Completely new to EE as of a week ago and after years of working in 1.69, I’m having problems with “auto-saving” characters in EE using my old nbde_database scheme.
Can anyone fill me in on what the difference is between these? Do they (or either of them) overwrite the existing character file (hopefully) or write a new copy of the character?
Also, are variables on items in the character’s inventory still saved with the character in EE?
Nice t’meetcha, new/returning person. 
Are you going for a singleplayer or a multiplayer or a PW project? I think there are some differences depending on whether they get exported to localvault or servervault. 1.69 singleplayer exports erase inventory item variables, for example, (AFAIK unless the item is in a container at the time).
Digging up some links that might help with one thing or another (seems you’re not the only one having trouble with NBDE in the EE; 'm not finding a thread where this has been solved, so far):
For checking up on what exactly specific functions do, the Lexicon is a great place to go.
DoSinglePlayerAutoSave() creates a savegame, overriding the previous Autosave save. Think “As the player approaches the bossfight room, the game suddenly saves on it’s own”.
ExportSingleCharacter() exports a character .bic file. At least in singleplayer, this doesn’t override the existing .bics, it creates a new one on the first free “slot”, numbering the “versions” of the character like this:
Bob Bobble
Bob Bobble (1)
Bob Bobble (2)
Bob Bobble (3)
… etc.
What are you trying to do? 
If NBDE is broken at the moment, somebody may know alternatives.
Thanks for the reply!
It has been awhile since I’ve been in the toolset and never having used DoSinglePlayerAutoSave() or ExportSingleCharacter() I assumed they were new EE calls. Hah - well I should have looked at the lexicon myself first, before posting.
We have a PW project that dates from NWN original launch and has bloomed and ebbed quite often over the years. It’s in a bloom phase again I guess, because I just love (and can’t seem to ever completely break free from this addiction!) the creative outlet the NWN toolset provides.
We have always saved characters via the nwn database with Knat’s nbde_ system to speed things up. We also have always used Olander’s horse system, with all it’s goodies and that system uses an item given to the player’s inventory to store all the horse-related variables. Similarly, our modified UO Crafting system uses a book item in the player’s inventory to store all the players skill advancements.
For years. all this worked quickly and smoothly with all saves happening very often and completely in the background. However, since EE, when I use nbde databases, DoSinglePlayerAutoSave() or ExportSingleCharacter() , no variables are being preserved on any items in characters inventory.
Love a lot about this EE expansion, not the gaudy color changes so much though (having to redo many many custom outfits! ) and definitely not liking no variables being saved on player inventory items.
I’ll give the basic nwn databse a try without nbde and see if I can get things working again.
Thanks again!