A question for someone with insight to the scripts

[MLeoDaalder]

Hello all!

 

This might be my first post, but I hope I'm not considerd a Newbie (I am when it comes to KotOR modding, but not when it comes to Star Trek Bridge Commander modding, in special, scripting). I did a search but I couldn't find something like this.

 

Anyway modding in BC would not have been so handy (or have come so far) would it not be for 1 (or a couple of) man. In special someone who calls himself Dasher42.

 

He created a system he calls the "Foundation". It's a plugin system that allows modders to add ships, bridges, improved scripts, new effects (that use other existing effects, so a nice shockwave using a combination of sparks, sound, smoke, a sprite and splash damage, instead of just a smoke and a sprite) and completly new "technologies" (ie. weapons that drain ships, Phase cloak (to pass through other objects), cluster torpedoes juts to name a few) and in a couple of months a dynamic universe (where there was just a bunch of systems). All that just because of one system.

 

Now, this is made in a scripting language called Python, a very modular and dynamic language. I've seen that the NWScript is C(++) based.

 

Now is my question for the person with insight to the scripts.

Would it be possible to create a large set of "hooks" throughout the scripts and use those to check if there is a mod for that specific "hook"? And thus allowing more mods without overwriting each other. I've seen (well I think atleast) that the scripts can look at 2da files, these files are the most overwritten ounce (and creating in compatibilities in the scripts). And another important thing, how are 2da files loaded (in scripts or in the exe, I think the latter), or how are they used?

 

Thank you for your time.

 

PS

 

Before anyone starts ranting about Star Trek VS Star Wars, I'm a fan of both (+ LOTR, Battlestar Galactica, Midsummer Murders, A Touch of Frost, Morse, Columbo). Just to prevent flame wars and such.

And the being in my avatar is a Tholian. My favourite species from Star Trek, my favourite character from Star Wars is R2D2.

Just before anyone asks (I did this because these are the anwsers to a certain kind of questions I got shoved down my throat at another Star Wars forum, no offense to SW forums who do keep a better check on their members.

[tk102]

What a nice, thought-provoking question(s). I'll answer to the best of my ability and someone else chime in if they know otherwise.

 

Re: Hooks

In KotOR, scripts require compilation before they are recognized in-game. We have but one tool available for this task: HazardX's port of Torlack's nwnnsscomp utility. This compiler will not recognize OS type include files such as "stdafx.h", and thus, cannot be extended to perform OS operations. This is probably a good thing to keep malicious modders from hacking people while they play KotOR.

 

There was internal talk about the need to develop a 3rd party utility to organize mods in the override folder awhile back but it wasn't acted upon.

 

Re: 2da files

2da files are not read directly from scripts but from the swkotor.exe itself. Many times, nwscript.nss declares constants to mirror values in the 2da files for its own use. 2da files are loaded into memory at the time swkotor.exe is loaded.

[MLeoDaalder]

Thanks for the reply!

 

It's to bad KotOR didn't use Python, it would have been so much easier (and mostlikly already done)...

 

Let's hope BioWare (I suppose they are also making KotOR 2) are going to use Python for it. But mostlikly not.

[MLeoDaalder]

Thanks for your time.

 

To bad BioWare chose for their own scripting language and didn't go with Python.

It would have made things so much easier...

 

[EDIT] Any reason why 10 times checking my previous post didn't show and then after I give up on that it is enterd it does show up? Is this normal?