Exult Forum

Alright, I have really two questions for either the team or anyone who's messed around with building new areas or editing existing ones on the maps of u7 or si..

Firstly, is it possible to create a new world map or be able to change the existing map without it replacing the existing pieces that were previously there. I havent messed in the studio yet with this issue so it'll probably solve that.

Secondly, what I mainly want to do is edit some of the terrain and such to create new areas to venture into or modify some of the other existing areas. It's mainly to get practice to make a fan based world later on in exult. I've mentioned this before on the forums and got some good feedback about it and lots of people wanting to help out. But what I'm mainly concerned is, if I ever do start a fan project to create a new ultima world in exult, would it require much usecode editing to create the new storyline and such?

much usecode editing? YES!!! the whole plot is usecode driven. every conversation must be in uscode.

The complexity of it however, should be able to be minimised.

Conversations in themselves aren't too complex, it's all the
scripted movement and similar sequences that can be quite
complex and difficult to debug.

What we did with the "island patch" is create a new area in the ocean (East of Trinsic).

Your saved modifications are stored in the 'patch' directory, so you can get back the original terrain by deleting or renaming it. Is that what you mean in your first question?

No, what I meant was when you go into the map editing mode with exult running, and you try to remove certain objects already existing, they return when you reload the game. Mostly mountain pieces, tree's, garbage, and other decorations. I was curious if there's a way to keep them from coming back so I can successfully change the landscapes and such.

just to check: you did make the entry in exult.cfg and created the dir? And you did save all before you quit?

Uhm.. this has nothing to do with the patch or the forge isle? I'm talking general editing period. Load Exult, and delete a tree anywhere in britannia. Save and reload and the tree comes back magically. I'm trying to find out how to prevent that so new worlds or atleast new islands can be designed for ultima 7.

Just a guess about this bug: Try adding a new shape from EStudio first, then delete it and whatever else you want to delete, then 'save all'.

ok, I guess I know what you mean now. You mean in just plain Exult without Studio, right? That's not how you map edit.
For map editing you need Exult Studio and you need to make entries for the patch dir.

Ok, I've gotten the hang of editing the world now. It's rather easy doing the map editing. I just hope I can catch on to the other editing as well when I get more into a conversion of the game instead of just adding new map areas.

Whoa, when I first saw this it registered as "Couple world eating questions".
I was wondering how Galactus was on-topic.

Mmm worlds.. so tasty..


Ok so far, my world is saving like it should in a patch directory. I've only played around with changing the insides of a mountain that wasnt being used for anything except cyclops caves. But hey, I finally got that far and thats a lot further then I ever was last week!

congrats, let us know when you want others crawling your dungeons

Is it normal for half of britannia in certain spots to suddenly lose the roof on most of the buildings in a town? While editing my cave, a lot of the buildings in several different towns lost their roof or other elevated parts to the building and some even lost walls that were part of the insides.

are you sure they are gone? and not that you played around with the hide-lift in Studio?

One suggestion: In case of bugs or mistakes, you might want to back up your 'patch' directory occassionally.

The hide lift is still set at 16. I deleted the patch files and started over, and all I did this time was laid down some land for a new island just to start slow. Just the shoreline and the grass. The ceilings disappeared in britain again and several other spots in different towns.

hmm i have some questions about the complexity of new code:

is it possible to totally redo the combat-system, i mean the numbers which are used, the values for weapons, etc.
if yes: difficult job?

The dissapearing roofs bug was a part of the original Ultima 7 as well. I noticed it always happened towards the end of the game or with games in which I had accumulated a large number of objects. Apparently it was a limit of the engine, it could only track X number of ojbects. Once that limit was reached, things started going byebye. I wouldn't think exult would have the same problem, though....

Exult shouldn't have a problem with too many objects. However, I did see the 'disappearing roof' bug the other day in a game where I'd accidentally modified the map. I'm not sure if I can reproduce the problem.

