HOW TO: Fully edit Fallout1 maps in mapper2.exe, the BIS official Fallout 2 Mapper.

[.Pixote.]

They might be missing their target images. The green screen with the various to hit areas.

 

[Sduibek]

They might be missing their target images. The green screen with the various to hit areas.

Yeah I dunno. I'll just leave it for now; having all critters fully editable save Overseer(s)/Master/Gizmo is pretty fucking awesome in my book, and a far cry from manually doing them all through FUCK or (much worse) hex editing, I figure we're doing pretty well so far

I have noticed that some fields on both critters and items are uneditable but from what i've seen this is more likely due to engine differences than actual glitchiness. I'll post if I figure out more, of course.

 

[Darek]

My Overseer(s)/Master/Gizmo can be opened without crashing, on the other hand they only show that reserved critter image (flaming demon?). Does yours too or can I get them to show their proper art?

 

[Sduibek]

My Overseer(s)/Master/Gizmo can be opened without crashing, on the other hand they only show that reserved critter image (flaming demon?). Does yours too or can I get them to show their proper art?

Should, just need the art from critter.dat

Would you be willing to send me all the files you have for those critters please? This would please also include Proto.msg and Pro_Crit.msg

 

[Darek]

Should, just need the art from critter.dat

Oh shit, I didn't have any of that .
Reason was I had an old folder with Fallout 1 extracted so I just directed the Mapper that way, but apparently it was missing critter.dat.
Working now, sorry about that.

Would you be willing to send me all the files you have for those critters please? This would please also include Proto.msg and Pro_Crit.msg

Sure, which files exactly would you want? Though I think everything except AI.text and the scripts list is original (have your files), plus the protos. Also I have the sound files still in without any crashes (no music).
I can honestly not remember what I used that F1 folder for earlier or what I've done with it. Maybe I'll try to make a clean install tomorrow.

 

[Sduibek]

This is the error I get when crashing on those critters:

The only way to get the error to go away is to delete or rename the .PRO for that critter, which of course doesn't help us

Something interesting that may or may not be significant, is that when I open up either Gizmo or the Master, their name field is <none> and if I click it and then hit Esc, the proper name shows up, but then on hitting Done the mapper crashes without an error.

I've gotten the Master to open and save properly, and gotten Gizmo to open and save properly, but never both in the same instance of Mapper.

It does create a text file for them in dev/proto/critters when doing this but it's blank.

 

[Nirran]

this should make your life a little easier for fo1 modding

zip contains 2 bat files and chsize,exe,unzip them in data\proto\critters\ folder

ListFilesSubtract4Bytes.bat when run will create a bat file that when run will reduce the size of all .pro files in the folder by 4

ListFilesAdd4Bytes.bat when run will create a bat file that when run will increase the size of all .pro files in the folder by 4

link

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2BIG97LN

edit : note that if pro files are added,the ListFiles bat files will need to be run again

Nirran

 

[Sduibek]

Cool, thanks!

I have similar .BAT files for working on scripts and whatnot

 

[Sduibek]

AI Packet display in Mapper2 only shows 13 (thirteen) characters. Useful to know if you're naming/renaming/creating ai packets in AI.TXT -- for example Super Mutant Necropolis would just display as "Super Mutant " since 'Super Mutant' is already 12 characters.

Maybe not something most people care about, but it's been really helpful to me while working on the Invasion Mutants

 

[Sduibek]

Hey .Pixote., check this out -- Fallout 1 gives various critters a set of armor in their 'off-hand'.

I'm assuming this is so they drop the armor on death, but don't have "artifically" (beyond the .PRO) increased resistance stats.

 

[Sduibek]

What do these even do?

from mapper2.cfg

fix_map_inventory=1
fix_map_objects=1

 

[Sduibek]

WARNING: If you set run_mapper_as_game to 1 in mapper2.cfg, make sure all your critters in the Fallout 2 (Mapper 2) directory have Read Only set, otherwise they'll all be deleted. (just as Fallout 2 does, from what i've heard. Good thing Fo1 doesn't do that.....)

