Mod: Spirits extended

[Csimbi]

Hi all,
I am getting my spirits up to higher levels - and I am sad to find out that they are pretty limited. Makes me feel like the all-powerful spirits are becoming less and less useful as they hit their limits.
I made a mod that extends the level cap on the special skills for all the spirits.

Be sure to read at least the "Note well" part of the readme (the readme is also included in the package):

Spirits extended mod u1
=======================

I found the special skills of the spirits rather limited. Once you run out of improvement choices, you are forced to pick things that you might not want.
This mod extends the number of attainable levels for the special skills in the following manner:
 - doubled the max. main upgrades (from 5 to 10, 3 to 6, 4 to 8 and 7 to 14, respectively).
 - extended the rage reduction to 5 (from 2 to 5 and 3 to 5 in all cases)
 - extended the rest reduction so that rest 1 is always achievable (the spirits need to be very high level though).

The only thing I did NOT extend was the radius of Rockfall - it would become useless as it would cover near the whole battlefield.
I left the original values untouched, while I calculated the extended values on the scale derived from the original values.
Linear scales remain linear, while the exponential scales remain exponential.

The total number of improvements (including all special skills and even their starting levels):
          Before    After
Zerock    46        91
Sleem     44        92
Lina      41        75
Reaper    37        73

Note well:
 - you are not going to see the improvements in this mod when you improve all special skills - for best results, try to pick only one (an pick a secondary only when you must).
 - you are limited to level 30, so:
   - you can never ever have the entire arsenal of special skills fully developed.
   - quite often, not even a single special skill can be fully developed (because some of the max. upgrade is allowed only above level 29) and chances are good that you won't be able to pick the right one always.
   - you need to plan very carefully which special attacks you prefer - and invest more choices in those.
 - as Neo adequately put it, the problem is the choice. I assure you, you will face this problem.

Since some files have been directly modified, there may be conflict(s) with other mods. The modified files are:
 - death.atom
 - lina.atom
 - slime.atom
 - therock.atom

Required game version
=====================
King's Bounty: The Legend; 1.7 English

Updates
=======
u0 - Initial release
u1 - There was a typo in Sleem's level 9 upgrade: instead of 500-550, there was 500-050 (!). It's fixed now.

Usage
=====
 1. Start a new game or load an existing game.
 2. Enjoy the extended spirit levels when you level up next time.

Installation
============
Put the ".kfs" file in the <King's Bounty>\DATA\MODS directory (if the directory does not exist, you need to create it).

Uninstallation
==============
Delete the file(s) you added during the installation.


22nd of January, 2009
Csimbi

I have almost all special attacks unlocked in my current game, so I guess I am not going to be doing much field testing until I start a new game (so I can pick only the skills I want). So, I would like to ask everyone (especially those who start a new game) to provide feedback.
Complains, bugs, improvement suggestion are all welcome.

***Edit
A word of warning:
I did not check whether there is a side-effect when:
- the mod is removed,
- a saved game is loaded with improvements already picked from the mod
- the spirit goes to battle or levels up again.
If you see any negative side-effects, please post them here ASAP.
Thanks.

***Edit2
Updated the package. See notes about u1.