Beginners' Guide to Savegame Editing with Near Infinity

[Guest ront]

this is a great guide. Should be pinned. Why is it not? Thanks Subtledoctor.

When you open nearinfinity, there should be a button to click that makes all these steps redundant so you can start editing as soon as possible.

[Mike1072]

Everything in this subforum is a great guide.

[Jarno Mikkola]

5 hours ago, Mike1072 said:

Everything in this subforum is a great guide.

Which is why there's a pinned topic, to let people browse the "pinned topics".  

[subtledoctor]

On 10/11/2020 at 3:05 AM, Guest ront said:

When you open nearinfinity, there should be a button to click that makes all these steps redundant so you can start editing as soon as possible.

That's a good idea, though I have no idea how feasible it is. Worth a mention to @argent77.

[C87]

Sorry to ask another beginner question, but does NI / eeKeeper work with Mac (Big Sur)?  I got only as far as getting a prompt for the keyfile (I'm assuming it's the same chitin.key as the one where I place mods, etc.)

The issue I'm having (same as with eeKeeper wrapped in wineskin) is that I can't locate the file as not all of my folders appear in the library tree.  My copy of BG2EE comes through Steam so it's under Application Support, but a bunch of the files from there aren't appearing at all.  I get a few others like Adobe and Avid appearing though.

 

EDIT: Found proper location

Edited February 28, 2021 by C87

[subtledoctor]

On 2/26/2021 at 3:07 PM, C87 said:

Sorry to ask another beginner question, but does NI / eeKeeper work with Mac (Big Sur)? 

EEKeeper is Windows-only, and not maintained in any case. It can be run through WINE, but WINE seems annoying to deal with IMHO.  NI works fine on Macs - just have to install Java since it is a Java app. (I'm sticking with Mojave, so not sure about Big Sur, but off the top of my head I don't see why it wouldn't work there... maybe otherss can chime in.)

On 2/26/2021 at 3:07 PM, C87 said:

The issue I'm having (same as with eeKeeper wrapped in wineskin) is that I can't locate the file as not all of my folders appear in the library tree.  My copy of BG2EE comes through Steam

In a Finder window, click the "Go" menu, hold down option, select "Library." Then go into Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common. The game folders should be there. I make an alias of my game folder and put the alias on my desktop, for easy access.

[C87]

@subtledoctor, thanks for the heads up and appreciate the response! I found the right place, just kind of a convoluted route in the location.  I managed to pull up NI (the name it pulls up with is "Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear" for some reason, after selecting the chitin.key)

The Save (after PRVZ) didn't show up initially as it's filed under my iCloud Drive documents, so I guess the Mac/BigSur filing system makes it more convoluted.

Sorry for getting into the nitty-gritty, and if there's another resource that gets rudimentary on doing mundane things feel free to let me know.

A couple of the points I was looking on was changing weapon proficiencies and HLAs.  

1.  Is the only thing I need to add proficiency points in something is change the "# of stars : Active Class:"?  To add a whole new proficiency class can I just copy and paste the (233) line and simply change the proficiency category?  Or are there other values that I need to edit in order have the game run properly?  I see most of the information between the proficiencies look the same but I notice the offset numbers are different.  Do I need to worry about adding lines like the "...Set Local Variable" when I change proficiencies?  Also, do the bonuses for THACO, etc. automatically follow the setting of the proficiency or do those need to be changed themselves as well?

2.  In BG2ee, how does one go adding the Use Any Item ability to a character?  Any equivalent in BGEE?

Sorry if a lot of the above is obvious for many, I have no background in programming, etc. so kind of flying blind in an unknown land.  

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by C87

[subtledoctor]

20 hours ago, C87 said:

Is the only thing I need to add proficiency points in something is change the "# of stars : Active Class:"?

Yeah, the NI interface is not great for opcode 233. You need to set the number of stars in the bottom window, then make sure you click "update" so that the values get populated in the upper window.

20 hours ago, C87 said:

To add a whole new proficiency class can I just copy and paste the (233) line and simply change the proficiency category?

Yup, right-click and copy the 233 effect, and paste it, then edit the one you pasted to the  new weapon.

20 hours ago, C87 said:

Do I need to worry about adding lines like the "...Set Local Variable" when I change proficiencies? 

No.

20 hours ago, C87 said:

Also, do the bonuses for THACO, etc. automatically follow the setting of the proficiency

Yes.

