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BiG World Setup (an attempt to update the program)

Started by Quiet, Sep 16 2013 10:11 AM

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#2421 subtledoctor

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Posted 14 January 2016 - 08:57 PM

2. Added conflicts:  Sandrah NPC not compatible with Might and Guile #120, 180, 200

 

Is this described or explained anywhere?  I'm not sure how or why those would be incompatible. (But then, I don't know anything about the code in the Sandrah mod, I do know that it is very ambitious and goes further than most mods...

 

- Sandrah is not one of the NPCs specifically addressed by component 120, so she will end up missing out on a few free weapon proficiencies... but the game would still be perfectly playable.

 

- Component 180... does Sandrah depend on the existence of MR??

 

- Component 200... should be fine as long as the M&G component is installed last... no?


#2422 Lollorian

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Posted 14 January 2016 - 10:02 PM

Very nice :coolthumb:

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#2423 Ithildur

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Posted 14 January 2016 - 10:50 PM

Subtledoctor, am I correct in understanding that Scales of Balance is depreciated?

 

I'm a little dismayed to hear it's apparently being replaced by 2 mods that shift the scope of class/kit tweaks drastically more than SoB did; I'm essentially looking for a non overpowered, more subtle tweak to base druid shapeshifting to make it more sensible and closer to pnp... seems like now that option is gone and replaced by a major overhauls to divine spellcaster classes. Or am I seriously misunderstanding the scope of the newer 2 mods?


Edited by Ithildur, 14 January 2016 - 10:55 PM.

#2424 Ithildur

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 12:48 AM

RIght, so...

 

2nd installation attempt seems fine, can start and get into the game without issue.

 

I read somewhere recently that BWS's post-installation clean up feature (which used to have some issues in the past) has been tweaked to play nice so I thought... I'd risk giving it a go. I started Big World Install.bat and selected the option to clean up unnecessary files. The dos box/'pulse bar' comes up, it looks like it's underway, it says 'For a few minutes it seems that nothing happens (sic). Please be patient!' The Pulse Bar window says don't interrupt the process or else my installation will be ruined. So I wait.

 

And wait. And wait...

 

It's been about two hours, and from examining the installation directory, no files have been removed at all either from the main directory or override folder.

 

Shall I wait further? :whistling:

 

 

edit: I do note a distinct lack of non essential files in the override folder so maybe it did it's thing... but the pulse bar and the other dos/cmd windows are still there, not closing. I also see that the clean-up batch file inside the big world installpack folder has text that looks like it should've been displayed/visible during the cleanup process, but never was displayed; assuming that this is in fact the batch file that's supposed to be doing this job, something didn't quite work the way it's supposed to.

 

It also seems like the language.txt file got removed from the main install directory while dozens of other unnecessary txt files that are applicable to mods I did not install still remain... I can only cross my fingers and hope that this was all worth it, and no other files that may be needed later on were removed. Regardless it's been 3 hours and this is getting ridiculous; I think I'm going to risk closing the boxes manually at this point... and remember to avoid this feature in the future.


Edited by Ithildur, 15 January 2016 - 02:03 AM.

#2425 agb1

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 01:43 AM

I've noticed that too... It doesn't seem to be working right. It's not BWS code, it's stock BWP. Haven't tried to decipher the script yet.

BiG World Fixpack (community collection of mod fixes and compatibility patches, with user-friendly cross-platform script)

 

BiG World Setup (tool to automate best-practice installation of Infinity Engine mods on Windows, with conflict analysis)

Latest version:    https://bitbucket.or.../get/master.zip

#2426 Ithildur

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 08:21 AM

Question, is there a detailed history of BWP Fixpack fixes anywhere for examination? For example, I'm curious exactly what the patch to the Generalized Biffing tp2 put in by you guys in August of 2015 was for.


Edited by Ithildur, 15 January 2016 - 08:23 AM.

