This thread is largely directed at Larian, but maybe others will learn from this or have ideas.
When you place an item, character, or trigger in the game, this information is saved in an lsb file. Unfortunately, as far as I know there's no way for modders to read these lsb files, so this can make collaboration difficult. The Master Rat and I are using a source control to conveniently ensure we always have the most updated version of the mod, to save older versions of the files of the mod, and to allow us to work on the mod at the same time without worrying about merging files.
This works great for text files, like the stats and story script files, where we can both edit the same file at the same time and both keep our changes as long as they are on different lines because the text files can be opened and compared. With lsb files, however, we have no way to read them so it's impossible for us to both work on items at the same time.
The solution that Larian appears to have used is that each person has their own default LSB file they save things into, a setting which can be found in the preferences. They've also made certain specific LSBs for books, for example, that presumably multiple members of the team used. The problem still appears to be that if someone modifies an item in someone else's LSB file, and that person also makes a change to an item they've worked on, then there's a conflict and they'll have to choose one person's changes to accept and reject the other.
So either Larian has some system to ensure that people aren't working on each other's objects, or they have ways to merge LSB files. If it's the latter, modders would love to enjoy this tool. If it's the former, this system seems quite archaic, and either a tool should be developed to merge LSB files, or Larian should look into converting all the information in the LSB files to text files or some other mergable format.
Really hope someone from Larian could let us know how you dealt with this problem and if a solution exists or is in the works. Thanks.
