Have I missed a well-known incompatibility with SCS?

[Notso]

Sorry if this is the wrong subforum to ask for help on this. I have a megamod EET install (install order below, WeiDU.log attached for completeness) and when I install SCS I get a lot of warnings like the one below:

Quote

SCS's 'mage_edits_main' function has encountered a file it doesn't know how to patch, GORSTA11.CRE (probably the file was broken by a previous mod). The error message was 'Not_found'. SCS has skipped it and continued with installation, but this may cause instabilities.

List of .CRE files that had the same warning:

Spoiler

BAZEYE01.CRE
CHEVIL09.CRE
DEMMAG.CRE
DROW06.CRE
DW#LICH1.CRE
GORCAMB2.CRE
GORSTA11.CRE
GROMG08.CRE
MAGE16C.CRE
OHDCHAN1.CRE
OHRSDG1.CRE
SUJON.CRE
TELTIEF3.CRE
THALAN.CRE
TOLGER2.CRE
UDVITH.CRE

I'm kind of hoping I've just missed a well-known incompatibility, since it seems like the easiest way to determine which mods are causing this is to do 30 installations, each with a single mod removed. I plan to start doing this in the meanwhile, but I do hope to be saved by someone more knowledgable

Mods installed:

Spoiler

BGEE:

1. DLC Merger
2. BG1 UB

BGIIEE:

1. EET
2. Dragonspear UI++
3. Portrait Gender Separator
4. HQ Sounds
5. Ascension (do not install; Tougher Demogorgon)
6. BGQE
7. BG1NPC
8. BG1NPC Music
9. Neera Banters
10. SoD Tweaks
11. UB (do not install; Extended ToB Descriptions, Portraits)
12. G3 Anniversary
13. The Cowled Menace
14. Alternatives
15. Wheels of Prophecy
16. Kivan and Wife
17. BG2 NPC Friendship mods (Viconia, Mazzy, etc...)
18. Banter Pack (do not install; Accelerate scripts)
19. IEP Extended Banters
20. Item Revisions Revised (main)
21. Spell Revisions Revised (do not install; Celestials)
22. Item Revisions Revised (do not install; Dual Wielding, Racial Restrictions)
23. PnP Celestials
24. Lore From Learning
25. Tweaks Anthology (max HP. do not install; Spells from Scrolls, HL Save Penalties, More Backstab)
26. EET Tweaks (remove XP caps, 50% xp)
27. 3.5 Thac0
28. House Rules (do not install; Expanded Racial Bonuses, Rebalanced Weapon Styles, Backstab With Any Melee Weapon, Stat-based Bonus Spell Slots, Warrior HLAs, Faster Troll Unconsciousness, Hoodless Thief Avatars)
29. Pathfinder HD
30. 3.5 Weapon Styles (do not install; Backstab)
31. Worldmap
32. EET_end
33. SCS
34. aTweaks (do not install; various)

WeiDU.log

Edited December 30, 2022 by Notso

[Graion Dilach]

I have never seen all those 3.5 derived mods. I wouldn't be surprised one of those causing it.

You can use weidu --log nul --change-log FILENAME to find a common mod touching all of those ones though and trace back from there.

[Notso]

1 hour ago, Graion Dilach said:

I have never seen all those 3.5 derived mods. I wouldn't be surprised one of those causing it.

You can use weidu --log nul --change-log FILENAME to find a common mod touching all of those ones though and trace back from there.

Thanks for the reply. This is exactly the kind of shortcut I was hoping for. When I search my game directory for files with the name (for example) BAZEYE01.CRE, I see that there are multiple. I tried the command on all of them and according to WeiDU no mods were affecting it, for example the one in the override folder:

[weidu] WeiDU version 24900



Mods affecting /OVERRIDE/BAZEYE01.CRE:

The others are located in /weidu-external/backup/stratagems/XXXX/ or /EET_Tweaks/backup/XXXX/ and gave the same empty output.

As a side note, I would be rather surprised if it were the 3.5 mods causing the problem. They are quite small in scope and edit very few files.

Edit: In fact, it seems like any file I test in /override/ has an empty change log. Am I doing something stupid?

Edited December 30, 2022 by Notso

[Graion Dilach]

I said filename with a reason. Don't changelog the override folder or a backup folder explicitly. WeiDU knows that it needs to look at override and the base folders to find the revisions of a particular file.

weidu --log nul --change-log BAZEYE01.CRE is how that example should've looked like.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Graion Dilach

[Notso]

4 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

I said filename with a reason. Don't changelog the override folder or a backup folder explicitly. WeiDU knows that it needs to look at override and the base folders to find the revisions of a particular file.

Ah, thanks. I get this now (and it's the same three mods for all the other files that got a warning):

[weidu] WeiDU version 24900



Mods affecting BAZEYE01.CRE:
00000: /* created or unbiffed */ ~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ 0 0 // Spell Revisionsv4 Beta 18 (Revised v1.3.900)
00001:  ~EET_TWEAKS/EET_TWEAKS.TP2~ 0 2052 // XP for killing creaturesDecrease to 50%1.12
00002:  ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ 0 5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components)34.3
00003:  ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ 0 6000 // Smarter general AI34.3
00004:  ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ 0 6030 // Smarter Mages34.3
00005:  ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ 0 6100 // Potions for NPCs34.3

Edited December 30, 2022 by Notso

[Graion Dilach]

Well, EET_Tweaks doesn't cause it because it only touches the XP field. I dunno what SRR does here, I don't play with the Revisions mods. @Bartimaeus, sounds like something for you.

