First, I mean Second, try at a big(ish) EET install

[Endarire]

Regarding tipun's IWD in EET mods, the latest edits to his posts on ArcaneCoast were from September of 2021, and the latest updates to the GitHub versions were weeks ago.

[subtledoctor]

Finished HoW! Bugs:

The cut-scene when the Gloomfrost Seer teleported me the the dungeon entrance cause the map to zoom out and I couldn’t zoom in at all. Had to play that way for a while, then the cut-scene in Wylfdene’s tent reverted things. This is the same thing that happened with the Vexing Thoughts cut-scene. 

At the end, when I defeated the end-boss, there is a cut-scene where it dramatically falls down. (God I still remember playing this in the original IWD, it was so freaking epic!) The game never left cut-scene mode and some elite sahuagin were attacking me! Not good. But then, I somehow figured out that even though the UI was gone, I could still tap my selection circles and have my guys melee. So I killed the sahuagin and then manually attacked the final… thing, whatever it is. When that thing died, I guess there was another scripted cut-scene or something, because then the UI came back and everything was normal. 

So basically cut-scenes are messed up in this mod. But, not in a way that stopped me playing, and I never needed to use the console to progress. So, whatever? As long as I can play without resorting to using the console, I’m happy. 

The game jumped to the ending cinematic, and then I was back in Ulgoth’s Beard. A bit sudden, that. I never got the party fight in Lonelywood outside the inn, and never resolved the werewolf quest, and never had the final confrontation with the mayor. Don’t know if that was an issue with the mod, or I just didn’t do everything in the sequence that I was supposed to. Maybe I should have gone back to Lonelywood again after mopping up the barbarian camp?

In total, the HoW mod ended up giving about 50-60K XP to each party member. If it was in chapter 2 of BG2 that would be fine, but for late BG1 it’s way too much. I used the console to knock everyone back down to 180K XP. 

Now back to BG City. Wylfdene convinced me that those who push for war will never give up - even centuries later. Time to talk to Belt about rooting out Sarevok once and for all. 

Edited January 13, 2023 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

I'm thinking of getting Jaheira and Khalid back into my party for the BG1 finish. Figure they've been off doing Harper stuff, but this way we can bond together over finally putting down the threat of Sarevok, making later interactions more meaningful. Probably Kivan, too. BUT, this is my first time through EET and I'm nervous about how it treats NPCs.

1. Jaheira & Khalid have have fairly important roles to play in SoD, appearing in very particular locations. You normally start SoD alone and have a few NPCs to recruit, which at first do not include J&K. If they are in my party at the end of BG1, in an EET game, do they stay in my party at the beginning of SoD? (I don't mean in Korlasz' dungeon, I mean when you leave the city after the attack at the Ducal Palace.) Or do they leave and go to their assigned places?
2. By contrast, what if I don't have J&K in my party at the end of BG1 - they have been in my party earlier, and then they left. Will they be at their usual places in SoD and SoA?
3. Ditto for Minsc & Dynaheir: they were in my party once, then they left. Will they be in their usual places in SoD and SoA? Do I need to do anything to make that happen?
4. Kivan appears early in SoA thanks to the "Kivan and Deheriana" mod. But in BG1 he was in my party and then left. Will the mod still have him appear in Waukeen's Promenade in an EET game, or does EET make it think that he's gone and should never come back?
5. Ditto for Xan and his mod-added SoA appearance.
6. Ditto for Alora and her mod-added SoA appearance.
7. Ditto for Yeslick and his mod-added SoA appearance.
8. Ditto for Branw... oh, whoops! In all this time, I forgot to depetrify Branwen! 
9. What about Drake? I know he has SoD content and presumably that means he has a spawn point somewhere in early SoD. But he was once in my party in BG1 and then left... in an EET game, will he be at his SoD spawn point, or is having him in my party at the end of BG1 the only way to bring him along to SoD?
10. Ditto for Sirene. If she leaves the party now, before the end of BG1, will she appear as usual in BG2?

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by subtledoctor

[jmerry]

Looking at that list of corrupted script names - I think they're all summoned. Or at least, gender "summoned". Which doesn't mean the script names don't matter - they certainly do for cases like Crommus and Carline (bdcrommu and bdcarlin) or the fire elemental at Boareskyr Bridge (bdelefir). Some mod must have gone through systematically looking at everything summoned, and made a bad edit.

While setting script name to match file name won't be exactly right in every case, it'll get the vast majority of them. And I don't think a few cases like bdhelp02 (script name BDLION01) are likely to cause problems.

