Make a new email

This guide is for Mass Effect 3 / Mass Effect 3 Legendary Edition. This does not apply to Game 2!

Requirements:

• Legendary Explorer
• ME3Tweaks Mod Manager

1) Creating the Mod

To create the email you first need to create it’s text. For that you’ll need to modify your tlk file. The tlk files contain all the strings of text that exist in the game, from the menus to the subtitles. But first, we need to create a DLC Starter Kit so that we don’t modify base game files. . Launch ME3Tweaks Mod Manager and click on Tools -> Generate new DLC mod ->Mass Effect 3. This will bring you to the DLC mod creation screen. Here, just fill in the appropriate information for your mod. The only really important info for adding an email is the Internal Name TLK ID. That will be the ID of the last strings of your tlk file. Set it to a high number, and it has to be unique. This will generate a DLC Mod in the mods folder of your Mod Manager. Now open Legendary Explorer. The two tools that are gonna interest us are in the Utilities tab: Coalesced Editor and ME3 + ME2 TLK Editor.

2) Create the content of the email

Use ME3 + ME2 TLK Editor to convert your TLK file to XML. Convert the TLK file that ends with _INT, that’s the code for International, or English. Now open your XML file and add your strings under the following format: Your string . You’ll need two strings per mail, one for the title, and one for the body. For example: Remember to put all your entries under the Male section of the tlk, which is the default one, and even a female character will see them. When you’re done, use the tool again but this time to Create a new version of your TLK file.

3) Adding the Mail to the inbox

Now that we’re done with creating the email itself, we need to add it to your inbox. For that, use the Coalesced editor and convert your mod’s coalesced (format: Default_DLC_MOD_YourModName.bin) to an xml format. Now you’ll notice that a folder has been created. That’s because the coalesced has been converted in a bunch of smaller xml files. Open the BioUI.xml, we’re now gonna add the email into the system.

Assuming you want the email to be sent to the Normandy terminal, here’s what you’ll need to do: under the <Sections>, add <Section name=”sfxgamecontent.sfxguidata_mail_normandy”>.

Then, add a <Property name=”maillist”>. You’re telling the game that you want your content to be added to the normandy email system, and in the mail list. Then each new line is a new email. Here’s a template:

<Value type=”3”>(MailTitle=TitleID, MailBody=BodyID, MailStatePlot=PlotID, SendConditional=ConditionalID, SmallImage=””)</String>

Let’s decrypt this: the TitleID and the BodyID are the id’s you’ve given to your strings earlier in your tlk. The MailStatePlot is what the game updates to know if the player has read the message: if it’s 0 the email wasn’t sent, if it’s 1 it’s been sent but not read, if it’s 2 it’s been sent and read. Finally the SendConditional is the condition upon which the email is sent. This relates to Plot ID’s, for which you can find a list of commonly used ones in Plot DB in ME3Explorer. Example of a complete BioUI.xml structure:

<CoalesceAsset id="BioUI" name="bioui.ini" source="..\..\biogame\config\bioui.ini">
	<Sections>
		<Section name="sfxgamecontent.sfxguidata_mail_normandy">
			<Property name="maillist">
				<Value type="3">(MailTitle=42017, MailBody=42018, MailStatePlot=42069, SendConditional=185, SmallImage="")</Value>
				<Value type="3">(MailTitle=42022, MailBody=42023, MailStatePlot=42070, SendConditional=42069, SmallImage="")</Value>
			</Property>
		</Section>
	</Sections>
</CoalesceAsset>

Now that you’ve filled all of this with what you wanted, go back to the Coalesced Editor, and to reagglomerate your coalesced, select the xml with the same name as the original bin. It will automatically change conversion to Binary and you just have to click convert. Don’t forget to copy the bin back into the CookedPCConsole of the DLC mod if you didn’t change the output.

4) Chaining emails

Now the game will automatically send the email upon the conditional being toggled. But there’s more! If you want to do email chains, one mail triggering after another, you can! All you have to do is use the MailStatePlot ID of your first mail as the SendConditional of your second email, and so on and so forth if you need more. That way, they’ll trigger in sequence.

After all that’s said and done, don’t forget to run the AutoTOC (you can find the tool on the main page of ME3Explorer, the big ATOC) and you’re done! You can also use those MailStatePlot ID’s to trigger sequences in Sequence Editor, but that’s a tutorial for another time!