Grappling

[Xenolith]

Recent discussion in Grenadier's mesh thread got me thinking about grappling.  I've never tried to set it up.  How well does it work?  Is there any huge reason to choose grappling instead of a stasis attack, other than the aesthetics of it?

[TrajkLogik]

The grappling swaps in FFX cover much more than just wrestling type moves. And using the grappling swaps allows you to distinguish between the different types of Hold attacks. For instance, you could use either a physical hold (wrestling, cables, ropes, whips, etc.,pitted against the targets Strength), a mental hold (pitted against the targets Mental Resistances), or Mystical (this can simply be simulated by using the Stasis Power since it's a Mystic attack and is pitted against the target's Mystic Resistance). Personally, I think the aesthetics are quite important. Having the Grappler locked onto the target, rather than running around attacking other targets, when he's suppose to be holding onto that target, just looks awkward. Also having a FX loop (ropes,cables,crimson bands, etc.) on the target is an added bonus. I've made some improvements to the code, especially to the throwing, and will include it with the mod I'm working on.

[Xenolith]

Look forward to seeing that!

[TrajkLogik]

Let me also add that not all the Grapple swaps lock the grappler in place. You can use the Tangle swaps to simulate net arrows and such, where the user can fire-and-forget and the target uses his strength to break free, rather than uses his Mystic Resistance if it were a Stasis attack. You also get the added bonus of the FX loop AND flying targets get dropped immediately when hit, not stay in the air and then drop when the Stasis duration is finished.

[Xenolith]

To follow up on this:

Does the M25AI support grappling attacks?  I can't recall.

[TrajkLogik]

Yes. It does.

[hoss20]

Is there any huge reason to choose grappling instead of a stasis attack, other than the aesthetics of it?

Stasis only holds the victim in place. The biggest reason to choose grapple is the fact that it does damage, and a fair amount. The hold lasts for a maximum of 12 seconds. Every 3 seconds the victim attempts to break free. If successful, the hold ends. If unsuccessful, he takes damage equal to twice the grappler's strength. So, a character with an 8 strength can inflict a possible 64 points of damage on top of the fact that the victim can't attack the entire time.

[TrajkLogik]

If the target is resistant to Crushing damage then their resistance comes into effect, as well as any invulnerable points. So the damage can be minimized to almost nothing with these attributes.

[hoss20]

   Actually, grapple bypasses Invulnerability. I tested my Abomination (Strength 8) against three characters (Invulnerable 20, Resistant to Crushing, and Highly Resistant to Crushing). Grapple did full damage to the Invulnerable character and the Resistant character. The Highly Resistant character reduced damage by 50%. This was still significant in that a punch from The Abomination (Very High magnitude) only averaged about 5 points of damage to the Highly Resistant character.
   I know this is a small sample, but I thought I remembered my big boys (high strength, invulnerability, and resistance) damaging each other while grappling (as long as they could maintain the hold, of course).

[TrajkLogik]

Hmmm. I haven't tested Highly Resistant to Crushing but I know Resistant to Crushing halves the damage. It just happened for me when I tested it. I'm sure Invulnerable Points will block damage too, unless the damage was enough to kill the character. I'm sure this worked "out-of-the-box" with the latest version of FFX and I didn't do anything to mine to make it work with the updates I applied. If others ar having a problem with this, then I'd like to know.

EDIT: I just confirmed that it does work with Invulnerable. My 8 Strength Grappler inflicted 11 points of damage every 3 seconds to the target that has 5 Invulnerable points. Keep in mind that you won't see damage bubbles appear. To monitor the damage you need to hover the cursor over the target and watch his health points.

[hoss20]

   My apologies. For some reason, my test characters weren't "branded" by FFXEdit. When I re-ran the test, I got the same results you did TrajkLogik. Invulnerability soaked up the appropriate points, Resistant reduced damage to 50% and Highly Resistant reduced it to 25%. Strangely enough, my punch actually averaged twice as much damage to Highly Resistant than previously posted.
   I'm sorry for misposting. I always try to be thorough before posting, but I blew it this time. 
No hard feelings, Traj?

[TrajkLogik]

Excellent. I'm glad you got it working .