 

[subtledoctor]

51 minutes ago, jmerry said:

Looking at that list of corrupted script names - I think they're all summoned. Or at least, gender "summoned". Which doesn't mean the script names don't matter - they certainly do for cases like Crommus and Carline (bdcrommu and bdcarlin) or the fire elemental at Boareskyr Bridge (bdelefir). Some mod must have gone through systematically looking at everything summoned, and made a bad edit.

While setting script name to match file name won't be exactly right in every case, it'll get the vast majority of them. And I don't think a few cases like bdhelp02 (script name BDLION01) are likely to cause problems.

 

Thanks! I'll try out that fix, then.

As for what mod did this, my change-log on one of these files (BPNAJIM.cre, the djinn in the Black Pits) showed that it was only changed by the following mods:

• Made in Heaven EQ "Revised Corporeal Undead"
• Sword Coast Stratagems "Initialize AI Components"
• Scales of Balance "Stat Bonus Overhaul"
• Scales of Balance "Magic Resistance Overhaul"
• Portraits Portraits Everywhere "Core Component"

I have - and wrote - Scales of Balance, so it is easy to inspect the code for errors. SoB's Stat Bonus Overhaul just applies a repeating .EFF to every creatures, which applies some extra ability score bonuses through op326 gates. Doesn't change script names and there's not really anywhere a typo could sneak in to mess with script names. It also does some stat changes like "WRITE_BYTE 0x238 12" but nothing that affects 0x280. The Magic Resistance Overhaul checks every creature's MR and sets it to zero with "WRITE_BYTE 0x5d 0" but I don't think that could somehow alter the bytes at 0x280. And the phrase "cre_strref" does not appear anywhere in the mod, and neither component has any kind of code that specifically distinguishes summons.

It's weird for an MiH component targeting undead to make changes to Najim, so right off that makes me think there could be a mistake in the code that goes deeper, and has this effect. But both MiH and SCS use SSL scripting to make their changes, so i can't just look at the Weidu and find "WRITE_ASCII 0x280..." like I could do with most mods. I am admittedly using an older version of SCS. So it seems like there is a reasonable chance either MiH v5.1 or SCS v33.4 caused this. The string "cre_strref" seems like the kind of thing that SCS/SSL uses as placeholder text when running its operations. But I could be wrong.

PPE gives Najim a portrait since he is a speaking NPC. It's possible the mod checks creatures' script names in order to search for creatures who have dialogue, and maybe it contains a mistake that leads to 0x280 being written to, instead of just read from? But, I opened the various .tp2 and .tph files in the PPE mod and ran searches for "cre_strref" and didn't find any matches.

So my guess is either MiH EQ v5.1, or SCS v33.4, or possibly PPE v1.01.

Edited January 3, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Guest Graion@Work]

16 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Thanks! I'll try out that fix, then.

As for what mod did this, my change-log on one of these files (BPNAJIM.cre, the djinn in the Black Pits) showed that it was only changed by the following mods:

• Made in Heaven EQ "Revised Corporeal Undead"
• Sword Coast Stratagems "Initialize AI Components"
• Scales of Balance "Stat Bonus Overhaul"
• Scales of Balance "Magic Resistance Overhaul"
• Portraits Portraits Everywhere "Core Component"

I have - and wrote - Scales of Balance, so it is easy to inspect the code for errors. SoB's Stat Bonus Overhaul just applies a repeating .EFF to every creatures, which applies some extra ability score bonuses through op326 gates. Doesn't change script names and there's not really anywhere a typo could sneak in to mess with script names. It also does some stat changes like "WRITE_BYTE 0x238 12" but nothing that affects 0x280. The Magic Resistance Overhaul checks every creature's MR and sets it to zero with "WRITE_BYTE 0x5d 0" but I don't think that could somehow alter the bytes at 0x280. And the phrase "cre_strref" does not appear anywhere in the mod, and neither component has any kind of code that specifically distinguishes summons.

It's weird for an MiH component targeting undead to make changes to Najim, so right off that makes me think there could be a mistake in the code that goes deeper, and has this effect. But both MiH and SCS use SSL scripting to make their changes, so i can't just look at the Weidu and find "WRITE_ASCII 0x280..." like I could do with most mods. I am admittedly using an older version of SCS. So it seems like there is a reasonable chance either MiH v5.1 or SCS v33.4 caused this. The string "cre_strref" seems like the kind of thing that SCS/SSL uses as placeholder text when running its operations. But I could be wrong.

So my guess is either MiH EQ v5.1, or SCS v33.4, or possibly PPE v1.01.

