Cahir's EET Epic Run Mod Order help request

[subtledoctor]

7 minutes ago, Cahir said:

Ok I have installed LeUI, EEUI Tweaks (the same as previous minus those pointed out by @lefreut), Bubb's Spell Menu and T&B on BG2EE.

@subtledoctor the result is missing icons during Familiar selection:

If you click on one of those empty icons, the box below should be populated with a description of the familiar.  In the normal UI, you can click "memorize" or something to actually choose that familiar, then click "done" to accept the choice.  In this UI, clicking the icon might automatically fill the choice box, and you would have to empty that box in order to select, and read about, the other choices. 

(I hope that was clear!)

This is a different issue from the iOS-vs.-desktop disappearing icons (I don't use any many UI mods on iOS) but the result seems similar: empty icons, but a functioning choice screen.  Not knowing how to fix it (yet?), for me it is acceptable.  Most important for me is that things work.  What it looks like is secondary.

Edited April 26, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Cahir]

@subtledoctor@lefreut ok it seems that Improved Familiars from TnB is not compatible with LeUI. I removed Bubb's Spell Menu and it's still the same. I can select familiar, but I don't see icons, so I don't know what I'm choosing.

I'll try to install Revised Familiar from MOre Style for Mages to see if result will be the same.

 

Edit: The box does not fill with description. I hear selecting sound and can unselect it, but no description.

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Cahir

[Cahir]

Dang, it seems that More Style of Mages has a dialogue-based familiar selecting system, so I can't test it on regular Familiar selection screen.

 

[lefreut]

  

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

This is pretty frustrating for a modder who adds a lot of spells and icons to the game, for hopefully obvious reasons.  Even more annoying since I haven't seen any simple published guidance, like "thou shalt not make icon names 8 letters long" or something.  If anyone has information about this, I (and I suspect Cahir and 4udr4n) would appreciate it.  Maybe @lefreut ?  If there is a simple rule to follow, I can try to go through all my mods and update them to follow it.  But the rule needs to be loudly and clearly posted for people.  Like, in the IESDP would be nice.

Spells have different bams. XXXB.BAM (icon on top of a stone) that is used in the action bar for example and XXXC.BAM (only the spell icon) that is used in spell book.

In this screen, the EE UI shows the XXXC.BAM version and I want to display the XXXB.BAM so I replace the C with a B in the name. These spells only have the XXXC.BAM so they appear blank The thing is I don't think I can detect that the BAM does not exist inside the UI. Also the BAMs look like XXXB.BAM version but that's another problem.

 

1 hour ago, Cahir said:

@subtledoctor@lefreut ok it seems that Improved Familiars from TnB is not compatible with LeUI. I removed Bubb's Spell Menu and it's still the same. I can select familiar, but I don't see icons, so I don't know what I'm choosing.

I'll try to install Revised Familiar from MOre Style for Mages to see if result will be the same.

 

Edit: The box does not fill with description. I hear selecting sound and can unselect it, but no description.

 

Left click is for selecting the spell. Right click to see the description.

Edited April 26, 2020 by lefreut

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, lefreut said:

 Spells have different bams. XXXB.BAM (icon on top of a stone) that is used in the action bar for example and XXXC.BAM (only the spell icon) that is used in spell book.

In this screen, the EE UI shows the XXXC.BAM version and I want to display the XXXB.BAM so I replace the C with a B in the name. These spells only have the XXXC.BAM so they appear blank The thing is I don't think I can detect that the BAM does not exist inside the UI.

I guess my issue is, I don't think the EE engine necessarily displays the "...c.bam" icon; it displays whatever icon is specified at 0x3a of the .SPL file.  That icon can end in C, or B, or X or Y or Z - it doesn't matter.   Sounds like LeUI operates differently, and looks for something to do with the name of the file.  (Unless you're saying it looks for whatever icon is listed at 0x05 of the spell's ability header... in normal spells that would be the one with 'B' at the end.  But I don't think that's what you're saying, or else this would be working.)