 

[Continuum]

Ok. I had it working. But I've stripped/repacked unmodded directory to 7 files (three of them belong to Hi-Res patch for Mapper) and weight of 162MB. So far been checking protos editing (it's working), I can walk and talk in F8 mode too. I've noticed some small (?) glitch here:

"Done" doesn't work, but that button on right does! and I can't move cocktails to inventory(?). Is this normal, or repack's fuck up?

 

[Sduibek]

Ok. I had it working. But I've stripped/repacked unmodded directory to 7 files (three of them belong to Hi-Res patch for Mapper) and weight of 162MB. So far been checking protos editing (it's working), I can walk and talk in F8 mode too. I've noticed some small (?) glitch here:

"Done" doesn't work, but that button on right does! and I can't move cocktails to inventory(?). Is this normal, or repack's fuck up?

NO idea about the cocktails, that's weird.

The button thing as far as I can tell is just the difference in engines. Fallout 1 & 2 have the Inv's Done button in totally different places, so it's using the graphic from FO2 (which has a button on it) but the button itself for Mapper isn't in that spot.

Please send me the list of files mentioned, having a light install for full FO1 editing would be great.

And what's with all the work on FO1 maps and scripts? Are you my sidekick now?



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unrelated to the above, here's an update for all:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what i'm currently using (updated just a moment ago) when running Mapper. It clears out some unneeded files to keep everything fresh (important when you're doing lots of critter editing) and also sets all PRO files to Archive instead of ReadOnly.

As said before, make sure you set ReadOnly if you're going to run a test in Mapper (F8 key) or have set RunAsGame to 1. Personally I do *real* testing so neither apply, but you've been warned.

ATTRIB -R +A /S /D *.PRO
CD DATA
DEL worldmap.dat
CD MAPS
DEL *.CFG /Q
DEL TMP$MAP#.MAP
DEL TMP$MAP#.edg
CD ..
CD ..
CD dev/proto
DEL target.dat
CD ..
CD ..
MAPPER2
CD DATA
DEL worldmap.dat
CD MAPS
DEL *.CFG /Q
DEL TMP$MAP#.MAP
DEL TMP$MAP#.edg
CD ..
CD ..
CD dev/proto
DEL target.dat
CLS

 

[Endocore]

@Sduibek

You've done a great job here on the mapper issue, Sduibek. Your investigations, along with Sorrow and others, were long overdue and are very commendable.

Some of this seems a bit much, however. Unlike Fallout, neither Fallout 2 nor the Fallout 2 mapper (the last being but an enhanced version of fallout2.exe) require either critter.dat or master.dat files to function. As Red! reported years ago, one only needs folders named master.dat and critter.dat. In fact, the Fallout 2 mapper only needs a few files in order to work properly for editing Fallout material.

After reading your instructions, I set up a mapper installation for editing Fallout files but did a few things differently. I haven't noticed any serious troubles at all (with one reservation noted below regarding sounds), have no difficulty editing either the base Overseer et al protos nor the placed protos on maps for these critters, etc.

Let's say one wants to make a mapper installation to work with Fallout files at X:\mapper2\. One likely important thing for many readers to note here but not mentioned in your instructions is that unless one is habitually meticulous and has a considerable understanding of Fallout/Fallout 2 modding, under no circumstances should one set up a mapper installation to work with Fallout files on the same HD partition where one already has a mapper installation organized to edit Fallout 2 files (largely due to potential confusion/accidents with X:\Fallout2\dev\proto\). All one needs, then, are the following folders:

X:\mapper2\data\
X:\mapper2\critter.dat\
X:\mapper2\master.dat\
X:\Fallout2\dev\proto\

as well as the relevant subdirectories in each folder just mentioned. Even though most of the subfolders in X:\mapper2\master.dat\ as well as the entire X:\mapper2\critter.dat\art\critters\ directory will be empty (no critter art from Fallout 2 is needed to mod Fallout), the whole subdirectory folder structure is still needed as "placeholders." From the Fallout 2 file master.dat, the contents of the following directories should be unpacked and put in the folders at X:\mapper2\master.dat\:

\art\intrface\
\art\skilldex\
\data\
\sound\sfx\
\text\english\game\.

