Adding ANY Monsters and ANY Objects to a DS1 (by Paul Siramy)
Description: Very useful tutorial for map making modders.
Categories: Tutorials (1.1x) - Map Making
Table
Of Content :
Overview
Hardcoded
tables in DLL
Type
1 units
Type
2 units
Softcoded
Type 1 table in the patch 1.10
Adding
a SuperUnique Monster to a DS1
Adding
a regular Monster to a DS1
First
method (direct index)
Second
method (indirect index)
Adding
an Object to a DS1
Overview
This tutorial
will explain how to add any Monster and any Object of any Act into any
DS1, dealing only with Diablo II TXT
as well as my DS1 editor, without DLL editing. Since the 1.10 patch, it
is now possible to use a new and very interesting functionality. TeknoKyo
discovered how the Type 1 units (Monsters/NPC) were now working, and SVR
did the same with the Type 2 units.
Hardcoded
tables in DLL
In
a DS1 you can find 2 kind of units. The Type 1 units
are Monsters/NPC, taken from Data\Global\Excel\MonStats.txt, Data\Global\Excel\MonPlace.txt,
and Data\Global\Excel\SuperUniques.txt. Each Type 1 units
can have Paths. The
Type 2 units
are Objects, taken from Data\Global\Excel\Objects.txt, such as Chest,
Shrine, Torch...
In D2Common.DLL
we can find 2 tables, one for the Type 1 units,
the other for the Type 2 units.
Both contains indexes, and are split into 5 parts, one for each act.
The Type
1 hardcoded table is composed of 60 entries per act, so since we have
5 acts this table has a total of 300 indexes. The Type 2 hardcoded table
is composed of 150 entries per act, for a total of 750 indexes
Here's an
extract of the start of the Type 1 table :
In a DS1
the Type 1 units are using an index. This is NOT directly the hcIdx you
can find in MonStats.txt, it's in fact the entry number in this Type 1
table. For instance, if in a DS1 of act 2 you put a Type 1 unit with ID
2, the game will take the Type 1 unit table, and check the entry # 2 of
act 2 (here the entry noted '62' in the image). The index value
at this entry is 177, so the game will use the Monster with hcIdx 177
from MonStats.txt, which is a NPC, Drognan.
Type
1 units
In all the
original DS1 of the game, each Type 1 unit are using ID which range from
0 to 59. This is the Act value inside the DS1 that indicates which one
of the 5 possible parts of the Type 1 table the game will look into :
Act 1
= entries 0 to 59
Act 2
= entries 60 to 119
Act 3
= entries 120 to 179
Act 4
= entries 180 to 239
Act 5
= entries 240 to 299
This also
means that, normally, one DS1 can have access to only 60 different Monsters/NPC.
But up to the 1.09d patch it was possible to use a useful trick to make
one DS1 have access to all 300 Monsters/NPC of the entire Type 1 table
: you simply had to used an ID that was out of the legit bounds (lower
than 0, or greater than 59).
For instance,
if in an Act 2 DS1 (which use entries 60 to 119 in the table)
you placed a Type 1 unit with an ID of -14, then the game was looking
in the Act 1 part of the Type 1 table instead of the expected
Act 2, and took the entry 46 (60 - 14 = 46), which has the value 652.
For some reasons this is not the Monster with hcIdx from MonStats.txt
(bloodlord6), but a SuperUnique Monster (Corpsefire).
Another
example : in the same Act 2 DS1, a Type 1 unit with an ID of 62 would
have make the game use a Monster/NPC of Act 3 (not Act 2), and it'd
be the entry 122 in the Type 1 table : Act 2 start at entry 60, 60 +
62 = 122, 122 is in the range of Act 3 units.
You have
to know that the 1.10 patch changed that behavior, and this trick don't
work anymore, but we'll see that in details later.
Type
2 units
This table
has 150 entries per act, so in a DS1 each Type 2 unit has an ID that range
from 0 to 149. As for the Type 1 units, the ID are NOT directly the Id
from Data\Global\Excel\Objects.txt but the entry number in the Type 2
table for the Act of the DS1. Up to the 1.09d patch you were able to use
the same trick idea, except that there was a check in the DLL that prevent
it working exactly the same : you were able to use Objects of precedent
Acts (with a negative ID), but it was impossible to use an ID greater
or equal than 150, making it impossible to use Objects of later acts.
The workaround was to always use a DS1 of Act 5, since it gave the access
to all the Objects contained in the Type 2 table.
