Revision as of 15:17, 5 September 2024

Hi, my name's Casualfield, welcome to the Total War Modding community! In this shortish tutorial, I will show you a few settings in RPFM to improve the experience of modding and allow you to start learning. I'm going to assume you've already read the Tutorial:Beginner's Guide and Tutorial:RPFM For Dummies.

Dependencies

I always have the dependencies viewable as you can search it independently of Global Search and also import files from it directly into your packfile. This also ensures that dependencies are set up and RPFM is able to run diagnostics. Beware not every table is able to detect empty keys which will cause a CTD, if you find these please report them in the discord so MR. Fro can fix them for everyone.

You can adding other mods as a dependency!

Right click the main packfile and open Dependencies manager. ctrl + shft + a to insert a new row and type in the pack file EXACTLY as it's named, including the file extension(.pack). This makes it easy to make sub mods or mods with dependencies and allows RPFM to run diagnostics.

Tooltips

While in RPFM you can hover your cursor over column names or various things to get info on where things connect. This is the main way to learn how stuff actually works and connects.

Global Search

Now it's up to you if you always want this to be shown or not, but you WILL be using it. CTRL + SHIFT + F. An idea pops into your head for a mod but you have no idea how go about it? Well, start here. Now my personal recommendation is always start referencing base game and reverse engineering it. If there is text in game or text associated with something you can search for it if you have "loc" checked. Inside that .loc file there will be a multi part key that you can then search for which will lead to more things.

The "loc" setting will search .loc files, text will search things like .lua scripts, meshdefinitions and DB searches database files. So you can toggle stuff off if you want to lessen the search time, amount of results or to avoid causing RPFM to crash by searching to much.

Example of a multi part key "building_chains_chain_tooltip_wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond". "building_chains_chain" "_tooltip_" & "wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond" are separate parts, the latter being what you'd want to search for.

Importing and Shortcut Keys

Now, assuming you have created your packfile already, right click the tab at the top and import from dependencies. This will import the whole file into your packfile. Just rename the file to we don't mess with vanilla entries (ctrl + r once highlighted). You can highlight all the entire rows with copy them with ctrl + c and ctrl + shft + v to paste the rows back in. Ctrl + A will make a new empty row. You can check and or change the keybinds in RPFM settings.

DaVE: Database Visual Editor

Dave can be opened from the assembly kit. He will offer more insight into what certain keys do but not always, sometimes he's just as vague as the key itself...

