Questions about modding Fallout

[Blackened]

Sorry for asking two questions in the same thread, I thought they don't deserve separate threads.

First, I've been reading that some of the things are "hardcoded". Does that mean they are unmodifiable? Like, if I want to change the Inventory menu (assuming that it's hardcoded, and no, practically I wouldn't want to change it), would I be able to?

Second, I've been studying programming for a year now. How much is Fallout modding about programming? It's in C++, right? How advanced is it?

 

[Sduibek]

1. Not unmodifiable, just "a lot harder to modify unless you are good at programming or/and reverse engineering" Usually things that are hard-coded will be modified in one of the following ways:

- Hex-editing (good bet if you're not a programmer, but messy and annoying, and limited)
- Assembly (ASM)
- C++

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=hard-coded


2. Not much is needed to be done with the actual code in the exe and whatnot. Many many changes can be done to the game through the script files, text files, maps, etc. In the case of Fallout 2, a lot of game stuff in stored in plain text files so you can do even more powerful and versatile changes than in Fallout 1, while knowing little if any programming. If you are decent at programming, you can work on the scripts (or at least learn how to work with them) but it's not bad. As far as programming goes, the language they use is based on C, but pretty much everything is in words, so it's a lot more readable than if you were looking at traditional c/c++ code.


As far as I know, yes, Fallout was built in C++, but they probably used Assembly as well. A lot of older games were made in Assembly (much of Diablo 1 was) because it was faster (on the end machine I mean, not to code) and resources were extremely limited.

 

[Blackened]

Thanks a lot! I thought I won't get a reply anymore, because people could think I'm not keeping track of the thread, now that some time has passed (this has never been true for me).

This makes me want to try join Fallout modding again. It's a pity I'm so busy in real life, but anyway I'm quite inexperienced at C++. I'll consider it again, once I get some experience with C++.

 

[Ardent]

This makes me want to try join Fallout modding again. It's a pity I'm so busy in real life, but anyway I'm quite inexperienced at C++. I'll consider it again, once I get some experience with C++.

It depends on how deep in modding you want to go.

For scripting, I had no knowledge of C++ when I started modding. I just looked at the original scripts and copied the parts that interested me, until I started to understand it. I find scripting in Fallout (2) is easier than the regular programming (much, much fewer loops).

As for your example of modifying the inventory - you can do it without any programming by changing the graphics of the interface (a single file), unless you want to e.g. add an option to wear helmets, or sort inventory by item type, where you'd need to reverse engineer the code, and then I'm still not sure if you could do it, as it's not my area of expertise.

 

[Sduibek]

I find scripting in Fallout (2) is easier than the regular programming

Same. I have past experience with C/C++ and C# and a bunch of web languages, but every language has its own learning curve, including 'Fallout Scripting Language' but the cool thing about Fallout is lots of it is words instead of crazy characters. Kind of ideal for non-programmers, in a way.

Most of my scripting time has been spent understanding the flow (lots less looping as you said, too) and theory, versus stupid syntax, and because most things are in English, once you start to get the hang of it, you're pretty much good to go.


The adding buttons/functions/etc in inventory thing is most definitely doable, but would also most definitely require working knowledge of C++.