#2427 agb1

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 08:25 AM

https://github.com/o.../_BWP fixes.txt

BiG World Fixpack (community collection of mod fixes and compatibility patches, with user-friendly cross-platform script)

 

BiG World Setup (tool to automate best-practice installation of Infinity Engine mods on Windows, with conflict analysis)

Latest version:    https://bitbucket.or.../get/master.zip

#2428 Ithildur

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 08:28 AM

https://github.com/o.../_BWP fixes.txt

 

 

Thank you; confirms my guess that it had something to do with EE.

 

The lack of clear/updated documentation was a huge part of why I used to get frustrated/not trust BWS/BWP in the past; it used to ship with documents/readme's that were months or even years outdated.

 

Great idea to start utilizing a repository like github. Kudos to you guys; I'm very impressed by the current group of folks working on BWS.


Edited by Ithildur, 15 January 2016 - 08:32 AM.

#2429 subtledoctor

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 02:54 PM

@ithildur SoB will remain available but I'm not going to maintain it. The paradigm of the vanilla druid kits is too limited; with Faiths & Powers we can really redesign them in a more coherent and cool way.

The Fsiths & Powers kits don't rely on the more overhaul-ish components like the kit-by-dialogue system or the spell sphere system. You can just install the Forest Druid, Jungle Druid, Beast Mystic etc. to use their improved shapeshifting abilities. (Though, I think all of these classes are a lot better with the sphere system.)

PM me if you want to try out F&P

#2430 Ithildur

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 08:21 PM

It looks interesting and I'm sure it's got good stuff; it's just too far outside the scope of what I'm looking for as far as my BG druids, which is pretty close to vanilla just with slightly better/more sensible shapeshifting options so that's it's no longer an ability that's ignored with vanilla druids, or borked in Shapeshifters.

 

Back on topic with BWS... this latest install works fine so far, except... the illusionary monsters in candlekeep's prologue are dropping very real loot, which is both problematic from a plot/in character standpoint (why would illusions drop real loot?) and is a pretty significant alteration from vanilla to game balance for the early stage of the game (a significant element early on is how weak/fragile and destitute/poor you feel when you start out on this epic journey, unless you maxed thief skills).

 

I'm guessing it might be related to LOL cre fixes? Everything else is pretty standard, I've never encountered this bug before until installing LOL fixes for the first time this go around.

 

Spoiler


Edited by Ithildur, 15 January 2016 - 08:27 PM.

#2431 agb1

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 08:29 PM

Do you mean the training battle in Candlekeep? Any items gained there should be removed when you finish the training.

BiG World Fixpack (community collection of mod fixes and compatibility patches, with user-friendly cross-platform script)

 

BiG World Setup (tool to automate best-practice installation of Infinity Engine mods on Windows, with conflict analysis)

Latest version:    https://bitbucket.or.../get/master.zip

#2432 Ithildur

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 09:20 PM

the area script strips you of specific items (i.e. the ones that the temporary NPCs carry), that's all. It certainly doesn't strip you of gold which these gibberlings are dropping. In vanilla non of the mobs dropped anything at all.

 

The problem seems to be the gibberlings only; for some reason igibber.cre isn't used but rather BGIGibb.cre, which carries random treasure 06. None of the other critters carry random treasure or drop anything.

 

I can attempt to run changelog for IGIBBER.CRE and report what the culprit is for sure (hopefully).


Edited by Ithildur, 15 January 2016 - 09:29 PM.

#2433 Ithildur

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 09:32 PM

Hold everything, I think I found what the problem is... it's BGIGIBB.cre:

 

Mods affecting BGIGIBB.CRE:
00000: ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ 0 1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30 BWP Fix
00001: ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ 0 6000 // Smarter general AI: v30 BWP Fix
00002: ~SETUP-LOLFIXER.TP2~ 0 2 // Creature Stuff - Inventory Unborker (removes spurious references to the item table): 10122015

 

 

It's LOLFixer. LOLFixer assigns random treasure to BGIGIBB.cre; I grabbed the version from LOLFixer's backup folder and put it in override folder, checked again, there is no random treasure assigned.

 

Makes me wonder whether installing LOLFixer is going to cause other bugs/oddities I've never seen before as the game goes on; as I've said, this is the first time I've installed LOLFixer, which gets installed by default with BWS currently. I suppose I should track down a tread/forum somewhere that deals specifically with LOLFixes.


