How the FO2 engine finds it's data.

OK, I did some more test and research though some stuff might still elude me.

For the most part, the game writing to patch000.dat and loading from it doesn't matter since the PRO files in the savegames themselves always have priority over any other ones.

There is however an exception: when you create a new game, obviously it will read the patch000.dat ones first and as such you might get a prematurely upgraded NPC if you forget to delete the directory first.

The maps folder hardly matters since the game saves the maps with the savegame extentions and as such will never overwrite any valuable files. The game will try to create <master_patches>\maps; so you can be pretty sure that the game'll find a place to put it's maps.

As for the music I'm fairly confident the ACM files ending up there were because of the editor rather then the game and as such you shouldn't have to worry about those. Though admitably I didn't verify this.

I didn't think of a new "proper" solution for mapper2/fallout2 and "Fast Fallout2" instructions yet but I hope to write a new version eventually taking all this (discussion) into account.
 
As for the music: engine saves the music file into <master_patches>\sound\music only if there is no such file in this directory (and it saves music only for current location). If the file is exist, the game won't try to overwrite it.
So, you really shouldn't have to worry about this.
 
New idea about installing mapper and game (thanks to Alan Killenger for this idea):

You can use bat-file if you don't want to take trouble over your .pro files.
Something like this:

attrib -r <game>\*.* /s
xcopy <mod> <game> /s /y
attrib +r <game>\proto\critters\*.pro
attrib +r <game>\proto\items\*.pro
<game>\fallout2.exe

where <game> - game folder and <mod> - folder with your files.
Use this bat-file every time you want to run the game. Remember that for the "xcopy" command you must use paths like this: "c:\game", without slash (\) at the end.

So, solution for installing the mapper and the game will be following:
1. Decompress master.dat into a folder (henceforth called <src>)
2. Decompress critter.dat in <src>
3. Decompress patch000.dat in <src>
4. Create a folder for mod, copy: Mapper2.exe, Mapper2.cfg (folder henceforth called <mod>)
5. Create a folder for game, copy: Fallout2.exe, Fallout2.cfg (henceforth called <game>)
6. Create <drive>:\fallout2\dev\proto, in it create critters, items, mist, scenery, tiles, walls, where drive is the same as the one you'll be running the mapper from. (This allows proto editing in the mapper)
7. Edit fallout2.cfg and change critter_dat, master_dat and point to <src>, change critter_patches and master_patches to point to <game>; For the music, update music_path1 to point to <game>\sound\music and music_path2 to point to where ever the sound is (for example, <src>\sound\music, if this folder contain the music).
8. Edit mapper2.cfg in the same way as the fallout2.cfg, but change critter_patches and master_patches to point to <mod> and music_path1 to point to <mod>\sound\music;
9. Create bat-file (see above) and run the game using this bat-file.
10. You can use other folder for the mapper (not <mod>) if you don't want to see mapper2.exe and mapper2.cfg in the <game> folder (because .bat file will copy this two files in the <game>). You can use even the <game> folder, if you don't want to copy they every time you start the fallout.
 
G'day guys, ive just started modding fallout2 myself (lot more complicated than i originally thought :) Anyway id just like to say 'damn' this forum is useful. Apart from making me feel like my brain is mush that is... and thanks Red! you solved a little problem i have been having. Keep it up guys.
 
Hey guys.
There is another way for installing the mapper and the game.
You can compress your mod files into patch000.dat every time you are running Fallout2 (with the help of DAT2 utility). Features:
a. the game load your edited data WITHOUT overwriting and deleting it.
b. you don't need to mark any files "read only"
c. both fallout and the mapper are able to load/save games and use the modified data when available

The solution is:
1. Decompress master.dat into a folder (henceforth called <src>)
2. Decompress critter.dat to <src>
3. Decompress patch000.dat to <src>
4. Move data\sound\music\ from game directory to <src>\sound\music\
5. Create a folder for mapper, copy: Mapper2.exe, Mapper2.cfg
6. Create a folder for mod (folder henceforth called <mod>)
7. Create a folder for game, copy: Fallout2.exe, Fallout2.cfg (henceforth called <game>)
8. Create <drive>:\fallout2\dev\proto, in which create critters, items, mist, scenery, tiles, walls folders, where <drive> is the same as the one you'll be running the mapper from. (This allows proto editing in the mapper)
9. Edit fallout2.cfg and change critter_dat, master_dat and point to <src>, change critter_patches and master_patches to point to empty folder; For the music, update music_path1 to point to <src>\sound\music\ and music_path2 to point to where ever the sound is (for example, <mod>\sound\music, if this folder contain the music).
10. Edit mapper2.cfg in the same way as the fallout2.cfg, but change critter_patches and master_patches to point to <mod>;
11. Copy DAT2 files (dat2.exe and zlib1.dll) to your Windows directory.
12. Create bat-file and run the game using this bat-file:

cd <mod>
del patch000.dat
dat2 a -r patch000 *.*
copy <mod>\patch000.dat <game>\patch000.dat /y
cd <game>
<game>\fallout2.exe

You can use <game> folder as <src> folder (unpack files to <game>) - for "fast" Fallout, as Red! says.
 
I do the same but make my own (patch) critter and master dats, and use a different directory from fallout to run them. This is possible with FO2LC configured for a custom patch DAT file. I have a batch file that uses DAT2 to build the DATs. It even makes self-extracting RARs for distribution.
 
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