by TryKos on DAC here is step-by-step explanation
(Should work on any Windows avialable, tested on XP and 98):
- Get OpenWatcom preprocessor from OpenWatcom site. URL is: ftp://www.openwatcom.com/archive/zips-1.3/c_nt.zip (850 Kb only, and no need for megatonn MSVC installations at all! Thanks to ABel, who pointed this out).
- Unzip contents of downloaded archive into any temp directory, then cut/paste all files from "temp/binnt" to your "Fallout 2 Mapper/scripts" folder. There must be wcc.exe, wcc386.exe and 2 dll's with same names.
- Open file "P.bat" from "Fallout 2 Mapper/scripts" in Notepad, find string "@rem Watcom 11 users uncomment the following line:" and make next string look like that: "@..\wcc386.exe temp.c /pc /fo=temp.i /w4". Make sure you have two dots and backslash before wcc386.exe, the P.bat is called from directories one level lower.
- Find string "@rem The path in the following two lines should point to the Fallout 2 folder:" in P.bat and edit next two strings to point on your Fallout2 folder. This is actually path to folder, where your compiled scripts will be placed. Once again, the path relative from directories, where .ssl scripts are placed. If you don't want to immediately replace existeing scripts with compiled ones, create some folder (e.g. "CompiledBIS"), and edited these strings to
- @md ..\..\..\Fallout2\CompiledBIS
- @copy temp.int ..\..\..\Fallout2\CompiledBIS
- If you already created this folder manually, you can delete first of these strings - it will make compilation process a little faster.
- Edit any script (See BIG WARNING below) from "scripts\something" folder and save it there.
- Run file with extension .bat from within folder, where your edited script lies. (If you want to compile only one script - look in this file and make your own, its quite easy). It will compile all scripts from this folder, place results in folder, which you choose in Step 4, and output any errors in "err.log" file under scripts/err.log
- If you already set output directory in Step 4 to point to "Fallout2\data\scripts" folder, you can skip Step 7, otherwise copy your compiled scripts to "Fallout2\data\scripts" directory.
- Run the game and look, how your modified script screw it
BE WARNED![]
Source files, shipped with editor, are almost all from version 1.0 of Fallout 2, and some of them (see list below) are outdated. So, if you blindly compile any file from editor and stuck it into game - be ready for full spectrum of 1.0 glitches (missing car and so on) or worse game behavior.
Solution: check first, if script, that you want to modify, present in patch000.dat. If it there - bad luck, you must learn&use Noid compiler/decompiler (its not so hard thing to do 8) ).
If script is not in patch - check, if it in list of outdated scripts below. If it in this list - bad luck again, you must extract this script from master.dat and use Noid decompiler.
And if your script not in patch000.dat AND not in list - you can compile it without fear of adding any bugs (except of bugs of your own modifications 8) ).
List of outdated scripts:
AHELDER.int
AHHAKUN.int
COWBOMB.int
DCADDICT.int
DCBILLY.int
DCCUSTMR.int
DCFRED.int
DCORPHAN.int
DCREBECC.int
DCSLAVE.int
DCSLVRUN.int
DCSTORY1.int
DCSTORY2.int
DCVIC.int
DEPOLV1.int
DIBONES.int
DIDIARY.int
DIFLKBOX.int
DISLVCRT.int
DIVICTBL.int
GCLENNY.int
HCMARCUS.int
HSCELLDR.int
KCSULIK.int
NHMYRON.int
QCSECBOT.int
SHTANDI.int
ZCSLAVE.int
End list.
Hope this explains some things. If you'll see grammar or other errors in this text, or difficult things that can be written by more easy words - feel free to fix them, English is not my native language.