Edited by Ithildur, 15 January 2016 - 09:48 PM.

#2434 Lollorian

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 11:09 PM

Here :)

 

Let's work this out shall we? Could you please attach all the creatures that the changelog generated along with the Big World Debug.txt (I think the BWS 7zes it :P) in the thread I linked? The most obvious solution (short of manually excluding affected CREs) would be to identify the traits of shadow creatures (blur effect? specific animation? etc) and exclude them.

 

As for the gibbs... I can't think of anything other than maybe exclude them manually :lol:


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BWP GUIDE - BWP FIXES - impFAQ - NPC LIST - KIT LIST - AREA LIST

GitHub Links : BWP Fixpack | Lolfixer | BWP Trimpack | RezMod

#2435 Ithildur

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Posted 15 January 2016 - 11:38 PM

shadow creatures? I don't understand...

 

edit: what I see in the debug file is:

 

BGIGIBB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #2 (RNDTRE06.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #21...

 

and I see that the original BGIGIBB.cre file (and BG1 vanilla's IGIBBER as well) did originally have RNDTRES item in it, not assigned to any slot on body or inventory (and therefore doesn't show up/drop, i.e. effectively the game engine treats it as not being on the creature at all). LOLFixer sees that and says 'hey, this item needs to be properly assigned to an inventory slot' and thus, illusionary Gibberling gets random treasure. So this is a case where LOLFixer's algorhythm corrects a cre file and the results are not desirable. My concern is, with an algorithm of this scope comprehensively trying to fix/affecting so many files it's probably bound to have some unforeseen/undesirable results given the amount of 'harmless' oddities/semi-bugs in both the vanilla games.


Edited by Ithildur, 16 January 2016 - 12:27 AM.

#2436 The Imp

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Posted 16 January 2016 - 12:02 AM

shadow creatures? I don't understand...
Just upload the change-log folder's content from the --change-log you made. You'll see. And the Big World Debug.txt... (as a .zip to an upload site like MediaFire.com).
 
As for the gibberlings (which is the actual issue with the candlekeep training simulator battle), I would think it comes down to what LOLFixer's algorhythm/rationale is for assigning random treasure to cre files. I mean, intuitively not all creatures should get random treasure; if vanilla version of creature x doesn't have random treasure, there's no reason to assign it to them unless there's very clear/specific reason to do so, especially if it results in undesirable results like in this case.
Well, the thing here, they probably had a random treasure assigned to them, but it's probably not equipped on any slot, but it's still there if you look it in Near Infinity... and so Lol needs to exclude it manually.

Edited by The Imp, 16 January 2016 - 12:07 AM.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.

#2437 Roxanne

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Posted 16 January 2016 - 01:32 AM

This request was in the Sandrah thread but probably belongs here. Just to check and eventually correct, I think it is already the current situation.

 

"My [= author of M&G] suggestion to the BWS folks: since Sandrah seems to be in beta right now, and M&G is relatively stable, maybe that means M&G components should be selected by default, and Sandrah should not."

 

The issue is mostly about different interpretation of the word *ALL* (e.g. all megamods, all joinable NPCs) and a different understanding of incompatibility.

For me incompatibility is a technical issue caused by different concepts, not a question of right or wrong and it does not necessarily need to be resolved but just been brought to the users attention - the new overwrite error/warning feature of BWS takes care of user decisions now.


Edited by Roxanne, 16 January 2016 - 01:32 AM.

The Sandrah Saga

another piece of *buggy, cheesy, unbalanced junk*

 

#2438 Lollorian

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Posted 16 January 2016 - 01:35 AM

@Ithildur:

Oh the training gibberlings... Obe's illusions :lol: I get it now - I thought you were talking about Kalah's shit :P

 

And you deduce right, BGIGIBB has RNDTRE06 in its item table but not assigned to a slot - lolfixer sees it and goes "zoooomg shiny itamzzzzzz yum yum!" and assigns it to a slot so it drops in game (or gets deleted by the next lolfixer component if it's invalid :P)

 

This is usually just laziness on the part of the CRE maker who just copied a gibberling, renamed it and disabled the item drops from it - and didn't actually remove the item from the CRE

 

Instead of making an exclusion for BG1GIBB, what I'm thinking is I'll make the resource fixer component delete the RNDTRE06 from BGIGIBB (and only BGIGIBB) so component #2 can safely pass through BG1GIBB :) Will this do? Like this...


