How do Special items work?

[cthscr]

In MM7 and MM8 we have items of Special material. Several of them have VarA set (which should be something like Bonus2 aka Special Bonus). Game.ItemsTxt contains no such bonus set, item itself has no such bonus set. Does it ever work?
I have tested MM7 Grognard's Cutlass (Elf Slaying) with CalcMeleeDamage against Monsters 50 and 59 and see no difference. I've put Bonus2=63 on regular item and difference was seen.
MM8 Mace of the Sun (Elemental Slaying) works (well, not works) the same way.
Have I missed something?

[Roxterat]

The unexplored depth, wish I knew.. :/

[GrayFace]

In MM7 and MM8 we have items of Special material. Several of them have VarA set (which should be something like Bonus2 aka Special Bonus). Game.ItemsTxt contains no such bonus set, item itself has no such bonus set. Does it ever work?

Yes it does, but varA values must exactly match the "of ..." name from spcitems.txt or stditems.txt (or it can match the default English name of that since patch v2.1). Some localizations get this wrong and thus break special items.

Here's how it works:
When an item is generated in a chest (or if you just put an item generated differently into a chest and save-load) its Bonus, Bonus2 and BonusStrength fields are copied from Game.ItemsTxt to the item. Then it shows and activates the bonus exactly like a regular item. So, you should see it both in Game.ItemsTxt and in-game description.
This code should print out some numbers both in MM7 and MM8 if special items are read correctly:

Code: Select all

for _, a in Game.ItemsTxt do
	if a.Bonus2 ~= 0 then
		print(a.Bonus2)
	end
end

[cthscr]

Well, you can check MM8 yourself (I can expect my installation to be faulty or something...)

Game.ItemsTxt contains no such bonus set

Code: Select all

> for k, v in Game.ItemsTxt do
  if v.Bonus2 > 0 then
    print(k, v.Bonus2)
  end
 end
> 

GOG MM8 (english), MM8Patch 2.4.1, MMExtension 2.2

(Merge has the same of course.)

[cthscr]

Have tried chest trick in MM7 with item 538 (Lieutenant's Cutlass). It worked once out of more than ten tries. And I was too slow to check Game.ItemsTxt that time.

[GrayFace]

Well, you can check MM8 yourself

I already did.

[cthscr]

Well, you can check MM8 yourself

I already did.

And so did I. There was no item in Game.ItemsTxt with Bonus2 ~= 0. Never in countless tries (including ones before this thread creation - but let's not forget about one in MM7 I have missed to check). Neither in MM7 nor in MM8. Not depended on whether I was in loaded game or in start screen.
Not that I doubt you, but I just have this observation.
My thoughts were that either there should be some other place to store bonuses of Specials or MMExtension (rel. 2.2) shows something wrong regarding Game.ItemsTxt somehow (have no other ideas atm except multiple faulty installations). That was basically the reason of this thread creation. I'm not ready yet to dive into that part of mm8.exe but probably will do a bit later.

[GrayFace]

And so did I.

Like I said there must be an issue with items.txt. You can send it to me to check alongside other *items.txt files.

[cthscr]

And so did I.

Like I said there must be an issue with items.txt. You can send it to me to check alongside other *items.txt files.

They are default ones (default GOG version with your patch applied). I've even put them into DataFiles to be sure game uses them rather than something else.
MM7: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Dsk7B ... sp=sharing
MM8: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y6OSit ... sp=sharing

I haven't tried your current master though, only released MMExtension v2.2

[cthscr]

Finally tried with current master.

Code: Select all

> for k, v in Game.ItemsTxt do
  if v.Bonus2 ~= 0 then
    print(k)
  end
 end
---- Log File Output: --------------
538
539
540
541
542
> 

When is new MMExtension release expected? You have fixed a ton of bugs since last version.

[GrayFace]

When is new MMExtension release expected? You have fixed a ton of bugs since last version.

As with everything else - not even a slightest idea.