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Hi, my name's Casualfield, welcome to the Total War Modding community! In this short'ish tutorial, I will show you a few settings in RPFM to improve the experience of modding and allow you to start learning. I'm going to assume you've already read the Tutorial:Beginner's Guide and Tutorial:RPFM For Dummies because if you haven't, go do that first.
+Hi, my name's Casualfield, welcome to the Total War Modding community! In this shortish tutorial, I will show you a few settings in RPFM to improve the experience of modding and allow you to start learning. I'm going to assume you've already read the Tutorial:Beginner's Guide and Tutorial:RPFM For Dummies.
-= Dependencies: The Foundation & Importer  =
+= Dependencies  =
 [[File:Dependscf.png|thumb]]
 I always have the dependencies viewable as you can search it independently of Global Search and also import files from it directly into your packfile.
-This also ensures that my dependencies are set up and RPFM is able to run diagnostics. Beaware not every table is able to detect empty keys which will cause a CTD, if you find these please report them in the discord so MR. Fro can fix them for everyone.
+This also ensures that dependencies are set up and RPFM is able to run diagnostics. Beware not every table is able to detect empty keys which will cause a CTD, if you find these please report them in the discord so MR. Fro can fix them for everyone.
 You can adding other mods as a dependency!
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 This makes it easy to make sub mods or mods with dependencies and allows RPFM to run diagnostics.
-= Tooltips: The Dot Connector  =
+= Tooltips  =
 [[File:Tooltipscf.png|thumb]]
-While in RPFM you can hover your cursor over columns or various things and usually get info on where things connect. This is the main way to learn modding, especially when no guide exists.
+While in RPFM you can hover your cursor over column names or various things to get info on where things connect. This is the main way to learn how stuff actually works and connects.
-= Global Search: The Revealer  =
+= Global Search  =
 [[File:Gsearch.png|thumb]]
-Now it's up to you if you always want this to be shown or not, but you WILL be using it. An idea pops into your head for a mod but you have no idea how go about it? Well, start here. Now you can either just blindly start typing in keywords and see what pops up or, my personal recommendation, start referencing the base game.
+Now it's up to you if you always want this to be shown or not, but you WILL be using it. CTRL + SHIFT + F. An idea pops into your head for a mod but you have no idea how go about it? Well, start here. Now my personal recommendation is always start referencing base game and reverse engineering it. If there is text in game or text associated with something you can search for it if you have "loc" checked. Inside that .loc file there will be a multi part key that you can then search for which will lead to more things.
-In game if there is text associated with something you can GSearch for that text if you have "loc" checked. Inside that .loc file there will be a key that you can then GSearch for which will lead to a more impactful key and so on.
+The "loc" setting will search .loc files, text will search things like .lua scripts, meshdefinitions and DB searches database files. So you can toggle stuff off if you want to lessen the search time, amount of results or to avoid causing RPFM to crash by searching to much.
-Example time! Lets say you want to change the cost of Naggaronds's buildings. We know the name of the settlement so lets GSearch it!
+Example of a multi part key "building_chains_chain_tooltip_wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond". "building_chains_chain" "_tooltip_" & "wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond" are separate parts, the latter being what you'd want to search for.
-[[File:Naggarondgsearch.png|thumb]]
-That's quite the result! So the "loc" setting will search .loc files, text will search things like .lua scripts, DB searches database files. So you can toggle stuff off if you want to lessen the search time and radius or to avoid causing RPFM to crash by searching to much.
-In this case we searched for a settlement name so text/db/building_chains__.loc is probably the best bet based on the other file names. Now we have these results inside the file, now we now the settlement name was just Naggarond so lets look for just that, two results. Double click and you'll be taken to the row. So now we have, building_chains_chain_tooltip_wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond and
+= Importing and Shortcut Keys  =
-building_chains_chain_tooltip_wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond_hef. hef is short for High Elf so probably not what we want, let's global search "wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond" with "DB" checked, as the first part is the main key for the .loc.
-[[File:Ssnagggsreach.png|thumb]]
-Now we have narrowed it down and all the results are building related so that's good! db/building_upgrades_junction_tables seems like what we want but actually that controls what buildings upgrade into not the cost. In this case I already know where we need to go but on your own you'll open every single file, especially if you want to create something. So db/building_levels_tables is the main table for building regarding cost and upgrades. Now, assuming you have created your packfile already, right click the tab at the top and import from dependencies.
 [[File:Importdepnagg.png|thumb]]
-This will import the whole file into your packfile. Let's rename the file to we don't mess with vanilla (ctrl + r once highlighted). Now highlight all the entire rows with "wh2_main_special_settlement_naggarond" and copy them(ctrl + c). Now ctrl + a to highlight the whole file and then delete them, now ctrl + shft + v to paste the rows back in. TA DA! We now have the exact rows we need to change the cost and nothing more.
+Now, assuming you have created your packfile already, right click the tab at the top and import from dependencies. This will import the whole file into your packfile. Just rename the file to we don't mess with vanilla entries (ctrl + r once highlighted). You can highlight all the entire rows with copy them with ctrl + c and ctrl + shft + v to paste the rows back in. Ctrl + A will make a new empty row. You can check and or change the keybinds in RPFM settings.
-= DaVE: The Database Visual Editor  =
+= DaVE: Database Visual Editor  =
 [[File:Daveshot.png|thumb]]
 Dave can be opened from the assembly kit. He will offer more insight into what certain keys do but not always, sometimes he's just as vague as the key itself...