Edited by Lollorian, 16 January 2016 - 01:53 AM.

"I am the smiley addict, yellow and round, this is my grin :D when I'm usually around :P.
When there's trouble brewing, see me post, cuz it's usually a wall o' yellow and your eyes are toast!!!"

BWP GUIDE - BWP FIXES - impFAQ - NPC LIST - KIT LIST - AREA LIST

GitHub Links : BWP Fixpack | Lolfixer | BWP Trimpack | RezMod

#2439 Ithildur

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Posted 16 January 2016 - 02:45 AM

I spoke too soon, it's not just the gibberlings.The kobolds, xvarts, hobgobs, tasloids (ikobold, ihobgob, ixvart, etc) all get assigned random treasure AND some of them also droppable equipment (like bows, swords, arrows), pretty sure this is all LOLFixer's doing (see below).

 

 

IHOBGOB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #0 (BOW05.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #21...

IHOBGOB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #1 (AROW01.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #22...

IHOBGOB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #2 (rndtre07.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #23...

IHOBGOB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #3 (AROW12.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #24...

IHOBGOB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #4 (LEAT01.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #25...

IHOBGOB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #5 (SW1H01.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #26...

IHOBGOB.CRE issue: Inventory Item #6 (HELM01.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #27...

IKOBOLD.CRE issue: Inventory Item #0 (SW1H07.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #21...

IKOBOLD.CRE issue: Inventory Item #1 (BOW05.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #22...

IKOBOLD.CRE issue: Inventory Item #2 (AROW01.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #23...

 

 

ITASLOI.CRE issue: Inventory Item #0 (rndtre06.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #21...

ITASLOI.CRE issue: Inventory Item #1 (SPER01.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #22...

IXVART.CRE issue: Inventory Item #0 (SW1H07.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #21...

IXVART.CRE issue: Inventory Item #1 (rndtre06.ITM) is not actually in inventory! Adding to Inventory Slot #22...

 

 

It ends up being a lot of free loot at the very beginning stages of the game which is a pretty big unwanted shift of game balance as well as just odd, seeing illusionary mobs drop stuff. The skeletons oddly enough are the only ones that this doesn't  happen to.

 

The fix is to copy the respective cre files from LOLFixer's backup folder into the override directory, not a hard fix, but.. I think LOLFixer's logic for assigning items to cre files' slots needs to be reviewed and overhauled, or possibly dropped altogether as I can foresee this leading to problems with many other situations. There's a LOT of cre files that get this sort of treatment from LOLFixer; I see things like Kirian getting a suit of full plate armor in her inventory which may or may not be a good thing, but if things like this are repeated for over 200 creatures (219 cre files in the backup folder), it may add up to a significant shift from vanilla even aside from results that are more definitely bug-ish like the training mobs in candlekeep.

 

The hard work is appreciated but for now I am forced to conclude this component of LOLFixer probably needs to be uninstalled in my game. I'd rather have 200 creatures that have small inventory oddities from vanilla that don't impact gameplay vs even just a handful of clearly undesirable cases like the above.


Edited by Ithildur, 16 January 2016 - 03:10 AM.

#2440 The Imp

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Posted 16 January 2016 - 02:51 AM

I spoke too soon, it's not just the gibberlings. The kobolds, hobgobs, tasloids all get assigned random treasure AND some of them also droppable equipment (like bows, swords, arrows), pretty sure this is all LOLFixer's doing. It ends up being a lot of free loot at the very beginning stages of the game which is a pretty big unwanted shift of game balance.
Those items should all disappear ... they did so in the BG1, if I remember it correctly cause they were flagged as illusion items or some such... are you reporting that this doesn't happen in the BGT-weidu ?
Well there the case is then that the old system doesn't work. Of course it was problematic at best, and so it's hardly its fault to occur.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.

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