Thief 3 - Making edits last

Moonlight on 4/2/2009 at 03:46

Is it currently possible to make any changes to the gameplay (ie, via default.ini) that is permanent? It seems that whatever changes I make to the default.ini:
- Won't work on previously saved games
- Will only work with a newly started game
- Won't work if the new game passes one level (right after loading the next level it will stop taking effect)
It's probably something to do with refreshing the saved files (since default.ini remains unchanged) every time a level loads. I'm trying to edit things like running/crawling speed, damage and item amount on a second playthrough to make it faster.

sNeaksieGarrett on 4/2/2009 at 04:52

eh, what? What's this default.ini you speak of? Being vague won't help you much around here.

I'm guessin' you're referring to thief 3; if that's the case I dunno anything about that.

jtr7 on 4/2/2009 at 04:59

Yeah, for T3.

I haven't experienced this problem, myself. The changes I've made always stuck, but then, I'm not going from mission to mission, changing mid-mission, or going back to a previous save after modifying it, so I've not discovered the issue.

Moonlight on 4/2/2009 at 08:02

Quote Posted by jtr7

The game advances mission to mission, you can't select mission so I'm not sure what you mean. What I did was edit the default.ini, then start a new game (since old saves won't be affected). The game would experience all changes made in the mandatory tutorial as well as the first level (the castle), then as soon as I'm finished the level and start in Garrett's house, all changes made would be lost. Maybe only certain changes are refreshed after each level? What changes did you make?

Beleg Cúthalion on 4/2/2009 at 08:19

After what you said I'd rather be interested in what changes you made since I cannot remember any mission-specific options in the Default.ini. I could only think of e.g. altered sensory values which aren't executed in the City sections (since they are NORMAL all the time) or get lost in a mission after going through the blue fog (which was the reason for Patch 1.1).

Again, what are you doing? Or is it top secret? :p

Moonlight on 4/2/2009 at 08:44

- AI sensing
- AI damage
- Running speed
But you have a good point, since I haven't tested whether or not the effect last in missions. For sure they don't work inside the city, which is kind of odd.

jtr7 on 4/2/2009 at 08:46

Quote:

The game advances mission to mission, you can't select mission so I'm not sure what you mean.

I meant exactly what you described: one mission after the other, as the game progresses. I'm loading up one mission, maybe meeting all my objectives, maybe not, and not continuing to the next mission. I've only played through the whole game once, when I first got it. I'm not a gamer, so dedicating all those hours was an exception I made for Thief. I love Thief, not just for the gaming experience--that's actually only a part of my adoration--but I'm fascinated by every disparate part, even the stuff I don't like.

The changes I made to my default.ini were to speed my forward movement up, and making mouse movement more responsive, because most of the time I spend in a mission is not just playing but for information gathering for an Encyclopedia of the Thief Universe project and the Thief Wiki. My system struggles to run the game smoothly, and my game time is limited, so I found a happy compromise. I literally had to double my walk speed to feel like I wasn't shuffling along. Knowing where the AI are allows me to run noisily when creeping isn't necessary, and it's also helpful for when my game sound is malfunctioning horribly. I'm afraid my next computer won't run all the games any better.

ShadowSneaker on 4/2/2009 at 14:43

I'm pretty sure you can only change the walk and creeping speed for Garrett. I've tried changing his running speed in T3Ed using the 'Animation Speed Multiplier' property and 'AnimRate' and it has no effect. I believe it's something that was decided in 3ds Max when they created the animations and can only be altered if you have Max. Could be wrong though.

SS

Moonlight on 4/2/2009 at 17:15

I see. So changing the AI damage dealt and AI ability to sense also has no effect? I'm gonna test it on a mission map in a short while and post back. For now it doesn't work on city maps.

Beleg Cúthalion on 4/2/2009 at 21:08

It should work on City maps if you increase the NORMAL values significantly (that is, the second one with respect to the EASY setting which is first). I've tried it with the editor without any problems, Flux has even used it for an FM (though probably differently, he changed single properties with scripts).

I could have a look at this myself if you're not successful.