I am a bit uncertain, what is the real purpose of these custom .tlk files? What if I don’t add them, then what would I be missing out from CEP for example?
I wish to use the cep library of models/tilesets etc. and I want to have my own custom assets such as: items, objects, monsters etc. which use CEP or ProjectQ models.
I hope having an custom .tlk file instead of the cep260.tlk & projectq.tlk, will not make my players to re-download the whole CEP content if they already have it?
Finally I’ve gathered from another thread that the .tlk file is a “Talk file” but I still don’t quite get it yet. Is this the file responsible of displaying item descriptions when examined in-game? But then again I saw people talking that it can be used to change Feat descriptions.
The tlk is what allows the game to talk to the player through stringrefs. It’s kind of a big deal. If you are using both the CEP and Q, you’re going to need some kind of tlk. It is possible to merge both, but it is tedious and painstaking. You are literally talking about 1000s of files that require it. I have created my own custom tlk for my PW that I have merged with CEP and the ACP4.0. It’s tricky, but not impossible.
Axe Murderer’s TLK Editor can easily merge both Q and CEP tlks. What you need to do first is decide which project will take priority over the other.
Once that is done create a copy of your dominant project’s TLK file (I recommend CEP over Q because CEP has some Q content in it, and the CEP TLK is larger).
Next you’ll want to copy the Q TLK lines into the CEP Haks starting at some easy reference line beyond where the CEP TLK ends. Then all you need to do is update the 2da files you merged to point the new lines for entries that reference Q resources.
Your players will only need your merged 2da files and your custom tlk, neither of which will harm their Q and CEP installs.
EDIT - You might want to look at what the Amethyst Dragon did for his PW. IIRC, it uses a merger of CEP and Q. I also think Sanctum of the Arch Mage uses a CEP/Q merge as well.
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Thanks for the tip! This seems easy enough (thanks for not making it sound scary 
). I just figured a few moments before your reply, that I should approach it in such a manner (paste the Q Strefs below the CEP Strefs). Didn’t knew the tiny thing about the 2da files though, thanks for pointing that out.
Is there any negative side for doing it all this way? Is this going to be more pain for the players to download or anything?
I probably don’t need ALL of the content from Q, there’s too much high poly stuff. But I want a few select tilesets and models from their pack.
Care to recommend a basic but efficient workflow to achieve that? Does this mean that my server needs to have an custom .hak file after I have exported the stuff out from Q which I require?
Blessings!
What you’ll need to do is make a custom tophak for your server that has the 2da merges in it. You don’t need to alter the contents of CEP or Q core packages as you can specify which content to use in your merged 2da files.
When setting up HAKs for your server, I would keep CEP on top of Q. Then run the conflict checker (its located where you add haks to a module). Then you’ll see what CEP content overwrites Q content, as well as what each package overwrites from the vanilla content.
By keeping the CEP and Q core haks intact, your players will only need to download any server specific haks you make so it won’t be much of a pain - assuming they already have CEP and Q installed on their systems.
The Q haks are also designed to work independently of each other as opposed to the CEP haks which require all their haks to work. Thus, if you want the Q placeables and creatures for example, you can just link in q_creatures and q_placeables and be done with it.
As for Q being “high-poly”, they’re more of a mid-poly count and have been thoroughly tested throughout the years of development. Granted, I didn’t test them widely with EE before I released Qv3.0 and Qv3.1, but I never experienced any issues due to polycount on my old computer under v1.69. I also did quite a bit of benchmarking with the Q TNO extension and the other tilesets in the q_!tilesets hak and was able to maintain fps in the 60-70 range under typical encounter loads in single-player. The only complaint about fps and lag I’ve heard was actually traced back to improper handling of the v1.69 horses.