No other Fallout 2 files are needed to run the mapper while editing Fallout files consisting of Fallout ("1")'s master.dat and critter.dat files unpacked into X:\mapper2\data\. In fact with the exception of \art\intrface\ likely only a handful of files from the Fallout 2's master.dat file are needed; I didn't go on experimenting further to whittle the list down, but I suspect that with the exception of most of the contents of \art\intrface\ only about 60-90 additional Fallout 2 files (a few sound effects used by the mapper and sndlst.lst from \sound\sfx\, a few frms for Fallout 2 specific perks without which one could crash the mapper while editing critter protos and skilldex.lst from \art\skilldex\, mapper2.lbm, and only perhaps half of the text files from \data\ and \text\english\game\) are needed to run the mapper.

In X:\mapper2\data\, I found excising the Fallout files in \data\art\intrface\ necessary as well as (as you noted) \data\sound\sfx\. However, I don't use the hi-res patches and therefore I'm not sure what may be necessary in X:\mapper2\data\art\interface\ for those using the mapper hi-res patch. You recommend deleting the entire X:\mapper2\data\sound\ directory. I recommend against this, as one should maintain all the files in X:\mapper2\data\sound\music\ and in fact point one's mapper.cfg to that folder as the location of all available music for Fallout maps (that's what I did). We both mentioned getting rid of X:\mapper2\data\sound\sfx\; this is but a mere hedge to address the issue of a few sounds actually used by the mapper UI. The ultimate problem, as yet unaddressed, is that Fallout doesn't use a sndlst.lst file. Properly making new item (namely, weapon) protos will be quite difficult unless accounting for this difference. I haven't yet tried, but perhaps:

a) finding out exactly which sounds are needed by the mapper UI, and then
b) updating and/or replacing the contents of X:\mapper2\data\sound\sfx in these particular instances only, and then
c) eliminating all the contents of X:\mapper2\master.dat\sound\sfx, and then
e) rebuilding sndlst from scratch (with the mapper or with regsnd)

may likely be the best answer at the end of the day. When transferring one's mod from the mapper installation to one's Fallout installation, one would then only copy to the game folder such genuinely new sounds as were added while making new weapons/critters/etc.

Other than the differences I've noted, the other steps you mentioned are of course still required (modified ai.txt and scripts.lst, delete Fallout's perk.msg from X:\mapper2\data\text\game\english\, use Cubik2k's converter after editing maps, resize critter proto files, etc). On a side note, though perhaps I missed a mention of such "installing" the mapper itself needn't consist of anything more than copying the two files mapper2.exe and mapper2.cfg to X:\mapper2\ and updating the copied mapper2.cfg to seek data in the proper locations inside X:\mapper2\. Neither fallout2.exe nor falloutw.exe and their accompanying cfg files are needed, and installing Fallout 2 is definitely not necessary for your purposes.

I noticed in your screenshots your critter editing screens seem to show a valid "kill type" listed without any accompanying comment; note that the entry shown only seems correct. Due to engine differences reflected in their respective proto.msg files, Fallout and Fallout 2 don't handle this critter stat in quite the same way. If one wanted to change some of the kill types, note one would need to change the Fallout 2 proto.msg in X:\mapper2\master.dat\ starting at line 1450 to reflect changes made to Fallout's proto.msg in X:\mapper2\data\ to avoid confusion while using the mapper.

I also recommend no one ever try editing AI packets with the mapper while using a mapper installation configured to edit Fallout ("1") files. Due to the close entanglement of AI packets with various Fallout 2 files (the mapper often modifies even fallout2.exe itself while editing AI packets), I suspect little good would result from such an experiment. I didn't actually try, but I also think you'll likely not be able to get any new AI packets to work flawlessly for Fallout (by "new" I mean "a greater quantity than already exist"), especially in regard to combat floats. In Fallout 2, simply adding new bits to the various text files isn't sufficient-- the fallout2.exe must be changed (using the mapper, as noted in regard to sometimes merely editing existing AI packets as well).

