prebuilt characters

Discussion in 'Modding and Scripting Support' started by team a, May 10, 2007.

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  1. team a

    team a New Member

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    I'm new to the forum. Please excuse me if this question has already been answered (I've checked a few pages of threads looking for an answer), but is it possible to add new premade characters, like merwin tumblebrook or clarisse vorak, or more importantly, to remove the old ones? If so, is it possible to do so inside the .dat file for one mod, or is it necessary to do so for all mods? Thanks.
     
  2. rroyo

    rroyo Active Member

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  3. team a

    team a New Member

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    Thanks for the response.

    Two things:
    1. the link doesn't work, but I've downloaded the file elsewhere
    2. I know how to create backgrounds (like apprenticed to a blacksmith/magic allergy/born in the pits), but I am trying to replace what appears when you start a new game and choose "pick character." I know that this may not be something that is not generally dealt with, but I'd like to change the starting store and to build those premade characters into the main story, should a player choose them. IF I missed something in that tutorial, then please excuse my ignorance.
     
  4. Xz

    Xz Monkey Admin Staff Member

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  5. rroyo

    rroyo Active Member

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    That damned period I put at the end of the link screwed it up. Sorry!
     
  6. team a

    team a New Member

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    I keep a copy of an undatted arcanum.dat (minus the townmaps and parts of the sounds folder). THere seems to be no backgrounds data in it- probably in the other arcanum dat files. I'll check those, but currently I'm extremely inexperienced at that kind of thing.

    I can overwrite the existing backgrounds with an altered arcanum/data/rules/backgrnd.mes, which makes the old backgrounds not appear when starting a new character. I deleted all the existing lines in the backgrnd.mes I got when i started trying to figure this out (proably the smae link you directed me to). I used index numbers on my new backgrounds that do not overwrite the ones the game uses, in case I want to bring them back. I backed up the file, of course.

    Somehow, the prebuilt backgrounds did not disappear, even though I deleted those lines (390-500, as well as every line before 790) from the backgrnd.mes I am currently using. Odd. Of course, I didn't mess with arcanum/data/rules/effect.mes, I just figured that since the index file didnt exist for those backgrounds, it wouldnt matter. However, if you look at the backgrnd.mes files for pre-generated backgrounds:

    // Pregenerated character Backgrounds

    {390}{1039}//Merwin Tumblebrook
    {391}{}
    {392}{NPC}
    {393}{400}
    {394}{15178}

    There is no effect number. I'd assume that this is because all effects are dealt with by the race/gender combination beforehand, and instead, a leveling scheme makes these characters unique. My question is, if these lines are missing in my backgrnd.mes, how come the correct description appears when I start a new game and pick merwin tumblebrook? One explanation might be that there is another file (in some .dat file) that deals with pre-built characters, and that backgrnd.mes was originally the way they were used, but troika decided to make a different file for it, which also includes the leveling scheme, etc.


    I'll post if I figure it out, once I've gotten some more progress done on my mod to make work on that kind of alteration more worthwhile. I don't expect anyone to do my work for me- I still haven't searched the .dat files myself, but it's an interesting question.
     
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