Posted March 21, 2012
This is part of a faq I wrote to help people new to the game love it as I have. Submitted to GameFAQs on user account Leonidusx, copyright 2012.
GAME OPTIONS AND SETUP:
=======================
INGAME OPTIONS
---------------
For ingame options, I recommend the highest difficulty setting, and turn based combat mode as default. Otherwise, combat becomes very silly very quickly. You can change combat mode at will using the space bar. In the beginning, when it can take many strikes to even land a hit on an enemy, its easier to use real time combat. Set Floaters to verbose so that you can see proper damage and information.
GAME submenu in options:
---------------------
DIFFICULTY: HARD
DEFAULT COMBAT MODE: TURN BASED
VIDEO submenu in options:
----------------------------
FLOATERS: VERBOSE
PATCHING
----------------
The first thing you should do after installing arcanum is downloading the final official patch and then downloading the unofficial arcanum patch. This fixes countless bugs and makes your game a lot better experience. Then you should install the High Resolution Patch and the Level Cap Remover (install level cap remover now so you don't even have to worry about it later). I also recommend downloading the arcanum manual, as a reference. Then, create a shortcut to your Arcanum.exe and right click the shortcut, go to properties, and under the Target (where it shows what the shortcut links to) add [[-scrolldist:0]] (without the brackets) at the end, after the quotation marks which contain the file location. This let's you freely scroll in the game to see surrounding area, and is incredibly annoying to play without. For example my shortcut Target looks like:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe" -scrolldist:0
The Level Cap Remover is not cheap or cheating, because firstly the game difficulty is not hard to begin with and secondly you can sometimes reach the exp cap midway through the game if you enjoy exploration, so it really just removes an inclination to stop your journey early and start a new hero.
Note that Drog Black Tooth made the unofficial patch, the high resolution patch, and the level cap remover, and we are all indebted to his service for doing so. Three cheers for Drog! What a classy gent.
{{[[(( DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL BEFORE PLAYING ! ! ))]]}}
-------------------------------------
Final Official Patch (ENGLISH VERSION)
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/patches/arcanum_en_1074.exe
Final Unofficial Arcanum Patch
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/fixes/UAP091225.exe
High Resolution Patch
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/highres/HighRes1.1a.exe
Arcanum Universal Level Cap Remover
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/hacks/arcanum50patch-0.0.1.zip
Arcanum Manual
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/resources/arcanum_manual.zip
USEFUL GAME INFO:
=================
-QUICKSAVE OFTEN
-Like Diablo, the red bar is hp, the blue bar is fatigue (endurance for spells, taking blows, attacking and running).
-Esc is menu
-Space bar switches between turn based and combat mode. If you see green lights in a row, you are in turn based combat.
-Sometimes in turn based combat it seems like an offscreen unit is taking an infinite turn. Press space bar twice to stop this. You will lose a turn.
-R enters or exits combat mode. You can tell you are combat mode if the cursor is a sword instead of a pointer, and if you have a weapon equipped it will be drawn in a battle stance. You cannot leave combat mode while under attack.
-Right click can also leave combat mode.
-Running while in combat reduces fatigue. Doing this unknowingly at the start can cause irritating bouts of unconsciousness. Leave combat mode to stop this.
-S brings down the sleep menu, if you are allowed to sleep there. You can bring this menu by also clicking the box where it originates, left of the day/night display. You cannot sleep in dungeons, or while in combat. You can sleep in the outdoors, and can wait while in towns.
-W brings up the map, either for a town, a dungeon, or the world map for fast travelling.
-After setting waypoints on the map, they can be deleted in reverse order using the Delete key (not backspace).
-You can interrupt your travel over the world map by pressing W. You will stop right where you are.
-L brings up the log book, with tabs on the right edge for notes, quests, blessings, and more.
-O is options
-I is your inventory.
-To see party members inventory, talk to them about it. Red arrows by their name in the party inventory screen allow for switching to others easily.
-C opens your character stats.
-To see party members character stats, talk to them about it. Red arrows by their name in the party stats screen allow for switching to others easily.
-To place an item into a hotkey, drag it from inventory into the two sets of 5 slots between your hp and fatigue bar. You can activate the item using the associated number 1 thru 0 on the keyboard. This is the only way to use some items, like the shovel on a grave for example.
-You can temporarily store large items like this without them taking up inventory space, but to return to inventory them you will need the available space.
-To pick locks, purchase a lockpick and place the lockpick into a hotkey.
