Icewind Dale: ToEE - Total Conversion

Character scripts

To get an idea what kinds of things the six script slots per character are used for, this is a list of all script behaviors associated with Boy 1 (Jeffy) in Easthaven:

• default script: EHBOY1.BCS (used only by this character)
  • randomly walk around a bit near the spawning point
  • randomly display one of three floating lines in between walks (limited by timer):
    • #2964 = ~Let's poke him with a stick.~
    • #2955 = ~I'm gonna ask if we can keep him.~
    • #2956 = ~Can he do any tricks?~
  • run away when an enemy is in sight
• general script: EHGOBRUN.BCS (used by all townspersons standing outdoors in Easthaven)
  • run away when a goblin is in sight
• race script: –
• class script: EFPIKHST.BCS (used by several townspersons)
  • turn hostile when the player failed a pickpocket attempt
• specifics script: EFTWNCHK.BCS (used by all townspersons)
  • whole town goes hostile when player attacks any townsperson
• override script: –

As you can see, different script slots are used to let multiple characters re-use the same script for a behavior that they share.

For characters who can actually fight (rather than just run away from enemies), the race/class scripts tend to contain their combat AI.

 

@Allyx

Random loot

In BG and BG2, all loot is fixed (I think).
In IWD, most loot is fixed, but some (and in particular the most valuable) loot is randomized.
In IWD2, even more (most?) loot is randomized.

For IWD, refer to this player guide which lists all random loot items and their locations, with screenshots.

How it works

How it works in IWD:EE, is that a container (or NPC inventory) can contain a "fake item", which represents multiple real items and which the engine automatically replaces with one of those real items when the player first enters the map that the container is in. (The choice is stored in the savegame, so to get a different item you'd have to load a savegame from before entering the map).

For example, open the Orc Cave map (AR1201) in the NearInfinity area viewer, make sure the "Containers" checkbox is checked in the sidebar, and click the treasure chest in the top-left corner. It'll show you that three items are in the container, but the third one is a random-loot "fake item" called RNDTRE16:



Near Infinity doesn't show any information about it here (a limitation that I hope will be fixed in a future NearInfinity version), but you can look up the information yourself:

The real items associated with each random-loot fake item are defined in the RNDTREAS.2DA file.

Like all 2DA files, this is a text-based associative table where the first three lines define the table header, and the remaining lines define the table entries. In each entry, fields are separated by spaces, and the first field is the key.

The fake item RNDTRE16 corresponds to the table entry with key "EC3Tres", which happens to be the 16th entry.
(To be honest, I have no idea how the engine gets from the name RNDTRE16 to the key EC3Tres, but at least for the few that I've checked, the number in the fake item name happens to map to the numerical position of the table entry.)

This is the full table entry in question:

Code:

EC3Tres ring06 uRing1b uDagg1a BeltBea BootQui ring06 uRing1b uDagg1a BeltBea BootQui ring06 uRing1b uDagg1a BeltBea BootQui ring06 uRing1b uDagg1a BeltBea

After the key, it has 19 more fields which are all real item names (without the .itm suffix).
These are the items which the engine chooses from.

Note that while each entry contains 19 item names, the same name can appear multiple times.
For example, the entry shown above only has five different items, but each item appears 3 or 4 times. This can be used to calculate the percentage chance of each item appearing:

Code:

Item    | Name                      | Count | Percentage
--------+---------------------------+-------+-----------
ring06  | Ring of Protection +1     |     4 |    21.05 %
uRing1b | Ring of Lesser Resistance |     4 |    21.05 %
uDagg1a | Fire Dagger +1            |     4 |    21.05 %
BeltBea | Girdle of Beatification   |     4 |    21.05 %
BootQui | Quiet Boots               |     3 |    15.79 %

 

@Shiningted
It only seems as if I know a lot because I look up all the gaps in my knowledge using NearInfinity/IESDP while doing these write-ups...

I'm not much of a modder, really. I did release a portrait mod, but that only involved 40 or so lines of WeiDU code. (By comparison, some popular mods have thousands of lines of WeiDU code.)
Besides that, I have ported some other people's mods to the Enhanced Edition engine, and stuff like that.
The reason I started learning about the Infinity Engine behind-the-scenes stuff in the first place, was to help me work around bugs/glitches I experienced in those games, not because I had a vision to become a modder...

Still, the thought of creating a small quest mod for IWD:EE has crossed my mind, but I'm really not great at writing (story, names, dialog, item descriptions, that kind of stuff).

 

You can do what is done with the water wheel at the miller's house in hommlet.

In the World Builder, set the 'Sound Effect' field of any scenery object to a sound number from one of the sound files like snd_misc.mes, or snd_critter.mes, and that sound will be looped.

As you get near that scenery object, the sound will get louder, and then it slowly fades away as you walk to about 100 feet.

If you don't want the object to be seen, set all those flags that make it non-interactive like OF_SEE_THROUGH, OF_SHOOT_THROUGH, OF_DONTDRAW, OF_NO_BLOCK, OF_CLICK_THROUGH, and OF_INVULNERABLE.

 

Hello, I'm not a modder, nerver done it. But if there is any work that is repetitive and don't involve a lot of know how, I'm willing to help. This mod is like a dream coming to life, best of luck to you guys!