So, is that [the name of the .SPL + 'B']?  If so, seems like the easiest thing I could do (if very slightly wasteful) would be to just make another copy of the icon file, and give it the same name of the .SPL with a B at the end?  That way my spells could use whatever icons they want and I wouldn't have to change how anything functions (which could introduce bugs), but the icon file LeUI looks for would be in /override and it could display what needs displaying.  If that's correct, I can probably do that fairly quickly.

[Bubb]

@subtledoctor You're correct, the engine only exposes the icon stored at +0x3A. Any attempt to access the stone variant of the icon is guesstimation of the resref. Many UI mods either do resref + "B", or replace the icon's last character with a "B"  - depends on the mod.

 

@lefreut

3 hours ago, lefreut said:

The thing is I don't think I can detect that the BAM does not exist inside the UI.

Something like this is possible:

function checkForResref(checkResref, checkExtension)
    for _, entry in ipairs(Infinity_GetFilesOfType(checkExtension)) do
        if entry[1] == checkResref then
            return true
        end
    end
    return false
end

-- Called like
local resrefExists = checkForResref("SPWI112B", "BAM")

Edit: I ninja'd lefreut, oops!

Edited April 26, 2020 by Bubb

[lefreut]

The engine does not expose the internal structure to the UI. There is no way to read the spell ability header or anything from the SPL file (or from any other file).

You only get a string with the name of the BAM to display (not even the name of the SPL). My UI only replace the last letter with a 'B'. It's ugly but I don't know of a better way to do this.

[lefreut]

@Bubb I didn't knew about Infinity_GetFilesOfType! It seems to be exactly what I need, thanks. I'll update my mods so that it no longer tries to display non existing files.

[subtledoctor]

@Cahir You have UB and ARP before a bunch of NPCs.  The old BWS order has them being installed later - after almost all NPCs.  Any reason for your placement?  Do you think it matters? 

Also the old recommendation (I recall, taken from the BWP, or I guess from the BigWorld Guide PDF) was to install Kelsey and Keto fairly late, after almost all other NPCs.  But here again you have them being installed earlier.  Is there any particular reason behind this?  Or do you just think it doesn't matter?

I'm updating TnB to use 'B' as the last letter of spell icon filenames for familiars.  I'll post the update very soon.  Let me know if you see any other icons that don't show and need the same treatment.

EDIT - looks like the MnG feat system already uses the spell resref plus 'B' in its icons.  The TnB icons used 'C' as their last letter, I think because I was trying to comport with this requirement but misremembered it.  Like I say, this rule just needs to be posted somewhere very prominently.  (It doesn't explain why they don't show in iOS, but... that's a different story.)

Edited April 27, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Cahir]

I love you guys I completely don't understand technically stuff you're discussing here, but I love you

Sorry that I'm such a pain reporting all this stuff, and rage quited this installation, but I didn't mod this game, like since WeiDu was in it's 1.xx version I think. And I really want my installation to be as perfect as I can. But Hey, if this means some mods can be upgraded, I'm good with my whining

[Cahir]

14 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

@Cahir You have UB and ARP before a bunch of NPCs.  The old BWS order has them being installed later - after almost all NPCs.  Any reason for your placement?  Do you think it matters? 

Also the old recommendation (I recall, taken from the BWP, or I guess from the BigWorld Guide PDF) was to install Kelsey and Keto fairly late, after almost all other NPCs.  But here again you have them being installed earlier.  Is there any particular reason behind this?  Or do you just think it doesn't matter?

Hmm, to be honest I did put install order for quest and NPC mods rather by my own judgement. I followed general tule to install quest mods first, following by NPC mods, and NPC related Staff (friendship/love packs, crossmod etc). For specific order between NPC's I consulted mod Readme's to see if there is some crossmod content between them. I tried to follow BWS guide first, but a) it's a bit complicated, and b) it seems to have different rules that I saw in other modders Readme's.

