Hi there. I haven´t played your dungeon yet, but reading your post, I think I might be able to help with some things on your list above. I have published a mod for Grimrock 1 and I am now in the process of making a mod for Grimrock 2 (I am halfway done). I also had the same idea to make more armor sets that grants a bonus to a champion that wears all the pieces at the same time. Will gladly share some tricks I learned in the process of making my own mod.

Hello there, pscigulinsky. Thank you for posting. I'd be more than happy to talk about tips and tricks in the editor, and how to deal with some of the more annoying issues. I've learned quite a bit, and plan on putting together a "supplimental guide" of sorts for the editor sometime in the future.

As far as I know, a lot of the things I listed, like skills, traits, and equipment, all hinge on the same thing: the Asset Pack. I've been trying to get it for years, but the links on the grimrock.net site don't work for me. I'll go over there and try to figure that out some day. Everything else here is mostly just design choices relating to this dungeon.

I'm not much of a programmer, but I've learned my way around a lot of the mechanical devices in this editor like Timers, Counters, Levers, and Connectors. There are a lot of little things in this editor that aren't explained, that you just have to figure out by messing around with it. You can also make some pretty cool gizmos with some simple parts if your clever. Hopefully I can share as much experience as I can.

Good luck with your dungeon. I thought I was late releasing mine late, but between Steam and Nexus, I probably have a good 100 players in my first month, which is better than I was expecting. So there's still an audience for this game.

You made all your dungeon WITHOUT having the asset pack? Wow, kudos. I wouldn´t be able to learn most of the scripting without having it. Luckily, I found a link to it at Grimrock Discord server and so, here you can finally download it:

http://grimrock.net/extras/asset_pack_v2.zip

Also, I use this reference guide all the time:

https://www.grimrock.net/modding/scripting-reference/

and sometimes also this:

https://github.com/JKos/log2doc/wiki/Components

Here is also a link to the discord server with modders willing to help:

https://discord.gg/hT3yBEsC

Now that you have the asset pack, I don´t want to spoil your joy of figuring things out but I also sent you a friend request if you want to discuss something directly :-)

I am not a programmer mysef, but there is something intriguing putting together a working dungeon with all the contraptions, puzzles monsters and treasures. Thanks to Grimrock 1 and 2 games, I learned a lot about programming in general.

Thank you. That looks like the same link from grimrock.net, but yours works for me even after going through Steam and my browser's security, and theirs still doesn't. Weird. I've seen the Scripting Reference, but without the Asset Pack or any kind of guidance, it's been pretty useless for me. Again, thank you. You've already been more helpful than that entire website has been for me, honestly.

I had someone else invite me to their Discord too, and I can not for the life of me get into my account or reset my password. I also don't even use Discord, and I have way too many accounts and conversations in way too many places as it is, so I'm trying to keep it cut down as much as I can.

I've got a reddit post (nothing happening over there though), this dungeon is on NexusMods and there's a couple people chatting over there, but most of the conversation about my dungeon seems to be happening here. Steam is my main base of operations for this dungeon and all my gaming stuff. Plus, the interface works pretty well here, and we've got a lot of options between Comments, Discussions, and even General LoGII Discussions outside the Workshop.

I honestly don't do much online chatting on forums and stuff. This is the most online presence I've had, so please bear with me as I'm still figuring this stuff out.

I am glad to be of help. The discord server works for me pretty well, but I only sometimes write anything there. I usually just read and get inspiration. And sometimes I go there just to be in awe of what is actually possible to program in Grimrock 2 dungeon if you have that level of knowledge of scripting.

Of course, I would be the last one to push you to do anything. Also, I know from experience that getting a mod published means reacting to feedback, repairing the bugs and publishing new versions in all the places you upoaded it and that is a lot of work.

So I just want to say that if you want and once you have time to talk about something specific for improving your dungeon, you just got one more person to talk to ;-)

Very cool, I appreciate it. So, to talk shop, have you made any cool gadgets or gizmos in your dungeon? That's what I'm going to try to do if I put out any sort of guide. There's a couple neat little mechanical things I've made, and I've also come up with some clever ways to make some standard LoG stuff very simply.