Softcoded
Type 1 table in the patch 1.10
The
patch 1.10 (in fact it was there from the beta release, 1.10s) gave us
a new level of flexibility for Type 1 units, as it introduced a new TXT
: Data\Global\Excel\MonPreset.txt. It also introduced Data\Global\Excel\MonPlace.txt,
but this one is better left out. MonPreset.txt can be seen as the original
table from which the hardcoded Type 1 table has been made.
In MonPreset.txt,
there are 47 entries for the Act 1. As you can see in the precedent image,
the first 4 entries have the values 147, 146, 148 and 149. In MonStats.txt
the Monsters/NPC with these hcIdx are : gheed, cain1, akara
and chicken. Coincidentally, in MonPreset.txt the first 4 entries
for Act 1 are exactly the same 4 codes. This makes it clear that the old
Type 1 hardcoded table is not in the DLL anymore, but is now accessible
in a TXT.
The good
news about the Type 1 table being a TXT table are that you can edit the
entries very easily (not recommended tough), but also *add* new entries.
And you're not limited to 60 Monsters per Act now, you can put in one
Act the entire list of the Monsters/NPC from MonsStats.txt and all the
SuperUnique Monsters if you want.
A drawback
is that 1.09 DS1 that used the trick of placing Monsters of another Act
(with the help of ID out of bounds) are not compatible with the 1.10 patch,
so you have to edit all these 1.09 DS1 to convert them into 1.10, else
unexpected Monsters/NPC will spawned in these DS1.
Adding
a SuperUnique Monster to a DS1
Let's
say that you want to use a SuperUnique Monster at the Den of Evil's entrance,
one that you either created or one that simply not belongs to the Act
1 usually. For
SuperUnique monsters (monsters found in SuperUniques.txt) you have no
choice, you
*have* to use MonPreset.txt. For
regular Monsters/NPC (found in MonStats.txt) we will use another and more
simple method, that we'll see later.
First, we
have to make this SuperUnique monster available for any Act 1 DS1. So
we edit MonPreset.txt and add a new row at the end of the act 1
entries. Let's say that we'll use Frozenstein, found in Act 5 normally,
the TXT will looks like this :
For the game,
this is enough to make this SuperUnique monster available for any DS1
that use units of Act 1. But if you want to put that monster into a DS1
using my DS1 editor, you have to edit another file.
In the DS1
editor directory, go into the data sub-directory, and edit the
file Obj.txt in MS-Excel or any similar program. This file tells
the editor which units you can place into a DS1, and to avoid problems
it should be the reflect of the game's files. Here, we already have some
rows below Corpsefire, still in Act 1 (from Id 47 to Id 59) :
They are
unused entries of the 1.09 patch where the Type 1 hardcoded table was
60 entries per Act. In the 1.10 patch however, these entries have no meaning
anymore.
You have
to make the Type 1 units of the DS1 editor's Obj.txt be the exact reflect
of MonPreset.txt so, as you did for MonPreset.txt, place Frozenstein
right after Corpsefire, inserting a new row if needed (and
adjusting the Id column), which is not the case here so just replace the
first unused row. Your Obj.txt should now looks like this :
The important
columns are Act, Type, Id and Description,
as the others are only graphical datas to display an animated sprite into
the Editor, which is only optional. Don't forget to add a 0 (zero)
in the column *eol column tough, this is to ensure that Ms-Excel
will save the file correctly.
You are now
able to add Frozenstein to the entrance of the Den of Evil DS1
:
Inserting
Frozenstein in the DS1 Editor
The
result in-game
Adding
a regular Monster to a DS1
When
you want to add in a DS1 a monster that is present in MonStats.txt (not
in SuperUniques.txt), you don't have to place it's Id in MonPreset.txt,
you can use a new functionality of the 1.10 patch :
In
a DS1, a Type 1 unit that has an ID which don't represent a valid
row in MonPreset.txt is considered as the hcIdx in MonStats.txt.
This is how
you can place in a DS1 of any Act *almost* any Monster/NPC present in
MonStats.txt : QuillRat, BloodLord, Larzuk, Radament, Diablo... As for
the 'almost' part : The monsters at the start of MonStats.txt
which have a hcIdx that represent a valid row in MonPreset.txt can't be
accessed using this method, because the monsters defined in MonPreset.txt
will be take instead. So if you really wanted to place a monster with
such a low ID, then put its code (Id column from MonStats.txt)
in MonPreset.txt as you would do for a SuperUnique monster.
