Adding Races is Possible (Kind of)

Eudaemonium

Greetings fellow modders! (I guess I count as a modder now)

This might be old news to some of you, but this afternoon I discovered that I could add lines to RACETEXT.2DA and RACE.IDS in order to add more displayable races to the game. Previous the only 'abnormal' races that could be displayed were Tiefling, and more recently

Vampire

. All other races display a blank space and frequently crash the game. This might crash the game too, since I haven't done extensive testing.

Here is a screenshot of my latest Charname as an Aasimar. I should note that I also had to add the string references for 'aasimar' and 'Aasimar' to dialog.tlk so that it would display properly.



[edited out section on biographies because I am a doofus]

Basically, I am seeking some advice from the Devs and Senior Modders who know their way around the infinity engine can shed some light on how this functions.

Kenji

A Lawful Evil Aasimar, eh?

I like that.

Eudaemonium

Her ancestors don't like her very much.

Erg

Eudaemonium said:

The codes written in the Biography column look like string references, but are not. They presumably point to some other file that may have not yet been externalised.

I don't know why are you saying that, but, at least on BGEE, they simply point to string references with the full biography text. I can't check BG2EE as I don't have it. Still that doesn't mean that they couldn't have another function too, as you are suggesting.

Eudaemonium said:

First question, I guess, is 'Am I right about what the Biography field does?' Second is 'What is the file that the Biography codes point to?' Third: 'Is it possible to add new racial 'Biographies', which confer appropriate racial bonuses to tieflings/aasimar/genasi/whatever, or are we limited to linking any new races to already established biographies?'

It is worth nothing that most of this is due to recent externalisations for the EE (for example in vanilla there isn't any racetext.2da) and most likely the details and extent of the externalisation will further change with future patches.

Anyway, I would also love to hear more about this topic from the Devs.

Eudaemonium

Hmmm. When I searched for the Biography string refs in BG2EE using DLTCEP they are either blank, or in the case of the half-Orc (31709) comes up with 'Yes, I've never seen such a clumsy bunch of morons in my life.' Hence my conjecture that it wasn't a string ref.

booinyoureyes

oooohhh if someone can make a mod with new races/subraces i would love it.

booinyoureyes

or add animal companions to rangers/druids. that would be so much fun too

Erg

Eudaemonium said:

Hmmm. When I searched for the Biography string refs in BG2EE using DLTCEP they are either blank, or in the case of the half-Orc (31709) comes up with 'Yes, I've never seen such a clumsy bunch of morons in my life.' Hence my conjecture that it wasn't a string ref.

Check if the biographies show correctly in-game, maybe you have a mod that's messing with your dialog.tlk. Or maybe racetext.2da just works differently in BG2EE than BGEE, in which case please disregard my comment.

Eudaemonium

Aha! No it seems to be blank. I feel like a bit of an idiot now.

Regardless, it's nice to know that you can add races now.