For "holding down floor plates in a specific shape", like "X marks the spot" in the original campaign, or any combination lock really, this can be done with a single Counter (along with the floor plates). First, create a Counter, then a "good" floor plate and a "bad" floor plate if you want false ones. Make two connectors from each to the Counter. For the "good" plates, make the connections "on activate decrement" and "on deactivate increment", and do the opposite for any of the "bad" plates. After this, copy your "good" plate to make whatever pattern you want. Making the connectors first and then copying should copy the connections, which makes this much quicker and easier. Once you've made your pattern, count the number of "good" plates, and set your counter to that number. You can make as many "bad" plates as you want without having to adjust this number.

This way, the only way to make the Counter reach 0 (activate) is to hold down all of the good plates (or levers, or whatever as long as it's "on/off" and not "activate only" like a Button), and none of the bad.

There is a bug with small items in sockets, like the Essence Beacons. Check here for the problem and solution:

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/333265124/4086396624009181982/

One of my favorite and simplest of gizmos: The magic floating platform. Make a magic_bridge, initial state Deactivate. In the exact same space, put an invisible floor_trigger, connect it to the magic_bridge, On Activate Activate, On Deactivate Deactivate (or just On Toggle Toggle if you like to live dangerously). Put these on elevated spaces next to a ledge. If the player walks on them, they'll stand in mid-air, but if they fall from above, they'll fall right through. Like corn starch and water, or the exact opposite, actually.

And now, my personal favorite and the one that everyone playing my dungeon hates: Running across gaps. I absolutely love this gizmo, and it's so elegant in its simplicity (even though it's more complicated then the stuff above).

Start with an invisible_platform, a timer, and a floor_trigger. You can use a magic_bridge for testing, but you'll want an invisible_platform for the final product. Make your landscape with a single space for the player to run across. A simple 1-space-wide trench will work for now. Place the invisible_platform in the space at the proper height, initial state Deactivate. Add your timer if you haven't already, connect it to the platform, On Activate Deactivate. On the timer, uncheck Timer (this checkbox makes the timer run once when the game loads), uncheck triggerOnStart and I guess currentLevelOnly, and check disableSelf.

This is where things get a little tricky, so pay attention to the details here. Make TWO connections from the floor_trigger to the timer AND the invisible_platform, four connections total. Set them to On Activate Deactivate and On Activate Stop, and On Deactivate Activate and On Deactivate Start. That's right. The floor_trigger turns everything off when the player steps on it, and turns everything on when the player steps off. This is a debug/failsafe. Now, place the floor_trigger in a straight line away from the invisible_platform, where you want the player to start their run from. Adjust the spacing and timing of the timer so the invisible_platform turns off right as the player gets across. Timers can be adjusted in 0.1 increments, and with precise timing, there can be a little drop just as the player gets across that makes for a cool effect. After this, you can simply copy and paste another floor_trigger on the other side if you want to make the gap two-way.

Here is my simple monster respawn script.

function countMonsters()
count = 0

for e in self.go.map:allEntities() do
if e.monster then
count = count + 1
end
end
end

function cMonsters1()
if count < 4 then
spawner_c_monster_1.spawner:activate()
spawner_c_monster_2.spawner:activate()
spawner_c_monster_3.spawner:activate()
spawner_c_monster_4.spawner:activate()
spawner_c_monster_5.spawner:activate()
spawner_c_monster_6.spawner:activate()
spawner_c_monster_7.spawner:activate()
end
end

Place floor_triggers wherever you want to activate the respawns (like at the exits of the level, they can even be in different levels), connect them to this script_entity and make it run both functions, in the above order (and the functions need to be that order in the script entity). Make a script_entity with this code in every level you want respawning monsters. Leave the top function the same, and adjust the count threshold, spawners, and activation methods to taste. With more spawners then the count threshold, it should never trigger a respawn twice in a row. With the threshold and amount of spawners, you can control the population range of the level. So in this one, the count can be 3 and still spawn 7 monsters, so the population will stay between 4 and 10 (except spawner 7 in this case is a fish, which can also be included, as well as anything that can be spawned... like herbs or food).

