Lady Taffer on 10/4/2025 at 09:35
Ah, just figured that out this evening. It should have been obvious at the time! :cheeky:
tone_lord on 21/5/2025 at 17:34
re: Chaos shard
I have aligned the telescope with the moon
I have looked on the shelf indicated in a previous post
No shard
Also, all the candles everywhere highlight, but clicking on them does nothing. Is this correct?
nicked on 21/5/2025 at 18:32
If the telescope is aligned to the moon, the chaos shard will appear on the yellow carpeted platform in the astronomers bedroom below.
The candles should go out when frobbed. If they're not, it suggests missing/broken scripts.
tone_lord on 21/5/2025 at 19:30
Quote Posted by nicked
If the
telescope is aligned to the moon, the chaos shard will appear
on the yellow carpeted platform in the astronomers bedroom below.
The candles should go out when frobbed. If they're not, it suggests missing/broken scripts.
Could the candle script issue be connected with the failure of the shard to appear?
I tried uninstalling (but with saves preserved) and re-installing, but that did not work.
I am reluctant to start completely over without knowing if that will fix the problem.
I'm stuck.
BTW, I'm playing on Expert.
nicked on 22/5/2025 at 08:06
If scripts are missing, it could well break both, yes. The scripts should be included in the zip so I don't know how they could be missing. Might be worth opening the mission in Dromed and see if you get any errors. If it is missing/broken scripts, I don't think the save will be salvageable, but feel free to PM it to me and I can see if I can fix it.
tone_lord on 22/5/2025 at 13:39
I have no experience with Dromed.
I am running Windows XP (all relevant Service Packs) on hardware that is at least 15 years old.
Nevertheless, I am able to play all new missions without technical issues.
I use Thief fan mission selector 1.27.
If no one else is reporting any similar issues, then perhaps I should uninstall and delete, then download again.
Edit: Well, I tried that, and it did not fix the candle issue, so maybe not the chaos shard, either.
Life goes on.
baeuchlein on 22/5/2025 at 14:08
I have noticed that the latest releases of NVScript do not work reliably with Windows XP (even with SP3 installed) anymore. Vista with SP1 also is not enough anymore. Windows 7 seems to be enough at the time of writing. On my machines, a crash occurs if I use NVScript v1.2.7 or higher on such ancient operating systems, but I am not sure whether the scripts could also silently fail on other Windows XP installations.
If "Nest of Vipers" uses NVScript, this could be why it does not work for you anymore. Using NVScript v1.2.6 prevents the crash on the ancient ones of my machines, but of course, anyone trying such things risks other kinds of failures with newer missions.
tone_lord on 22/5/2025 at 16:37
I bestirred myself to action, started Dromed, and loaded miss20.mis from the save folder for this mission.
It returns "Can't find gamesys file acad.GAM"
No idea what that means, of course.
It seems I have NVScript v1.2.4
I will cogitate more.
edit: Well, I downloaded and applied the very latest version of NVScript (1.3.2.0). No change
More cogitation needed.
I tried reverting to NVScript v1.2.2. No change.
Mind you, I was basing the result on whether or not it fixed the candle frobbing issue.
Maybe NVScript has nothing to do with the issues in the game.
At any rate, now I'm running the latest version of NVScript/
nicked on 23/5/2025 at 09:59
Windows XP!? In 2025? Ouch. Yeah, no guarantees in that case!
baeuchlein on 23/5/2025 at 23:44
My results when testing combinations of WinXP SP3 with three versions of NVScript were somewhat different from what tone_lord reported.
If NVScript v1.3.2 is used, my machine crashed the moment the game is started.
If the NVScript version shipped with Nest of Vipers (v1) is used, the game starts, but behaves like tone_lord reported (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152744&p=2526754&viewfull=1#post2526754) here: Candles light up, but won't go out on frobbing. The shard does not appear even though the
telescope is aligned with the moon. One can't even see the moon through the telescope. Moreover, the falling dead man near the beginning does not leave a blood splash, and the objective change that should appear also doesn't take place. Automatic map inscriptions don't work. And
Thief2.log reports that loading
NVScript.osm had failed.
If I go back to NVScript v1.2.6, everything works, and the game can be completed normally on easiest difficulty level (others were not tested).
Although I don't know why tone_lord did not experience crashes to the desktop like I did (even with NVScript v1.3.2 which should work with XP again, according to what one can read on Github), the general picture is like before: Windows XP and modern versions of NVScript don't work reliably. Anyone still wishing to use this ancient OS will be on his/her own if things go weird or obviously wrong.
