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OK, I´m new to Divinity OS Enhanced Edition modding, so bear with me plz. :-D

Here´s a few things I´d like to do if possible;

1. Add some points to the level progression;

I´m thinking of raising the available attribute points from 15 to say 20, skills from 49 to say 55-60 and talents from 7 to maybe 10. Comments? Would that be OP?

Are there any tutorials available on how to do this or would I need dev rights to do so?

2. Perhaps adding some basic loot to the game would be nice? Like adding crafting materials etc. to crates or corpses (a grisly job taking hair/teeth/bones from orc corpses etc. but hey, a source hunters gotta do what a source hunters gotta do right? :-D)
Also, there was at least one minable ore vein in one of Cyseals dungeons, it would be nice to have some trees etc. that you could chop down for logs which you could turn to different stuff for sale if you need the gold etc.?

3. As far as I know, the enemies like skeletons, wolves etc. don´t respawn, so once you´ve cleared the map so to say, there´s no way to "grind" more xp, so that places a cap on how far your characters can advance, right?
So, could something be modded, like a spawnpoint on the edge of map that would "seed" the map with new enemies (zombies, wild animals etc.) periodically?

There are my questions for now, thx for your assistance in advance!

Cheers!

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Originally Posted by Jopo80
OK, I´m new to Divinity OS Enhanced Edition modding, so bear with me plz. grin

Here´s a few things I´d like to do if possible;

1. Add some points to the level progression;

I´m thinking of raising the available attribute points from 15 to say 20, skills from 49 to say 55-60 and talents from 7 to maybe 10. Comments? Would that be OP?

Are there any tutorials available on how to do this or would I need dev rights to do so?

There are no 'dev rights', it can be done with Osiris.

The calls should be named something like
CharacterAddTalentPoints()
CharacterAddAttributePoints()
and
CharacterAddSkillPoints()

For exact names of the calls and parameters, you can type 'Character' in the story editor and it will bring up a suggest menu.
You need to use the game editor to use the story editor. The game editor is called something like 'The Divinity Engine Enhanced Edition' and on Steam it can be found in the 'Tools' section.

If you have never modded Original Sin, you surely need a tutorial to learn the story scripting language. There's a sticky somewhere in the forum to some video tutorials Larian posted on Youtube about story scripting. I believe that (almost?) every modder who does story scripting learned it from those videos.

Originally Posted by Jopo80
2. Perhaps adding some basic loot to the game would be nice? Like adding crafting materials etc. to crates or corpses (a grisly job taking hair/teeth/bones from orc corpses etc. but hey, a source hunters gotta do what a source hunters gotta do right? :-D)
Also, there was at least one minable ore vein in one of Cyseals dungeons, it would be nice to have some trees etc. that you could chop down for logs which you could turn to different stuff for sale if you need the gold etc.?

That's really a lot of work, but it could be done. Of course there are no animations for chopping wood or for a cut tree falling, but at least it should be possible to create an object (a tree) that's usable and add some wood to the user's inventory if the tree is right-clicked ('used'), but as said, it would be a lot of work.

By adding more loot, the risk to stumble into the 'out-of-handles-crash' gets closer than in the vanilla version, so I'd recommend to be careful with that.
See Abraxas' explanation in the thread How do you mod the EE? for the 'crash risk'.

Originally Posted by Jopo80
3. As far as I know, the enemies like skeletons, wolves etc. don´t respawn, so once you´ve cleared the map so to say, there´s no way to "grind" more xp, so that places a cap on how far your characters can advance, right?
So, could something be modded, like a spawnpoint on the edge of map that would "seed" the map with new enemies (zombies, wild animals etc.) periodically?

Rhidian has proved in the Classic version that enemy respawn can be done through a combination of story and character scripts.
You could take his classic mod - think it's called 'Respawning Enemies' - and look at the code. Although it was made for Classic and not EE it should be possible to adapt the code for EE.

The question is if 'grinding more xp' makes sense without any further adjustment because with enemy respawn you'd overlevel the content even more as is the case already.
... and further adjustments are again *a lot* of work ;-)

Originally Posted by Jopo80
There are my questions for now, thx for your assistance in advance!

Cheers!

Good luck and have fun with modding hehe

You might want to take a look at the D:OS 2 forums even though the game is not released yet. But version 2 is supposed to make a lot of things in modding much easier than is the case in D:OS1.
Of course it's a different game with different story and different basic mechanics but I can tell you from personal experience that with the many bugs and deficiencies of the scripting APIs, modding can become quite frustrating in D:OS1, at least if you want to do more than simple and basic things.

