NSS/excel convert

[terrion44]

I'm trying to personalize a couple of mods; nothing fancy, just playing around with some numbers (Nobler Cast and the Arcane Warrior weapon talents if it matters). So I've downloaded the source code provided by the original creators and made changes to the Excel and .nss files. My question is how to convert those to 2da and .ncs files, respectively. I tried copy-pasting into new scripts in a custom module, but when I export, the new files don't appear in the addin folder. Any help would be appreciated.

[DarkeWolf]

Hiyas terrion :) Welcome to the Nexus DA forums! :)

 

Ok, I'm not completely familiar with 2da files, but .ncs files I do know. There is no program that creates .ncs files, except for the dragon age toolset.

The toolset creates these files when a script is compiled.

So what you would need to do is open the toolset, click in the menu File/new/script.

Copy and paste the text of your script to to the text editor there in the TS (toolset) and then go to Tools/compile.

Give it a minute to work thru it, then check the box at the bottom middle of the screen to see if it compiled successfully, or if there were errors.

 

If you're wanting to do this as a standalone script, or as an override script- If there are no errors, go over to the side of the upper screen and click on the icon from scripts. Type in the name of your script in the search box and give it a min to find it.

Once found, you should see your script's .nss file, and your script's .ncs file. Right click on them both, and choose export without dependencies. Then go to the folder that it exported them to, it will tell you in that box at the bottom of the toolset window, and cut and paste them into your override directory, or the folder that you need them to be in.

So in essence, the .ncs file is created by the toolset when you compile your script into a .nss file.

 

As for 2da files, I am afraid that I haven't done any work with those. So I dont have any personal knowledge to impart. However, this may help. http://dragonagemodding.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/2da-or-not-2da-overriding-2da-files/

Compiling 2DA Files

 

Now that we know how to use 2DA files, and create our own, we need to know how to compile those .xls files into the game’s .gda format. This is very easy. In order to compile these files we need to use a simple commandline utility that comes with the toolset, called ExcelProcessor.exe which you can find in:

Dragon Age\tools\ResourceBuild\Processors

 

Now there are a few different ways to use this tool, but for right now i’m going to just cover the simplest. What you want to do is decide on some directory that you are going to use for saving your .xls files. It doesn’t matter where that is, so its up to you. Copy the ExcelProcessor.exe file to that location. Then whenever you want to compile an .xls file, all you have to do is open the directory in Windows Explorer, then drag and drop the .xls file onto ExcelProcessor.exe and the program will take your .xls and compile it, placingthe compiled.gda into that same directory.

Where to Put the Compiled 2DA Files

 

Once you have your compiled files, you need to place them in the proper location for the game to use them. This is an area that is still a bit grey, so I want to say right away that my information may be wrong or incomplete. I’ll update this once we’ve all narrowed it down a bit more. Righ tnow i’ve just been copying them into pretty much every override directory until it works

 

I hope this helps you out, and good luck with your projects! :) :thumbsup:

-DW

Edited March 10, 2011 by DarkeWolf

[terrion44]

Thanks! Both of those were really helpful.

 

I do have one more qustion. A couple of the scripts give a "Script must contain either a main or StartingConditional" error and do not compile. The scripts are overrides for the talent_constants and spell_constants files. From browsing the forums, this apparently has to do with the void main (), but the original files don't have this language. How do I compile these scripts?

Edited March 11, 2011 by terrion44

[DarkeWolf]

Terrion, I'm glad that I was able to help you out some :)

 

UNFortunately, I've forgotten more about scripting that I knew :laugh: Especially with the scripting language that DA uses. :rolleyes:

But you might try the toolset wiki. http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/Tutorials

 

http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/Scripting_tutorial

 

http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/Useful_Scripts

 

I dont know if those might give you some leads, but it might be worth checking out :)

 

Again, good luck, and welcome to the Nexus :)

 

-DW