Sooner or later, mistakes will be made by anyone and everyone; scenery, tiles, walls, items, critters, AI packets, or other content found only in Fallout 2 will be assigned in a Fallout map, resulting in CTDs, lock-ups, or other errors when trying to use the result in an actual game of Fallout. By utilizing only the absolute minimum of Fallout 2 files required by the mapper2.exe in X:\mapper2\, the likelihood of such "accidents" is significantly reduced. I suspect in fact something along these lines was behind your troubles editing the Overseer, Gizmo, and the Master (none of which I encountered)-- you'll note that the first Overseer entry is precisely the spot where Fallout 2's critters.lst begins to diverge from Fallout's critters.lst. In the method I've here used, all the subfolders in X:\mapper2\master.dat\proto\ are left empty as no Fallout 2 protos are needed for editing Fallout. The master.dat folder method is generally more efficient as well, since all requisite Fallout 2 files remain readily accessible at all times with no need to unpack/repack dats, etc. Furthermore, with only perhaps 600 or fewer (maybe as low as 450 though I didn't continue downsizing to find out) files in one's X:\mapper2\master.dat\ folder, a substantial savings in HDD space is achieved (sure hard drives are cheap, but I still seem to fill them pretty quickly no matter how much new drive capacity increases from year to year).

One of the first lines of your OP mentions "Reorganize the AI.TXT so that it's listed alphabetically." I'm not sure what this means; your modified ai.txt provided as a link correctly adds the line entries each packet needs to be comprehended by the mapper, but unless I missed something the order of the packets themselves in your modified file and the unmodified Fallout ("1") ai.txt is identical. You may want to edit that bit to avoid possible confusion for readers.

One additional step not mentioned in your instructions is after unpacking the contents of Fallout's master.dat and critter.dat files into X:\mapper2\data\, one would also want to further add (i.e. overwrite) the files there with the content of one's patch (i.e. data) directory from wherever one installed Fallout itself.

From your posts, you seem quite fond of F.U.C.K. I strongly discourage anyone from engaging in either regular or prolonged F.U.C.K. sessions, as misfortune seems inevitable (incorrect internal pid references, frequent urination accompanied by a burning sensation, etc). Though I've had many satisfying experiences engaging in F.U.C.K. sessions and don't mean to impugn the practice, the sound way to edit protos is with the mapper and you already know how to do that. With all due respect meant to its creator, the former aging tool is mainly intended for people who want to give an npc a few extra hit points rather than for intensive modding.

You asked about the purpose of lines like "fix_map_inventory" and so forth in mapper2.cfg. Using the text files in \Fallout2\dev\proto\, the mapper can do things like rebuild base proto files, reconcile either the currently loaded map or all maps in (in this case) X:\mapper2\data\maps\ with information from the base protos of placed items (otherwise when making a change to a placed proto one may end up with oddities like a crowbar that won't stack with other crowbars in the player's inventory, critters using the wrong AI packet, etc) and so forth. The mapper, venerable though it may be, is fairly persnickety and prone to errors in the first place; when working with Fallout files in a jury-rigged mapper installation, I'd recommend these functions are likely best left alone.

I don't think you've ever said such, but while catching up on some reading in the forum I've seen some recent remarks to the effect that the \Fallout2\dev\proto\ folders "Must be on drive C! Only!" This is categorically false. As noted above, the dev folders need only be on the same partition to which one installs the mapper. If this doesn't work, the user has other problems quite unrelated to the dev folder.

You or anyone else setting up the mapper for Fallout 1 may also want to use the Fallout 2 mapper debug patch (search NMA) if not already so doing; I run this tool almost every time I use the mapper, and it's very helpful for determining the cause of problems when the mapper misbehaves.