In the un-modded
1.10 patch, MonPreset.txt has 47 entries for Act 1, their indexes ranging
therefore from 0 to 46. So, in a DS1 that use Act 1 units, a Type 1 unit
with an ID of 46 will be Corpsefire, while a Type 1 unit with an
ID of 47 will be the Monster/NPC with hcIdx 47 in MonStats.txt : FleshHunter.
In our precedent
example, we have added a new row to the Act 1 of MonPreset.txt, Frozenstein.
In that case then, in a DS1 that use Act 1 units, a Type 1 unit with an
ID of 46 will still be Corpsefire as expected, but another unit
with a Type 1 ID of 47 will be Frozenstein and not FleshHunter
any more. A Type 1 unit with an ID of 48 will be taken from MonStats.txt,
and this will be the Monster with hcIdx 48 : DuneBeast.
Here's a
diagram that show the logic, for the un-modded 1.10 patch (original MonPreset.txt
to be more specific). In the Act 2 part of MonPreset.txt, we find 59 rows,
so the IDs there are ranging from 0 to 58. In a DS1 that use Act 2 units,
a Type 1 unit with ID 58 will be find into MonPreset.txt (row #58 = skeleton5),
but another with ID 59 is a row that is not in MonPreset.txt, so the game
will looks into MonStats.txt instead, and the Monster with hcIdx 59 (CarverShaman)
will be used :
If you want to place Diablo in a Act 3 DS1, since he is hcIdx 243
in MonStats.txt (greater than 38 then), you have 2 solutions :
Direct
index : In the DS1, place a Type 1 unit with ID 243
Indirect
index : In MonPreset.txt, in the Act 3 part, put diablo in the
Place column, and in the DS1 put a Type 1 unit with an ID that
is the row of diablo in MonPreset.txt, Act 3 part. If you didn't
add entries to the act 3 part of MonPreset.txt yet, it'll be the row
39, so in the DS1 put a Type 1 unit with ID 39.
Both methods
will work, so it's up to you to decide which one to use. None will prevent
you to corrupt your DS1 if you delete or insert rows in MonPreset.txt
and/or MonStats.txt so, as often as possible, just add entries to these
files to avoid you the need to edit the corupted DS1.
Whatever
the method you'll choose, you'll have to edit my DS1 editor's Obj.txt
to be able to put the Type 1 unit. If you choose the 1st method, put the
MonStats.txt hcIdx in the Obj.txt Id column. If you choose the 2nd method,
put the MonPreset.txt row number instead.
First
method (direct index)
Insert
Diablo in Obj.txt
(Act 3, type 1 list, using MonStats.txt hcIdx)
Insert
Diablo in a Act 3
DS1, using the DS1 Editor
The
result in-game
Second
method (indirect index)
Insert
Diablo in MonPreset.txt
(Row 39 of the Act 3 Type 1 list)
Edit
or insert Diablo in Obj.txt
(Act 3, Type 1 list, using row
number in MonPreset.txt)
Insert
Diablo in a Act 3
DS1, using the DS1 Editor
The
result in-game
Adding
an Object to a DS1
Using a negative
ID for an Object still works in 1.10 like in 1.09. This means that a DS1
can have access to all objects of its Act and the precedent Acts, but
not later ones.
Now, even
if there is no equivalent of MonPreset.txt for the Objects, the possibility
to use a greater ID works the same as for Type 1 unit, with one noticeable
difference : if the game find in a DS1 an Object with an ID greater or
equal than 150, then it first substract 150 to this value, and
then it use this new value and consider it as the ID in Objects.txt. Note
that you can't use a Type 2 Object ID of exactly 150, because in Objects.txt
the object with ID 0 make the game crash.
Substracting
150 to the DS1 Type 2 ID gives you access to ALL the objects in Objects.txt,
not like Type 1 units where you couldn't use the first monsters with a
too low hcidx.
Let's use
different objects of all acts in a act 1 DS1 :
Description
Act
Objects.txt
ID
DS1
Editor ID
Trap
Door
2
74
+
150 =
224
Lam
Esen's Tome
3
193
+
150 =
343
Diablo
seal
4
392
+
150 =
542
Ancients
Altar
5
546
+
150 =
696
Note : We
don't care to know if the objects do works out of their expected act,
as this is just a demonstration :
Insert
the 4 new objects ID in Obj.txt of the DS1 Editor
The
4 objects of later acts, in the DS1 Editor
The
result in-game
Link to this article: Select all
[url=https://www.d2mods.info/forum/kb/viewarticle?a=287]Knowledge Base - Adding ANY Monsters and ANY Objects to a DS1 (by Paul Siramy)[/url]