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by Tiptoe, 3/10/06

First off, I have to warn you all that I’m no expert at modding, but modding Fate is so easy and so much fun, that I really want to share my limited knowledge with everyone so that everybody can try it.

So this is my first attempt at a "modding tutorial", it’s for people who are completely new to Fate modding. Hopefully, it will walk them through the creation of a very simple mod.

Introduction

We’re going to modify an existing item to create a "Ring Of Vitality". This is a ring that will grant the user an extra 20 hitpoints and a 10% hitpoint regeneration rate.

To do this, we’re going to modify the games items.dat file. But before doing so, we’re going to create a back-up copy of this file, just incase something goes wrong and we need to restore the original file (Note: You should ALWAYS do this for any file you intend to modify!).

The Steps: Creating Your New Item

Step 1: Create a back-up file

On your desktop, right-click your Fate game shortcut and select "Properties" then click the "Find Target" button, this will take you directly to the main Fate folder (bless Shadowfax for teaching me this method).

Inside it, you’ll see numerous folders and other files which contain all the data for the game (see the screenshot below).

The folder we want is called "ITEMS". Double-click on it to open it. You are now looking for the "items.dat" file (it’s in alphabetical order, so you’ll find it between "helmet_samurai.MDL" and "jewelscepter.MDL").

When you find it, click on it ONCE to select it, then (on the top menu bar) click "Edit > Copy" .

Minimise your screen, open the "My Documents" folder and click "Edit > Paste". You have just made a back-up copy of the "items.dat" file. Now, if something goes horribly wrong, you can easily restore the original file (you just delete the messed up .dat file and copy/paste this original file back into the ITEMS folder)…

Step 2: Create a new item

Maximise the "ITEMS" folder again. This time, right-click on the "items.dat" file and choose "Open With > Wordpad".

You will see a list of all the items in Fate. Have a good look through this file, especially at all the different effects that are available. When creating a new item, it’s a good idea to look for an existing item that already has the effects you want on it. That way, you can see how the effect is defined in the code. For our "Ring of Vitality", we’ll want the following effects:

Code:

I’ve decided to use the "Ruby ring" as the base for our new ring (if you’re curious, you can open the "ICONS" folder to see all the icons used for the different items in the game. The ring.png icon is what our ring will look like in Fate).

So, in the "items.dat" file, we need to find the for the "Ruby Ring". The easiest way to do this, is to use WordPad’s "Find" feature, on the top menu bar click the button that looks like a pair of binoculars (circled in red in the screenshot below) then type in "ruby ring" and click the "Find Next" button.

Once you’ve found the code for the ruby ring, click and drag your mouse cursor over it to select it (as in the screenshot above). Then click Edit > Copy. Now, scroll all the way up to the top of the file and paste the code just under where it says:

Code:

Its now time to change this item into our "Ring Of Vitality". So where it says :Ruby Ring, change this to :Ring Of Vitality. That simple exercise alone was enough to create a new item for the game, but it’s kind of boring, let’s add some nice bonuses to our new item. Add the following code (highlighted in red) for the two new effects we want (Note: Be sure to add it just ABOVE the [/ITEM] tag).

Code:

Once you’ve done this, go to the "File" menu and click "Save". Your new ring is finished!

Step 3. Testing your new item in-game.

Start Fate and load one of your saved games (or start a new character if you prefer, it doesn’t really matter). Once your game is loaded, press and hold the following keyboard keys in this order: Ctrl then Shift then ~ (it’s the button under the Esc key).

A white question mark should appear on the left side of the screen. Now type "ring of vitality" (it’s not case sensitive) then press the "Enter" key on your keyboard. The ring should drop at your feet.

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