5 replies to this topic

[Xeniteia]

Well, I plan to do some mega mod install, but focusing only on big mods and a few item/tweaks mods.

These are the mods I want to install : Baldur's Gate Trilogy, Dark Side of the Sword Coast, Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, Secret of Bonehill, Lure of the Sirine's Call, Unfinished Business for BG1, Thalantyr Item Upgrade, Sword Coast Stratagems, The Darkest Day, Shadows over Soubar, Tortured Souls, Check the Bodies, Tower of Deception, Unfinished Business for BG2, Sword Coast Stratagems 2, Ribald's Genie. Maybe one or two mods that expands ToB would be fine too (Ascension ?), or maybe some good unknown mod for BG1.
No unfinished mod like NeJ or Grey Clan (I can wait years if necessary ! ), and no NPC or small other quests mods than the ones listed here. I prefer to keep at least a core of two or three NPCs (either from BG or from a mod) through all the game. I'll play a Necromancer so good mage stuff is welcome too !
Anyway, I don't want to install 50 mods or so,

Do I need to follow the Big World Project way, or do I have to do a manual installation order ? If so, what's the better installation order ? I remember having a tutorial somewhere that helped, but with my new install I lost it.

BTW, do I have to tweak any of the install or game *.ini files to install Baldur's Gate Trilogy ? I think so since I'm on Linux (Ubuntu) and I had to make some tweaks to make some mods work (like Classic Adventures) : modifying once the baldur.ini file to install the mod, then reverting to the old version to play the game, and leaving both windows and linux version of WeiDu into the game folder to have a full install with all areas unpacked.

Thanks in advance for all help !

[Jarno Mikkola]

Do I need to follow the Big World Project way, or do I have to do a manual installation order ? If so, what's the better installation order ? I remember having a tutorial somewhere that helped, but with my new install I lost it.

Don't know about the Linux things, but the Big World Project is just a manual of advices... making it a good advice point to start from. Read the file, the .pdf file! It also gives you a fixpack of it's own + the auto installer, but you don't have to use the auto-installer, manual install is as good as the auto, even better if you have newer versions or are going with the expert version(the grayed letter version).

Also a few hints you are going to use, the proper version of TS is the TS_BP6.10(the newer are highly incompatible with the other mods you are going to install), you need the G3BGIIFixpack's core fix component for the BP-Worldmap, and you need the BP-Worldmap to get the BGT, TDD, SoS etc. big mods to work together.

[mystral]

I did an install like yours recently (minus Tower of Deception and Check the Bodies, plus BG1 NPC, Grey Clan, Ascension, Longer Road and Planar Sphere) and it worked fine. I'm on Windows XP though, not sure how well it'll work with Linux.

I'd advise against installing both SCS and SCS 2 at the same time though, you need to check the readme, but i think you should only use SCS for the BG1 part and SCS 2 for the BG 2 part.

I'd also advise you to try 2 more mods, BG1 NPC which is really great for breathing new life into BG, and since you're playing a mage, the planar sphere mod would improve your stronghold a lot, add some new spells (although TDD already adds a lot of those) and good (if sometimes a lot overpowered) items for mages.

A note of caution, though. I played through CtB once, and it was really buggy. It was a slightly earlier version, though, so maybe the mod is more stable now.

As for NPCs, Tortured Souls requires 2 NPCs, adds an optional one (and changes Valygar a bit), while Shadows over Soubar requires another NPC. So if you install both, you're not going to have much room in your party.

[Xeniteia]

Thanks for the tips ! I think I'll get rid of TS and add BG1NPC.

Does that BigWorld document provide an installation order ?

I still have to figure how BP works when installing files. I'll check the BP forum for this.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Does that BigWorld document provide an installation order ?

Well, the document is only about the order.

And as you are reading the document, you'll need to remember that it's only the recommended order...
1) Meaning that if you want to skip some/most of the mods(except the ones you'll need), you can do it without any consequences other than shorter game.
2) The grayed out mods might cause a few bugs in the current order, as they haven't been fully tested with every other mod combo, and version... so install them at your own risk, if you are willing to take it.

[Xeniteia]

Thanks for the tip ! I still have some problems during installation, though. I installed BG2 fixpack (I had to modify the tp2 file manually using the BigWorld patch file as reference but the install went fine), then when trying to install one of the big mods like TDD or SoS, the install goes well until the extraction of the audio *.ogg files. There's a message in French language that I translate here : oggdec.exe : file not found, followed with lots of "file not found" messages. The oggdec.exe file is in the TDD folder and I even try to make a copy in the main BGII-SoA folder, and, after reading some messages about this in the modding forums here at SHS, I even put a copy of it in the OGG folder and in the override folder to make a try, with no change at all as a result.

The strange thing is that the unpacking of the *.tiz files works fine for both mods.

Is this a general or a specific problem ?