How to Merge Mods

A guide about merging bounce mods and creating a modded database.arz that doesn't disable achievements.

Introduction and Setting Up Your Workspace

Using bounce mods in Titan Quest is simple, but comes with a limitation: you can only load one at a time.
But what if you want to use both a mod that increases monster count and one that increases loot? The answer is, you merge them.

To be able to merge two or more mods yourself, you'll need some tools first:

The Art Manager
This modding tool conveniently comes with the game, so you don't have to download it seperately.
It's located in your main game directory, on Steam that means:
[wherever you installed Steam]\Steam\steamapps\common\Titan Quest Anniversary Edition
You'll also need the Editor.exe that's located in the same folder at one point.

The ARZ Extractor
You can use this tool to unpack a mod's arz-file to access the individual database records (.dbr files).
It does not come with the game, but can be downloaded here: https://github.com/fonsleenaars/tqdb
(note that I did not create the ARZ Extractor and can neither take credit nor responsibility for it)
After downloading, open the zip file and navigate to the "arzextractor" folder and extract it anywhere you like, but I recommend to put it here:
*[Your Username]\Documents\my games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne


Now that you have what you need at hand, it's time to start up the Art Manager
You'll be greeted by this

The Art Manager wants to know where the directories to work with are, so that's what we'll tell it:

Working Directory: C:\Users\[Your Username]\Documents\My Games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\Working\
Build Directory: C:\Users\[Your Username]\Documents\My Games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\
Tools Directory: [wherever you installed Steam]\Steam\steamapps\common\Titan Quest Anniversary Edition\ or if you're not using Steam, wherever your main game directory is.

Make sure all the paths are correct and click OK.

Creating the One Mod to Rule Them All

Now that the setup is done, it's time to create a new mod to put the mods you want to merge into.
Click on Mod>New... and enter a name for your mod. The name should not contain any special or foreign characters, so name it something simple like "ModCollector" as with the example.

Now before we do anything else, we first add the "bounce" to the mod. Once you've hit OK and your new, empty mod is loaded, build it by either clicking the Build>Build tab or by pressing F7 on your keyboard. This will create all the files necessary for the next step.

Go back to your main game directory where the Art Manager is located and start the Editor.exe.
This window will pop up.

From the drop-down menu, select the ModCollector and navigate to the Maps subfolder. Create a new world and give it a name, for example "main". Make sure the path is correct and click OK.
A black, empty "world" will pop up, but that's all we need. Just go to File>Save All (or press Ctrl+S) and exit the Editor.

Back to the Art Manager.
Reload the ModCollector by clicking the Mod>Select>Modcollector tab.
Like here.

In your Sources, navigate to the Maps subfolder and right-click the main.wrl file, then select Auto-Create Asset. A small window will pop up, just click OK.


Now in your Assets, navigate to the Maps subfolder once again and double-click the main.map file, then click OK in the window that pops up. The file should now be have a small red tick mark to the left.

Once you Build the mod again, you have a fully functioning, albeit empty bounce mod!
You can also use these steps to create the base for your very own mod, but that's not what we want here. We want to merge two mods, and for that, we need to access their database record files.

Extracting Mods and Adding Them to Yours

Start with downloading and locating the mods you want to merge. If you got them from the Steam Workshop, you will find them here:
*\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\475150

In there you'll find number-string subfolders with the actual mods inside, so check them for the mods you want. In this example we'll merge Xmax (755731339) and LootPlus (1742876226). Inside the Xmax folder are several versions, so we pick one and go with "x3" and search for the x3.arz.
Now we would use the ARZ Extractor to get to the dbr files, but we're lucky, because the loose files are included in the mod! So all we need is in the records folder located here:
*Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\475150\755731339\x3\database

Now you just need to copy the records folder into your own mod folder, located here:
*\my games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\Working\CustomMaps\ModCollector\database

That's one half done, so back to the LootPlus folder and we see, no records here. The reason for this is that including the uncompressed loose files in bigger mods would blow the size up immensely. But all's not lost, that's what the ARZ Extractor is for.

In the database subfolder of the LootPlus mod, locate the LootPlus.arz and copy it to the Desktop for now (or anywhere else, you can even leave it there, it's just for easy access). Then we fire up the ARZ Extractor.

This here thing.

Locate the LootPlus.arz where you put (or left) it and select an output folder. I recommend a subfolder in the ARZ Extractor itself so you always know where stuff is. Don't forget to create a new folder for each mod! Once it's done extracting, go into said folder and there it is: records.

Again, copy that records folder here:
*\my games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\Working\CustomMaps\ModCollector\database
When asked to merge folders, click yes to all.

IMPORTANT: If you try to merge mods and are asked if you want to overwrite files, that means that both mods contain changes to the same files and are not compatible without some extra work! I'll get to that later.

The two mods in the example will not have that problem, though, and now all the files we need are where we want them. All we have to do now is going back to the Art Manager and load up our mod again.

Just one last step: hit Build (F7) and wait until its done. Close the Art Manager, fire up Titan Quest and test out your new mod!

Yep, looks good.

Advanced Mod Merging: Editing the Files

While having more loot and more enemies in our game is great, we found another mod we want to add to our collection, one that raises various caps from 80% to 99% (I'm sure there are many mods out there that do this, but for convenience sakes, I just made it myself).

Anyway, we merge that mods records with our ModCollector records and...are asked if we want to overwrite the gameengine.dbr. Of course we don't. This would mean we'd lose the changes another mod made to the file.