Trevor: The combat hit-points calculation is built-in, but it's easy in EStudio to change values for weapons and armour. Just double click on a shape, and you should see the various options.

DrCode:

If an original U7 savegame that had pieces missing from it was given, is it possible to tell if those pieces are actually missing, or just not being displayed?

DrCode, did you ever figure out exactly what's causing the roofs to be disappearing when adding landscapes or structures for new areas? I keep encountering it when starting out by adding an 'island' in where I wanted to put my new building structure. If I continue to build the structure, half of britannia will be roof-less, which wouldnt look very good when playing.

No; I'll have to try again. I'm not sure if the roofs are really getting deleted, or just not displaying. Do you have a simple way to make the problem recur consistently?

I just tried to edit the map a bit in Exult, it works sometimes. I converted the blacksmith's house in Trinsic to a nice little storehouse for stuff. But then i copied a bridge to place across a river so i could sit there fishing, but it simply disappeared when i loaded the game. Tried to move the whole thing instead - same result. Is it possible to edit the map safely without Exult studio?

So far, you can reproduce it by picking out a spot in the ocean, and making an island. I started out with the empty grass area, and surrounded it with coast line. The empty grass area works fine. As soon as I placed in the shorelines on all 4 sides of the square island, which was about 10x10 chunks in size, thats when the roofs disappear. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the shorelines or just the fact that so many tiles were changed. It seems to be ok if you don't touch anything with water.

I tried for a few minutes last night, but no luck.

I'm trying now, as soon as I find a suitable place on the mainland to edit and build a small castle without using any kind of shoreline chunks. That way its all inland. The main spot where the roof problem occurs is britain in the center of town and british's castle. Also, is there a purpose to the pirate ship? The one that just kind of sits there, none moving just north of Serpent's Hold?

Just picked a spot inland, added some stone floor chunks to replace some of the forest, and the roofs disappeared again in britain. It's really frustrating.

I've started remodelling British' castle. Four jail cells, one specifically for British himself. More rooms on the top floor, rearranged the lower floor. Etc. Unfortunately, I killed the roofs in several areas that I plan on just going back over when I finish. If this bug keeps occuring while I edit, I might as well give in instead of stopping what I'm making. I'll just redesign the roof's that were taken away until the bug actually gets taken care of. I'm going to finish redoing parts of the castle. Then add a wall around Britain (ie: ultima 9). And probably do some other things to the local area before I repair the damages to the rest of the world.

Ok, I'm now rather puzzled at this, having about the same luck
reproducing the problem as Dr Code is.

What configuration are you using everything in? Operating
System? What version? Are you using BG+FOV, or just BG itself?
It seems very odd that you can reproduce it so easily, yet most
people can't.

Darke
(Odd thought: This might be related to a compiler bug, since I
remember we had an oddly reproducable problem previously with
RedHat's gcc2.96, but it was never as overt as this... and again,
knowing what system you're running this on would be useful. *grin*)

Windows XP, no service pack. Most recent Beta 1.1.x snapshots for both Exult and Studio under Windows. Running both Ultima 7 and Seperent Isle off the Ultima collection CD from Ultima 9's collection. I doubt the system specs will matter much but it's a 2.8ghz Athlon XP w/ 512 DDR pc133 ram, currently a 64mb DDR GeForce3 card but I'm switching back to my 128mb DDR Radeon 9200 card since it does it on both. I had them switched to see if Exult still had the problem and if another game had that had a problem cleared up without the 9200 card. If needed, I can get some saved maps that are basic steps of what happens. One with the roof's but minimal changes to the land, a second where there's more change and complete loss of almost every roof in several towns. I found its not only the roof on certain houses though, it's also Statues, Docks, Certain walls go missing in areas, Mountain Tops, Anything above the tree line, and sometimes there looks like furniture/decorations disappeared from places like stone alters or things used in kitchens. I did manage to rebuild British's castle, but at the sacrifice of losing building ceilings in Britain, Minoc, Jhelom, Buc's Den, and several mountain regions. It doesnt spread in any certain pattern, because Trinsic is missed as well as Cove, Yew, and that Desert Town. So its not like it's doing any time of pattern of everything on the X, Y location of where you work.

