Getting the official BIS mapper to work ...

[Sduibek]

Okay, let's forget for a second that I want to use it for FO1, because i'll figure that out with the help of a few posts already on this forum.

My current issue is that it won't run at all. Just goes to a blank screen for a second (i.e. briefly loads as a fullscreen app) then closes out.
What am I doing wrong?? Has anyone using it for Fallout2 had this issue and fixed it?

Please help, i'm going crazy

 

[Ardent]

Okay, let's forget for a second that I want to use it for FO1, because i'll figure that out with the help of a few posts already on this forum.

My current issue is that it won't run at all. Just goes to a blank screen for a second (i.e. briefly loads as a fullscreen app) then closes out.
What am I doing wrong?? Has anyone using it for Fallout2 had this issue and fixed it?

Please help, i'm going crazy

Have you added new towns? Have you removed any towns from city.txt? Have you used 49+ town patch and not updated the Mapper.exe? Have you edited some items and changed their type (e.g. changed Meat Jerky from misc item to drug)?

Write down any modifications that you have introduced to the data folder.

 

[Sduibek]

Have you added new towns? Have you removed any towns from city.txt? Have you used 49+ town patch and not updated the Mapper.exe?

I haven't messed with any of that, although yeah i've made quite a few changes to other things in the Data folder. Is there a way to run the mapper and *just* check the main & critter .DAT files, so that I can rule out if a changed file in the Data folder is causing the issue?

 

[Ardent]

Is there a way to run the mapper and *just* check the main & critter .DAT files, so that I can rule out if a changed file in the Data folder is causing the issue?

Rename the data folder. Then the game will only use master.dat and critter.dat.

 

[Sduibek]

Wait. I think maybe I didn't explain properly... i'm not trying to run the game at all, i'm trying to run the mapper. Does the mapper run the actual main exe itself? That's weird.

 

[Ardent]

Wait. I think maybe I didn't explain properly... i'm not trying to run the game at all, i'm trying to run the mapper. Does the mapper run the actual main exe itself? That's weird.

No, I don't think it does. But it uses stuff from the data folder, as well as from master.dat and critter.dat (mapper2.cfg points to these folders/files).

So, theoretically speaking, if you introduced changes to the data folder, you can rename it so the mapper cannot find it. It will then use the unchanged data from master.dat and critter.dat.

 

[Sduibek]

Any chance you're willing to zip or rar the all files you have for the mapper, and then post it on a filesharing site? Maybe I broke the config file somehow or something. Also the message about having the wrong fonts installed was odd, I am wondering if that has something to do with it. (Got that before copying the fonts from the dat files into the mapper folder)

 

[vad]

If message about fonts was “Couldn't find/load text fonts” that means paths to fallout files in mapper2.cfg are wrong.

BIS FO Editor "Couldn't locate/load text fonts" error
------------------
To fix this problem change the mapper2.cfg file's [system] section to the following:

• [system]
  critter_dat=H:\Games\BlackIsle\Fallout2\critter.dat
  critter_patches=H:\Games\BlackIsle\Fallout2\data
  master_dat=H:\Games\BlackIsle\Fallout2\master.dat
  master_patches=H:\Games\BlackIsle\Fallout2\data

Where H:\ is the letter of your HD, and Games\BlackIsle\Fallout2\ is the path to the editor. You should manually locate your executable/data files and change the path accordingly.

 

[Sduibek]

Finally got it working (hooray!)

Any place on this site that advises when/if to use the following settings?:

[debug]
mode=environment
output_map_data_info=0
show_load_info=0
show_script_messages=0
show_tile_num=0

[mapper]
default_f8_as_game=0
fix_map_inventory=0
fix_map_objects=0
ignore_rebuild_errors=0
librarian=0
override_librarian=0
rebuild_protos=0
run_mapper_as_game=1
save_text_maps=0
show_pid_numbers=0
sort_script_list=1
use_art_not_protos=0

EDIT: There's a couple threads but not a 'guide' as far as I can tell. hm.

 

[Master92]

OMG...
TeamX Doc's help you, guy =)

Elementary, Watson)

 

[Sduibek]

OMG...
TeamX Doc's help you, guy =)

Elementary, Watson)

I eventually got Mapper2 working beautifully for the most part, through lots and lots of trial and error and getting what (small) information I could from the web.

I went through a lot of TeamX's guides and documentation; nothing talks about setting about Mapper2 for editing Fallout 1 maps.

If you know of such a guide, please provide a link to it. Thank you.