This is MiH EQ and was fixed since. Library updates · AngelGryph/MadeInHeaven_EncountersAndQuests@021c998 (github.com)

I forgot that I'm using MiH nightlies which prevents me triggering it.

[jmerry]

(checks the linked code...)

Ah. I see. The solution for a "not enough layers of EVAL" bug is to take a step back and say "you know, maybe I shouldn't be trying to do that in the first place".

[subtledoctor]

Oof. Not to mention, why is a mod running a function that tries to "fix" an entire group of files, when chosen component does not purport to make changes to that group of files? Including ones installed by other mods that may very intentionally be exactly as they are?

I understand this particular instance is fixed, but in general if there are more broad changes in the mod, just spell that out clearly so that players can investigate compatibility themselves and make informed choices.

Anyway, we improve mods by learning where they need improving, and we learn that form people playing. Plenty of players have found bugs in my mods this way, so it's not really a problem. Just a process.

[Guest Graion|Work]

SCS does similar checks and fixes on it's first run and these can have effects upon the MiH components (the HP recalculation component was thrown off for a long while because it lacked the SCS fix of deleting the secondary level 30 level present on various BG1 mobs like spiders).

Concentrating to summons alone: there are a LOT of inadequately cloned monsters for summoning and back in mods though. Aurora includes a Vampire Wolf summon ability on one of the boots which leaves the corpse, Rough World (and Eve of War which inherited this completely) attempts to clone the Black Pits Shambling Mound into a normal monster for a Cloakwood enemy but it only sets the XP pretty much and leaves the gender SUMMONED... this fix actually makes a lot of sense from a megamodder POV to either ensure these cases all get fixed for actual summons and/or make the issue more blatant for monsters which were left on SUMMONED accidentally.

These are examples from just the top of my head.

[subtledoctor]

Two other bugs to report:

1. In the Blade and Stars Inn, a guy named Elkart freaks out if I talk to him and summons ~7 Flaming Fist warriors, who are hostile and try to kill me, but if I fight back I lose rep like I murdered an innocent. This happens even now when I am universally reknowned as the Hero of Baldur’s Gate.
2. More seriously, when I finish up all of Belt’s quests to take out Tamoko, Cythandria, Winksy etc. he tells me the last one is Korlasz. He says he will teleport me to the crypt (thus starting SoD), but nothing happens. So I cannot progress to the next campaign. I need to dig through his .DLG file to see what the problem is. I assume it has to do with Transitions…?

4 hours ago, Guest Graion|Work said:

SCS does similar checks and fixes on it's first run and these can have effects upon the MiH components (the HP recalculation component was thrown off for a long while because it lacked the SCS fix of deleting the secondary level 30 level present on various BG1 mobs like spiders).

Concentrating to summons alone: there are a LOT of inadequately cloned monsters for summoning and back in mods though. Aurora includes a Vampire Wolf summon ability on one of the boots which leaves the corpse, Rough World (and Eve of War which inherited this completely) attempts to clone the Black Pits Shambling Mound into a normal monster for a Cloakwood enemy but it only sets the XP pretty much and leaves the gender SUMMONED... this fix actually makes a lot of sense from a megamodder POV to either ensure these cases all get fixed for actual summons and/or make the issue more blatant for monsters which were left on SUMMONED accidentally.

These are examples from just the top of my head.

I’m certainly not against that sort of thing. I’m just saying it should be explicit. And probably should be its own component.

(If SCS does it without making it explicit, that should not be a shield. DavidW does good stuff but he is not the Pope…)

(Also it would be nice if this sort of thing were done in normal Weidu, so us lowly mortals can debug it if it goes wrong…)

[jastey]

5 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

More seriously, when I finish up all of Belt’s quests to take out Tamoko, Cythandria, Winksy etc. he tells me the last one is Korlasz. He says he will teleport me to the crypt (thus starting SoD), but nothing happens. So I cannot progress to the next campaign. I need to dig through his .DLG file to see what the problem is. I assume it has to do with Transitions…?

Offer for teleporting to the crypt should be Transitions, yes. For EndlessBG1's KD component, the group gets "cutscened" there after Duke Belt says "Please follow me, the Flaming Fist soldiers will guide you to the hide-out of Sarevok's last follower."

[jmerry]

Elkart is associated with the Eldoth/Skie plot. If you're blackmailing Entar Silvershield, he's the guy you go to in order to collect the money. Until you do that too many times and he calls the Fist on you (six copies of FLAME, all of which have the FLAMING_FIST class).

The normal condition for this dialogue is

GlobalGT("RescuedSkie","GLOBAL",0)
OR(2)
  Global("RansomTaken","GLOBAL",8)
  Global("Chapter","GLOBAL",7)

Oh. Going to chapter 7 also does it if you've picked up Skie, even if you've never collected the ransom at all. Well, at least he doesn't initiate conversation on his own.