Ok, could someone explain exactly what the Save All feature on Exult is doing and why its the cause of every roof problem occuring in the game when editing the map? It doesn't seem to happen when you just save the Map, but when you use Ctrl S in exult or the save all feature it completely screws up the roofs and lift settings in both BG and Serpent. So atleast I've narrowed it down a bit.

It should save everything you've changed into the 'patch' directory. This is an important bit of information, as I never saved when I was trying to reproduce your bug. So, I'll give it a try tonight.

Whatever you do, don't use fortress pieces. They completely kill the maps as well. Saving with the normal map feature seems to work fine, the File -> Save -> Map. But using the Save All kills the map completely. I'm trying to narrow it down as much as possible. Also if you delete something from the current map and save, it will end up killing the map for the game as well.

Okay, it's fixed, I think. Thanks for discovering this.

Welcome, I only discovered it because I've always redecorated existing houses in the original U7 and SI for my avatar to keep his collections of things he found over the course of the game. But with exult I wanted to make his own house to keep them in. So while trying, thats how I found it. Plus it helps whoever wants to redesign the world to make their own game through exult.

> I've always redecorated existing houses in the original U7 and SI for my avatar to keep his collections of things he found over the course of the game.

Last time I played through BG (with Exult), I took over Owen's workshop after he killed himself (and after I provided a proper burial for him). We did extensive renovations to the building and renamed it to "Avatar & Co. Headquarters".

How in the world do you do a working portcullis? I set both the portcullis and the winch to the same quality but it didnt work..

I'd have to look at the disassembled usecode for the winch to see what happens when you double-click it.

For a working portcullis, it looks like you need a winch with the same quality, as you mentioned, and also a 'crossbeam'.

Got the Crossbeam, the Portcullis, and the Winch.. but when double clicked it still doesnt do anything even with all 3's quality being set to the same number. This isnt nearly as frustrating as the map eating bug which I want to thank you again for squashing. My castle is finally expanding the way it should now using the pieces necessary. It's actually going to be twice the size of LB's.

I just tried putting a winch, crossbeam and portcullis on the Black Gate map, gave them all quality 37, and it worked without any problems.

I used: crossbeam: shape 277, portcullis: shape 272, winch: shape 949.

(Don't forget to leave map-edit mode before double-clicking the winch, btw.)

Alright, he walks over to the winch.. Acts like he's using the thing.. and thats about it.. the portcullis doesnt actually rise from where it is.. is there any special placement I have to do on the portcullis?

The only special thing I did was put the crossbeam in the air (at lift 8 or 10 or something).

Well I still can't get that to work with the portcullis. I give up on that, I can deal with it not having one.

My new problem is something I noticed has been there since I first mentioned the disappearing roofs. There's a spot in the map after you've been editing the world that generates a type of void. If you try to scroll to it, walk to it, or teleport into the general area, it causes exult to crash to the desktop. It's a corrupted map I know. The map looks the same but as soon as you try to walk towards it, you see the desktop. The area is in SpineBreaker, its below the building with the wisps but above the fields behind British' castle. I can try to get coordinates if it makes finding the bug easier, but my dad said it sounds more like the map's corrupting somehow after editing and thats what it sounds like to me. If it helps I can screen shot the map, and circle the area to give a better idea.

Oh, and after editing a castle that's 12x14 chunks big, with a wall around it and island on the inside of the wall with a 2 story building.. British's castle decided to lose its roof. So if its a memory error still causing this, then I really hope I'm helping with this rigorous testing to get rid of it and not just bugging the hell out of you guys. I know its hard to find people to actually put your engine through this much wear and tear and to give detailed accounts of everything that occured so I hope its helping you out.