Working the NWN Toolset from a USB

Neverwinter Nights 1 Toolset, Scripting, NWNX
1

So I habe been dabbling with D20 for some time and I had my GOG NWN Diamond with added CEP 2.67 and D20 2.2. on a USB so I could plug it into my PC and laptop to work outside or at my GFs.

I had dumped all the hak files into the NWN folder and not in a seperate user/docs folder and everything worked fine just with he USB.

Couple of days ago I decided to take a look at CEP 2.70, so I installed a NWN Diamond clone on the same USB and dumped the CEP 2.70 files into the folders. Toolset worked but there was no custom content to pick, like placeables or creatures. Then out of a hunch I dumped the D20 2.2 hak files on top - and upon opening the d20 module I got all the custom placeables and creatures - even the non D20 CEP ones. But when I open any of the CEP modules, the custom placeables and creatures are not available again.

I have no explanation why it makes a difference which module I open, since the nwn.ini and toolset.ini stay unchanged. Can anyone shed a light on this or tell me how to make CEP 2.70 work from a self-contained USB without having to dump the hak files into the user/docs folder of every device I want to plug in?

2

Apologies if any of the following is motherhood…

It’s perfectly possible to have two instances of Diamond Edition. They can be on the same drive (with different root folders) or different drives. USB or otherwise, makes no difference.

Each instance needs its own toolset, of course. Ensure you’re using the right one.

By default, the toolset (and game) will look for .hak files in the relative subfolder indicated by nwn.ini for that instance. That is, relative to the game root. If you want to have just one source of, say, .hak files, I think you can specify the absolute path in nwn.ini.

The list of haks for a module is found under Module Properties > Custom Content, with a dropdown for adding new ones.

If you can’t see CEP 2.70 haks in that dropdown, check that you have installed them in the correct subfolder, as indicated by nwn.ini.

To test CEP 2.70 standalone, use one of the CEP 2.70 starter modules. You will doubtless want a unique modules subfolder for each instance, so those modules go in the new one.

D20 Modern 2.2 is designed to sit on top of CEP 2.65, according to the project page. Presumably it has a top hak in which key 2da files (e.g. appearance.2da) contain both D20 and CEP content. This determines what content you can see in the toolset.

Unless you amended those merged 2da files, my guess is that although it might seem to work with CEP 2.67, you will only be able to choose content that was in 2.65. Likewise, once you have CEP 2.70 installed correctly, in the D20 module you won’t see any of the hundreds of new creatures / placeables / tilesets we added.

This is a routine issue for modules with custom content sitting on top of CEP 2.x. The remedy is to update the top hak 2da files to include the new content (which you can determine by comparing the D20 modern 2da with the version in cep2_top_2_70.hak). In practice, builders often choose to update only those 2da files whose new content they really need - CEP 2.70 will happily sit undernearth D20 Modern without changing the latter, provided you’re happy to access 2.65 content only.

If that doesn’t help, please describe the problem more precisely, giving exact file paths and the tools used at each stage.

3

Just to clarify: When you say no custom content to pick, do you mean there are no blueprints to chose from in the custom creature / placeable pallets on the right side?

That would be expected behavior - the newer CEP2 versions starter modules don’t have the blueprint hak attached any more. Maybe D20 comes with it’s own blueprint hak which has some CEP stuff incorporated.

4

Yes @boodah, that is exactly the Problem!

D20 2.2 adds these haks to the d20 starter module:
mdrn22_class
mdrn22_cloth
mdrn22_creature
mdrn22_head
mdrn22_item
mdrn22_load
mdrn22_placeable
mdrn22_portrait
mdrn22_tile

which in the TS gives me all the blueprints right from the custom pallets for D20 and CEP

The 3 different CEP 2.70 modules do not add any equivalent files, so I added the following haks to the module:
cepanatomy.hak
cepbaseitem.hak
cepcreature.hak
cepplace.hak
cepportrait.hak
ceptexture.hak

But that didn’t change anything either.

So what do I need to do to be able to chose the blueprints from the custom pallets in the TS?

EDIT: By adding the cep2da to the CEP 2.70 starter module module I actually get most of the blueprints for placeables, creatures and items I get for the D20 2.2 starter - but still the later adds a huge number of non-modern blueprints, especially placeables which I still don’t get with CEP 2.70…

5

Most blueprints were discontinued in CEP 2 long ago, because, at the time, the sheer number of files broke limits for some of the larger PWs.

The recommended approach is to edit a similar blueprint, changing the appearance from the dropdown. For creatures, for example, you will see hundreds of new appearances. Stats can be tweaked to suit.

The D20 Modern 2.2 project page says

That’s still true and will give you a limited set of templates for CEP 2.70.

Refer to the CEP 2.70 docs folder for the correct hak order. The haks named cep*.hak (as opposed to cep2*.hak) are CEP1 files which you definitely don’t need (other than when playing CEP1 modules).

6

Just to reiterate what Proleric already said, you need to add cep2_add_sb_v1.hak to the module to see these blueprints you’re missing.

Apologies if these things are already clear to you, but a few notes to this:

  • the content is not missing at all, just the ready to use blueprints; you’re kinda expected to make your own blueprints now for the reasons stated by Proleric

  • by adding the hak you’ll get some, but you’ll be missing a LOT of new content added since (monsters, placeables, items) if you only use these blueprints and never look beyond them

  • adding the hak is just one way of adding them; you can also use the provided erf files to import them; main difference being you’ll be able to modify or delete them that way

7

Thanks for the replies, now I understand the system behind the CEP :blush: