Thief 2 v1.25 and System Shock 2 v2.46 are out ^^

Tannar on 15/4/2017 at 22:07

Thanks. I'll try that later after work. For the starfield, read the edit in (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147689&p=2354725&viewfull=1#post2354725) this post.

Tannar on 16/4/2017 at 01:46

I made a clean install of T2, updated it to v1.25 with the latest TP, and enabled hardware rendering as you suggested. I loaded a .cow that I had made with v1.24. I still get only the starfield when I enter game mode in dromed. All I see is the night sky with stars. I can't pan up or down more than a fraction, but I can pan left and right. No other controls do anything, all I can do at that point is exit game mode. Here's a (https://www.dropbox.com/s/o0cpqta6l336fce/starfield.avi?dl=0) video.

If I do nothing except copy over the 1.25 version of dromed.exe, Thief2.exe, and darkdlgs.dll, it works fine. Is more than that needed to actually "update"?

voodoo47 on 16/4/2017 at 07:27

no idea about that first part, but yeah, updating just the exes and dlls should be ok, so I'd stick with that.

Unna Oertdottir on 16/4/2017 at 07:50

Edit: Here's a bullet proof version for DromEd authors: ND 1.25+DromEd Toolkit 1.13. Just copy the files in the T2 root folder, overwrite everything (but don't overwrite your customized files that you want to keep).
(http://www.mediafire.com/file/u3p6l37q42q3c3d/Bullet_DromEd_ND1.25.7z)

The NewDark readme points to the DromEd basic toolkit (you should use dromed.cfg, menus.cfg, cmds from the toolkit). Make sure the path to the cmds points to the cmds. You can also leave the cmd folder in the root folder and just copy all cmds from the toolkit to the root folder to be sure.
Why you see a starfield/wireframe or whatever?
This doesn't work, since the dromed.cfg doesn't point to the cmds
edit_script_StartUp .\cmds\StartUp.cmd

Code:

; Display Solid World + selected brush in 3d Viewer
set_mode 6

; Light Terrain
light_bright

; Light Objects
lit_obj_toggle

; Player begins at editor camera position when entering game mode
persistent_player_pos

; AI unware of player
;ai_aware_of_player

; Draw in-game AI path stuff
;ai_draw

; Ignore filters by default when portalizing (Newdark)
set_ignore_filters 1

; Load template on startup?
;load_file levels\template.mis

; Autoreload book strings (Newdark)
toggle_book_autoreload

So, when you just update NewDark, leave the cfg files alone.
It's already screwed up? Install DromEd toolkit again.

Tannar on 16/4/2017 at 15:20

Okay, thanks again, guys. And thanks for that link, Unna!

gnartsch on 21/4/2017 at 08:30

Not sure if this is the right place to post a feature request for NewDark.
Anyway: we see a lot of fixes showing up for old missions, but no easy way for players to get them integrated.
I think it would be nice if FMSel would check for patches when installing FMs.
E.g. let's assume there is a missionname-v1<missionname>.zip to be installed, then FMSel would check if there is a patch file available with an identical name, but with '_patch' added
(missionname-v1<missionname>_patch.zip).
If so, then this would be extracted on top of the mission.
This would help to keep the original mission files untouched, but also allow to install patches much more easily.</missionname></missionname>

voodoo47 on 21/4/2017 at 08:54

1.25 actually can do this, and I have already been playing with the functionality a bit - basically, you can specify a folder (ex. FMdml) where you keep all the FM dmls (fm1.dml, fm2.dml etc), which need to be fingerprinted to activate only for their respective missions. the engine will then go through them upon start, and load as necessary.

so if you (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733) were someone who has a patcher for a Dark game, you could basically include a (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145374) dml fix repository which would then activate fixes automatically. crazy, innit?

gnartsch on 21/4/2017 at 17:44

Interesting indeed. So, the name of the dml does not need to reflect the miss-file, but would reflect the name of the mission zip, then?
That would be a start.
But I see the scope to be broader than being limited to dml's.
There are lots of old missions out there with broken readables or misplaced/missing files.
Personally I have created a collection for such issues: (http://www.gnartsch.de/Thief-FM/patches/Thief-FM-text-patches-2014-01-01.zip)
But the major painpoint distributing it like that is that people need to manually copy them into the extracted FM or add them to the original ZIP (if they wish to do so - and do not want to bother about it again in future either).
Having FMSel (or NewDarkLoader ?) handle these operations would be such a nice thing for everyone.

Stingm on 21/4/2017 at 18:15

NewDarkLoader already handles dml files and has for some time. You just have to set it up. But I agree I think it would be neat to be able to have the loaders handle your fixes and others as well.

voodoo47 on 21/4/2017 at 18:31

it basically works like this - you fill the folder with fixup dmls (their filenames don't matter, but would recommend using something that makes sense, for example SOD.dml for Shadow of Doubt etc), and the game loads them all up upon mission start. to make it load just the correct one, you need to fingerprint all the dmls, making the game reject all but the one that is meant for the level you are currently playing.

as long as you do this properly, the player doesn't have to do anything, just load the FM (but NOT with oldDarkloader) and everything will work. this is for dmls only though, no str files or anything.

//(https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7quQTgSRc9KS0JEXzFBemFZSUU) linking the SOD test - extract to your TG folder, add FMdml to your modpath (cam_mod.ini), load Shadow of Doubt with FMsel and the fixes should auto-activate. currently using the first non-zero goal_target for fingerprinting. any dml in the \FMdml\dbmods\miss_all\ path will get auto loaded, unless rejected by fingerprint.