus whatever ehancements, recipies, and salvage drops.

• High-Visibility Targets: Minions are tiny and solid white, Lts are medium and solid yellow, Bosses are large and solid orange.

• All-Fire, All-the-Time: The foes all do fire damage, and fire damage only. No debuffs, no other damage. If you have 90% fire resist and 45% fire defense you are as safe as you're going to get.

So that's my fire farm I've been working on for some time now. I initially built it so I could have a leveling version of a fire farm with the ally, then as I got stronger I started turning the knobs to see what I could manage. I'm pretty proud of it, and want to share it with the community.

Burninator: Burnination by @ eugii #59930

Hello @eugee,

 

I gave a good try to your map (and I'm still using it at this point. So I got a couple of remark to do 🙂

 

I love what you did with the Buffing Ally for the buff part, sadly part of the buffs are not targeted but in PBAOE around him, so you need to stay really stacked on him at all time or you might miss on a rotation of the PBAOE buffs (and if you miss the DEF/RES buffs you might end up in trouble during the uncapped levelup/buildup phase).

On the other hand for the non-combat part, he might be not stealing XP but I've seen him move around way more then needed and running to aggro other packs as soon as they come into his range (even before the pack aggro-ed us naturally). In the optic of a full fledge farmer soloing the map, it's great, but in the light of a levelup/buildup farm map it's not always so fun.

 

The 2 steps, first buff then click to spawn is a very clever way to allow access to the buffer before getting jumped by tons of mobs, sadly spawning the ambush also complete the mission. If anything unforeseen happens, as it's already complete, you can't come back. Usually it's good for levelup/buildup soloing as you don't want the tank to have to come back to a spawned map un buffed, but if you are in group, or with sitters, it's not always easy to get everyone out at each problem (and I got Phoenix in my build so I can mop a couple problem once in a while). If you want to keep it for single level up keep it like that, if you want it more group oriented, go for a third step, Buff, first Click to spawn, second click to end.

 

The mobs : It's my main concern as I saw a clear variation between your description and the reality of what I'm facing. At least one type of mob in there is stacking some kind of debuff on me. I got my fire def and resist on combat monitor and I see them moving from my natural current build state 70-75% go up to capped 90% with your bot buffs, then going down sometime as low as 50% with all my toggles still up.

I noticed that once everything is spawned, there are static packs and patrolling packs, maybe it's only one of those type that has some debuff left as I don't see the debuffs all the time.

 

All in all a very good starting point and I'll be more then happy to keep on playing your map 😉 I might even go to engineer something similar myself as it is inspiring.

 

Neopatch