AI mod help. (If Stoffe is a member of these boards, PLEASE look here!)

[Sir Vougalot]

Okay. So I downloaded this mod for KOTOR II, and now when I go to install it I keep having running into this:

Now, I have downloaded and installed the two mods that are prerequisites to this one, and have made sure that the there are no conflicting files in my Override folder. I even tried restarting my computer, and still no luck.

 

Now, the readmes do not provide any contact information for the author, so I was hoping that someone here might be able to help me with this problem; or even better, if perhaps the author (Stoffe) is a member of these boards, or if anyone knows how to get in contact with him.

 

I'm truly sorry if this is the wrong place for this thread. The modding folders are mostly read-only, and the one open folder for posting is only for mod requests. Once again, I appologise. (EDIT: Looks like someone moved this to the proper forum. Never mind.)

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this mod sounds like a really good idea and I'd really like to give it a try. Many thanks in advance.

[RedHawke]

As this is about mod installation issues moving to Holowan Labs...

 

Zerimar Nyliram, please place threads in the appropriate areas. The Work Bench is for game related issues (Crashes/etc.), mod installation issues are for Holowan Labs or the mods Release thread in T.U.C.E..

[Sir Vougalot]

I said I wasn't sure if I was putting it in the proper forum because the Holowan Labs seemed to be all about mod requests, if you had read my entire post carefully. Please don't chastise me for something I already appologised for in advance.

 

And on that note, let's all form a circle, join hands, and sing happy hippy songs. And uh, comment on my problem, too.

[RedHawke]

I said I wasn't sure if I was putting it in the proper forum because the Holowan Labs seemed to be all about mod requests, if you had read my entire post carefully.

It still doesn't change anything I stated to you above.

 

Please don't chastise me for something I already appologised for in advance.

Chastise you? Hardly! Where did I chastise you?

 

You are just trying to play a blame game with me, not good my freind. I am just doing my job.

[SithRevan]

*Snip* there is one thing I need to ask, did you unzip the file because that will cause that same problem, and if you did I am not sure exactly about whats going on then. Hope this helps!

 

Removed off-topic part. -RH

[stoffe]

Okay. So I downloaded this mod for KOTOR II, and now when I go to install it I keep having running into this:

Now, I have downloaded and installed the two mods that are prerequisites to this one, and have made sure that the there are no conflicting files in my Override folder. I even tried restarting my computer, and still no luck.

 

Hmm, works fine when I try to install it. Love it how applications don't work the same on different computers.

 

Anyway, I vaguely remember that a Windows commandline can be at most 255 characters in length. Seeing as how deep within the folder structure you have placed things the compiler commandline would exceed that limit (if it does indeed exist and I don't just remember incorrectly).

 

So, try to move the "Modified AI" folder to your C: top folder and try running it from there again. Please let me know if that makes any difference.

 

If that doesn't work either I have no idea what could be wrong, and don't know what I can do about it since I don't understand a word of the source code for nwnnsscomp, so I can't really fix any problems relating to it. If this is the case I will have the mod removed from KotorFiles and kept as a Holowan exclusive "unofficial mod" instead. Too much headache if more people experience similar problems.

 

Have anyone else reading this who has tested this particular mod experienced similar problems?

 

If you still want to use it, use the installation option without High Level FP mod support. It'll still work, only enemies and your party members won't use any of the new force powers from that mod.

 

(As an aside, the High Level FP mod is not required to use the Improved AI. There are two installation options, one "stand alone" and one that supports the High Level FP mod if you have it.)

[Sir Vougalot]

Okay, I put the folder into my top C drive directory. The installation got a little further, but not much as you can see in the screen shot below:

Now, I would simply install it manually at this point by dropping the files into the Override folder, however I don't know how to handle spells.2da files, which this mod's installer does for you.

 

EDIT: I actually attempted this twice, and it displayed different text the second time.

 

Here's the second attempt:

[Jackel]

The differences in the two pictures in your last post seem to be there because you already had some of the files in your override folder (k_ai_master.nss etc) from your last attempt to install the mod. As it says "making backup copy of *file name* found in override.

