Non-English user running English mods? English creator making non-English translations? Read this!

[Yukichigai]

Recently I've been doing some translation of one my larger mods (YUP) to various other languages, since it overrides quite a bit of dialog, weapons, armor, NPCs, terminals, quests, and other things that would have language-specific text. I figured this would be a long but straightforward process, mostly just copying text via FNVEdit. Unfortunately, that's when I came across something unexpected.

 

Short version: the different language versions of Fallout: New Vegas have different FormIDs for certain records. Real example, what corresponds to an AI Package in the English edition may point to a Game Setting record in the French version.

 

Obviously, this can cause some serious problems for some mods. If you've created a weapon that uses an existing repair list, but the Spanish version thinks it's pointing at a Dialog record, chances are your mod is going to crash something. Fortunately there is a way to figure out if your mod is affected.

 

As best I can tell, the only affected records are ones in the main FalloutNV.esm whose FormID is equal to or greater than 17B75A. Anything below that is the same between different language editions. Anything above that is almost guaranteed to be a completely different record type, much less the thing you're actually trying to reference. This is true even between different non-English languages, e.g. the French version uses different FormIDs than the Spanish version for the records starting at 17B75A.

 

Also fortunately, FNVEdit can detect most of this easily. Just use the "Check for Errors" option by right-clicking on the file in question. While it won't point out wrongly overridden records, it will tell you if something is pointing at a placed object when it thinks its pointing at a form list. FNVEdit will also list issues with records being the wrong type when you load up the files in the first time. Check the Messages tab and look for anything that starts with "Warning"..

 

I realize this information comes kind of late, but here it is now at least. If any of you are planning to either run an English mod on a non-English install, or translate an English mod to a different language or vice-versa, you should check for any overrides of or references to records starting at 17B75A.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Yukichigai

[Deleted4363562User]

I'm really glad that you are working on this. It's nice to see people getting more involved in translating mods. I had been doing this for a while, but I have grown tired, depressed and overwhelmed by the problems involved. I hope that I get motivated again.

 

It's often as simple a process as running FNVEdit's translator script and then checking for errors, but as you've pointed out, it can get very messy when trying to make sure that records between game versions match up the way that they should. It gets really tedious and laborous loading different esms and esps just to check records and make comparisons.

 

I also remember trying to translate YUP into Spanish, and had most of it done, but various dialogue lines that never showed up in FNVEdit always stayed in English. I could never locate them in the GECK or FNVEdit, and thus gave up.

 

I have a huge backlog of mods whose translations I need to update, and it's still my hope that I can get NVEC translated, but I need to find a proper format to do it, so that I can involve multiple translators. It is a HUGE mod after all.

 

If you want to collaborate at all, or need anything, I speak Italian, French and Spanish. Just PM me.