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

when I finish up all of Belt’s quests to take out Tamoko, Cythandria, Winksy etc. he tells me the last one is Korlasz. He says he will teleport me to the crypt (thus starting SoD), but nothing happens. So I cannot progress to the next campaign. I need to dig through his .DLG file to see what the problem is. I assume it has to do with Transitions

Indeed, this is from Transitions. In BELT.DLG I see this:

Spoiler

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN 93 // from: 92.0
  SAY #299624 /* ~We would like to hire you to bring her to justice, dead or alive.~ */
  IF ~  Global("#L_SentToKorlasz","GLOBAL",0)

~ THEN REPLY #299635 /* ~How do I find this crypt?~ */ GOTO 121
  IF ~  GlobalGT("#L_SentToKorlasz","GLOBAL",0)

~ THEN REPLY #299635 /* ~How do I find this crypt?~ */ GOTO 95
  IF ~~ THEN REPLY #299591 /* ~I have things to wrap up first.  I'll be back when I'm ready to take on more work.~ */ GOTO 55
  IF ~~ THEN REPLY #299611 /* ~I'd prefer to skip this one.~ */ GOTO 56
END

...

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN 95 // from: 93.1 94.2
  SAY #299637 /* ~Hold still, I'll send you there.~ */
  IF ~~ THEN DO ~ClearAllActions()

StartCutSceneMode()

StartCutSceneEx("#L_Cut04",TRUE)

~ EXIT
END

...

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN 121 // from: 93.0 94.1
  SAY #299637 /* ~Hold still, I'll send you there.~ */
  IF ~~ THEN GOTO 125
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 26
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 25
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 24
  IF ~  !InMyArea("LIIA")

!InMyArea("LIIA")

!InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN GOTO 124
  IF ~  !InMyArea("LIIA")

!InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN GOTO 123
  IF ~  !InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN GOTO 122
END

...

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN 123 // from: 121.5 122.5
  SAY #299654 /* ~If you find any documents or research on them, Bhaal especially, please bring them to me.~ */
  IF ~~ THEN GOTO 125
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 26
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 25
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 24
  IF ~  !InMyArea("LIIA")

!InMyArea("LIIA")

!InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN GOTO 124
END

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN 124 // from: 121.4 122.4 123.4
  SAY #299655 /* ~I will, of course, reimburse you for them.~ */
  IF ~~ THEN GOTO 125
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 26
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 25
  IF ~  InMyArea("LIIA")

~ THEN EXTERN ~LIIA~ 24
END

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN 125 // from: 121.0 122.0 123.0 124.0
  SAY #299657 /* ~Ok now.  Hold still.~ */
  IF ~~ THEN DO ~ClearAllActions()

AddJournalEntry(299527,QUEST)

AddJournalEntry(299530,QUEST)

SetGlobal("#L_SentToKorlasz","GLOBAL",1)

StartCutSceneMode()

StartCutSceneEx("#L_Cut04",TRUE)

~ EXIT
  IF ~  InMyArea("ELTAN")

~ THEN EXTERN ~DELTAN~ 24
  IF ~  !InMyArea("ELTAN")

~ THEN GOTO 126
END

It seems that the whole last block does not fire... fully?

• I do get the "SAY ~Ok now. Hold Still.~" line. But,
• The cut-scene never happens. 
• If I talk to Belt repeatedly, the Liia interjection keeps firing.
• I get no journal entries.
• The #L_SentToKorlasz GV remains at 0.

Not sure what to do about this. It stops running right at the "IF ~~ THEN DO ~ClearAllActions()" bit. Shouldn't "IF ~~" mean whatever follows it automatically fires?

Or... wait, is this getting in the way? 

IF ~  InMyArea("ELTAN") ~ 
  THEN EXTERN ~DELTAN~ 24

Eltan is present, standing right beside Belt, but he does not interject.

EDIT - I changed the triggers so that regardless of Eltan’s presence, it goes to state 126 of Belt’s dialogue and Belt delivers Eltan’s line about sending a contingent of Flaming Fist. Progress! But, the rest of state 126 - the journal entry, global variable, and cut-scene - do not occur. So maybe it’s that ClearAllActions() thing?

Edited January 4, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

@Angel
Your Revised Undead component seemingly needs fixing.  I mention you here because I've seen various people seek technical help due to how this seemingly misbehaved.

Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

You’re not caught up, that’s already been fixed. I’m currently more concerned with how to fix Transitions.