HowTo - Modding BG:EE on the iPad
mars0124
Member Posts: 180
With the release of the evasi0n jailbreak it is now an option for BG:EE to be played with mods on the iPad.
I realize that this would otherwise belong in the Modding section of the forum, but as iPad users have no reason to check there with the, until recently, inability to jailbreak, I would like to start a conversation here at the heart of our iPad users.
Thank you to @mlnevese for your creating/maintaining the quick links for all mods post from which I will be testing the mods.
Relevant links for jailbreaking:
Mods that have been tested and work:
Anything listed here has been tested by me. If something didn't work for you please reply to the thread indicating exactly which components you tried installing.
Mods that have been tested and do not work:
Anything listed here has been tested by me. If something did work for you please reply to the thread indicating exactly what you did to make it work. If something works partially, please indicate that as well.
How to install character portraits and soundsets:
Character portraits:
Character soundsets:
If you want to use anything beyond the out of box soundsets you do need to purchase the $1.99 additional soundset upgrade. Once you do this you are free to transfer additional soundsets to your device. The href="http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/index_soundsets2.php" >SorcerersPlace has quite a few to pick from.
Other things that a jailbreak lets you do:
I realize that this would otherwise belong in the Modding section of the forum, but as iPad users have no reason to check there with the, until recently, inability to jailbreak, I would like to start a conversation here at the heart of our iPad users.
Thank you to @mlnevese for your creating/maintaining the quick links for all mods post from which I will be testing the mods.
Relevant links for jailbreaking:
For starters this is not a jailbreak support topic. If you need help, please reach out to jailbreak communities dedicated to it. You'll find many of them on Google. These links are only here for information purposes only to point you in the right direction if you don't know where to start.
If you are new to jailbreaking and need information, such as what it is, how to do it, etc, see here.
For iPad 1 users (and maybe even some iPad 2 users) if you require more memory to avoid crashing you could research installing some form of virtual memory. I have not tested any of these solutions yet, so cannot speak to them beyond the idea itself being sound. One such example is here.
How to install modsIf you are new to jailbreaking and need information, such as what it is, how to do it, etc, see here.
For iPad 1 users (and maybe even some iPad 2 users) if you require more memory to avoid crashing you could research installing some form of virtual memory. I have not tested any of these solutions yet, so cannot speak to them beyond the idea itself being sound. One such example is here.
Of the below options I would recommend the SAMBA method.
Regardless of the method you chose you will need to reinstall your mods of choice after performing a BG:EE update. Many of the mods change dialog.tlk and so does Beamdog, thus needing to reapply your mods.
How to use the scripted method:
Make sure your iPad is plugged in via USB
Download Open-SSH from Cydia on your iPad
Download the script from here and extract to anywhere in your computer.
If you have changed your SSH password from the default of 'alpine' then you need to update it in the top line of BG.BAT (open with Notepad or other text editors)
Double-click BG.BAT. A copy of your iPad BG:EE will be downloaded to your computer. The first time will take a few minutes. This copy on your computer will be your master copy and will overwrite your iPad override folder every time after purging the content of the iPads override.
Inside of the folder named with numbers and letters (3563F96B-E6AF-4E51-8CB7-DBB927EBEA57 on mine) you will find Baldur's Gate.app. Place your WeiDU setup files in here and run them, or your override mods in the override subdir.
Run BG.BAT again and it will upload the modified dialog.tlk and the new override folder to your iPad
Note: After updating BG:EE you will have TWO number and letter folders. Delete the old and keep the new.
Also, a big thank you to the makers of putty and itunnel, as I have included their freeware tools within to make this happen.How to use iFunBox to install mods:
This will be properly written later.
How to configure and use SAMBA to install WeiDU mods:
Regardless of the method you chose you will need to reinstall your mods of choice after performing a BG:EE update. Many of the mods change dialog.tlk and so does Beamdog, thus needing to reapply your mods.
How to use the scripted method:
Make sure your iPad is plugged in via USB
Download Open-SSH from Cydia on your iPad
Download the script from here and extract to anywhere in your computer.
If you have changed your SSH password from the default of 'alpine' then you need to update it in the top line of BG.BAT (open with Notepad or other text editors)
Double-click BG.BAT. A copy of your iPad BG:EE will be downloaded to your computer. The first time will take a few minutes. This copy on your computer will be your master copy and will overwrite your iPad override folder every time after purging the content of the iPads override.
Inside of the folder named with numbers and letters (3563F96B-E6AF-4E51-8CB7-DBB927EBEA57 on mine) you will find Baldur's Gate.app. Place your WeiDU setup files in here and run them, or your override mods in the override subdir.