[Xenolith]

You know, I'm having a lot of trouble having the swap take effect.  I just can't get it to work for whatever reason.  I did a search on the forum and saw that I posted the exact same problem a couple of years ago.  Feh.

[hoss20]

What power type are you using for the swap? For physical damage, you're supposed to use Energy Surge or Energize. From checking your old posts, it looks you were using Energize. I found that Energize doesn't work (possibly because it is a power you use on allies). Therefore, when in Rumble Room Watch Mode, my characters never used grapple because they were encountered by enemy characters (just an attempted logical assumption). I'm sure it's different if you're playing your character. It could very well just be that the code wasn't applied properly for the Grapple/Energize swap. In trying to figure things out myself, I switched to Energy Surge and everything worked fine.

[Xenolith]

I'll try Energy Surge then.  I hope it works, because I'm losing my mind over this.

[TrajkLogik]

Energize, Energy Surge, Stun, Speed Increase or Speed Decrease should be used for simulating a Physical Hold. If using anything other than Speed Decrease or Stun, the AI Generator will add type='friend' to the tactic. If you remove this then the AI will use it on enemies.

If the power is being used, but the swap isn't taking effect, then make sure you've added the swap line to ffxcustom.py. You CANNOT use the FFX Control Center, like you normally would for the older swaps (crystallization, static cage, fire cage, etc.), to create the swap. You have to manually edit ffxcustom.py (the file that FFX Control Center edits when you configure your attribute customizations and swaps).
State Swaps are located all the way at the bottom of the ffxcustom.py file. Add the line after the last State Swap but before the last bracket ]. Like this:

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["tangler","energise","tangle","all"],
]
"tangler" is the name of the character/hero files, "energise" is the name of the power your swapping (stun,speeddecrease,etc.), "tangle" is the actual swap (grapple,rangedgrapple,tangle,etc.). "all" should be the last thing if it's for a hero file. If it's a built-in then the name of the power in FFEdit that the swap is for should be placed here.

To customize the swap you also have to edit ffxcustom2.py to add the customizations. Open ffxcustom2.py and look for the appropriate section for the swap you're making. For Tangle swaps look for:

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### Tangle
FFX_TANGLE_CUSTOM=[

After that line you'll see the default properties of the swap:

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["default","effect_ffx_tanglenet",5,"No"],

If these are okay, then you don't need to do anything and the swap should work and play a net FX loop on the target and be able to easily hold characters with a 4 strength or less. To customize it, add another line below the default one and copy the default line there. Change "default" to the name of your character/hero file. replace "effect_ffx_tanglenet" with the name of the FX loop you want to play from the Resource list in FFEdit. 5 is the Hold Strength of the tangle. Make this any number 1-10. "No", should be changed to "Yes" if you want the tangle to inflict damage (x2 the hold strength) rather than just hold the target.

[hoss20]

Just to follow up on TrajkLogik's post, if you're using the M25AI's, then just use Speed Decrease as the swap and save yourself all the time and trouble of editing the AI files for all your heroes. Sorry that I left out a step recommending Energy Surge.

[Xenolith]

I just can't get this down.

ffxcustom

["tester355","stun","knockoutgas","all"],
["sandman m","speeddecrease","rangedgrapple","all"],
]

ffxcustom2

### Ranged Grapple
FFX_RANGEGRAPPLE_CUSTOM=[
["default","effect_ffx_crimsonbands","Yes",0,"No"],
["types","OFX","PUse Current Strength","iHold Strength","PDamage"],
["sandman m","effect_boulder_dust","No",6,"Yes"],
]

Am I missing something? 

Well, I'll head back to working on a Super Synthoid until my brain cools off a little.  Too many gerbils running around at once.

[TrajkLogik]

That all looks correct. If it isn't working, then ensure that the name of the hero file matches exactly the name you have in the lines you added to the ffxcustom and ffxcustom2 files. Also, ensure that you save the files before closing them and that you DO NOT open FFX Control Center and select the character and click Save. Doing this erases the line you added to ffxcustom.py. FFXCC should be opened first to customize any other swaps or attributes for that character 1st, and close FFXCC, before opening ffxcustom.py and adding your grapple/tangle swap lines.
If none of this gets it working then post your script.log.

