03-08-2004, 11:03 AM
Yes, the TCs that the chests and other containers (not weapon stands or armor racks, they work differently) are listed in the MPQ files. They have listings like
Act 1 (H) Chest A
Act 1 (H) Chest B
Act 1 (H) Chest C
which are the 3 TCs used in various parts of act 1 hell difficulty. What was not known for some time, and still not known to most, is which one of these will get used in which area. I put a chart up over at the AB Technical forums that lists which TC is used for each area, but few are aware that it even exists.
Another problem is that the various types of containers also have 'special rules' in how they drop items. These 'special rules' are in the DLL executables and have not been at this time fully listed out anywhere. Most do some thing like X% of time drop nothing else do the drop from the TC for that area. This results in some containers that will always have a high chance to drop nothing (like the urns that are present in many areas) and other oddities. A locked chest will generate two seperate calls to do a TC drop while the unlocked ones will only generate one call the TC. There are probably some containers that set to drop from a short list of items (like a potion or other junk item) and there are the special chests ('sparkly chests are one type of this) that skip the players MF% and generate the drop using a series of special rules that result in some wildly different types of drops from the same item.
With all these hidden special cases it would be difficult to explain to a user which case to use in some places. It also makes it difficult to list out any chance of items when there situations where some containers will skip the TC altogether X% or Y% of the time.
Act 1 (H) Chest A
Act 1 (H) Chest B
Act 1 (H) Chest C
which are the 3 TCs used in various parts of act 1 hell difficulty. What was not known for some time, and still not known to most, is which one of these will get used in which area. I put a chart up over at the AB Technical forums that lists which TC is used for each area, but few are aware that it even exists.
Another problem is that the various types of containers also have 'special rules' in how they drop items. These 'special rules' are in the DLL executables and have not been at this time fully listed out anywhere. Most do some thing like X% of time drop nothing else do the drop from the TC for that area. This results in some containers that will always have a high chance to drop nothing (like the urns that are present in many areas) and other oddities. A locked chest will generate two seperate calls to do a TC drop while the unlocked ones will only generate one call the TC. There are probably some containers that set to drop from a short list of items (like a potion or other junk item) and there are the special chests ('sparkly chests are one type of this) that skip the players MF% and generate the drop using a series of special rules that result in some wildly different types of drops from the same item.
With all these hidden special cases it would be difficult to explain to a user which case to use in some places. It also makes it difficult to list out any chance of items when there situations where some containers will skip the TC altogether X% or Y% of the time.