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Thank you for the advice Fraublake, much appreciated.

In my recent game of divinity, I´ve used the 6 man party mod and have had great fun on tactician mode (to compensate for more party members).

Now, I don´t know, would it be worth transferring my modding efforts to the upcoming second game instead, if it indeed will be easier to mod?

However, I´ve given some thought to doing some of those easier basic things...

How about this...

Add a few merchants to Cyseal etc., There would be room in the harbour (next to the other ships where Capt. Jack and the sailors work), there were 2 ships there I think, so maybe add a few merchants there?

Storywise, they could be "blockade runners" since Cyseal is under Orcish naval blockade, right? So, in the spirit of Han Solo, they´ve made the "Cyseal run" in less than 3 parsecs, right? grin Haven´t yet decided what items these ship captains would sell, but it would be logical that the cargo hauled to Cyseal with high risk is of high value also, although one needs to consider that in a city under siege, the value system might be a bit different (food and other consumables might be more expensive).

Also there might be some good spots for merchants elsewhere in Cyseal. One merchant I´m desperately looking for is a raw materials trader... Maybe a Dwarven miner come to sell minerals and ores and a lumberjack selling wood logs etc.? A weaver/tailor selling cloth and leather?

About the wood chopping... How about using the mining animations used in the ore mines, but with an axe over a lumber pile (chop wood)?

As for the merchants... would someone in the forums assist me in making this small mod? These new NPCs would be non-voiced, unless we could repurpose them to speak a few existing greeting lines (for the next game, perhaps Larian could ask the voice actors to do a few generic extra lines as "modders resources"? Something simple like "Greetings!", "Hello!", "What would you like to buy?" etc.?

There was a tutorial somewhere I think on adding new items to the game, right? I need to learn how to make the loot tables and inventories, so the merchants will have the right items and in correct quantities.

Ok, I think I´ll go play some divinity now... grin

Cheers!

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There's a call in the story code which shows the mining animation:

CharacterPlayAnimation( _Char, "use_mine", "mine_anim_end" );

But I could not find any call to equip an item, so I have no idea how the pickaxe is 'equipped'.
I know absolutely nothing about animations or graphical stuff, so someone else would have to help here.

And, adding NPC's is not one of my strengths either, I could not even make the one single NPC I added in a mod say anything, although I thought I had added everything necessary. So I'm no help here either.


Most if not all tutorials here on the forum were made for the Classic version but pretty much everything still applies to the Enhanced Edition, with only some minor differences.


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The pickaxe is only a visual effect, I think, and somehow tied to the animation. I don't think you can use this animation for chopping.


My mods for DOS 1 EE: FasterAnimations - QuietDay - Samaritan
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Well, currently I´m playing the XC-Bags_6man_QnvD mod in steam and I think the Great Norbyte merchant is great indeed, sells ingredients etc. I noticed you tried to use some existing speech lines for Norbyte, but even though he´s silent, that doesn´t bother me at all, so keep up the good work! hehe

In fact, if you´d be willing to take a friend request in steam (my tag is the same in steam as in these forums), we could perhaps cooperate in making mods?

I have some ideas for crafting recipes and new merchants as I mentioned (those ships near Capt Jack and the trio of sailors could use some attention I think).

For recipes; How about these...

wool+something to weave (needle?), a spindle would be a nice addition ; cloth scraps, in later game I usually make a small economy crafting weapons, gear, staves etc. and I´m terribly hungry for materials, I usually go around the city buying every log and ingredient in sight. grin The Source Hunters Inc. needs materials for its cottage industry. grin

as for wood and logging, maybe a wood merchant (lumberjack) somewhere in Cyseal? and/or make the log piles respawn like the mines?

carrot + dough; carrot bread , carrot + kitchen; boiled carrots, carrot + potato = cold vegetable stew? Carrots give perception if I recall right, but they give a strength minus, so I dont usually eat them, so maybe cooked carrots could be more useful?

meat + potato = cold meat stew? (meat stew warms, so cold resistance maybe?) Also alcohol seems to be rather useless because of the debuff effects, but maybe make wine etc. useful by adding cold resistance (alcohol warms a bit at least temporarily and might make you immune to fear effect for a short period? :-D)

wine + kitchen; hot wine (a winter drink)

bread + ham or cheese = sandwich grin

scale scraps + leather/needle = scale armor? maybe with magic needle you could get a random magic effect to the armor?

any basic armor + pixie dust = random magic effect?

metal/leather scraps + skull = helmet? (just thinking how you could do helmets following the games crafting logic?)

scraps + crafter statue = bracers? With those recipes you could craft any piece of armor, right? Boots, torso, gloves/bracers and helmet.