[Sir Vougalot]

Okay, here's what I did: I manually dropped all files that the installed did not get a chance to install. So basically, I copied all files after k_hen-hanharrdlg.nss into it. Now, since the installer said that it already updated the spells.2da file, and I put in everythin g after that, should it be okay?

 

I guess the hardest part is that I'm not playing KOTOR II at this time, nor do I plan on replaying it for another couple of months. Therefore I can't really do anything about testing it.

[stoffe]

Okay, here's what I did: I manually dropped all files that the installed did not get a chance to install. So basically, I copied all files after k_hen-hanharrdlg.nss into it. Now, since the installer said that it already updated the spells.2da file, and I put in everythin g after that, should it be okay?

 

The problem with doing that is that the game does not use .nss files for anything. They are script source code used to compile the .ncs files that the game actually uses. The installer uses the external nwnnsscomp.exe script compiler (the application that crashes on you) to create those NCS files before installing them, after having inserted some necessary (2DA reference) values into (temporary work copies of) the NSS files.

 

There is a way to do a "manual compilation" so to speak, but it requires some knowledge of modding and how to compile scripts. If you want to try it I can explain how, but it might be a bit confusing if you know little or nothing about how things fit together behind the scenes of the game.

 

If you don't want to go through that trouble but still use the mod, pick the Non-High Level FP dependant install option in the dropdown menu when you start the installer. That should work since it won't recompile any scripts, and the only thing that differs is that the new force powers won't be used by the AI.

 

* * *

 

Very odd that it suddenly worked to compile some of the scripts that crashed nwnnsscomp before when you moved it, but not all of them. Unless that extra character in "k_hen_hanharrdlg.dlg" causes the commandline to become too long again, but I don't see how that would happen if you've moved the files to a place with a less enormous folder path.

 

Must be something that nwnnsscomp.exe does not like in some circumstances, but since that tool is made by Torlack and adapted by tk102 I don't know anything about how it works so I can't figure out what is wrong. (The source code is available but you might as well show me hieroglyphs and I could read and understand those just as well. That thing is way beyond my neophyte programming skills.)

[Sir Vougalot]

I installed the independent version, and it works. Thanks for your help, all of you.

[Pavlos]

Must be something that nwnnsscomp.exe does not like in some circumstances, but since that tool is made by Torlack and adapted by tk102 I don't know anything about how it works so I can't figure out what is wrong. (The source code is available but you might as well show me hieroglyphs and I could read and understand those just as well. That thing is way beyond my neophyte programming skills.)

 

I could have sworn it was Fred Tetra who adapted nwnnsscomp for us. I could be wrong, and that happens more often than not.

[stoffe]

I could have sworn it was Fred Tetra who adapted nwnnsscomp for us. I could be wrong, and that happens more often than not.

 

Fred Tetra modified a version of nwnnsscomp to work better along with KotorTool, while tk102 was kind enough to modify a version for me to work better with TSLPatcher, which is the one that comes in the TSLPatcher archive.

 

The most notable difference between the KotorTool version and tk102's version is how include files are handled. In tk102's version the compiler will look for any include files used by the script in the same folder as the script NSS file including it is located, while the earlier KT version looks for include files and nwscript.nss in the Windows Current Folder (whatever it's called, the one you can set with "chdir", or is the folder path you stand at when running the executable from a command line), while later versions were looking in the game data directly by looking it up through the registry, which would make installation on non-US games fail since a broken nwscript.nss is included in the game data there.

 

This was needed for TSLPatcher to be able to keep a single nwnnsscomp.exe and nwscript.nss in the tslpatchdata while the scripts themselves could exist in sub-folders used by different Setup Lists/namespaces, and not rely on a nwscript.nss in the game data to be correct.

 

Another change, which is rather significant when you write larger scripts, is that the tk102 variant of nwnnsscomp allows you to declare constants in your scripts. Much more efficient than using non-modified global variables as placeholders for values, and it works to use constants as cases in switch statements, unlike global vars.

 

The tk102 version will not include some of the newer commandline options Fred Tetra included in the KT versions though, since tk102 only had the original NWN source code from Torlack's site to work with when making this version.