Doing my part (.mob format)

Hey, dulcaoin!

Yes, it does, but I like the 010 Editor implementation a LOT more! Let's say, Hex Workshop doesn't really highlight every defined template block in the hex view when you click on it. So, 010 Editor is far better for our goal.

Of course I can't be 100% sure but when I was experimenting with spawning long time ago I came across this problem and spent like a week trying to figure out why the weapons and the like won't spawn on the ground. At first I even used to think that the coordinates for an object are stored somewhere else. Later I came to a conclusion (through a multiple file comparison) that the coordinates are in the same place but they don't really seem to do anything. This seems logical, too, because ALL the mob files for a map have to be loaded into memory and parsed before the map itself starts. If you carefully check all the item MOB files you'll see that they all have coordinates defined for them. If they were to spawn on their own we would have weaponry scattered all over the place during the game.

This, however, leads me to another conclusion. We still have a chance of spawning items on the ground, tho. Once we get a more or less complete outline of a MOB file (enough to freely remove or add different blocks) we could try cutting away the back-reference to the container and see if this allows the item to spawn on its own (it might, technically speaking). For now we can't cut away this block without making the game crash, so there's no way to check. It seems logical, too - if there is no target container specified for an item it has to spawn on its own. That's my assumption, though.

Hmm... I've seen some patterns in the end there, I didn't check it out tho... We'll see what turns out.

Thanks for the information.
- Agetian

 

OK, back in action.

I investigated the Arcanum NPC and chest mob files. It turns out that Arcanum doesn't use referencing/back-referencing as a way to store items in a container. Instead, it contains an inventory source link (similar to the one you discovered in ToEE).

Arcanum USES the referencing method for NPCs, though. It stores the items for a NPC in a similar manner to ToEE.

I enclose the Arcanum NPC mobile and its items in a zip file here so you can compare to ToEE. Note that the NPC also has a lot of modified properties which come BEFORE the item block. Of course, the biggest file is the NPC, the rest are its inventory.

- Agetian

 

Haha *lol*

I've discovered a funny thing in Arcanum WorldEd today. If you create a NPC and give it some items, all the items become linked to the NPC via referencing/back-referencing (see my post above). However, if you delete the NPC, all the items... appear on the ground as standalone items!

I think it reinforces my assumption that severing a link between a NPC/container and its contents in ToEE may result in items spawning on their own! Gotta test it somehow, but there's no way to do it right now (I can't safely remove the back-reference to container without making the game crash).

P.S. I post the "dereferenced" items in this post (the ones which have the link severed). Note that it still has the back-reference to the container, but the final bytes are changed! (something else might have changed, too - didn't have time to test thoroughly).

- Agetian

 

Thanks a lot, this instance kinda slipped my mind. I'll check that out!
- Agetian