Off-topic, I was rather startled to read (as you reported) that Fallout relies so pervasively on temporary script variables rather than local variables for numerous vital functions. If you're going through the game script by script anyway and want to introduce some standardization, the local variable allocation "system" typically used in Fallout 2 works fairly well-- particularly if you're using FSE, as volumes of standard procedures need only be written once and stored in header files for inclusion as needed. I saw you had another thread where you were rather onerously trying to decode various internal script referents; you'll have a much easier time (as someone already pointed out) if you make frequent reference to the various header files for Fallout 2 that come with the mapper. Likely you already know they contain some errors (search NMA for artfid.h, animcommand.h, Haenlomal's fixes, etc), and their "handy reference chart" aspect is somewhat diminished in the case of critters, scenery, and items as most of the substantial differences between Fallout and Fallout 2 relevant for a scripter are in those areas. Yet the by far easier way to get details like crpids and artfids is to simply open proto files in the mapper, make a minor change, undo the minor change, and then look at the resulting text file in \Fallout2\dev\proto\. There's no need to make matters hard on yourself with the tedium of alternate methods, as your general objectives are already quite ambitious.

Further off-topic (and perhaps even impolitely so since you indeed have a proper place to report such things), you'll note that in the script from your mod that restores interactive working gals to the Maltese Falcon no check exists to see whether the player-character actually has any caps to pay for the requested service. A simple "if (op_item_caps_total(op_dude_obj()) < SexCost) then" check in two relevant nodes of hhooker.int is a decent band-aid if sufficient time isn't available to make a more exploit-proof revision.


Good luck on your mod; you've already made more progress with the original Fallout in a few months than has been made in the previous nearly two decades. All of us are here because we're eager to get our mitts on more better Fallout; since the various commercial devolutions of the franchise in this century have resulted neither in more Fallout, nor in better Fallout, nor in truth in either worse or less Fallout (as less and worse would casually imply at least some measure of Fallout remains in those offerings to provide a substantial basis for comparison in the same way we're unlikely to say my cup has less when we mean my cup is empty), efforts such as yours are vital if the community is to sustain itself. Don't let anyone tell you how to make your mod, and remind naysayers they're welcome to make their own versions at their own leisure.



@Nirran

I couldn't get your ListFiles... files to work; as a few hundred lines whizzed past my DOS prompt a few of them noted some or another sort of error, but I wasn't able to read them and the result was a one-line add or subtract batch file that didn't work as intended (no protos were resized). The general idea itself is sound of course, as when I made my own "add.bat" and "subtract.bat" files the hard way by typing:

chsize 00000001.pro +4...

[ten minutes and several hand cramps later]

...chsize 00000395.pro +4

and so forth the resultant files naturally did properly resize the critter protos for use in the mapper. I'm not sure exactly what the trouble was, though, as I never was very good at understanding the enigmas of %@$! etc from DOS days. Likely I suppose the trouble was user error (= me), or perhaps something you've already fixed (as your post is several months old at my time of posting).



*****

@all

Hopefully my post above answers far more questions than it poses; my internet usage is fairly erratic of late and I was in truth slightly reluctant to make a detailed technical post when I might not be attentive to any follow-up discussion (particularly since I may well have forgotten to address a minor detail or two). Nonetheless, I thought this information was fairly useful and should be available to everyone as I foresee interest growing considerably in this particular topic in the months and years to come.


Endocore

 

[.Pixote.]

Thanks for the information Endocore...hopefully F1 can be transferred successfully over to the F2 engine, and the players can benefit from the advantages of F2. There have been attempts before, but sadly the project was never properly completed.

 

[Sduibek]

I agree, thank you very much for that post, lots of good stuff! I'm taking a bit of a break (not as bad as it sounds, don't worry) from FIXT at the moment but i'll address any specific questions or points you raised when I get around to needing to do so

I kinda feel bad because I know there's quite a few things in this OP that need to be updated/corrected, but i'm hopeful that a thread of this type existing at all, errors or not, is better than it not existing. C'est la vie I suppose.

 

[Endocore]

@.Pixote.

I can see some merit in that idea, but overall I'm not sure the benefit outweighs the considerable effort required. Others may assess the importance of various matters differently, but in my view the main benefits of converting Fallout to use the FO2 engine are:

--"Take all" function on the inventory screen
--Towns labelled on the world map (I do find a lack of this feature in Fallout rather sorely when looking at the world map and pondering travel here or there)
--Ability to barter more than 999 caps at once. In truth, a fundamental problem with Fallout 2 is utterly out of control wasteland economics that allow the player-character to become a millionaire; in Fallout this ought not be too much of a drawback, as one ought be tightly focused on first finding the water chip and then defeating the Master rather than wandering around collecting loot and amassing a fortune. But on the other hand, I'm the sort who thinks a proper Fallout 2 weapon mod would be to get rid of all firearms except pipe rifles and sawed-off shotguns (with hardly any ammo available for either, recalling when Mad Max in the Road Warrior was pleased to find two shotgun shells on a corpse but one crumbled to dust in his hand and the other was a dud)-- so perhaps this bartering feature will be considered of great importance by others.

