Broken Triad Released (05/31/08)

trefoilknot on 3/6/2025 at 14:22

IIRC, the flower card doesn't DO anything in the world. It just contains important information for you to read.

Bigger spoiler: Who is the card addressed to?

EDIT: or, sorry, did you mean you can't even read it? If so, I've never encountered that issue before so don't have any tips... :/

baeuchlein on 3/6/2025 at 22:41

Plumph, it is possible that you have to restart the mission if you use new versions of scripts, or if you have saves where the flower card is already in a "broken state". And once again, NVScript seems to be involved in preparing the flower card when the player starts the mission. Suspicious...

From what I've seen in DromEd, the card will most likely do some technical stuff at the beginning of the game, and if that does not work, the game might fail at the point where you would need the info from the card - even if you guess the correct info and use it.

Plumph on 4/6/2025 at 18:01

Quote Posted by baeuchlein

From what I've seen in DromEd, the card will most likely do some technical stuff at the beginning of the game, and if that does not work, the game might fail at the point where you would need the info from the card - even if you guess the correct info and use it.

Yes, you're right. I restarted the game and could read the card. Coincidentally, it was the info I needed for the game I'd originally been playing, so I reloaded that. The info from the card did work as required but then the readables stopped working again (the plaques etc - except for the Blacksmith plaque which always seems to work). Odder & odder!

So I've bitten the bullet and restarted. It's worth mentioning that someone had said earlier in this thread that if you don't get the weird spinning hammer at the start, where Garrett says "What the..?", then the scripts aren't working properly. I definitely didn't get that on the original attempt as I was surprised to see it on restart.

baeuchlein on 4/6/2025 at 21:23

For some reason, the scripts seem to be particularly fragile when playing "Broken Triad", yet no one has been able to find out why so far.-sigh-

FKenFord on 4/6/2025 at 22:02

As others discovered, using "good" NVScript and tnhScript solved my problems (Keeper Lennard convo getting "stuck", Ctrl+Alt+Shift+End not working).

Easiest way for me to accomplish this was simply overwriting the mission scripts (after install) with the good ones. I know this is not a permanent fix, but I just wanted to test it. Now, for fun, I may try putting the good ones somewhere else and mess with uber_mod_path, although I'm concerned about how other missions will like this. IDK.

As someone mentioned, updating the mission zip with the good scripts seems like the correct (long term) approach. Not being a mission creator/curator, I'm not sure how that is accomplished.

I had never even looked at thief2.log before this journey, so that was good -- and showed me that those two scripts were problematic (i.e. error'ed out during load).

Thanks for all the info and patience. I feel like I've caught up somewhat!

baeuchlein on 4/6/2025 at 22:48

I think the latest T2Fix (v1.27e at the time of writing) already offers the option to install newer versions of the standard scripts (tnhscript.osm, nvscript.osm, script.osm) in the osm folder and use them via the uber_mod_path setting (in cam_mod_ini) instead of the scripts present in FMs.

FKenFord on 5/6/2025 at 01:14

Quote Posted by baeuchlein

Yeah, I am ignorant of how missions and the base game (via t2fix) need to modify/customize/provide scripts, so if uber_mod_path *is* specified, that will potentially ignore "custom" mission-specific versions of these scripts, right?

So, if a mission creator *really* wanted their scripts to win, they have no way if uber_mod_path is set. Not sure if this is a (potential) problem, just reflecting back my understanding.

I'll reiterate I'm coming from a (relatively) deep well of ignorance regarding why/when/how these scripts need updating (especially for a specific mission).

This is bringing back memories -- some pleasant, some not-so-pleasant! -- of creating/maintaining tools/runtimes for video game pipelines/platforms back in my working days. :D

baeuchlein on 5/6/2025 at 18:12

With uber_mod_path set and scripts present in that path, the door to ignoring scripts inside the FM archive is open, but there are some safeguards which are meant to prevent consequences being too hazardous.

Many FMs have standard script modules in their archive which were current at the time of the FM being packaged. These will then only be "replaced" by the ones in the uber_mod_path, and these should be newer, but provide the same functionality. As long as the player restarts the whole mission if he has savegames made with older script versions, there should be no problems arising from this.

Some FMs have altered, "curstom" versions of standard scripts in the archive. The CoSaS missions ("Gathering at the Inn", "Mission X", "Switching Rails" (prototype)) are possibly the only ones falling into this category. The custom versions of these scripts in the FM are usually renamed (e.g., cosscript.osm). These will still be used and not be replaced by newer versions of the unaltered standard scripts.

Whether older standard script versions in the uber_mod_path would be used instead of more up-to-date versions present in a FM archive I don't know, but if the player updates his game with new T2Fix versions after a reasonable time, the probability of this problem happening would be rather small, I guess.

I dimly remember that there are some additional safeguards that should further reduce the risk of outdated script versions being used. For example, AFAIK, the newest T2Fix has some mechanism built-in that does try to load newer variants of scripts if it notices that older scripts have already been loaded.

Still, all this does not explain why the scipts seem to fail more often in "Broken Triad" than in other missions. This still causes a serious amount of head-scratching every now and then.

FKenFord on 8/6/2025 at 03:22

I'm glad I replaced the "bad" scripts (NVScript and tnhScript) with the good ones, because I was able to finish both missions and I just gotta say, "Wow!"

They were each excellent, exciting, challenging, and fun. And each earned their plaudits in different and unique ways.

Looks like Eshaktaar is no longer active here, but I'm still going to give them a big shout out. What a superb pair of missions. Thanks, Eshaktaar!