FAQ Contribution thread (Serious contributions only please)

Discuss the creation and scripting of new fan-made games and mods for the Fallout series of games.
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ColJack
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FAQ Contribution thread (Serious contributions only please)

Post by ColJack »

NOTE FROM STEVIE D:
If you've anything you want to contribute to the closed and stickied FAQ Material thread, here's the place to post it.

So if you've had a long, drawn out discussion with modding veterans like Red and are able to boil what you've learned down to a few, sweet paragraphs; or, if you've learned something from another site, whack it up here and I'll add it to the FAQ.

NO SPAM IN THIS THREAD
...please. It's being left open because I trust you not to fill it full of crap about what you've just eaten or have seen on the TV.

Now over to coljack, who came up with the idea for this thread:

==================

1. set start hex: this sets the default "spawn point" for the player. If the map sending the player here does not specify the tile the player is to spawn on (or whe entering from the world map), then he spawns here. It can be overridden by the map script forcing the player to spawn at a given position. NOTE: the editor does not take any notice of where the start hex is when you go into game mode (f8) and simly spawns the player in the center of the screen.

2.The RED or BLACK exit grid tiles do not work, you need to place the GREEN exit tiles and set them to go to the world map then the game turns them red.. if you do not enter values for the exit grid it defaults to the world map as it's destination.

3. Delete spatial script: were you kidding with your comment? need to work it out for yourself??? if not then you use this option to delete a spatial script you have placed. since you canonly delete tiles / scenery and so on while in the relavent category using the delete button, and since spatial script markers are not in any categoery, you cannot simply delete them as you would a piece of wall you have placed. so you need to use this option..


also, i think that this ( or another suitably titled thread you chose to post) should be an open sticky so that we can post stuff we find out in one place for you to add to the faq.. Any spam and stuff can be easily deleted by the admin..
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Post by Red »

I kinda like how it's locked since then he jst adds what he thinks is worthy... I guess.

Anyhoo about his spatial srcipt confusion, if you look in the threads, he has quite a bit of a hard time understanding them, thus his weird explanation (which I don`t even recall at the moment).
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Post by Stevie D »

Red wrote:I kinda like how it's locked since then he jst adds what he thinks is worthy... I guess.
It's more to stop people from spamming it and to give me a chance to do a bit of work tidying up what's been posted.

I'm hurt, Red - my irony scanners detect you don't approve of my system! It's only because I didn't unpack the .DAT files... go on, admit it! :p

I REALLY appreciate what coljack has done here and I'll sticky this thread based on his idea!
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Post by Red »

Actually I was being sincere, not sarcastic. My point was more of your understanding of how Fallout works... I'm hoping this will get better sooner then later.

Well, there is another point where I beleive most FAQs should be HTML based rather then forum based but that's irrelevant and anyways I like how you give credit - and source - of the information you gather oin there.

So basically this thread has become the "main thread to discuss the FAQ"?
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Post by Stevie D »

Yes please Red. And a kind of raw-material depot for any bits and bobs that we can buff up into nuggets.

100% with you on the HTML business; JJ86's FoT editor site is the business. In fact, I'm hoping the FAQ thread could form the base of something on those lines once we've collected enough to be going on.

I might be a dumb-ass at Fallout editing, but I can rustle up a groovy web-page given enough time. HTML only, mind. :)
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Post by Stevie D »

Do I just need to download the Editor to be able to Edit Fallout?
No, unfortunately you'll need to do a few more bits, first. This tutorial will show you what you need to do next.

Be advised that the more experienced editor users on the DaC forums will almost certainly assume that you have gone through the processes in this tutorial already. Either with the program DatMan! Light, or one very similar.

HALT!
Before we go on, it is assumed that you have brought your copy of Fallout 2 up to date by installing the last official patch. If you haven't - do so NOW before doing anything else!

Find the last official patch on this page.

OK, we can continue now... phew!

There are two large files in your ...\Fallout2\ directory that you'll need to extract (or open out). The files within them contain the blood and guts of Fallout 2, and that's what you'll be up to in your elbows in your more advanced adventures with the editor. The two files are master.dat and Patch000.dat.

Unfortunately, extracting the files isn't a double-click on Winzip away. You'll need one of the specialist DAT unpacking tools on this page. (Scroll down to DAT Utilities).

I can't speak for all of the DAT Utilities on the DaC boards personally, although others can. However, I have had good results with DatMan! Light, the readme for which can be found here. Don't worry about the odd file extension on the readme (.nfo), it opens perfectly well in Wordpad.