Run BG.BAT again and it will upload the modified dialog.tlk and the new override folder to your iPad
Note: After updating BG:EE you will have TWO number and letter folders. Delete the old and keep the new.
Also, a big thank you to the makers of putty and itunnel, as I have included their freeware tools within to make this happen.
This will be properly written later.
- Copy Baldur's Gate.app from the iPad to your local computer.
- Copy BG.app/lang/en_US/dialog.tlk to BG.app (same folder as data, music, etc)
- Create BG.app/override. WeiDU will NOT do this for you.
- Copy your mods to BG.app and run their WeiDU Setup file
- In iFunBox delete the entire content of BG.app/override on you iPad and copy the content of override from PC
- Copy BG.app/dialog.tlk from your PC to BG.app/lang/en_US/dialog.tlk on the iPad
How to configure and use SAMBA to install WeiDU mods:
This method is by far more complicated that using iFunBox to transfer mods. It is also slower. The advantage though, is that the mods are installed 'properly' once everything has been configured. This will allow for WeiDU mods to check for conflicts rather than overwriting pieces of other mods (which would happen with conflicts with iFunBox) as well as properly uninstall mods if need be.
Mod installation methods that did not work- Applications to install
- From Cydia install SAMBA and OpenSSH. Respring as necessary.
- From Windows install Putty and iFunBox
- Prepare BG:EE file structure
- Open iFunBox | Select your iPad | User Applications | Baldur's Gate | Right-Click 'Baldur's Gate.App' (the one with the BG icon) and select 'Copy Path'. Paste the path into notepad or similar and keep this path for future use
- Now open Baldur's Gate.App and hit 'New Folder' in the top left. Name this folder 'override'. To confirm, override should be in the same dir as 'data','movies','music', etc.
- SSH to the iPad using Putty and type cd (quote)(right-click)(quote). For example cd "//var/mobile/Applications/830D4277-A4D4-4466-9075-961CE7C711BB/Baldur's Gate.app/"
- Still in SSH, type ln ./lang/(your language)/dialog.tlk .. For example ln ./lang/en_US/dialog.tlk .
- Configure SAMBA
- Open iFunBox | Select your iPad | Raw File System | etc | samba | copy smb.conf to your computer to edit.
- Right-click smb.conf and open with Notepad | and add the following to the file. Edit the 'path' line to point to your Baldur's Gate.app that you noted earlier.[spoiler]
"[BGEE]
path = //var/mobile/Applications/830D4277-A4D4-4466-9075-961CE7C711BB/Baldur's Gate.app
read only = no
browsable = yes"
- Open iFunBox | Select your iPad | Raw File System | etc | samba | copy smb.conf to your computer to edit.
- On the iPad open Settings | Select SAMBA in the left column
- Type in new root's password and select Change password
- Enable SAMBA
- Installing WeiDU mod
- Navigate to iPad share (eg. \\192.168.1.130\bgee)
Optionally you can also mount that very same share as what appears to be a local directory using the command prompt. Simply type mklink /d (desired local DIR) (iPad share). ie. mklink /d C:\BGEE \\192.168.1.130\gbee - Download any mods that work with BG:EE iPad and copy them to the iPad share
- Double click the WeiDU install .exe as you would normally
- Navigate to iPad share (eg. \\192.168.1.130\bgee)
- For people who use iExplorer you are free to use it rather than iFunBox. That being said, as of version 3, its ability to mount a folder inside of the iPad as a drive does NOT work for WeiDU mods. Furthermore it us actually SLOWER than using a SAMBA share.
- I tried getting creative and mounting the iPad using sshfs as a folder on the local computer using win-sshfs and itunnel. Unfortunately there were some unexpected behaviours that did not allow for WeiDU to place nice.
Mods that have been tested and work:
Anything listed here has been tested by me. If something didn't work for you please reply to the thread indicating exactly which components you tried installing.
- Archaic for BG:EE [Beta 5.5] *Easy Installer with Customization Options
- Mod *Finished*] Recoloured BG:EE skin V1.1
- High Moor Shaman w/leveling Familiar ver. 1.00 Updated
- Scion of Murder - Looking for Suggestions/Feedback
- Isra NPC for BG:EE, BGT & TuTu released!
