Modded Modular BGEE install?

[Guest thecosmicwheel]

Does anyone anticipate any issues if I mod the game on Windows, zip up the directory and plop it on a Steamdeck? I would really like to play a modded version on the deck, but the modding process seems confusing dealing with Linux vs Linux pretending its Windows through Proton.

Right now I'm mostly looking at using Tweaks Anthology, Dragonspear  UI, BG1 Unfinished business, maybe Sword Coast Strategems, along with maybe a couple other tweak/quest mods.

I have access to the Steam version and the GOG version if one may be easier to accomplish this with. I am not sure if modding scripts alter anything outside of the game directory which is one of my concerns.

[subtledoctor]

In general: this is a fine way to mod the game. Note, you'll need to  move your modded /lang folder over as well as /override. (And possibly /worldmap and /music as well.)

In particular: Linux peeps can  tell you more about the requirements for a successful modded game there. IIRC some linux distros might be case-sensitive, whereas if you mod the Windows game, Windows is not. So you might be moving files over to Linux that have the wrong case and might be ignored (best-case scenario) or even cause instability (worst-case  scenario).

On iOS my answer is to simply put every file that is moved over in all-caps or all-lower-case, it doesn't really matter which. It's a simple solution... but I'm not sure if moving the files to Linux is equally simple.

[mickabouille]

Just wild guesses...

Proton (wine rebranded) should do the case folding on filenames in the windows version of the game on the steamdeck.

I don't see using the linux version of the game this way (i.e. with the override etc. files copied) working. entries in chitin.key wouldn't match filenames (because of the lack of casefolding).

May not be relevant to you if you're not usually a linux user (outside steamdeck I mean) :

• Yeah, modding on linux can be a pain. Most (if not all, IDK) successes depend on using a casefolding partition : ext4 with casefolding (this one I tried) or vfat (not sure),  ntfs
• I managed to mod a (GOG) wine-packaged version of obg1/obg2 for linux and run it. Still on casefolding partition, not because of the game (because wine handles it) but because of weidu linux executable

Quote

I have access to the Steam version and the GOG version if one may be easier to accomplish this with. I am not sure if modding scripts alter anything outside of the game directory which is one of my concerns.

I can only talk about the GOG version :

• modding only changes things inside <install_dir>/game
• running the game only changes the .local/share/<game_name> directory (this one has case sensitivity weirdness ) but modding doesn't touch it

11 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

In general: this is a fine way to mod the game. Note, you'll need to  move your modded /lang folder over as well as /override. (And possibly /worldmap and /music as well.)

Probably chitin.key as well?

[subtledoctor]

The point of the override folder is that the game can use modded files without touching chitin.key. You change chitin.key if you biff files. (And with the EEs you should not be biffing.*) But you do need to move dialog.tlk over, which is not in /override but in /data/lang. This can be a sticking point in some systems if they only give you access to /override. 

* If OP wants to install EET, that one does biff files by default. You have to make the EET installer not biff if you don’t want it to touch chitin.key. This can be done with a command-line option, or by using a modified version of EET with no biffing. 

[thecosmicwheel]

Hey all thanks for your replies. Just to share my experience:

For the record, the Deck is my first time using Linux so I am learning a lot about using the command line. 

I've modded on Windows including using modmerge and installing the mods I mentioned above (Tweaks, UI, Unfinished business, etc). Zipped it up and overwrote the Steam install of my BG directory on the Deck.

Everything seems to be working correctly except for how the Dragonspear UI uses WeiDU to update the portraits folder. It seems Steam Proton compatibility runs every exe through its own Windows sandbox so it's not like I can rerun the Dragonspear UI installer once its on the Deck.

I may do my character creation on the Windows side and move it over and see if it retains the portrait, or nix the UI and see if plopping my portraits in BGEE's Windows sandbox works with the vanilla UI.

Appreciate the feedback you guys, learning a lot here.

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, thecosmicwheel said:

It seems Steam Proton compatibility runs every exe through its own Windows sandbox so it's not like I can rerun the Dragonspear UI installer once its on the Deck

Yeah this is how it is for modding on portable platforms like this.

Frankly I  don't even bother with  much UI stuff (except some rare things in EEUITweaks, like enabling the Console), because these portable platforms tend to have rather tight screen resolution requirements, whereas the big UI  mods have generally been designed for big desktop/laptop screens.