Help editing existing dialogue

[Guest Mikey205]

I would like to write a mod to reduce inconsistency in Baldur's Gate SOD characterisation of NPCs and bring it in line with BG1 NPC Project. This is mainly driven by if you have a romance with a certain NPC not having that experience be overwritten by incompatible statements in Siege of Dragonspear.

I'm not really looking to write extensive new content, but to edit some of the existing content that take break the spell of the game.

So I got Near Infinity. I've isolated dialogue I think is troublesome and wav files. Whats the best way to go about changing. Can I create a weidu that would alter the text itself in existing state/reference or do I need to creates new states. Id prefer to keep this as simple as possible.

The next step after I do this would be to change PC replies and add PC replies that go back to other existing states in dialogue tree. Ie a bit of pointless roleplay flavour. Once I figure that out I might add bridging state that reacts to a statement before continuing conversation flow.

If anyone has advice or a tutorial/template it would be appreciated on changing existing dialogue. Id like to do this a proper way but Im tempted to just change it for my own personal game in Near Infinity if I cant figure it out.

[jastey]

Weidu, definitely, and patching existing states as much as possible to keep it compatible. Unless they make no sense whatsover for what you have in mind, then you'd need to add new ones, but it will decrease compatibility with other mods that also want to add to the states (e.g. NPC interjections or setting of detection variables etc.)

In short:

STRING_SET is for replacing known strings from the original game with new text. If for example an NPC refers to something that wouldn't have happen with your mod. This is a tp2 command. I used this for Imoen4Ever to erase mentioning of something that didn't happen with the mod without having to replace the whole dialogue state (for compatibility).

ADD_TRANS_TRIGGER adds a trigger to a reply option / transaction so you can deactivate it if it's not true for your case.

ADD_TRANS_ACTION adds an action to a reply option / transaction , e.g. setting of a variable

ADD_STATE_TRIGGER adds a trigger to an existing dialogue state, so you can make it dependent on certain conditions of your mod

EXTEND_BOTTOM patches an existing dialogue state with e.g. a new reply option. (Do not use EXTEND_TOP as it shifts the numbering and confuses other mods.)

If you look at my mods, e.g. Imoen4Ever, EndlessBG1, Road to Discovery you'll see examples of how to use them in what I hope is a most compatible and other-mod-friendly way.

You can see how far you get with these. There are more destructive ways but in my experience people sometimes use those although the ones above would work, too (and are way more compatible with other mods).

Nearly forgot: and feel free to ask if you get stuck. That's what the forums are for.

 

[Mikey205]

Thank you very much that's super helpful - making sure I don't waste time learning to do things the wrong way. I've done a few tutorials today including the quest creation one so getting a tiny miniscule handle on how some of this works based on adding a state to Gorion, which I think would allow me to do the other aspect of what I'm hoping.

One more question on STRING_SET. I went through Imoen4Forever and found where STRING_SET was used and saw what it's replacing in Near Infinity. I think I understand in principle and this would let me do most of what I want for sure. Between the commands you provided me and this I think I can apply if where I want.



However, some of the lines I'm looking to change are voiced. And I noticed the one above from your mod is voiced as well via NearInfinity. Does STRING_SET remove association to the attached audio? I was having a look at a couple of voiced NPC mods and I saw the bit at the end in square brackets seems to be the audio attachment. If I leave this blank on the replacement line then would it remove the audio? And if I had an altered audio could I add it to the end?

@15   = ~I'm curious about something, Cernd.  You're a servant of nature, but more than that, you're a servant of balance, right?~ [g#trsx03]
 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Mikey205

[jastey]

Whether SET_STRING replaces the audio is a good question I never thought about. I think it should, since the string and the audio reference are connected, so if it's replaced, it should also replace the audio. Adding an audio reference would be done like in your example, yes.

[Mikey205]

Yes I tried doing it today and it clears the audio. I've made a very simple mod that just edits 4 strings in SOD and seems to be working correctly. No checks or anything more complicated at the moment. The use case below is what I've done just clipping the end of that sentence.

"I know of this woman. There are those who believe her to be a daughter of the divine—perhaps even a child of Bhaal... She merits further investigation and is the reason I still linger here"

If I wanted to have two versions of that line though for example turning that end bit on or off (which I don't think is necessary here) then I presume I'd need to set-up a new state instead that's dependent on a variable rather than using this method?

[jastey]

2 minutes ago, Mikey205 said:

If I wanted to have two versions of that line though for example turning that end bit on or off (which I don't think is necessary here) then I presume I'd need to set-up a new state instead that's dependent on a variable rather than using this method?

Yes, I'm afraid so.