Add more time to timed activities (i.e. Trail Blazing and others)

Alehazar

Alehazar

As much how I enjoy playing SRTT, my degenerative neuropathy severely hampers my reaction speed and basic control of certain vehicles, like the Phantom bike in one of Kenzi's missions, Trail Blazing.
(I also have trouble with Zimos' Escort at the Hard difficulty, but I usually buy that one off with the Take Over Upgrade.)
I really don't understand anything about modding SRTT files and the things I've read sofar make my head spin.
I'd really like to finish some of those Hard Difficulty missions, but for the past few years, I've often had to resign myself to using cheat codes or trainers. SRTT trainers are either only functional when you turn off you anti-virus software (not in this lifetime or the next) or they are buried beneath piles of advertisements or other stuff I don't want or wish to sign up for. And the SRTT cheats don't offer anything in freezing timers, or adding more time to the counter.
My wife and neighbours are already miffed for me swearing all the time, when I either run out of time, or otherwise fail a mission. Quite frankly, each retry results in more frustration, as my pain increases by my desperate mistreatment of the mouse and keyboard.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Alehazar
 
It's *doable* to increase the time in the activities. It's really really annoying. There's a pack of 'global' xtbl files (in a nutshell, quick configuration xtml text files for specific things), one for each activity. They're ignored. The ones that are paid attention to are in the sr3_city_0 vpp package, notably in the str2s for each activity. Inside is an xtbl. What that means iis to adjust it you have to extract the SR3_city_0, extract the appropriate str2, edit the xtbl (inside it's very simple, it specifically notes the time you're given for that one activity, then how much time each ring grants, how much each vehicle grants, and how much each fire takes off), repackage the str2, update the asms, and then toss the result in the game directory.

For some odd reason, the updating the asm part eludes me, maybe I got a bad version, or just used the syntax wrong. Admittedly this was a while back.

The result though is that it has to be edited per-file (as each activity marker location is a specific str2), and takes a fair bit. Can you just batch-update the ASM and deliver it along with a handful of str2s? Can someone far better at this offer guidance on that?

(As for escort, the one global activities tuning file DOES work for it, so you can say disable all spawns except for parked traffic, so no news vans ever appear. Catch is sometimes you need to do stuff like a near-miss and parked cars don't count for that.. but they WILL count for the 'hit a car for x damage' ones)
 
I can try and add this in as option to the Gentlemen of Steelport compilation, so that it will build the asm files dynamically along with the rest of the included mods so they all work together. I will need some numbers though of what you're looking for. I would like for you list each activity, and what time or point changes you think will make it doable. Even something as simple as double the time may be enough for me to go on, but the more detail the better.
 
I find it difficult to properly balance my speed and accuracy and always keep slamming into the firewalls during Trail Blazing; I can usually make the one Kenzi sets up during the actual mission.
If you could alter the medium and hard difficulties, so the firewalls don't do anything and the virtual tanks you have to run over offer twice the time they normally would, I could probably make it through without upsetting the neighbours or adding more frustration and pain.
I know that really dumbs it down, so it won't be a challenge anymore, but this really drives me up the walls -almost literally as well as in-game.
On the hard difficulty I mostly don't make it halfway, before the timer reaches zero.
And maybe I'm asking for too much, but maybe I could testplay that option and offer some personal feedback to do some finetuning?
As for Escort -I can usually crack the medium difficulty and the hard one I bypass using the Takeover Upgrade.
Is this something that the Save Editor -that's in the making so I understand- could address when it's ready?

Thanks for the advice -although I admit that all the different files and the way to amend them sounds like superior math and that was never my strongpoint (euphemistically put)- and the offer to make it an option for the Gentleman of Steelport Compilation.

Really appreciate it,

Alehazar
 
I'll give it a look and see what I can do once I get the next release of GoS finished and released.
 
It'd be a matter of just editing the xtbl for each of the _a_tb_nw_*_modal.str2 files. Thankfully that's only three files, two if you're ok with leaving easy as is. In turn, you can also do a quick find/replace to swap all the <Time_Penalty_s>2</Time_Penalty_s> to <Time_Penalty_s>0</Time_Penalty_s> which would disable the time penalty for the 'firewalls' (yes, they had to declare each and every one individually, just like the checkpoint bonuses are too) as well as maybe increase the size of <Vehicle_Time>2</Vehicle_Time> to some figure higher.

Really, it's not hard to do, it's just that to make it work you have to pack up a few str2s and that means updating the ASM and that's the annoying part.

