Hex Edit Party Size and use 10pp on a Black Isle or Beamdog binary?

[Darpaek]

Hi,

Is it possible to hex edit a real bgmain.exe to allow for larger party sizes?  If so, could 10pp be run on the non-GemRB game to fix the scripts that limit to Player 6?

[Jarno Mikkola]

6 minutes ago, Darpaek said:

dit a real bgmain.exe to allow for larger party sizes?  If so, could 10pp be run on the non-GemRB game to fix the scripts that limit to Player 6?

No. The GemRB is a reverse engineered game engine... meaning you can add all sorts of non original stuff that doesn't work in the original game, by just adding stuff you come up with. You of course will then have to carry the firewoods with you ... which is where the GemRB has kinda stalled always. It kinda works... but not really.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[Darpaek]

There's no way to hex edit bgmain?  I thought there was, but it broke the game because of the scripts.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, they remade the game and they still don't give you the ability to have more than 6 party members*... it's not just the scripts.

*technically. Yes, you can have all sorts of misc party supporters, and familiar, but no 7th talking party member**.

**technically, this is untrue either as you can make a 7th party member using scripting that technically not a genuine non party member, but ... we go deep in technicality:

Edited January 5, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[lynx]

Technically you could hex edit it to turn it into a web browser, but it's just not feasible.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Also it might be pertanent to say that there's a program similar like the ToBEx for the EE engine, called EEex, and you can find it here. Thing is, it does nothing to the party member amount either. There's also mods(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) that use the Familiar mechanics to add in the previously mentioned 7th party member, but I don't know of their compatibility with each others and so forth.

[Darpaek]

Thanks for the replies.  What an interesting idea.  

Do you think it would be possible to give each In Party character a "Familiar" - essentially creating 12 party members?  Would they still still banter/interject?  Afaaq interjects, IIRC.  

Do you think I would have to develop an algorithm like 10pp that would update scripts to look for familiars or would the current scripts work because the familiar would be attached to an In Party character?

[Jarno Mikkola]

There's only 1 familiar slot so to speak, this is because it was originally allowed for the main character if they were a mage. No, even when Edwin is a Conjurer, he cannot cast Summon Familiar spell... this is cause the familiar is directly tied to the Main character.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[lynx]

If the creatures take care of their own movement, then there's no need to modify many scripts (should be hackable through dplayer*). But this is way simpler than having a full player character.

[Jarno Mikkola]

32 minutes ago, lynx said:

If the creatures take care of their own movement...

But it's easier to do without this. The only thing that is needed is that the creature comes with the party to all locations with their old state, and so the player directs their movement, attacks and spells with their own(player) actions... rather than have a script check constantly on what's around and do stuff with IF ~~ THEN RESONSE ... END's. The script that might be running is better used to check if they need to and can speak to the main character, given the conditions that are current... and that's about it.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[Darpaek]

DPlayer? Like how Amber's romance works? How could I use that to add NPCs? 

What about treating PCs as a summons? Anyone ever tried that?