New MP characters, heads etc


	Submitted by ghastley on Wed, 2008-03-05 13:49
	I've done a few mods to add playable characters for DS1/LoA - Naja, Succubus Queen, etc. - and they're easy to add for SP because the game will offer any template based on "hero" as an SP-usable character. This means that a new character just needs a NEW template file with the right content. However for MP use, it's necessary to REPLACE an existing gas file (or several) because there is only the one list and you have to change it. The same problem exists for new heads and a number of other things, there's a gas file that needs to be replaced, rather than just adding extra files that the game will recognise. I'm probably more aware of this as a problem because the mods I make are more likely to replace a file, compared with the "new weapon", "new armor", "new spell" kind of mods that can just consist of additional files. When you use two mods that replace the same file, they are incompatible, and the results will depend on the priorities of the dsres files used. Whichever mod has the highest priority overrules the other, and that one breaks. I've had this problem using two of my own at the same time! I don't think any Mod Managers out there attempt to address this issue, they just provide an alternative to keeping multiple resource folders and shortcuts. It seems to me that we need to come up with a concensus mechanism for mods that replace files to provide a way for people to easily combine them. One idea is to put all the replacement files in one dsres, and all the additional files in a second, so only the first needs to be untanked and merged, but that still requires work that may be beyond some users, and would be difficult for an automated installer to achieve. Another would be some kind of registry of these files, so that mod makers could pick up the latest version of the cumulative files and check it back in with their additions, but I can see that easily getting out of hand with entries for mods that will never get completed. Does anyone else have any ideas to make this easier? forums: DS1 & LoA Mod Development
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Read me

Submitted by Sharkull on Wed, 2008-03-05 19:53

My first suggestion would be to have all the modified files listed in every mod's readme file. That way you'd at least have a quick resource to check for conflicts... I seriously doubt that a fully automated way would be practical considering all the possibilities for modifications.

For the most common types of conflicts (like heros.gas) perhaps individual community combination projects could be undertaken. For example: Cat Mansion + Witness's Elves + ghastley's models, etc... all in one compatible mod.

Only when there is significant interest in one file conflict would such a thing be undertaken...

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Rather for simple cases

Submitted by KillerGremal on Fri, 2008-03-07 11:16

I could imagine a tool combining eg. the hair.gas files form two different mods, maybe even as server application there the player can tell what hair-mods to merge and the server will tank it itself (hopefully there are runnable binaries anywhere!?) and hand out the final combined mod file.

But automatically merge hole mods will be much trickier (regardless how tanked). Such a 'mod content manager' should be able then to read gas, skrit and in DS2 also flick to check for any file references.
For example a sword can consist of 5 maybe 10 files (template, mesh, texture (+gas), icon(+gas), maybe sounds (in sounddb.gas), tracer graphic (+gas) and possible skrit components), and a content merger had now to care about all this, also it would be welcome if it had any rule set how to treat autonomously situations where two mod partially have the same content - that's quite a lot to do. :-o

Actually i never have understood why GPG has implemented such inflexible lists, in DS2 it's even worse since there also set definitions and skill related data are stored like this...

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Automation beyond feasibility

Submitted by ghastley on Fri, 2008-03-07 12:58

It may be way beyond hope for any form of automation, so what I'm really looking for is ideas on simplifying the job that a mod user has when there are incompatible mods.

For example, as well as supplying mods that replace files as two separate resources, the replacements and the additions, one could go the next step and include the untanked replacement files in the zip (or rar) archive, so the mod user only has to do the editing and tanking. If they run under DSxxMOD they wouldn't even have to tank.

I also noticed that a few mods replace files when they don't need to do so. E.g. they would ship a wpn_swords.gas that has an extra template entry, rather than just a wpn_swords_bizarre.gas with the new one alone. The way GPG put theirs together leads modders to believe that's the only way possible, and there's little guidance on that subject. I admit that I tend to build mods by doing that and separate the content out only at the end when I'm ready to package it. (OK, I'm making it sound like I do dozens of 'em, but you know what I mean).

Has anyone written up a (even partial) list of files that MUST be updated in place if you need extra content? Should this site take a lead and have one as a community resource? (Notice I'm not volunteering myself to do all this work!)