Viewing .Dat files

[VlishPower]

Basically, What I want to do is view the events that can happen in game or dialogue trees. I could not remember If a vlish attacked with its outer arms for range and its middle one for melee, or vice versa. However, I didn't want to play the game again all the way to that point to get a simple question cleared up so I decided to check the Scene data so I could "Ctrl+F" vlish until I found it. Upon opening it I found it was filled with strange characters that I did not understand. I looked online but I did not find a better way to open up .dat files in a way that allowed me to view it. Does anyone know how I might be able to actually view the contents of these files?

 

https://files.catbox.moe/fpjwr1.png

[alhoon]

I am not sure what you look for, the animation thing of the Vlish attack, is in the dat files. Also, I am 95% sure, the animation of attack is the same whether the vlish attacks with the tentacles or magic. You can check the sprites to see the attack sequence of a vlish. 

[Mea Tulpa]

15 hours ago, VlishPower said:

Upon opening it I found it was filled with strange characters that I did not understand. I looked online but I did not find a better way to open up .dat files in a way that allowed me to view it. Does anyone know how I might be able to actually view the contents of these files?

 

I'm not sure what you were expecting here.  Notepad literally just reads everything as if it is in plain text format, which doesn't work for things that aren't.

 

.DAT files are not text files, but there also isn't a standard format.  .DAT is a generic file extension that just implies "data" -- it's not normally in a human-readable format, but because there's no standard format at all, it's also not in a generic-application-readable format.

[VlishPower]

Yes, the animations are there and you are correct that they are the same every time.

https://files.catbox.moe/r218ps.BMP

What I was trying to find was the event dialogue for it. You know how when you talk to someone, and a big screen pops up and you have a few dialogue choices to make? I was looking for the text of that. Or when you enter a new area and a sudden pop up of dialogue shows? Should be within the example boarders of the below image.

https://files.catbox.moe/3qv4wl.BMP

https://files.catbox.moe/saw84n.BMP

"but because there's no standard format at all, it's also not in a generic-application-readable format."

In that case, is it known what specific application was used for Geneforge? If I download that then I should be able to read it.

[alhoon]

Ohh, so you want to know Lorewise whether Vlish are supposed to attack with those big tentacles or the other ones. Honestly, I think you would have better luck if you asked that directly instead of mentioning the dat files and attack sequences. I don't know the answer but someone here probably does. 

[VlishPower]

Correct! However I think being able to read the dat files could clear up any lore question lickity split since all we would have too do is open it up and find the correct section for any lore related question. Thus, being able to read the file not only clears up my immediate question but any future questions others might have as well!

 

[Mea Tulpa]

I haven't looked at this for Mutagen, but in original Geneforge 1 all actual NPC dialogue text is stored in text files, not dat files, and you can do a mass search.

 

I'd also be pretty surprised if such a specific detail of vlish anatomy ever comes up in conversation.  I guess it's possible, but I wouldn't expect it.

 

What I might look at are the creation "blueprint" loading screens that showed up in later games from the original Geneforge series.  There was one for vlish.  Again might not have addressed this, but that seems a better place to look.

[VlishPower]

Ah, your right! For anyone in the future if you want to look for dialogue you have to look at the .txt files that have "dlg" at the end.

https://files.catbox.moe/g4r9lp.png

Alas, despite searching in all of them from geneforge 1-5 it doesn't appear that it ever actually came up in discussion or as an event. Regardless, thank you for your help! If I have any future questions about a specific part I can simply delve into those specific files in the future. Rather then trying to get a weird .dat file to work.

Edited October 16, 2022 by VlishPower