The following tutorial uses DatMan! Light to perform the extraction, Doctor. Scalpel!

DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING DATMAN! LIGHT
  1. Download DatMan Light! here.
  2. Now, you can follow the readme to get it installed properly, but I've put the details here, too.
  3. Unzip DatManl.zip to the directory you want it to live in.
  4. One of the files unzipped into that folder will be zlibtool.zip. In turn, unzip this one into your ...\Windows\System folder. Select 'Yes To All' to overwrite the files it needs to replace.
  5. Use 'Find ==> Files and Folders' to find regzlib.bat and double-click on it. (in other words, execute the file).
  6. Open DatManl.exe in the folder you unzipped DatManl.zip to, to execute the program.
EXTRACTING THE FALLOUT 2 MASTER DATA FILES
  1. Open DatMan! Light.
  2. Click on the 'Open' button on the toolbar. The second one from the left.
  3. Find and open your ...\Fallout2\ directory
  4. Double-click on master.dat
  5. Wait for DatMan Light! to 'Retrieve DAT DirTree Information'. When it's done, the main window on the left will show you a root directory of all the files in master.dat. The one on the right will show you a list of all the files in any directory you select.
  6. Click on the 'All' button on the toolbar. The fourth one from the left.
  7. Select a folder you'll be easily able to find in a minute. Something like My Documents, for instance. Doesn't really matter. Hit 'Extract'.
  8. This next stage takes a while. It's where DatMan! Light extracts all the files, and there's upwards of 23 thousand of them. It will make a folder called master.dat itself and put all the extracted files in there.

    While you're waiting, go and fix yourself a drink and look out of the window for a bit. Go on, wave to that neighbour you never usually speak to.

    Right, the files in the main, master.dat compressed file should be unpacked by now.
  9. Now minimise the DatMan! Light window and find and open the master.dat folder in the directory you extracted the files to.
  10. Select, and cut, all the files in the folder and paste them directly into your ...\Fallout2\data directory. Hit 'Yes To All' in the window that comes up, to replace any old files in the directory with the new, extracted ones.
PATCHING THE EXTRACTED FILES
Now you need to update the extracted files using the Patch000.dat file that was installed in your ...\Fallout2\ directory by the official patch..

Follow all the steps in the above section, except you need to go through all the stages using the Patch000.dat file in your ...\Fallout2\ directory, instead of master.dat. Luckily, the patch only contains 500 odd files, so you won't even have enough time to pick your nose before they're unpacked.

Incidentally,once you've cut-and-pasted the extracted files into your ...\Fallout2\ directory, it's OK to delete the two folders created by DatMan! Light when you extracted the two .dat archives.
By Stevie D.

Why the extracted files go into '...\Fallout2\data' instead of the Fallout 2 root directory
Thanks Red.

The engine is actually built to read the data files from ...\Fallout2\data first (Well, that's how fallout2.cfg sets it by default...) and failing that, will read the ...\Fallout2\ root directory.

Of course, this causes problems since when you put the extracted files in ...\Fallout2\data, Fallout2 likes to delete most if not all the files in ...\Fallout2\data\proto, so you need to make them read-only. Yet if you want to be able to edit them, they should NOT be read-only... Quite a pain in the ass huh?

I [Red] haven't found any clever workarounds...The danger in putting the extracted files in the root instead of in ...\Fallout2\data is that I think the original .dat files would actually have priority over them... While the extracted files in ...\Fallout2\data have priority over the .dat files.
Last edited by Stevie D on Thu Apr 24, 2003 7:10 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Red »

Looks fine, except I strongly recommend moving the files into Fallout2/data, NOT Fallout2. The engine is actually build to read them in data first (Well, that's how .cfg sets it by default...) and failing that will read the directory from which Fallout2 is run (in effect, the Fallout2 root).

Of course this causes problems since if you put it there, Fallout2 likes to delete most if not all the files in /data/proto, so you need to make them read-only - yet if you want to be able to edit them, they should NOT be read-only... Quite a pain in the ass huh?

I haven't found any clever workarounds...The danger in putting them in the root instead of in data is that I think the DAT files actually have priority on the root files... While the data files have priority over the DAT files... Hope that's clear enough.
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Post by Stevie D »

Roger that. Will update the post and add it to the FAQ this evening. Thanks for the help. :)
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Post by Stevie D »

OK, I've thrown an updated version of the tutorial in the first post of the FAQ thread. It now has Red's all important clarification!
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Post by ColJack »

Of course, this causes problems since when you put the extracted files in ...\Fallout2\data, Fallout2 likes to delete most if not all the files in ...\Fallout2\data\proto, so you need to make them read-only. Yet if you want to be able to edit them, they should NOT be read-only... Quite a pain in the ass huh?

