v12BETA and Ajantis

[Guest TTL]

Hello,

 

I've just downloaded the Beta, and tried installing each and every component. I can now (unlike with v11) install everything except the Ajantis romance, which requires a file called _urlyle.dlg. This is presumably due to my not having TotSC. Is this a conscious decision (I mean, if parts of your romance arc are tied to TotSC events there's not much I can do), or is this just something you overlooked? I know you changed/removed some TotSC-specific content from the mod, as I can now install the interjections/quests-content I could not with the previous version.

 

Anyways, thanks to all involved for a very interesting mod: this mod is reason enough for me to replay BG for the first time in over two years, and even if I can't romance one paladin, I'm sure there's enough content to keep me happy for a long while!

 

-TTL

[Domi]

This is Durlyle-Ajantis conflict that I am guessing we forgot to move to the TOTSC only file for interjections and such (or moved only partially). Durlyle and Delainey are sort of original flirtaceous options in BG1 that grew into BG2 romances. All romanceable NPCs in BG1 have a bit of fun with the 'romantic' options in Durlyle's/Delayine's sequences, but they are not essential for the romance.

[cmorgan]

So now we know why we needed a Beta... ok, I'll be right back...

 

Yep. Definitely a "duh" moment... Ajantis' romances still have some TOSC-only stuff because I missed a tp2 call. I will see if I can post a "hotfix" for Ajantis right now. Could you please find the file marked BG1NPC.DEBUG in your Tutu folder and send it to me at svowles (careful to spell LES) at comcast dot net ? That way I can target the problems pretty rapidly

 

I do think I found the problem...

we compile both

COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR_noToSC.D~

and

COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR.D~

 

I am checking, but I think I was supposed to do an ACTION_IF here, so that only one of these compiled. I am checking the files...

[cmorgan]

Well, looking at the files, this is an easy "hotfix", but I cannot test it, as I have the Original Saga and can't get a TOSC-less install. If you are up for it, it would be great if you could do the following, and will not even need to uninstall anything:

 

In your Tutu directory is a file named BG1NPC.tp2.

 

Open this file with Notepad or Wordpad or something, anything but MSWord!

 

Search for the phrase in the code box (copy it into the search) here:

 /* AJANTIS ROMANCE */

.

 

The whole block looks like this:

/* AJANTIS ROMANCE */
BEGIN @476
GROUP @388
REQUIRE_FILE ~override/X#BG1NPCCore.G3~ @4
COPY ~BG1NPC/Core/X#component.xx~ ~override/X#AjantisRomance.G3~

/* dialogue */
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/X#AJROADD_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisIniFlirts_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisNPC_talks_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisBhaalLTs.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisDreamLTs.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisLTs_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR_noToSC.D~

 

These last two lines

COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR.D~

COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR_noToSC.D~

are the problem. Replace the block marked /* dialogue */ with the contents of this code box (you should be able to copy/paste):

/* dialogue */
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/X#AJROADD_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisIniFlirts_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisNPC_talks_PR.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisBhaalLTs.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisDreamLTs.D~
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisLTs_PR.D~

/* ToSC only: */
ACTION_IF FILE_EXISTS_IN_GAME ~FW1500.are~ THEN BEGIN // if TotSC is installed
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR.D~
END ELSE BEGIN
COMPILE ~BG1NPC/Phase3/AJROM/DLG/AjantisAddLTs_PR_noToSC.D~
END

 

Save, and try rerunning Setup-BG1NPC.exe. If you want to be completely clean, uninstall the Core component. This will completely uninstall BG1NPC. This is not necessary for this fix, but is good practice . You could just say "no change" to everything that pops up until you get to the Ajantis Romance portion; then try installing it again, and let me know what happens.

 

Either way, please send me those before and after .DEBUG files -- we don't have much opportunity to troubleshoot a non-TOSC install, so it will really help us make sure we did everything else right

[Guest TTL]

Well, that worked! Thank you for your quick reply, cmorgan - I'll see about sending you those debug files now. After all this trouble I'm starting to feel I should just give in and buy the "complete Baldur's Gate" set I've seen is available. It annoys me to essentially buy another copy of BG, BG2 and ToB just to get an expansion that by itself doesn't add much to the game, but looks like a lot of the mods for BG and Tutu require TotSC, and those do interest me.

 

Once again thanks,

-TTL

[cmorgan]

Well, thank you for both reporting and helping - the debug files confirm that everything is installed correctly. As for the compilation, it might be a good idea to have a backup copy of the discs anyways The cool thing is that you don't have to use any of the content you don't want to. I just wish the cash went directly to the BG programmers and writers.

[Guest Mimic]

I know that I am resurrecting this, but I hate to start a new thread.

 

Just picked up Ajantis and have already completed the mines and Dyna quest. Well, in the past "28 hours" he has fired off 3 LTs already. Basically, I picked him up, went to get Branwen and the second I picked him up I got an LT. Then, at the carnical, another LT. Picked up Branwen and a 3rd LT. Is this normal?

[Gorilym]

Romance timers are real-time, not game-time - if you leave the game paused for an hour or two (exact time depends on which timers you chose when installing) and then unpause it, the next queued lovetalk will fire. (unless it has special requirements, like it can only take place while resting outdoors etc.) In other words, as long as there was a certain real-time gap between those LTs, sounds like everything is OK.

[berelinde]

He's an eager lad.

 

But you should think about a couple of things.