[Xenolith]

Okay, I've discovered something important.  After setting up the swaps and saving the files I can then open up Control Center, open up the character, hit save, and then go back to ffxcustom and ffxcustom2 and the swap powers are still there.  I wonder what files the game is reading, because it certainly isn't those.

Hmm.  It doesn't look like I have  a script.log, either.  Something is not pointing in the right direction.  I downloaded the most recent FFX3.3 recently because I wanted a fresh install.  I have an older drive on my computer where I store my itunes music, and there is an older version of FFX3 on that drive.   There is also an old script.log, from the last time I played a game off that drive, so I'm sure I'm looking in the right location.  Is there a bug with the full download, do you think?

[TrajkLogik]

Well, it won't change ffxcustom2.py, but certainly ffxcustom.py. If you place the line for the grapple swap in ffxcustom.py, save, close, then open FFXCC and select your character, you'll see at the bottom, where the you customize the swaps, the name of the power you're swapping (energise, speeddecrease...), but not anything on the right. If you don't see the name of the power on the left, then you're right, it's not reading the correct file. If you click Save, the line in ffxcustom.py will be erased as it just did for me when I tested it. Make sure that in FFXCC, you have the correct Install Dir and Custom Dir. I'm using XP and my Install Dir is

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C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich
my Custom Dir is

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C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich\Custom
Make sure the Data folder says ffx3

To get the script.log to appear make sure the FFX shortcut you are using has the -log in it, like so:

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"C:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich\ffvt3r.exe" -game ffx3 -log

Of course, you should make sure the -game ffx3 is there too, or else FFX won't work at all. Have you tried other FFX swaps and attributes? Do they work and when you make customizations for them, do they work?

[Xenolith]

The script.log is not being generated.  I've deleted the game and mod tools and ffx and reinstalled them.  It still doesn't work for me.  What generates the script.log?  Maybe I should start with this problem.  Sorry.

Oookay.  I've learned something about Vista.  I have my main folder of data, and then there is a folder called Compatibility Files.  The script log was in there, along with a bunch of "compiled" python files, including ffxcustom and ffxcustom2.  There was also a notepad version of ffxcustom and I opened that and found some of the swaps I had set up with Control Center.  These do not appear in the ffxcustom,py file in the non-Compatility Files.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but I think this "Compatibility File" folder is messing up my swaps.  Any thoughts?

UPDATE

Okay.  This has really turned into a lesson in why I hate Vista.  Anyway, its seems that if I install everything to a folder not in c:\Program Files then everything should bypass this whole Compatilbility Files issue.  Well, lets hope.

[Xenolith]

After playing around with this Compatibility File problem all morning, I just don't see a way for the state swaps that need to be entered into ffxcustom2 to work.  I tried copying the stuff from Compatibility File into the non-Compatibility File section, but it causes all kinds of problems with the AI.  The regular state swaps via Control Centre work fine, it's just the ones that have to entered manually that won't work due to this issue.

I guess I can live without state swaps, but it this is unfortunate.

I did try following some online advice that I install FFvTR and FFX3.3 to another folder, but my computer gave me out of memory errors and would not run the program from any where but the Program Files directory.  Is there a way to address this Compatibility File problem via FFX?

[TrajkLogik]

I have installed on a Window 7 PC (I tried and the game installed fine but the patches failed to install ). I'm not sure if it's any different with Vista, but I have my game installed at:

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C:\Program Files (x86)\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd ReichThis includes FFX, FX, meshes and skins and maps. My hero files are located at:

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C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich\Custom\Heroes
I edited the FFX shortcut properties under the Compatibility tab to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 2) and also have the Run this program as an administrator box checked.

[Xenolith]

That wasn't working, but I did find a setting that I could adjust which fixed it for me.  Windows Vista doesn't like my decision (it keeps warning me) but at least I can modify files now.  Unfortunately I accidentally deleted all my meshes.

[Epimethee]

Unfortunately I accidentally deleted all my meshes.

Ouch. They're not simply in the trash? Otherwise, you could try an undelete utility. You'll need to use it ASAP before the computer overwrites the files marked as deleted.

[Xenolith]

I accidentally emptied that, too.  I didn't quite realize what I had in my trash can.  It's okay though, there are only a few that I may have difficulty recovering.