Very nice contraptions, all of them. I also have many, but unfortunately, they cannot be easily described in words. They are usually a bit complex and require a scripting because of IF THEN conditions. They include:
- dancing teleporters, pits opening in sequence (loops and steps)
- spawning and destroying various objects
- puzzles that include teleporters changing their targets depending on what the party does
- custom spells:
(healing spell that heals the most injured champion)
(remove injury spell)
(examine monster spell that reveals some info about a monster depending on the caster level)
- custom recipes

I love a bit of randomness, so I created a couple of modified custom assets like
- boxes that when destroyed spawn sometimes a random herb, sometimes a random food and usually nothing (depending on probabilities that you script)
- spider eggs that when destroyed sometimes spawn a spider and sometimes not
- dialogues, in which a random alive character that remarks something when exploring a specific area

I also use Grimrock ToolKit in my mods that enables dialogies and other interesting stuff.

As far as the respawning monsters go, I actually use a timer instead of pressure plate. Therefore monsters respawn depending on time rather then place (when a party steps on a plate somewhere). Of course, timers tick at different rate when the party is on the same level and tick more slowly when the party is elsewhere but this can be remedied by attaching a timer to the party itself.

What I wanted to ask is this: How do you plan to make your ideas and contraptions into a repository? What I would do is to make a custom dungeon editor file which would showcase different ideas in practice along with the scripting and possibly some explanations as well.

If you want, I can send you a dungeon editor file, which will showcase some of those things I mentioned earlier.

Well I guess that shows the difference the Asset Pack can make, lol. Speaking of, it seems like that asset pack is for LoG 1, not 2. Not a big deal, it at least helped me to understand the problem I was having... I think. I would love to be able to get into the monster drops and tweak them a bit. I'd probably reduce or remove a lot of the extra junk like the skeleton shields and helmets (the axes are ok), and add a small chance for Turtle Eggs, Cheese, and Horned Fruit to drop from the appropriate enemies, just because I like the food stat boost mechanic (my standard party consists of Lizardmen, an Insectoid, and a Ratling). There's entire layers to go over in my dungeon now that I think I might actually have the Asset Pack maybe (literally every step of the process seems to be designed to stop people from getting it).

As for respawning monsters, a timer is ok, but can be unreliable unless you attach it to the party as you point out (which I still have no idea how to do, honestly). Another option is to use getTimeOfDay(), which can go right into the respawn script (so monsters only respawn at night, for example). The reason I use floor_triggers for the respawn is so the players don't see the respawn happen. In my dungeon, it's designed to work like most regular video games, where leaving the area and coming back respawns everything, but modified to work with the "permanent" nature of the monsters and everything in the dungeon.

For a repository, that's a pretty good idea, actually. I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking either a forum post or YouTube videos, but that might actually be easier and better. I was trying to think of something more accessible, but if people are looking for LoG II editor tips, they'll have the game and editor, and I can upload an editor file to NexusMods really easily.

If you want to upload a dungeon editor file somewhere, that would be great. Maybe I can learn how to do some things that I haven't even thought about. I try not to take too many ideas from other people's work, but sometimes it's necessary. If you didn't know, it's possible to get into the source of the default campaign, just by copying and moving some of LoGII's internal files around. That's how I figured out how to make the Meteor > Meteor Hammer work (which is actually pretty simple). Here's a video tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPUXngUUT9Y

Oh. I am very sorry, I really have sent the wrong asset pack. Let me fix that:

http://grimrock.net/extras/grimrock2_asset_pack_2.zip

The copying of other people's work is how usually people start modding. At least I did. Reading through files, loading them up in editor and learning how you change this or that, how everything works. And being excited that it works and does not crash. And then getting a new idea and trying to implement that using knowledge you just acquired. And as you go, your dungeon traps, puzzles and scripts get ever more sophisticated.

Thank you for the tutorial, I watched it all already as I was starting to prepare my Grim2 mod, because I had made my previous mod for Grimrock 1 and there is a big change in scripting between these two games (certainly for the better).