I [Red] haven't found any clever workarounds...The danger in putting the extracted files in the root instead of in ...\Fallout2\data is that I think the original .dat files would actually have priority over them... While the extracted files in ...\Fallout2\data have priority over the .dat files.
there is a simple work around for having the game not delete your proto files and still being able to edit them.
when datman lite extracts the master.dat, if you tell it to extract to the fallout 2 directory, it creates a folder called master.dat. leave all of the files here, and just re-name your master.dat FILE to master2.dat or whatever.
the game will use this directory instead of the master.dat file.
any altered maps will automatically be put in the fallout 2\data\maps directory and will overide the ones in the master.dat directory but the game will not delete the proto files since they are not in the data directory.

you say there are 2 big files, one being the master.dat, the other being the patch000.dat.. you neglected to mention the third, the critters.dat which is where you critters proto files and artwork and so on is kept.
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Post by ColJack »

RED! your key definitions need altering slightly,

they need to be lower case as shift+ keys have different effects aparently..

i just read in another post that using "k" to kill a critter just kills ( or rescusitates them) but "shift+k" ( or just K with the caps lock on, or so he says ) will kill the critter AND let you chose the death frame..

sorry for the cpaitals and exclamation mark for your name, but i wanted to make sure you noticed it was for you..
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Post by Red »

It's already in there thanks to temaperacl, I'm just waiting a bit 'for I release version 1.2
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Post by Stevie D »

ColJack wrote:there is a simple work around for having the game not delete your proto files and still being able to edit them. [...]
Nice one, Col. It won't take me too long to update the post with those points in mind, but I am ruinously hungover at the moment, so it won't get done today.

Yeah, I did wonder about critters.dat, too. That'll be sorted out presently.

Incidentally, perhaps it might be an idea to make your suggestion about the master.dat folder the 'standard' practise since presumably it saves all that kerfuffle with the read-only business. But I dunno. Perhaps too many people are set in their ways wih the files living in ...\data to change now.
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Post by Red »

ColJack wrote:any altered maps will automatically be put in the fallout 2\data\maps directory and will overide the ones in the master.dat directory but the game will not delete the proto files since they are not in the data directory.
Are you sure the editor actually saves the edited PRO files there though?

As for the capitals and whatnot, my nick is usually "Red!" and you could use bold to higlight my nick :P
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Post by ColJack »

no i'm not sure about the EDITED proto's, but it does stop the game from deleting the original proto's..
it's not that hard to move any proto's you edit back to the master.dat directory before you run the game though is it?

Bold!!! i'm lucky if i can type straight nevermind figuring out how to do bold... :)
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Post by Red »

I've known about that feature for quite a while... What I'm looking for though is it having a place where it doesn't get deleted AND gets written there, and technically, there is none - although I admit I didn't check wether the game might be "smart" and save the PROs into the directory it finds them instead of always the same place - gevin the /Fallout2/dev trick I found though this is pretty unlikely... I'll check wether it checks for the pro files anywhere else (like /Fallout/cd is it tries to dee if there are any savegames there and deletes them if they match!).
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Post by Red »

Well, I don't entirey understand what's hepenning, but I moved my files into proto instead of data/proto. It loaded them just fine, but when I tried to refresh the critter list, all the critters were deleted (expept the one I had edited).

So well, it doesn't work, though I need to look into it further - if we could have ALL the pro files in txt format though we could avoid all those problems (the mapper even has an option to recompile them every time you start the application). But well, we don't have all of them and it'd take ages to do it.
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Post by Stevie D »

Red wrote:So well, it doesn't work, though I need to look into it further - if we could have ALL the pro files in txt format though we could avoid all those problems (the mapper even has an option to recompile them every time you start the application). But well, we don't have all of them and it'd take ages to do it.
OK, I left the details on unpacking the files as they were - to Red's standard, for now. At least until we can be sure another method is better.

Also, critters.dat is now mentioned with the other two .dat files. :)
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Post by Red »

620 = Normal wall (well, normal hidden wall :P)
621 = Shoot Through (that's what the s. t. means), Used like windowed walls.

You notice this by looking at the properties of the PRO...
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Post by Stevie D »

Red wrote:620 = Normal wall (well, normal hidden wall :P)
621 = Shoot Through (that's what the s. t. means), Used like windowed walls.

You notice this by looking at the properties of the PRO...

Ah ha! Updated - thx :)
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