Skill - Vampire (Bloodsucker Pack Port)

UPDATE: I have discovered that Volition has given us their blessing with regard to porting content between games, so long as its not the game itself. Many thanks to Corrodias for finding the post which said that. With that found, I can now distribute a simple installable version of the mod. Just download the file and extract it to your Saints Row IV folder.

This mod is also included in Shitface & Fan of Saints' Expanded Arsenal Mod, so if you're using that you don't need to install this.

Original description below...

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One of the more under-used DLCs from Saints Row: The Third was the Bloodsucker Pack, mostly due to its mandatory easy-mode cash and respect bonuses. Despite that, quite a few people got to like the one actual Vampire-related ability: the neck bite human shield execution. Unfortunately, the Vampire ability never made it to SR4, leaving the few fans of that ability high and dry.

One of those fans is a close friend of mine. After she made appropriately sad noises and faces in my general direction I promised I would look into re-activating the ability, since quite a few bits of legacy content from the previous game made it through. Perhaps this would be no different.

As it turns out, most of the Vampire ability made it through into SRIV. The engine hooks are still there, and there are even entries in the appropriate tables for the ability to be purchased (yes, purchased) and used. The only thing missing is, well, kind of an important bit: the animations. Without them the ability does nothing. How sad.

Fortunately if you have SRTT and the Bloodsucker Pack you can grab the necessary animations and put them into SRIV. Yes, they're compatible! With those animations preloaded and a modification made to unlockables.xtbl you can unlock your inner Nosferatu for just over 18k Cache.

I'm sure you're wondering then, why all this rambling? And why post in Mods in Progress? Quite simply, I have only the foggiest idea at what I'm doing. That I've managed to get this working is kind of a miracle, and the method I used isn't precisely redistributable. The best I can really do is tell you how to do it, and I'm not sure that qualifies as a mod release.

Still, I'm sure at least someone will be interested in how to do this, and maybe someone else will have a more refined way of getting this done. If, for example, you find yourself asking "why did he do it this way instead of this other far easier way", the answer is "because I seriously have no idea what I'm doing." Suggest that easier method. Maybe it'll work.

So, without further ado, here's how to re-enable the Vampire ability in SRIV:

1) Extract the contents of preload_anim.vpp_pc from Saints Row: The Third. If you don't know how to do this, check this thread.

2) Extract the contents of preload_anim.vpp_pc from Saints Row IV. You'll need to use Minimaul's Saints Row IV tools for this, not the SRTT tools. When you are asked where to extract the files to, put them in the same folder as Minimaul's tools (this makes step 5 easier).

3) A new folder will appear named "preload_anim.vpp_pc". Rename that folder "preload_anim".

4) Check the SRTT preload_anim folder for two files: hs_sd_vamp_a.anim_pc and hs_sd_vamp_b.anim_pc. Copy these files into the SRIV preload_anim folder.

5) Go to the Minimaul SRIV tools folder (probably starts with "ThomasJepp"). Hold shift and right-click the file area, then select the "Open command window here" option. Then enter the following text:
Code:
ThomasJepp.SaintsRow.BuildPackfile.exe sriv preload_anim preload_anim.vpp_pc /condensed:true

6) Copy the new preload_anim.vpp_pc file to your SRIV packfile cache directory (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Saints Row IV\packfiles\pc\cache)

7) Extract the contents of misc_tables.vpp_pc from SRIV. Find the file unlockables.xtbl and copy it to your base SRIV folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Saints Row IV). If there is already an unlockables.xtbl in that folder you may skip this step.

8) Open unlockables.xtbl. Scroll down to the end of the first table, right above the line that reads "<TableTemplates>" (or just search for that text). Then add the following text to the file, right above the line that reads "</Table>":

Code:
	<Unlockable>
		<Name>Totally_Not_Vampire</Name>
		<Type>
			<Vampire></Vampire>
			</Type>
		<DisplayName>UNL_VAMPIRE</DisplayName>
		<Description>UNL_DESC_VAMPIRE</Description>
		<Image_Source>
			<Filename>ui_reward_vampire.tga</Filename>
			</Image_Source>
		<Detailed_Description_Text>UNL_DESC_VAMPIRE</Detailed_Description_Text>
		<Event_Text>UNL_VAMPIRE</Event_Text>
		<Category>Player Abilities</Category>
		<Price>18250</Price>
		<_Editor>
			<Category>Entries:RespectLevels:PlayerAbilities</Category>
			</_Editor>
		<orbs_required>0</orbs_required>
		<Progression_Preset>3</Progression_Preset>
		<reward_visibility>default</reward_visibility>
		<silent_unlock>False</silent_unlock>
		</Unlockable>

If you did it right, the end of the table should look like this:

Code:
	<Unlockable>
		<Name>Totally_Not_Vampire</Name>
		<Type>
			<Vampire></Vampire>
			</Type>
		<DisplayName>UNL_VAMPIRE</DisplayName>
		<Description>UNL_DESC_VAMPIRE</Description>
		<Image_Source>
			<Filename>ui_reward_vampire.tga</Filename>
			</Image_Source>
		<Detailed_Description_Text>UNL_DESC_VAMPIRE</Detailed_Description_Text>
		<Event_Text>UNL_VAMPIRE</Event_Text>
		<Category>Player Abilities</Category>
		<Price>18250</Price>
		<_Editor>
			<Category>Entries:RespectLevels:PlayerAbilities</Category>
			</_Editor>
		<orbs_required>0</orbs_required>
		<Progression_Preset>3</Progression_Preset>
		<reward_visibility>default</reward_visibility>
		<silent_unlock>False</silent_unlock>
		</Unlockable>
	</Table>

<TableTemplates>
	<Unlockable>


And... uhm... that's it. Now you can vampire bite people to death. If someone can think of a more efficient way of doing the above, please let me know.

Also, I'm attaching some photos showing the ability in-game. Yes, it does appear to regen your health.
 

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what about COOP? as we need to add animations, i assume that it not compatible with coop in current state?
Anyway, nice work
 
Yeah, it won't be properly compatible with co-op. I'm not sure if a non-modded viewer would crash or would just see nothing happening. More testing is required obviously.
 
Very cool stuff.
 
Very cool stuff.
Thanks for saying so. I hope I didn't do anything particularly dumb in that process, but that's the only way I could figure out how to get the animations to load up properly.

Another weird thing I didn't mention: the game behaves like SRTT with regards to hiding the skill if has the name "Vampire" or appears in that exact order in the Unlockables list. I was worried that I was doing a DLC purchase bypass until I figured out the animations were flat-out missing. Still, funny to realize that DLC activation code from the previous game still lurks in there. I wonder if the code for the Unlockable pack (shudder) is still in there too.
 
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Sure, absolutely no objections from me. ^_^
Do u plan to find more things that can be ported over to sr4 I can't think from the top of my head what exactly but do u have plans cuz if u found out how to get that dlc ported to sr4 to work then there must be more stuff that could work more possibilities for great mods.:)
 
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