20 hours ago, C87 said:

In BG2ee, how does one go adding the Use Any Item ability to a character? 

There's an opcode for it IIRC, you can find it in the IESDP. Copy an effect like the proficiency effect, paste it, then edit the pasted one to the UAI opcode.

[Guest Bronky]

I know this thread is pretty old but is there any way i can freeze the values so they stop resetting every time a char levels up. I'm currently trying to edit the #spells memorizable and set it to like -5536 (which is equal to 60000 in eekeeper) i want to freeze that value so it stops rolling back to 4 everytime the char levels up. I've tried using eekeeper and set it to 60000 on memorisation tab but without anyway to freeze the value. I will always have to manually reapply the value everytime I level up which is a huge hassle. I just want go continue playing with unlimited memorisation of skills since I already got the unlimited skill slot part done. I hope this still gets answered.

[jmerry]

Values for things like spell slots, base saving throws, and base THAC0 are read from 2da tables when a character's level changes, either through leveling up or a level drain effect. They will always reset back to those values unless you change the tables themselves in the game files.

For example, a mage's spell slots come from MXSPLWIZ.2da.

Non-party characters will not be affected by any changes made to the table.

[Guest Bronky]

20 minutes ago, jmerry said:

Values for things like spell slots, base saving throws, and base THAC0 are read from 2da tables when a character's level changes, either through leveling up or a level drain effect. They will always reset back to those values unless you change the tables themselves in the game files.

For example, a mage's spell slots come from MXSPLWIZ.2da.

Non-party characters will not be affected by any changes made to the table.

Thank you so much for this at least now I know where to edit the skill slots for classes. Although what specific 2da file am I suppose to edit to have my memorisation skills stop resetting back whenever I lvl up?

[Guest Bronky]

Nevermind my follow up question, was finally able to pick up what you said. Just checked out the 2da file and got it in a few mins. You have finally made the game so much more enjoyable for me and fulfilled my wish. Thank you so much good sir!

[Guest ConeBride]

Encountered clritical bug in game. Looking for help with location modification to save =3

Whenever I try to leave Curst underground through west exit game gets into infinite escape loop.

I was able to use Infinity Explorer to get to Curst and explore it, finishing the key quests line.
After that I decided to get back on tracks and move to Curst Prison.

Using Infinity Explorer I switched Master Area and World Area to AR0702.ARE (Prison) as well as switched Current Area for all characters to AR0702.ARE (Prison). Didn't work =(
While all characters indeed teleported to AR0702.ARE (Prison), I think the AR0702.BCS script didn't started -- whole area is empty, there're no NPCs, doors, items or enterances to interact with

[argent77]

34 minutes ago, Guest ConeBride said:

Encountered clritical bug in game. Looking for help with location modification to save =3

Whenever I try to leave Curst underground through west exit game gets into infinite escape loop.

I was able to use Infinity Explorer to get to Curst and explore it, finishing the key quests line.
After that I decided to get back on tracks and move to Curst Prison.

Using Infinity Explorer I switched Master Area and World Area to AR0702.ARE (Prison) as well as switched Current Area for all characters to AR0702.ARE (Prison). Didn't work =(
While all characters indeed teleported to AR0702.ARE (Prison), I think the AR0702.BCS script didn't started -- whole area is empty, there're no NPCs, doors, items or enterances to interact with

Infinity Explorer is quite old and certainly doesn't support any of the Enhanced Edition games.

You probably don't need a savegame editor to proceed anyway. The game's debug console should be enough.

1. Enable the debug console.

2. Load a savegame from before entering Curst Prison (AR0702) for the first time.

3. Open the console (Ctrl+Space shortcut) and enter the following command:

C:Eval('TeleportParty("AR0702",[4952.3389],W)')

You can copy/paste the whole line. The command should teleport your party to the right location on the Curst Prison map.

If that doesn't work then attach your save (you probably have to register here first). It could be that your save is corrupted or in an invalid state.

[Oloriniel]

I've forgotten where I left Imoen, so I thought I'd check a saved game in NI to see if it could tell me where she is.

Unfortunately, I can't open Baldur.gam in the save folder (any save folder, I've tried several not just the most recent)

I know I've done this at least once before, when were trying to diagnose why mages suddenly couldn't use mage scrolls on transitioning to SoD.  But it's not working now.  I get the error message "Error reading BALDUR.GAM  null"