--Some may argue an important benefit would be the ability to continue gaining experience levels up to 99; yet the game is meant to end after defeating the Master, and that is easily enough done within the current experience level constraints of Fallout. Given the inherently time-constrained nature of the plot, adding numerous new areas and side-quests/changing time limits/etc merely to facilitate substantially more accumulation of XP in Fallout just doesn't make much sense to me-- these things are more appropriate to a Fallout 2 game. In my view, the only players genuinely concerned with such matters are likely the sort who also think Fallout 2 is more "fun" when they give their character power armor and pulse rifle before entering the Temple of Trials.

--Some may argue a genuinely tremendous benefit would be the ability to use new sfall scripting advances with Fallout, since sfall properly functions only with fallout2.exe. Except to say I think Fallout already works well enough in offering its intended gaming experience, I'm neutral on that issue. Perhaps some marginal benefit would indeed accrue with this option, though unless one is intending to considerably change the game into something else anything one might need to effect in Fallout is already perfectly plausible with the conventional Fallout scripting language.


These are all fairly marginal benefits when one considers the onerous burdens of:

--Writing from scratch a new worldmap.txt (really-- this point alone is no simple matter)
--Revising all AI packets and considerably revising ai.txt, including consideration of aigenmsg.txt and aibdymsg.txt
--Writing new city.txt, maps.txt, and worldmap.msg files
--Replacing Hakunin's hard-coded dream sequences with RemindBoy movies about the water chip at the proper times (note as well Hakunin offers four sequences, while there are only two RemindBoy sequences)
--Presumably one goal would be to combine all the available art (scenery, tiles) from both games; this would involve considerable effort to first identify duplicated art, and then reassign all the Fallout 2 art to new protos (ugh, not something I'd want to spend countless hours doing); the alternative would be adding in the Fallout art "after" the Fallout 2 art, which would mean re-making a number of existing Fallout maps from scratch;

Those are just the for starters; numerous other adaptations would be necessary, all of which are things that require strenuous effort in terms of modding time required-- for the meagre (to me) benefits I noted above.

But again, that's just my opinion; all I'm really saying is that if it were me I would find better uses of my hobby time than a total conversion of Fallout, since I'm fairly satisfied with Fallout ("1") in its current form regarding the technical aspects I mentioned. I certainly don't mean to discourage anyone from undertaking whatever modding projects they may find engaging.

In either the case of a conversion or remaining with Fallout, as I'm sure Sduibek knows more than most the Fallout scripts are in very poor shape. Despite a common misconsception that Fallout 2 was a bug-laden paragon of ineptitude whilst Fallout is well-crafted and relatively bug-free, after recently starting a game of Fallout (which, I'm sad to admit, I hadn't done in many years) and playing a bit as well as looking at some of the scripts, I think anyone paying attention would clearly agree the venerable old game of Fallout is in very poor condition indeed with bugs at every turn. Thus while in the case of a conversion one would need to revise every script in the game (on the positive side, there are less than a thousand) to take advantage of a few benefits available with FO2, on the other hand every script in the game still needs to be revised if sticking with the FO1 engine since the game (at least compared to FO2 these days thanks to killap et al) is in pretty pathetic shape.


Endocore

 

[Lexx]

Another benefit would be a much easier way to create modifications for the game.

On the other hand, there aren't even a lot mods for Fallout 2, so that probably would be an act for no gain.

 

[Sduibek]

Another benefit would be a much easier way to create modifications for the game.

On the other hand, there aren't even a lot mods for Fallout 2, so that probably would be an act for no gain.

Are you sure? I thought there was something like dozens of mods for Fo2