-Spells or activated skills (like theiving) can also be placed into hotkeys. Open their button menus by your fatigue bar.
-T opens the tech crafting menu. Notice the two buttons, one with a graduation cap and the other with a scroll. Those switch between learned and found schematics. The tabs on the right edge switch between tech disciplines. To look at more schematics from the selected discipline, click the arrow at the top right (if you know more than one schematic!). Press the button with the two arrows pointing inward to attempt to create the item. It will work only if you have the components required AND the expertise required.
-Tech expertise required is shown as the number at the bottom right in the component box and the discipline is the symbol in the top right. Your current expertise is shown as a number in the character stats screen on the tech discipline selected. An item might need 2 different disciplines with 2 different levels of expertise as a requirement, and both must be at or above their respective requirements to craft the item.
-Found schematics must be learned by right clicking them from your inventory.
-If you are in combat mode, hold alt and click in a direction to force yourself to attack whatever is there. This is how you bash down doors, attack friendly things, and generally use your sword on things that just clicking isn't doing the trick for.
-Holding alt and clicking something (enemy, doors, etc) while a gun is equipped will fire at that target while standing from your current position.
-When directly near a corpse you can hold alt and click the corpse to drag it to your position. This is good for covering up some murders.
-Spells typically need a direct line of sight to be cast.
-At the top of the screen directly in the middle is where your sustained spells display. The empty boxes fill when a spell is sustained as an effect. Right click on one to cancel a sustained spell.
-On the top of the screen there is an infinity symbol with a number below it. That number is the amount of fate points you have, which are gained by making certain decisions throughout the game.
-Click the button next to the infinity symbol to bring down the fate point menu. This lists all possible fate point effects and selecting one spends a fate point. 100% Pickpocketing success is particularly useful at times on a non-theif character.
-You can issue orders to party members using the F1 thru F5 keys. F3 and F4 are not particularly useful.
-F1 moves them to where your cursor is
-F2 makes them try to attack what your cursor is on (including doors, chests, not just enemies)
-F5 makes them try to stop attacking
MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!!
-F7 is Quicksave
-F8 Is Quickload
-You will need a shovel to advance through the main storyline!
-What people say is important! Don't skip it unless you know what they say from a previous playthrough!
-Explore! There's a whole world out there, and there is ALWAYS more to it than you know. People are still finding things out about this game 10 years later.
GAME OPTIONS AND SETUP:
=======================
INGAME OPTIONS
---------------
For ingame options, I recommend the highest difficulty setting, and turn based combat mode as default. Otherwise, combat becomes very silly very quickly. You can change combat mode at will using the space bar. In the beginning, when it can take many strikes to even land a hit on an enemy, its easier to use real time combat. Set Floaters to verbose so that you can see proper damage and information.
GAME submenu in options:
---------------------
DIFFICULTY: HARD
DEFAULT COMBAT MODE: TURN BASED
VIDEO submenu in options:
----------------------------
FLOATERS: VERBOSE
PATCHING
----------------
The first thing you should do after installing arcanum is downloading the final official patch and then downloading the unofficial arcanum patch. This fixes countless bugs and makes your game a lot better experience. Then you should install the High Resolution Patch and the Level Cap Remover (install level cap remover now so you don't even have to worry about it later). I also recommend downloading the arcanum manual, as a reference. Then, create a shortcut to your Arcanum.exe and right click the shortcut, go to properties, and under the Target (where it shows what the shortcut links to) add [[-scrolldist:0]] (without the brackets) at the end, after the quotation marks which contain the file location. This let's you freely scroll in the game to see surrounding area, and is incredibly annoying to play without. For example my shortcut Target looks like:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe" -scrolldist:0
The Level Cap Remover is not cheap or cheating, because firstly the game difficulty is not hard to begin with and secondly you can sometimes reach the exp cap midway through the game if you enjoy exploration, so it really just removes an inclination to stop your journey early and start a new hero.
Note that Drog Black Tooth made the unofficial patch, the high resolution patch, and the level cap remover, and we are all indebted to his service for doing so. Three cheers for Drog! What a classy gent.
{{[[(( DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL BEFORE PLAYING ! ! ))]]}}
-------------------------------------
Final Official Patch (ENGLISH VERSION)
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/patches/arcanum_en_1074.exe
Final Unofficial Arcanum Patch
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/fixes/UAP091225.exe
High Resolution Patch
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/highres/HighRes1.1a.exe
Arcanum Universal Level Cap Remover
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/hacks/arcanum50patch-0.0.1.zip
Arcanum Manual
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/resources/arcanum_manual.zip
USEFUL GAME INFO:
=================
-QUICKSAVE OFTEN
-Like Diablo, the red bar is hp, the blue bar is fatigue (endurance for spells, taking blows, attacking and running).