Also, how about giving jewels a purpose, here´s a few ideas;

Ruby already gives a magic stat boost right? so, maybe make a gem type associated with each stat, strength/intel/perception etc.? If we could retexture (just change the color of an existing gem) some gems or just ignore that and use existing 3d assets, we could have emeralds, sapphires, etc. Just like in Diablo. grin These gems could be socketed into any armor to give different boosts?

OK, there´s some of my ideas for now, I´ll post more later ok?

Now a question, if you add some new stuff to your XC_Bags_6man_QnvD mod, will those changes show up in-game or does it require a new playthrough? Also, the merged epic encounters+magic bags seems like a great mod, so if you could do a 6man version of it and post it to steam workshop that would be awesome (geez, shouldn´t have said awesome, it reminds me of the graveyard dog, Murphy :-D)

Cheers!

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Of course you can send a friend request on Steam anytime. I'm just not very active on Steam and I have big problems to handle even the most basic things on Steam with the Steam client.
(It's a miracle that I succeeded to publish a mod on Steam.)


A lot of ideas, you could post them to XC_Encounter's 'Bugs and Suggestions' discussion on Steam.

Adding stuff like new items in XC_Bags (and any other mod) is always possible, you only need to find a way to make it appear in the game, either through TreasureTable.txt or through a character or item script. Distribution through story code is impossible though because story code cannot be changed in an existing savegame.
(Well, Larian could I think, but for me that's far beyond my knowledge.)

New crafting recipes are also addable at any time and will be picked up even by existing savegames.
Item and character stats are changeable for existing savegames too, even new spells can be added.
New npcs can not be added I think.

It only depends on what you want to change. Some things work with existing savegames, others don't.


The Great Norbyte is a reverence to the 'Father of EE modding' because without his tool, I don't think XC_Bags would ever have seen the 'light of ... Steam' !
(There might have been an 'Abraxas', 'Sniper' and some more if it had not be so time consuming to add even the most basic stuff in a mod, like an npc.)


Currently, I don't do any Divinity modding at all, you could call me a 'retired modder'. All I do is try to give advice when I think I know stuff and when it's not too time consuming.
(I have *A LOT* less spare time now than I had when I made XC_Bags.)

I'd advise you to look on Steam and roam the 'Epic Encounters' and 'XC_Encounters' mods, the authors of these mods are still actively developing their mods and are still very enthusiastic about modding. I lost a lot of modding enthusiasm quite a while ago.

And, maybe the great Sniper will show up in this thread, he's pretty much an expert in world building and adding npcs, since he's done it in his mods 'Dunamis' and 'A Necromancer's Crusade'.
There are other experts too here on the forum, like Abraxas or the Tinkerer, and sometimes even Baardvark (the 'Mother of EE modding' ;-) shows up. They are all much more skilled than I am anyway.


... or you take a look at Divinity Original Sin 2, as far as I know, it will have *FAR* better modding support than version 1 has (we'll see, how much better it will be, after all, any positive integer is greater than 0 but is not necessarily a big number ;-). I have no idea when version 2 will be released though, some time this year I suppose.
Modding the Enhanced Edition (of version 1) can become a very frustrating experience, and I am not over my frustration and complete lack of motivation yet ... by far ...

Last edited by FrauBlake; 10/03/17 09:29 PM.
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Originally Posted by FrauBlake
Currently, I don't do any Divinity modding at all, you could call me a 'retired modder'.

I'm always a bit sad to see a modder retire, though sometimes the demands of real life can be intrusive! Or in my case I just got a really bad case of "clutter fatigue" that I never recovered from so I just do random noodling about these days. Nice that you're still involved with the modding scene and are a regular sight when people are asking for advice, though. smile


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Originally Posted by vometia
Originally Posted by FrauBlake
Currently, I don't do any Divinity modding at all, you could call me a 'retired modder'.

I'm always a bit sad to see a modder retire, though sometimes the demands of real life can be intrusive! Or in my case I just got a really bad case of "clutter fatigue" that I never recovered from so I just do random noodling about these days. Nice that you're still involved with the modding scene and are a regular sight when people are asking for advice, though. smile

Hm, my English is not good enough to really understand "clutter fatigue" but I think I have some kind of "fatigue" too (and too little time ;-)

People have so many ideas, a lot of great ones among them !

