How does this thing WORK!

[RustyBlade]

If you are going to wipe out your DLC's and dazips it would be best to delete the addins.xml file in your My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Settings folder. The first DLC you install will create a new one.

 

Multiple files of the same name in subfolders in your override will absolutely conflict with each other. As the highlander said, "There can be only one." Can you remove one and have both mods work? Sometimes but rarely; if you have two mods that use the same files they are generally incompatible however the possibility exists to place the second one in your [install Drive]:\Program Files\Dragon Age\packages\core\override and maybe things will work out. There are no guarantees though. Your My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override folder gets the top priority.

Edited December 1, 2010 by RustyBlade

[woodtortiose]

Aahhh RustyBlade, I'm glad you're around.

 

I knew of the addins.xml, but I was under the impression (not sure why) that it only had dlcs, not necessarily every dazip. Guess I'll have to reinstall the DLCs as well (was trying to save myself a half hour). By the By, is Awakenings considered by the game as a DLC as well?

 

Ok, I guess my question was this. If, two files of the same name are in two different subfolders in Documents/../../../../override, how does the game decide which one loads?

 

Most of the override mods I'm using, I put all the files in a subfolder I created (and named so that I would recognise it), then put it into the override folder. That way if I find I dont care for a mod I can just pull the folder rather than unzipping the original download and scrolling through several hundred files to pull all that mods files. The problem with doing this is that when I add a subfolder to my override folder, if it contains a file of the same name as another subfolder, it doesnt ask my if I want to replace the one already there. I guess what I'll do is just make a temp folder and copy all the contents of the subfolders into it to see if there are any conflicts.

 

If I do this (put all mod files into one folder with no subfolders) and there are no two files of the same name, how safe is it to assume that there wont be ingame conflicts? I'm not really familiar enough (at all) with Dragon Age specific file extensions to know what each file affects. Can two files with different file extensions conflict? can two files with the same file extension but different names conflict? Ahh, this is why I need to familiarize myself with the toolset.

[Thandal]

@Woodtortoise; Short answer SEEMS to be, the game will use the first file it finds using the standard alphanumeric folder/file naming convention search process. So it will search all of the files (and files in sub-folders) of "Alpha_Mods", before searching for anything in "Beta_Mods", before searching in "Charlie_Mods". If it finds what it's looking for in "Beta_Mods", it stops searching.

 

What introduces (apparent) randomness, and (genuine) confusion is that the game engine will search, or not search, for the same things at different times. One of the best known examples is in its selection of body models. If the engine has recently had to find the current "default human male" body model, (to use for some NPC prisoners, maybe) then it might NOT search again to find the "Alistair-with-Hulk-Arms" mod that you installed, AND which it correctly displayed just five minutes ago. :laugh:

 

What exactly triggers what specifc search is buried deep in the Eclipse game-engine code. So even deconflicting the obvious issues doesn't always produce the expected results. We poor players and modders can only make guesses based on experimentation. LOTS of experimentaion! :tongue:

[RustyBlade]

By the By, is Awakenings considered by the game as a DLC as well?

 

Yes and no. It does show up in the addins.xml so you may want to have a look in the file (open with notepad) and see what remains after you uninstall everything. If there is not a whole lot, find the end of the awakenings section and delete everything between the end of it and the last line so when you get done, it would look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<AddInsList>
<AddInItem UID="DAO_PRC_EP_1" Name="PRC_EP1" ExtendedModuleUID="" Priority="110" Enabled="1" State="2" Format="1" BioWare="1">
	<Title DefaultText="Dragon Age: Awakening">
		<en-us>
			<![CDATA[Dragon Age: Awakening]]>
		</en-us>
		<fr-fr>
                      BLAH BLAH BLAH    omitting a
                       BLAH BLAH BLAH    few hundred
                        BLAH BLAH BLAH     lines of text
		<hu-hu>
			<![CDATA[Electronic Arts]]>
		</hu-hu>
	</Publisher>
	<PrereqList/>
	<FileList>
		<Folder src="packages/" Type="package"/>
		<Folder src="addins/" Type="addin"/>
	</FileList>
</AddInItem>
</AddInsList>

 

Not that a clean install would hurt but you would have to reinstall the 1.04 patch after awakenings.

 

Edited for poor grammar and the fact I forgot vb code doesn't work in the code tag duh :wallbash:

Edited December 1, 2010 by RustyBlade

[woodtortiose]

Thanks Thandal and RB!

 

Just to be safe I figured I go ahead and do a complete reinstall.

 

I wish Bioware games were as mod friendly as Bethesda games. If what you say is true Thandal then all these poor modders are just kinda fumbling around in the dark. Though to be fair, DA is a bit more modderfriendly than the KOTORs and Mass Effect. That said, since they've given me hundreds of hours of pleasure, I shouldn't *censored* too much.

 

Oh, and apologies to the OP, kinda hijacked the thread

[KageRune]

My apologies for digging up this ancient topic. I recently finished Dragon Age for the first time on PS3, and decided to join the fun on PC with mods. I can never figure these things out the first time though. Even with the detailed instructions in this post, I think I may have done something wrong. Using Equal Love, I extracted the files and placed it like so: C:\Program Files\Dragon Age\packages\core\override\Equal Love, but Alistair is not responding to my bro Warden (or maybe the mod just isn't designed to work that early in the game).

 

In any case, I'm wondering if any of the original game files have to be removed from Core in order for mods to work. By my misunderstanding, the first time I tried this, I removed the entire original Core file and made a new one, then tossed in override\Equal Love, and unsurprisingly, the game didn't start.

 

Just a confirmation of whether or not I'm doing something wrong would be appreciated. Alter the original Core files or place Override into Core with the defaults? The mods I've installed all have the same instructions of placing them into override.

[Thandal]

The Equal Love mod (or any of the mods that overcome the arbitrary limitations of gender, race, class) do not change the OTHER requirements for achieving various objectives. The romances in DA require significant attention to the partner's specific "wants and needs".

 

With EL installled, you still have to do all the things you would have to do as a female Warden to get Big Al to share a tent with you. His personal quest, other appropriate responses to his banter, etc. His Approval Rating has to exceed 80 before he'll even consider such a notion, and even then he stammers and blushes and has to be handled just right. :tongue:

 

All EL does is supress the gender-check during the romnace-related dialogue branches, so all four potential partners see your Warden as the "correct" one.

[KageRune]

The Equal Love mod (or any of the mods that overcome the arbitrary limitations of gender, race, class) do not change the OTHER requirements for achieving various objectives. The romances in DA require significant attention to the partner's specific "wants and needs".

 

With EL installled, you still have to do all the things you would have to do as a female Warden to get Big Al to share a tent with you. His personal quest, other appropriate responses to his banter, etc. His Approval Rating has to exceed 80 before he'll even consider such a notion, and even then he stammers and blushes and has to be handled just right. :tongue:

 

All EL does is supress the gender-check during the romnace-related dialogue branches, so all four potential partners see your Warden as the "correct" one.

 

 

Thank you. And it seems to be working. It wasn't before, but from someone else, I heard that I have to remove all overrides, make a save file first, then place overrides. Everything works smoothly now. Thank you again for the tutorial and further help.