-Esc is menu
-Space bar switches between turn based and combat mode. If you see green lights in a row, you are in turn based combat.
-Sometimes in turn based combat it seems like an offscreen unit is taking an infinite turn. Press space bar twice to stop this. You will lose a turn.
-R enters or exits combat mode. You can tell you are combat mode if the cursor is a sword instead of a pointer, and if you have a weapon equipped it will be drawn in a battle stance. You cannot leave combat mode while under attack.
-Right click can also leave combat mode.
-Running while in combat reduces fatigue. Doing this unknowingly at the start can cause irritating bouts of unconsciousness. Leave combat mode to stop this.
-S brings down the sleep menu, if you are allowed to sleep there. You can bring this menu by also clicking the box where it originates, left of the day/night display. You cannot sleep in dungeons, or while in combat. You can sleep in the outdoors, and can wait while in towns.
-W brings up the map, either for a town, a dungeon, or the world map for fast travelling.
-After setting waypoints on the map, they can be deleted in reverse order using the Delete key (not backspace).
-You can interrupt your travel over the world map by pressing W. You will stop right where you are.
-L brings up the log book, with tabs on the right edge for notes, quests, blessings, and more.
-O is options
-I is your inventory.
-To see party members inventory, talk to them about it. Red arrows by their name in the party inventory screen allow for switching to others easily.
-C opens your character stats.
-To see party members character stats, talk to them about it. Red arrows by their name in the party stats screen allow for switching to others easily.
-To place an item into a hotkey, drag it from inventory into the two sets of 5 slots between your hp and fatigue bar. You can activate the item using the associated number 1 thru 0 on the keyboard. This is the only way to use some items, like the shovel on a grave for example.
-You can temporarily store large items like this without them taking up inventory space, but to return to inventory them you will need the available space.
-To pick locks, purchase a lockpick and place the lockpick into a hotkey.
-Spells or activated skills (like theiving) can also be placed into hotkeys. Open their button menus by your fatigue bar.
-T opens the tech crafting menu. Notice the two buttons, one with a graduation cap and the other with a scroll. Those switch between learned and found schematics. The tabs on the right edge switch between tech disciplines. To look at more schematics from the selected discipline, click the arrow at the top right (if you know more than one schematic!). Press the button with the two arrows pointing inward to attempt to create the item. It will work only if you have the components required AND the expertise required.
-Tech expertise required is shown as the number at the bottom right in the component box and the discipline is the symbol in the top right. Your current expertise is shown as a number in the character stats screen on the tech discipline selected. An item might need 2 different disciplines with 2 different levels of expertise as a requirement, and both must be at or above their respective requirements to craft the item.
-Found schematics must be learned by right clicking them from your inventory.
-If you are in combat mode, hold alt and click in a direction to force yourself to attack whatever is there. This is how you bash down doors, attack friendly things, and generally use your sword on things that just clicking isn't doing the trick for.
-Holding alt and clicking something (enemy, doors, etc) while a gun is equipped will fire at that target while standing from your current position.
-When directly near a corpse you can hold alt and click the corpse to drag it to your position. This is good for covering up some murders.
-Spells typically need a direct line of sight to be cast.
-At the top of the screen directly in the middle is where your sustained spells display. The empty boxes fill when a spell is sustained as an effect. Right click on one to cancel a sustained spell.
-On the top of the screen there is an infinity symbol with a number below it. That number is the amount of fate points you have, which are gained by making certain decisions throughout the game.
-Click the button next to the infinity symbol to bring down the fate point menu. This lists all possible fate point effects and selecting one spends a fate point. 100% Pickpocketing success is particularly useful at times on a non-theif character.
-You can issue orders to party members using the F1 thru F5 keys. F3 and F4 are not particularly useful.
-F1 moves them to where your cursor is
-F2 makes them try to attack what your cursor is on (including doors, chests, not just enemies)
-F5 makes them try to stop attacking
MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!!
-F7 is Quicksave
-F8 Is Quickload
-You will need a shovel to advance through the main storyline!
-What people say is important! Don't skip it unless you know what they say from a previous playthrough!
-Explore! There's a whole world out there, and there is ALWAYS more to it than you know. People are still finding things out about this game 10 years later.