But the question is how much sense it still makes to get involved in big projects - and XC_Bags was *a lot* of work - when most people are already about to jump to Original Sin 2.
(If it was doable, how many modders would still mod for 'Divinity 2'?)

The only thing that might still attract people to play version 1 after version 2 is out is standalone mods like the ones Sniper makes or 'epic extensions' to the main game like 'Epic Encounters' does ... because those mods add something that is new to a lot of people.


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I'm probably retired too though that as more to do with the player counts. I'd still work on some bugfixing and stuff if I had more players. Not sure if I'll work on 2 or not. If I do it will be something smaller scale or with a team so I can focus on what I actually like doing.


I think there are definitely reasons for mods like XC though for people who come to the series later. While Epic is a nice project it's not the type of mod I'm usually interested in. I generally prefer mods I'm going to play with to have a lighter touch and be closer to original. Also once 2 releases, 1 will have a lower price and more sales which bring players. I notice a spike in my mod downloads every sale.


And just a random note about the respawn thing, it's been a while but it looked at that for someone months ago and I think the script would actually just bolt on to the EE version just fine, with all the issues Frau mentioned regarding balance of course. Possibly needing some minor syntax fixes.


Originally Posted by Jopo80

About the wood chopping... How about using the mining animations used in the ore mines, but with an axe over a lumber pile (chop wood)?

As for the merchants... would someone in the forums assist me in making this small mod? These new NPCs would be non-voiced, unless we could repurpose them to speak a few existing greeting lines (for the next game, perhaps Larian could ask the voice actors to do a few generic extra lines as "modders resources"? Something simple like "Greetings!", "Hello!", "What would you like to buy?" etc.?

There was a tutorial somewhere I think on adding new items to the game, right? I need to learn how to make the loot tables and inventories, so the merchants will have the right items and in correct quantities.

Ok, I think I´ll go play some divinity now... grin


As far as adding a merchant goes, you'll have to learn the treasure table part from scouring forum posts (don't forget to adjust the search to 3 years). Part of the problem though is you need to be familiar with a lot of different parts of the editor to do something like "make a working npc".

But adding an actual NPC is pretty easy, here's a broad outline:

1. Find the root template for a character and place it somewhere.

2. Open the character panel in the editor and name the character something descriptive. EX: MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor

3. Click your character on the map, open the sidebar, select global.

4. Save your work and generate definitions in the story editor.

5. Open the keyword editor (see the video on how to use it) and make a dialog. Usually I keep it simple as hello/goodbye to start. There are also templates in the editor folder somewhere if you want to use those, but I usually prefer to make my own templates. If you use a template don't forget to save it as a regular dialog file in the proper folder. I think it's public\my mod\keywords but I'm going from memory and my modding memory is atrophying since retiring :P

6. When you save the dialog file, name it descriptive as well. Ideally name the dialog file exactly the same as the character so MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor

7. Save the mod again in the editor and open up the story editor. Create your own goal file and place it under start (again see video tutorials if you don't know what this is).

8. In the INIT section of your goal, place this line:
DB_Dialogs(CHARACTER_MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor,"MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor")

The first entry should auto populate as you type, the second "" entry is a string you'll need to fill out.

9. Save your work again, generate definitions and build the story. I'd probably outright close the editor at this point and load it up again just to make sure. Sometimes I've had issues with the first time using a dialog but after that restarting the editor should not be needed.

10. Go to the character and try to talk to it.


Originally Posted by Abraxas*
The pickaxe is only a visual effect, I think, and somehow tied to the animation. I don't think you can use this animation for chopping.


I would just use 1H weapon attack animation. It would look a little weird but probably the best one.





Oh and one random D:OS modding story since I brought up templates. When I made my dialog templates for Dunamis I unthinkingly left in a few typos/silly words. This wasn't a problem when Dunamis was a 15 minute mod that had 5 NPCs but I just kept adding and adding.....

So yeah I had to before release edit like 115 dialog files for the same exact typo/word issues hahaha

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Originally Posted by SniperHF
I'm probably retired too though that as more to do with the player counts. I'd still work on some bugfixing and stuff if I had more players. Not sure if I'll work on 2 or not. If I do it will be something smaller scale or with a team so I can focus on what I actually like doing.

Hm, Sniper retired is really the next big hit for D:OS modding, it was already sad that Rhidian was no longer seen after EE release.