Instead, we let the gameengine.dbr renamed and start the Art Manager. Navigate to where the gameengine.dbr is located, and we see both files.
I'm doing this in the ModInjector but let's just pretend it's actually the ModCollector.

What we have to do now is get the changes from the gameengine (2).dbr into the older gameengine.dbr. Select both, then Right Click>Edit....

A new window will open that lets us inspect and edit the content of both files. If you don't already know what you're looking for, you may have to compare all values to see what actually differs, but for now, we assume we already know that what we seek is in the Player Info.
Should be obvious even without the red box.

All we have to do now is to adopt the higher values to our main gameengine.dbr, File>Save and close the window, then delete the gameengine (2).dbr that we don't need anymore (Right Click>Delete), and Build the mod again.

That was easy.
But of course it won't always be that easy. Most of the time you'll probably have no idea what to look for when comparing two files, and in that case, we need help. [to be continued]

Injecting Mods into the Database

Once you have all the mods you want to use in a handy package, you may come to find that you don't want to bounce anytime you do a farming run, or you don't want to miss out on all the cool achievements.

No problem, we just have to take all the modded files and inject them into the game's database.
You'll find the Database subfolder in the main game directory here:
*\Steam\steamapps\common\Titan Quest Anniversary Edition\Database

Don't forget to make a backup of the database.arz!

But first, we create a new mod. Fire up the Art Manager and create a new mod. We'll give it the fitting name "ModInjector" in the example. Without doing anything else, Build the mod.

Now we need to locate the ModInjector.arz here:
*\Documents\my games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\CustomMaps\modinjector\database

For the next step, move the database.arz from the game directory to where the ModInjector.arz is located.
Easy enough.

Then, delete the 1KB ModInjector.arz and rename the database.arz to ModInjector.arz.
Only the bigger renamed file should be left.

Now we need the files to inject into the database, in this case the records from our Modcollector.
Copy the records folder form here:
*\my games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\Working\CustomMaps\ModCollector\database
to here:
*\my games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\Working\CustomMaps\ModInjector\database

Back to the Art Manager. Reload the ModInjector mod and check the files in the Database.
Here they are.

Build the mod.
What will happen now is that the Art Manager will replace the files inside the renamed database.arz with our modified ones, leaving us with an injected main game database! All that's left now is to copy over the ModInjector.arz into the Database subfolder of the main game directory and rename it back to database.arz.

Note: Of course you can also use an already modded (injected) database.arz as a base, you don't have to use the vanilla one every time you want to inject something new. Just make the changes in your ModInjector mod, Build the mod again and copy/rename the ModInjector.arz over once more.
You should use a fresh vanilla database any time the game updates, though!

Notice the difference in file size.

Start the game, do not load any mods, and see if everything works correctly. And it should, if you followed this guide closely :^)


You may ask yourself if you couldn't just have skipped making a new mod and do the whole thing in the ModCollector. The answer is yes, but I think it's better structured if you have a mod for every purpose.

Publishing Your Mod

Once you've done all the work and created a Master-Mod to arouse envy far and wide, you may want to get it out there for others to enjoy.

That's noble, but keep the following in mind: do NOT publish anything that contains content from other mods withour their creators' explicit permission!

Stealing other people's work and passing it off as your own is what makes them lose interest in creating and sharing new content for the games we love.

Thanks

Thanks for reading my guide, I hope it does leave no question unanswered.

This guide is loosely based on modding guides by Icelancer and Poinas, so thanks to them for providing me with the knowledge to write my own.

[simusius]

Hi is there a way to merge multimaster mod which is downloaded from nexusmods and more skill points + Exp x4 + loot plus + enchanting unlimited? I can't find records for any of that mods to create database with arz extractor.

[Alois]

Im having trouble with the gameengine.dbr how do i create it? My folder wont merge so i can only replace or skip the parts that are doubled what should i do in oreder to get gameengine.dbr and gameengine2.dbr?

[TERMINATORUS]

Please make a MOD for Soulvizier AURA (v1.14b) plus xMAX+ Nothing is working ;(

[Grand Vizier Rafael III]

Thanks for making this guide! It's very straightforward.

I ran into an issue where a handful of the files from the mods I merged were seemingly corrupted, and caused the Art Manager to crash soon after it reached them while building. But they were largely for specific skills that I don't use, so I left them out and the mod built just fine after that.

[ミメミ]

@tjimagineer
Actually....no. I don't know if there are any mods pioneering merged visuals and mechanicals, your best bet would be to ask someone who already did this. If not, there may be old guides touching this subject floating around in the web, but I can't say for sure.

[tjimagineer]

Any idea on how to merge the playable jackal man or other appearance mods with ones that change xp and skill points?

[Zbiten]

Thank you. I`ve compilated mods what i need the 1st time with yr guide.

[Mr.Djoel]

Can you please explain how to add your mod to steam worshop

[ROCK AND STONE!!!]

Hello. I'm in the process of merging three mods following this guide, xmax_no_limit, more summons and skill points +. The first two have "Records" folders, but when I copied the 2nd Records folder to the TQIT directory, it asked me to overwrite, because some folders have the same name. What do I do here?

[ObXidiaN]

How can i merge mods that modify the same files? i tried it anyway and got errors while building the mod and could'nt play it. The mods that i want to merge are "Soulvizier AERA", lootplus, item affixes and enchanting unlimited merged with a +4 SP and +6 AP mod. Hope you know how to solve it, this is an amazing guide anyway! :)