Request: clarification on files - bitm_, materialrules and materialtypes?

[maaaaaaaaap]

Hi,

 

I am need of a bit of assistance. I am uncertain how the files bitm_*.gda, materialrules_*.gda and materialtypes_*.gda work together.

It seems that if I rely solely on bitm, all items without exceptions get the number of runes as given in the RuneCount column - which requires that I make custom versions of normal clothing, since I do not want these to have rune slots.

 

Can someone help me with clarification on how these files (and others I may not be aware of yet!) work together, and how I should approach them? I don't want to make rune slots for ALL equipment - but I want to enable them for the upper tiers (red steel and up) for boots, gloves and helms, and I want to enable rune slots for mage helmets and robes (but not ALL clothing).

[theskymoves]

It has been quite a few years since I worked with global run slots (i.e., adding slots to items that do not have runes enabled by default), but I am certain that whether an item has that capability is determined on a per-item basis, with a YES/NO toggle in the item UTI. (Ref.)

 

IIRC, bitm.gda has a YES/NO toggle for 'these items can use rune slots', and materialrules.gda establishes the number of rune slots, based on the material (tier) of the item - higher level materials have more rune slots.

 

From what I can recall, the game doesn't use the rune slot information in materialtypes.gda (or it might be duplicative of the information in materialrules.gda... it really has been a long time.)

 

ETA that per the toolset wiki, the rune slot information in materialtypes is, in fact, not used by the game; the information in materialrules is. (Ref.) The rune count information in BITM is, per the wiki, 'Base number of runes. Note that 0 and even negative numbers can be increased into positive by the material types, so we use a rather large negative number to prevent runes on most items.' (Ref.)

 

So, BITM gives a 'base' number of rune slots for an item type, and setting a large negative number there will effectively prevent rune slots from ever appearing on an item type.

 

Materialrules assigns rune slots based on the material/tier of the item; the higher the tier, the more slots.

 

And the item file (UTI) ultimately defines whether an given item has rune slots enabled or not. Since clothing/robes do not have rune slots enabled in vanilla, you wouldn't need to do anything to keep them from having rune slots in your mod: just use the default Bioware UTI in place. (Or don't edit the ITEM_RUNE_ENABLED variable.)

Edited June 20, 2021 by theskymoves

[maaaaaaaaap]

Thanks! Great to hear from one of the toolset wizardesses. ;-)
The fact that Clothing does not have tiers in DAO is a bit of a hassle, and is the reason I get into this trouble... I would rather set RuneCount in Materialrules*.gda than bitm*.gda, but as long as Clothing does not have any Materialrules attached, this might be quite difficult to work out in DAO.

 

What I am trying to accomplish is to have max 2 runes for armor (and robes), max 1 rune for helmets, gloves, boots (including mage helmets), AND max 1 rune for tier 4 and 5, max 2 runes for tier 6 and 7, and max 3 runes for tier 8 and 9 (and as you probably have guessed, have these play together; e.g., a veridium scale armor should have 1 rune slot only).

And no runes for clothing other than robes (and not for Apprentice or Tranquil).

 

EDIT: I think I sorted out the problem - it appears that Dain's fixpack introduces a component which is supposed to give rune slots to some items that don't have that, but instead seems to override the entire ITEM_RUNE_ENABLED variable on the .uti's.
Removing that, things work as you say (and how things have worked for me before also) - and I don't need to make local versions of each piece of clothing that exists in the game. :-)

Edited June 23, 2021 by maaaaaaaaap