The World of Avlis

Given all the funky tweaks and changes all you clever folks out there can do to NWN is there any way that anyone knows of adding more quick bars?
I never understood why there are only three anyway and as my characters are fighting and spell casting types my quickbars are always jam packed and I am always having to juggle things around. Is there any way that another could be added and just given an additional "hot key"?

I made up a lot of room when I figured out the numeric keypad for spells.

Best used for basic buffs, like stat spells (endurance, strength) and things you'll cast outside of combat.

Hit the 0 on the number pad and follow.

Don't know about any other methods myself.

Would be nice, I still don't know why they didn't use the 'alt' key too to give us one more quick bar, though I imagine messing with that would entail changing the NWN engine, which can't be easy...

Though it's bad enough that the 'ctrl' key is right next to the damned windows key, I've lost count how many times accidently returning to windows has crashed my PC...

Bloody laptop graphics cards *trails off muttering to himself*

Mothandric wrote:Though it's bad enough that the 'ctrl' key is right next to the damned windows key, I've lost count how many times accidently returning to windows has crashed my PC...

Simple solution for that problem: Take some needle nosed pliers and pull off the key. You can always put it back on later if you want, but I recommend throwing it right the hell away.

Fire Monkey wrote:Is there any way that another could be added and just given an additional "hot key"?

No, that requires changing the UI itself, which is hardcoded into the game eng. Even bioware says that changing the UI is a bit of work.

Didn't know about the num pad working for spells, will deffentenly have to check that out tonight.

Achm3d wrote:

Mothandric wrote:Though it's bad enough that the 'ctrl' key is right next to the damned windows key, I've lost count how many times accidently returning to windows has crashed my PC...

Simple solution for that problem: Take some needle nosed pliers and pull off the key. You can always put it back on later if you want, but I recommend throwing it right the hell away.

I hear ya

*heads towards the toolbox with an evil grin*

Vanor wrote:

Fire Monkey wrote:Is there any way that another could be added and just given an additional "hot key"?

No, that requires changing the UI itself, which is hardcoded into the game eng. Even bioware says that changing the UI is a bit of work.

Didn't know about the num pad working for spells, will deffentenly have to check that out tonight.

actually its not just for spells. the number pad corresponds to any radial menu option.

I know exactly what you mean about the f**king windows key. Not just in NWN either. I have lost count of the number of times I have jumped out of a game just as the biggest badest son of a bitch is about to eat me alive. Grrrrr

This number pad thing sounds interesting. Didn?t quite understand how it works, could someone give me a more detailed explanation? Presumably you can?t assign spells to numbers on the key pad. Also I have reassigned numbers on the keypad so I can use them to drive my character. Would this affect things?

Fire Monkey wrote: This number pad thing sounds interesting. Didn?t quite understand how it works, could someone give me a more detailed explanation? Presumably you can?t assign spells to numbers on the key pad. Also I have reassigned numbers on the keypad so I can use them to drive my character. Would this affect things?

In the default configuration you can use the keypad to navigate quickly through the radial menus. This works much faster than clicking through them with the mouse. It's not a one key -> one effect thing like the quickslots, but it speeds up things.

If you have reassigned those keys to do something else, this won't work.

I wish I had a full-sized keyboard instead of playing on a laptop

One day soon...

Kombinant:
Dude just buy yourself a USB keyboard they are not expensive and big keys make playing sooooooo much easier. These days I couldn't live without being able to drive my character using the number pad (ok that may be taking things a bit far ).

Sindol,
Thanks for the advice. I will have to sit down and look at the config and see whether I have reassigned the relevant keys or not. Sounds like something worth looking into though.

Fire Monkey wrote:This number pad thing sounds interesting. Didn?t quite understand how it works, could someone give me a more detailed explanation? Presumably you can?t assign spells to numbers on the key pad. Also I have reassigned numbers on the keypad so I can use them to drive my character. Would this affect things?

Basically you use the numbers to emulate what the radial menu looks like. The radial menu consists of 8 'slots' around it, each of these corresponds to a number on the numpad. I can't remember what the radial menu looks like off hand, so I will do it from memory here to give you the idea.
The numpad:
[7] [8] [9]
[4] [5] [6]
[1] [2] [3]
[_ 0 _]
The radial menu:
[?????????] [Examine] [Cast spell ]
[?????????] [ *back* ] [Attack ]
[Class Skill] [????????] [Special attack]
[Open/Close]

See how they match? Works the same as if you clicked on the relevant menu option with the mouse.
I think you can also use the numpad 0 to open the radial, not too sure on that one.

Note: 5 on the numpad will navigate to the previous menu, or close the radial menu if it is the initial one.

There is probably a better explanation on biware's site somwhere, but this should be enough to give you the idea (with the aid of a bit of imagination)

I think it only works if you have the numlock on, and you can't have the numpad keys reassigned to something else.

I'll check this and correct it when I get home from work if I get time.

BluDragon,

Thanks a lot for a thorough explanation. I have reassigned keys for movement which I rely on quite a lot. I'll just have to decide which is the most useful and how to rejig it if possible.
Do you find in laggy sitatuations that navigating through the options on the radial menu can be difficult?

I'm just starting to mess around with a program for windows called Macro Express (costs about $40 US I think, and has a 30 day demo http://www.macros.com/ ). I ran out of quick slots way too fast when adding custom chat slots and went looking for an alternative.

So far it works great. I can define unlimited macros (quick slots) for chat or anything else that can be entered from the chat line (or console for you DMs out there) or wherever you put the cursor, and access them via hot keys or a prefix code, like the "##' that sends stuff entered from the chat line to console, or even pop up menus. The pop up menus would be the best way when you get a ton of commands except if you try to use them in game it locks nwn up unless you switch to windowed mode to access the menu and I wouldn't want to do this often without win xp - 9x didn't like switching full screen apps very much from what I remember.
It takes only a short time to learn to use with the included help and tutorials and seems extremely customizable and powerful. *Man I'm starting to sound like a rep for the company - I ain't. I just like cool toys. I'm looking for a "good" freeware/open source version of this kind of program to recommend to everyone here but no luck so far.

I do have a question regarding this. Is there any way for a player to enter normal chat text via the console instead of the chat line?
The reason I ask is that I have to be careful using the prefixes for these macros or else I might just end up entering garbage into regular chat with a typo. Eg: I click the chat line or hit Enter and type @@sm1 (the @@ is the prefix and sm1 is the macro it runs) when I enter that it replaces the @@sm1 with "Smeec smacks you with a smelly fish!" or whatever. If I enter a typo like "@ @sm1", thats what I say. So if I can send it through the console with something like a "say " command in the macro, a typo will just return a command not found error instead of confusing everyone around me. Sorry if this is an obvious thing to most of you, but I'm a newbie and we tend to ask stupid things till someone bigger smacks US with a smelly fish.