Help with editing 2DA's

[thebighirt]

Hi, I am just asking for help on putting mods that have different 2DA files together. (Yes, I did read the newbies forum and another thread that delt with this problem, however, they, to me at least, were very confusing). I am trying to combine the following mods together: Achille's Enhanced Lightsabers Mod; T7Nowhere's Lightsaber 6 Pack (with Obi-wan's lightsaber, Blood of Malovolence Saber, Mace Windu's saber, ect.); Holowan Lightsaber Pack (with sabers by Redhawke, Mav, and others); Mod Pack 1.1 Lightsaber & DarkSide equipement T7nowhere; and Bastila's Revelation Robes by Svosh.

I DO NOT WANT SOMEONE TO MAKE THESE ALL COMPATIBLE

If someone could just explain to me simply, step by step, how to modify 2DA's in mods to make them compatible, I would be very grateful. I only provided the names of the mods I was trying to combine to answer the question of What mods are you trying to put together? if someone asked.

[ChAiNz.2da]

First question, are you familiar with editing .2da files already or are you starting from scratch?

 

You'll first need to get Fred Tetra's KotOR Tool. It will enable you to edit the .2da file format (and forgive me if you already knew this, I'm just making sure).

 

Unfortunately there's no 'easy' way of making .2da's compatible. Well, it's easy in a sense, just time consuming.

 

Basic premise is that you'll need to open each and every similiar .2da file included with the mods, ie - open all upcrystals.2da files together, or all the appearance.2da files together.

 

You'll have to scan through each and every .2da file and compare the differences (the time consuming part). If you're lucky, the mod readme file will tell which lines were changed and what to look for (I did in the Revelations Robe Mod), if not... grab a notepad (or the program) to jot down the differences.

** - Hint: always check the last lines first, more often than not that's where the changes are going to be... just not for all mods though. Checking the modela, texa, etc & modelb, texb, etc. columns are a good second choice.

 

I tend to use the largest (most lines) of the available .2da files and use it as my "base" .2da. Editing/Adding lines to it from the other files. Just make sure to have a backup copy of the original just in case

 

Some things to note are that the upcrystals.2da lines are not dependant on what line (row number) the entries are on, so editing them is no sweat, just make sure the proper columns have the correct entries.

 

However, some appearance.2da, and especially baseitems.2da files are dependant on the row #. If you have to place the entries on a different line, you'll more than likely have to edit a .uti file somewhere in the mix. (Further details can be given if you come upon that problem).

 

Be sure to take advantage of the ability to right-click and copy/paste entries or entire rows if need be, it can be a real time saver. However, you can't copy & paste from one .2da file to another. It only works within the same .2da file. Luckily there's usually similiar lines you can copy so that you'll only need to change a few entries rather than the entire line.

 

That's really pretty much it in a nutshell, if you need more detailed instruction or are having particular problems... don't hesitate to ask. There's plenty of us here that's felt your pain and have encountered this problem (speaking from experience here )

 

Hope that helps, even if a little bit. Let us know your progress!

[Darkkender]

Originally posted by ChAiNz.2da

Be sure to take advantage of the ability to right-click and copy/paste entries or entire rows if need be, it can be a real time saver. However, you can't copy & paste from one .2da file to another. It only works within the same .2da file. Luckily there's usually similiar lines you can copy so that you'll only need to change a few entries rather than the entire line.

 

Are you refering to you can't copy from baseitems.2da to another baseitems.2da or from baseitems.2da to appearance.2da.

 

The first from baseitems.2da to baseitems.2da method can be done on a copy row function built into Fred's 2da editor I just covered this in another thread as well. Click on the Grey header cell for the row that will highlight the entire row. Then Right click the Header cell it will give you a few different choices. Choose copy row.(you can only copy one row at a time though) Now go up to the file menu option and choose load 2da. Open the version of the said 2da file you merging everything into.(At this stage you will get something like a unhandled exception error just press continue) Go to the first empty row and highlight the row and then right click paste row. Do Not ever use the renumber rows function. Since many 2da's start with row zero and the renumber function will start with number 1 as being the first number. Make certain to save after pasting and then reopen the 2da you are copying from.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Thanks Darkkender for the tip, I'll have to try this!

 

I usually stopped once I got to the error message being the overcautious goof that I am... hehe

 

Although it's only one line at a time, it would still be quite handy

[T7nowhere]

My Lightsaber & DarkSide equipment will be a little incompatable with my lightsaber 6 pack. one of the new models uses the same model var as one of the old ones. Don't ask why I did this Just be aware that you will have to change the number of one of the conflicting models.

[thebighirt]

First question, are you familiar with editing .2da files already or are you starting from scratch?

I'm starting from scratch. Thanks.

[thebighirt]

My Lightsaber & DarkSide equipment will be a little incompatable with my lightsaber 6 pack. one of the new models uses the same model var as one of the old ones. Don't ask why I did this Just be aware that you will have to change the number of one of the conflicting models.

How do you change this number? (or better, where is this number? Is it simply going into the 2DA and changing the line or what?)