I'm sure you would be missed too much, you might *need* to rethink that ;-)

Originally Posted by SniperHF
I think there are definitely reasons for mods like XC though for people who come to the series later. While Epic is a nice project it's not the type of mod I'm usually interested in. I generally prefer mods I'm going to play with to have a lighter touch and be closer to original. Also once 2 releases, 1 will have a lower price and more sales which bring players. I notice a spike in my mod downloads every sale.

Hm, today there are of course still new subscribers to XC_Bags, but not many.
And of course one cannot see if mods are actively used or played or if people just leave everything as it is once they've downloaded stuff.

Surprisingly, I don't remember any comment of people actually finishing the game with the mod, so who knows ;-)

Originally Posted by SniperHF
And just a random note about the respawn thing, it's been a while but it looked at that for someone months ago and I think the script would actually just bolt on to the EE version just fine, with all the issues Frau mentioned regarding balance of course. Possibly needing some minor syntax fixes.

With balance being the biggest issue unless one does some auto-levelup thing like Epic Encounters supposedly does.

Originally Posted by SniperHF
Originally Posted by Jopo80

About the wood chopping... How about using the mining animations used in the ore mines, but with an axe over a lumber pile (chop wood)?

As for the merchants... would someone in the forums assist me in making this small mod? These new NPCs would be non-voiced, unless we could repurpose them to speak a few existing greeting lines (for the next game, perhaps Larian could ask the voice actors to do a few generic extra lines as "modders resources"? Something simple like "Greetings!", "Hello!", "What would you like to buy?" etc.?

There was a tutorial somewhere I think on adding new items to the game, right? I need to learn how to make the loot tables and inventories, so the merchants will have the right items and in correct quantities.

Ok, I think I´ll go play some divinity now... grin


As far as adding a merchant goes, you'll have to learn the treasure table part from scouring forum posts (don't forget to adjust the search to 3 years). Part of the problem though is you need to be familiar with a lot of different parts of the editor to do something like "make a working npc".

But adding an actual NPC is pretty easy, here's a broad outline:

1. Find the root template for a character and place it somewhere.

2. Open the character panel in the editor and name the character something descriptive. EX: MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor

3. Click your character on the map, open the sidebar, select global.

4. Save your work and generate definitions in the story editor.

5. Open the keyword editor (see the video on how to use it) and make a dialog. Usually I keep it simple as hello/goodbye to start. There are also templates in the editor folder somewhere if you want to use those, but I usually prefer to make my own templates. If you use a template don't forget to save it as a regular dialog file in the proper folder. I think it's public\my mod\keywords but I'm going from memory and my modding memory is atrophying since retiring :P

6. When you save the dialog file, name it descriptive as well. Ideally name the dialog file exactly the same as the character so MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor

7. Save the mod again in the editor and open up the story editor. Create your own goal file and place it under start (again see video tutorials if you don't know what this is).

8. In the INIT section of your goal, place this line:
DB_Dialogs(CHARACTER_MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor,"MYMOD_CYS_CraftingVendor")

The first entry should auto populate as you type, the second "" entry is a string you'll need to fill out.

9. Save your work again, generate definitions and build the story. I'd probably outright close the editor at this point and load it up again just to make sure. Sometimes I've had issues with the first time using a dialog but after that restarting the editor should not be needed.

10. Go to the character and try to talk to it.


Originally Posted by Abraxas*
The pickaxe is only a visual effect, I think, and somehow tied to the animation. I don't think you can use this animation for chopping.


I would just use 1H weapon attack animation. It would look a little weird but probably the best one.

Should be doable of course but the attack animations might look weird and they are built for special weapons equipped.
And then you face the problem again that you cannot query the equipped items and have to build dozens of workarounds. ... or you're satisfied with a one-handed attack animation while a staff is equipped, but mod users will flame you for it ;-)

There's *a lot* more work involved though like providing the resource nodes to be chopped, etc., possibly adding a resource respawn as I did in XC_Bags and maybe more.
While the idea is really great but I see it being so much work that I would not want to do it.

The lack of documentation, the lacking API and the unfixed bugs are a big show stopper on top.


Originally Posted by SniperHF
Oh and one random D:OS modding story since I brought up templates. When I made my dialog templates for Dunamis I unthinkingly left in a few typos/silly words. This wasn't a problem when Dunamis was a 15 minute mod that had 5 NPCs but I just kept adding and adding.....

So yeah I had to before release edit like 115 dialog files for the same exact typo/word issues hahaha



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