Special Random Encounters more often/perminant?

[InTheOnlineAsbestosSuit]

So I was adding a couple maps today, using ColJack's method, and then while looking over the city.txt, I noticed the entry for the special random encounters, and the entry for the fake vault 13. Since I rarely have been able to get these encounters, and I always want to be able to revisit them, I changed them all to "lockstate=on", and then just to see if it'd work, for both the fake vault encounters I switched Start state to On as well. I also changed the location slightly of the second one, since they were both listed as being the same location.

But when I tried to boot up the game, the loading screen suddenly went black, flashed light gray to black twice, and then the game crashed to the desk top. I'm in the process now of un-doing everything I just did to see if it helps. I've also got three maps of my own in the game, if that matters. Is this problem caused cause of a conflict between the city.txt and the maps.txt? If not, what's doing it? Also, is there a way I can either make the special random encounters just be locations on the world map without making new entries for them all in all the nessesary txt files, or just simply make it more likely that I'll get these encounters during game play somehow? Thanks.

EDIT: I fixed the crashing problem: it had nothing to do with the city.txt at all, rather it was me screwing up the numbering of one of the maps I added in the maps.msg file. But my other question still remains: how could I make the special random encounters just regular locations on the world map, or even better how could I make them more likely to appear?

 

[DGT]

You can do it with the Special Encounters by messing with the worldmap.txt file; they're in percentages, I believe, and there are also level requirements. Since they don't occur more than once, you can mark 'em with as high a percentage as you want, as far as I know (though over 100% would be dumb).

 

[InTheOnlineAsbestosSuit]

Alright, so this is the part you mean right?

; This sets up the default values for data that is used by the worldmap
[Data]
; Encounter frequency percentages:
Forced=100% ; This shouldn't change
Frequent=38% ; Was 9/3d6
Common=22% ; Was 8/3d6
Uncommon=12% ; Was 6/3d6
Rare=4% ; Was 5/3d6
None=0% ; This shouldn't change

I tried switching the percentages around, but it didn't appear to have any effect. DO I also have to change the numbers in the second column too?

 

[cupidstunt]

But wouldn't changing the percentage simply affect the frequency or chance for an encounter, and not keep it on the map? Seems like it would just force the encounter after taking a step...an easy bypass way to see it, but nothing permanent.

How about creating a map with the same specs as the random encounter map? Perhaps go to city.txt and create a new entry that references to whatever encounter. A little bit of copy and paste, and voila!

 

[InTheOnlineAsbestosSuit]

You're basically discribing making new locations on the world map that referance the same maps, which is do-able. However I wanted to keep the element of suprise and randomness that's part of the concept of random encounters. To make them perminant after you encounter them, I think that it's just a matter of altering the already existing entry for them in the city.txt:

[Area 31] ; Special Encounter Whale
area_name=Special Whale
world_pos=140,350
start_state=On
lock_state=Off <- you set this to ON
size=Small
townmap_art_idx=-1
townmap_label_art_idx=-1
entrance_0=On,345,230,Special Whale Encounter,0,-1,-1,0

However, I have yet to get one of these encounters to show up, and thus have yet to test out this method of keeping them.

 

[DGT]

The file path (from your Fallout2 folder) is data/data/worldmap.txt. The file may have been changed by Killap's patch; but in any case, the portion I'm referring to has the header "Newly added Random Encounter Tables for Fallout 2" and is huge. The special encounters in that section all have names that make them fairly apparent; I was referring to the percentages there. They also have level requirements.