As for escort, I'd suggest turning down the spawn chance of news vans a bit (maybe to .7?), and crank up the footage threshold by at least two, three preferably. Really, the Kinzie trailblazing and the Zimos escort (both on top difficulty) were the two activities that eluded me. The rest was easy or at least doable after a few tries. Even the tiger.

(And in another example of how the same file shows up everywhere, the escort missions all seem to have the same xtbl in each str2 for that activity. Which is the same as the one in da_tables AND misc_tables. Which are both ignored.)
 
Tiger Escort is doable. It's just a pain when the tiger keeps me from driving in a straight line -I cannot pick up speed when I keep on slamming into all kinds of obstructions.
While I appreciate the more elaborate instructions, I think I'll bide my time and be patient and wait for IdolNinja to take a crack at this. I once tried to edit game files (of various games) where I had no idea what I was doing -didn't end well. For "Singles 2" it were several LUA files -I could've been trying to edit Mandarin Chinese, it made no sense to me. For "Dragon Age: Origins" it resulted in a deinstallation of the game -plus reinstallation, desperately trying to find what particular mods I'd installed prior to the meltdown. While a someone else was able to deal with what I was trying to accomplish, in a matter of less than twenty minutes.
The only few games that I can take a crack at are "TESIV: Oblivion" and "Fallout New Vegas"; both have toolkits / construction sets that even a total noob like myself isn't very likely to .... eh, get it wrong. Besides, I usually take a look at vanilla scripts or scripts from other mods, to see how they could create a particular effect. (Don't worry, I always read the Legal Stuff compiled by modders to see whether certain elements of their mods may be used freely. When in doubt I always try to contact the modders themselves.) I've been trying to contact another modder concerning his concept for an FO3 mod, which I'd like to implement in FNV. Sofar I haven't able to reach him and while my version for FNV is finished and working in my own game, I haven't released it -maybe I won't ever release it, if he cannot be reached for whatever reason.

DAO also has a toolkit, but that's way over my head. Followed a tutorial to the letter -as far as I know- and my game became unplayable. Haven't touched that toolkit ever since. I simply put up a request for a mod and if someone picks up on it, then yay! If not, well, too bad.
NWN2.... I know how to add weapons and armor to the game by using the templates already in the game, or which have been added by serious modders. Anything beyond that, is dark territory.
And tools that use command line parameters, like a tool to compile scripts with, always show me some sort of error message.
Even the toolkit for Fallout New Vegas will, by default, not tell you whether there's a mistake in a script. You're just not able to save it -and then I honestly do not know what is wrong. A small file released by a modder reinstates the function that the toolkit will tell you what line is creating a conflict or contains an error. Had I not been advised to use that mod, my FNV [script] editing skills would've ended right then and there.
Don't get me wrong, like a stated earlier, I really do appreciate the advice and the time and effort you take to try and explain the procedure to me. It's just me sitting in math class all over again; the information zips in and out of my ears without taking root. Like my mind goes into automatic shutdown.
Still, thanks again for the effort, time and input.
 
Gondar said:
It'd be a matter of just editing the xtbl for each of the _a_tb_nw_*_modal.str2 files. Thankfully that's only three files, two if you're ok with leaving easy as is. In turn, you can also do a quick find/replace to swap all the <Time_Penalty_s>2</Time_Penalty_s> to <Time_Penalty_s>0</Time_Penalty_s> which would disable the time penalty for the 'firewalls' (yes, they had to declare each and every one individually, just like the checkpoint bonuses are too) as well as maybe increase the size of <Vehicle_Time>2</Vehicle_Time> to some figure higher.

Really, it's not hard to do, it's just that to make it work you have to pack up a few str2s and that means updating the ASM and that's the annoying part.

THE STR2 FILES ARE EASILY FOUND, BUT WHICH ASM IS ASSCOIATED WITH THESE? WHAT IS IT'S NAME?

As for escort, I'd suggest turning down the spawn chance of news vans a bit (maybe to .7?), and crank up the footage threshold by at least two, three preferably. Really, the Kinzie trailblazing and the Zimos escort (both on top difficulty) were the two activities that eluded me. The rest was easy or at least doable after a few tries. Even the tiger.

WHAT ARE FILES THAT NEED TO BE EDITED?

(And in another example of how the same file shows up everywhere, the escort missions all seem to have the same xtbl in each str2 for that activity. Which is the same as the one in da_tables AND misc_tables. Which are both ignored.)
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