For instance it advices to put some of klatu's tweaks early, when general rule (and install orders of other people I saw mostly here at G3) put those tweaks late, along with other tweaks. I would get lost trying to replicate BWS Guide install, especially eince it's strictly for vanilla and doesn't count for any EE specific mods.

 

Edit: Also Kelsey and Keto are one of the first NPC mods created and I'm not sure if their Readme's was updated much other than for changelogs.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Cahir

[Cahir]

As for ARP it was hard for me to find install order guidance for them other than BWP guide. Masz he only thing that I found for ARP is to install one of its components (I think the very same that gave me warning during installation) before Quest Pack. I guess my logic to put those mods early was that these are changing or expanding mostly vanilla stuff that was left there unfinished by original devs, so I thought it would be wise them to patch unaltered content. But maybe my logic is flawed, I don't know. 

Edit: Also I would expect other mods to be build aroun compatibility in mind for those two mods, not the other way around. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Cahir

[Cahir]

@subtledoctor if I want to have Revised Berserker and Rage from M&G together with Wizard Slayer Rebalancing, should I install WSR after MnG? During my in game testing I have noticed Wizard Slayer got Berserker's description. Could it be because I installed WSR before MnG? 

 

Edit: Basically I want Berserker update from M&G and WS update from WSR. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Cahir

[subtledoctor]

I don't know... the only version of WSR I can find only comes with a self-extracting .exe wrapper, which means, idiotically, even though it's just a .zip package with an extractor, there is no way to use it with a Mac, or to simply extract the mod folder from it.  That kind of thing drives me fucking insane.

Anyway I don't think it is a conflict with MnG - I just tested it and the kit description changes that MnG does affect the correct kit (Berserker) and leave the WIzard Slayer untouched.  There is no reason that would change due to the presence of WSR; the Berserker and Wizard Slayer kits still occupy the same place in kitlist.2da, clastext.2da, and sodcltxt.2da, so the MnG description changes should alter the same kit (the berserker). 

I'll go out on a limb and say the conflict is with some other mod -  or just a bug with WSR itself. 

But if you think it really is MnG, then you might want to just skip the MnG component.  I haven't looked at it in a long time, I don't even really remember what it does or how, and I don't really have any interest in it.  (I hate the BG2 Berserker kit, it is implemented much better by the Barbarian kit and if I had my way all Berserkers in the game would simply change to Barbarians.)

EDIT -  Tome & Blood v0.8.49 is up, with familiar spell icons that should work with LeUI.

Edited April 27, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Cahir]

2 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I don't know... the only version of WSR I can find only comes with a self-extracting .exe wrapper, which means, idiotically, even though it's just a .zip package with an extractor, there is no way to use it with a Mac, or to simply extract the mod folder from it.  That kind of thing drives me fucking insane.

Anyway I don't think it is a conflict with MnG - I just tested it and the kit description changes that MnG does affect the correct kit (Berserker) and leave the WIzard Slayer untouched.  There is no reason that would change due to the presence of WSR; the Berserker and Wizard Slayer kits still occupy the same place in kitlist.2da, clastext.2da, and sodcltxt.2da, so the MnG description changes should alter the same kit (the berserker). 

I'll go out on a limb and say the conflict is with some other mod -  or just a bug with WSR itself. 

But if you think it really is MnG, then you might want to just skip the MnG component.  I haven't looked at it in a long time, I don't even really remember what it does or how, and I don't really have any interest in it.  (I hate the BG2 Berserker kit, it is implemented much better by the Barbarian kit and if I had my way all Berserkers in the game would simply change to Barbarians.)

Yeah, I'm not planning to play Berserker either and I think of choosing a Barbarian Ranger kit for Minsc anyway. I'm much more interested in WSR, because I either give this kit to Valygar, or multiclass with it, if I go for multiclass sorcerer option (second option is dragon disciple from TnB). So yeah, I think I'll skip this component from M&G. Thanks