- Sword Coast Stratagems now available (in beta) for BG:EE
- WIP: Thumb Buttons for iPad
- Pack dragon animation for BGEE
- [Mod] Sub-races for BG:EE (Beta)
- RR for BGEE
- Generalized Biffing - To make this work you need to copy any tb#gen files to the BG.app\data folder. You will also need to copy over chitin.key after opening it in notepad and finding/replacing (CTRL+H) DATA with data (lower case). Thank you @nsr for this one!
- [Mod] Drizzt Tweak
- [Mod] TeamBG's Armor/Weapon Pack for BG:EE, BGT & TuTu
Mods that have been tested and do not work:
Anything listed here has been tested by me. If something did work for you please reply to the thread indicating exactly what you did to make it work. If something works partially, please indicate that as well.
- Sun Soul Monk Kit
- BG:EE Kitpack V1.61 26/1/13 - all the kits seem to work when installed individually. It is en masse that problems occur. Just install the kits that you plan on using and you should be fine.
- BPSeries Party AI Goes WeiDu! - this installs without issues but has not been confirmed whether a bluetooht keyboard and/or USB keyboard can control the scripts.
How to install character portraits and soundsets:
Character portraits:
Character soundsets:
If you want to use anything beyond the out of box soundsets you do need to purchase the $1.99 additional soundset upgrade. Once you do this you are free to transfer additional soundsets to your device. The href="http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/index_soundsets2.php" >SorcerersPlace has quite a few to pick from.
- Using iFunBox: Click on your iPad | User Applications | Baldur's Gate | Baldur's Gate.APP (the one with the BG icon) | lang | en_us (or whatever language you use) | sounds. Just paste the .WAV files from any soundsets that you download here.
- Using SAMBA: Open your iPad share | lang | en_us (or whatever language you use) | sounds. Paste the .WAV files from any soundsets that you download here.
Other things that a jailbreak lets you do:
- Thank you @migal for introducing the idea of using a mouse with the iPad version.
- Thank you again @migal for writing up how to change the dialog languages.
Post edited by mars0124 on
7
Comments
Also, I'm looking into something simpler than the SAMBA as it really is advanced. Even if that means trying to script it.
@subtledoctor the iFunBox method does work fine. Its just a lot more manual.
Also, I'm looking into a method using iExplorer which allows mounting your iOS device or any folder within as a drive letter. So Baldur's Gate.App could become a E: drive itself with little/no configuration.
The problems with that: 1) it requires the purchase of a $35 application. I'm a power user so its something I would use either way. And 2) for some reason it doesn't currently get along very well with chitin.key. Hopefully I'll be able to add that on in the methods in the future.
The funny thing about doing all this work... I actually don't have all that much of an interest in running mods. I enjoy the game as Beamdog put it out :P
And as much as Baldur's Gate is irrelevant to my career in a direct way, I can proudly say as an 'IT Guy' that all computer knowledge comes in handy at one point or another.
Can i use the German Subtitles from the Windows Version on the Ipad Version?
Update: I do not speak German, so I tried this with the French version instead. At a glance the answer is no, you cannot copy the language from PC to iPad.
For the SAMBA method, is there an issue with the backup files & setup exes taking up space on the iPad?
Also, if you are truly on top of keeping your iPad version and the copy you keep on your PC in sync then there are no issues in using the iFunBox method. Most people cut corners though, and this is where it will bite you.
Never mind. Mars0124 had it covered in his instructions. Next time ill read closer.
iFunBox didn't seem to want to transfer the 3000 odd files that are in the resulting override folder. At first it wouldn't copy at all but I eventually got it to copy but when I checked at the end it hadn't transferred everything.
Currently I'm back in OSX and seem to be having success with CyberDuck. See how it goes.
I'll post my command-line only script tonight, it might simplify the Windows process. The GUI might take a few days or more as I don't know how to program a GUI in PowerShell yet...
You make it look like so easy :-) and I am so afraid to even try!
How long did it take to jailbreak? Does the mod SCS work on Ipad? I am interested in AI upgrades, like mages and stuff. Are they modded correctly?
There is no method of creating an override folder for simple 'mod'ding like overwriting some Creature files, without JailBreaking? I try to create an override folder under Baldur.app via IfunBox, but it fails. I guess that is the reason Jailbreaking is neccesary beforehand?
I wish game designers had an already existing override folder, and made it so we can dump files in it via IfunBox without trouble, so we can at least have a little bit of modding available. Nothing big like SCS does, but I would love to be able to change the stats of an enemy creature via SK and save it in override folder, to make it tougher in-game. I was able to dump portrait files into Portraits folder, afterall. Why not override?
Anyways, the short version: jailbreaking MIGHT make your iPad crash, but you can always restore from iTunes. Backup first