 

The first is your timer. What is your timer setting? If it's 30 minutes, I'd say that was fairly normal. If it's extended (1.5 hours), you might be getting LTs instead of some other dialog (unlikely, but it has happened before).

 

For most of the romanceable NPCs, they'll give you a LT right away or soon thereafter.

 

Also, keep in mind, LTs run on real time, not game time, so if you meet Ajantis, get your first LT, suddenly remember that you're out of milk and run to the 7-11 with the game paused, come back and unpause, you're going to get another LT even if no in-game time has passed. Then, you play a bit and the dog needs a walk, so you pause the game, you'll have another LT. And so on.

 

I had an instance where I got no LTs at all for about 3 hours, then got 3 in a row in rapid succession, but that was fixed for v12.

 

Something else to think about: Ajantis still wants to talk to you in dungeons. Not all the NPCs do.

 

Anyway, I'm just some idiot who's played the Ajantis romance a bunch of times, and haven't actually examined much of the coding. Please consider any advice I offer as an interrim measure until more qualified people offer something better.

 

Edit--most of this was covered by Gorilym, except for the parts about dungeon romancing and the odd LTs instead of other dialog occurence.

[Guest Guest]

Thanks for the input. The timer is set at 1 hour, so I am thinking that this is a bit fast for that. Also, the 28 hours of game time took me about a minute, (I got milk yesterday ), so the pause isn't an option there.

 

I did try to look at the coding to see if there was something, but this is a style that I have not seen before. It referes to numbers instead of having the actual dialogue, so I may as well be looking a binary code. *sighs* I dunno.

[cmorgan]

Unfortunately, (or fortunately for our non-english-language friends) probably what you are seeing are "tra file" (X#AJROM.TRA) references. This is a way of letting all of the dialogue be separate from the code, so it is easy to have one code file and just use whichever language file you want to build the actual in-game resource. That is why you get

 

In the completely made-up example file X#AJANTISDEMO.D

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN X#AjantisTalksWayTooFast
SAY @342
IF ~~ THEN REPLY @343 EXIT
IF ~~ THEN REPLY @344 GOTO X#AjantisLearnsAboutTra
END

In the completely made-up example file X#AJANTISDEMO.TRA (in BG1NPC/TRA/english)

@342  = ~This set of text or dialogue~
@343  = ~Is actually set up so that it can be in French, or Latvian, or Swahili~
@344  = ~And still be applied to the same code as separate stings~

 

That means to figure out what is going on, you need to put up the D and the TRA files side by side for cross reference.

 

It is possible to read, but takes some practice! I will put this on the review list for the first weekend in October, though, just to make sure that everything is fine with the timers AND the "J-file", or Joined-Party dialogues. Most of the project is set up to trigger on certain events, instead of in a random sequence. This could mean that for some reason, Ajantis was supposed to say something besides a LT, and for some reason is clearing out his "any-time" special reactions and talks too early, when he is supposed to say something else.

 

To make sure it isn't what I just said, try click-talking/force-talking Ajantis. If you do not have the Player-Initiated-Dialogues installed, then he may pop up a conversation or two that was supposed to happen at certain points -- if that is the case, please post the conversations and LTs, so I can tighten up the code and make sure that the talks work better!

If you installed the PIDs, and get a conversation instaed of the PID, then jot that down, too, and any more that happen before you finally get the regular PID stuff.

 

 

One of the unanticipated side efffects of moving things from randomly occurring (banter files) to happening on cue (j-files) is that sometimes something becomes available and hops on stage before the stage manager oks it. We probably need to get the word out that v12 and on, playing style needs to add checking in with all of your NPC friends after anything relatively significant, to make sure that evryone has had a chance to say everything they want to!

[Guest Mimic]

Ugh. Well, let me ask this. Which LT is the one where he offers to tell the PC more about the Order? (This one has me confused since my PC is a paladin and Ajantis explaining it is a rather moot option imo. But that is me)

[berelinde]

It's LT2. And it isn't so weird that he'd need to go over this with a fellow paladin. Not all paladins are members of the Order. They need sponsorship to join. And not all members are paladins.

 

I think there are a couple paladin-specific dialog options during various LTS, though.

 

Have you read the romance guide? You might find it helpful to check your progress through the relationship.

 

Edit: actually, Ajantis mentions the Order lots of times. It's very important to him. But I think the big explanation is LT2.

[Guest Mimic]

Yes, I am quite familiar with paladins and I understand that not all paladins are not members of the Order.

 

However, since the PC does come from Candlekeep, a rather large library with quite a bit of information, they should know about the different orders, particularly if they are a paladin. They would want to study them in order to decide which one they would want to petition for sponsorship.

 

And yes, I did read the romance guide. I tend to try to find out the answers in the read me and other sources before I ask questions.

[Gorilym]

Ugh. Well, let me ask this. Which LT is the one where he offers to tell the PC more about the Order? (This one has me confused since my PC is a paladin and Ajantis explaining it is a rather moot option imo. But that is me)

 

Well, given that Charname has spent virtually all of his / her life cloistered in Candlekeep its arguably quite silly that paladin is even a class option... (You can't just "decide" that you're going to be a paladin, and a 20y.o. paladin is in virtually any scenario an extremely young one) Though you could rationalize along the lines of a paladin Charname belonging to an order utterly distinct from the more traditional ones such as the ORH, and that this order conducts its training in places like Candlekeep. (Off the top of my head, so I'm not saying it's a good explanation or even consistent)