[subtledoctor]

Only about 15 .CRE files skipped, out of many hundreds? I’d say that’s closer to working as intended than a bug that might mess up your game. 

My suspicion is that if SR was going to mess with .CRE files so as to conflict with SCS, the conflict would be much more widespread. 

[Notso]

3 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Only about 15 .CRE files skipped, out of many hundreds? I’d say that’s closer to working as intended than a bug that might mess up your game. 

My suspicion is that if SR was going to mess with .CRE files so as to conflict with SCS, the conflict would be much more widespread. 

Thanks, that's reassuring. I haven't modded these games since the late-2000s, so my memory of how much of a pain it can be to get everything working is very hazy (though they are starting to return to me ). I will continue with my modded game as-is for now

Could it be that there's a spell to all these .CRE files have in common which is causing the issue, but which is not widely used by other enemies?

[Bartimaeus]

I installed the exact versions of the same mods that affected your BAZEYE01.CRE.

Quote

~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ #0 #0 // Spell Revisions: v4 Beta 18 (Revised v1.3.900)
~EET_TWEAKS/EET_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2052 // XP for killing creatures -> Decrease to 50%: 1.12
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 34.3
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 34.3
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 34.3
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 34.3

The only errors/warnings during I received during SCS's installation (see debug file here) was one about the Stone to Flesh scroll not existing (which is correct, Stone to Flesh does not exist in SR, as it's replaced by Break Enchantment) and about a number of creatures unexpectedly using ranged weapons instead of melee weapons (presumably not a big issue, and also probably nothing to do with SR/R). Your specific error is "not_found", which...sounds like the file is unexpectedly missing (as opposed to corrupt or something else), but at least some of the files you listed as being affected are present in vanilla BG2EE and so it should it be impossible for SCS to not be able to find some version of them, so I don't know how that would be.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Notso]

The more I look into this the more confused I get. I did a minimal install with just EET > SRR > EET_Tweaks > EET_end > SCS, and I still get many of the same type of warning, but they are for totally different .CRE files (except for DW#LICH1.CRE which gets a warning this time too).

Edited December 31, 2022 by Notso

[jmerry]

Now that sounds like it's happening when the spell selection is done. They're all high-level mages, and that's all they have in common. Maybe the scripts are trying to assign a spell that doesn't exist?

Spell selection for mages in a SCS/SR install comes from the tph files in stratagems/mage/spellchoices_defensive/demivrgvs and the 2da files in stratagems/mage/spellchoices/demivrgvs. Follow the logic in the former, and assign the remaining slots randomly from the tables in the latter.

[Notso]

I tried doing an even more minimal install without any of the core EET components (so no EET_setup or EET_end, only EET_Tweaks), and this time I get one warning with SCS' Initialise AI components:

WARNING: no effects altered on sppr313.spl

I don't know if this warning is important, or what this file is, but I checked which mods were altering it:

Mods affecting SPPR313.SPL:
00000: /* created or unbiffed */ ~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ 0 0 // Spell Revisionsv4 Beta 18 (Revised v1.3.900)
00001:  ~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ 0 20 // Mirror Image Fixv4 Beta 18 (Revised v1.3.900)
00002:  ~SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2~ 0 55 // Spell Deflection blocks AoE spellsv4 Beta 18 (Revised v1.3.900)
00003:  ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ 0 5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components)34.3

When I installed SRR without Mirror Image Fix and Spell Deflection blocks AoE, this warning went away.

[jmerry]

SPPR313 is Holy Smite. And as for what happened ... here's a snippet from the SCS "initial" component (v33, but I doubt it has changed):

   // a couple of problems in SR v4
   
   ACTION_IF demivrgvs BEGIN
   
      // Holy Smite blindness has the wrong duration

      ACTION_IF FILE_EXISTS_IN_GAME "sppr313e.spl" BEGIN
         OUTER_SPRINT file sppr313e
      END ELSE BEGIN
         OUTER_SPRINT file sppr313
      END
      COPY_EXISTING "%file%.spl" override
         LPF ALTER_EFFECT INT_VAR match_opcode=74 duration=6 END
      BUT_ONLY

This is SCS trying to fix a bug in SR. And not changing anything, most likely because SR already fixed that bug in one of the many updates since the original v4. Not an important warning.

[Notso]

Hm okay. Anyway, when I install:

EET > SRR (without Mirror Image Fix and Spell Deflection blocks AoE) > EET_Tweaks > EET_end > SCS

I no longer get any .CRE files with warnings. I guess the Mirror Image fix and Spell Deflection tweak are interacting poorly with Holy Smite? And SCS is assigning those spells to some mages and that's why I get warnings? I don't really understand why Bartimeaus isn't getting the same issues when he installs the same mods though.

Edit: FWIW I don't believe this to be an SRR-specific problem. I was seeing these warnings in SCS installs before I switched from SR to SRR.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Notso