Duck and Cover

alright, alot of the current item editing projects always seem to override the current item of its type (like the gecko DNA, which had to occupy to spot of some actual armour)
so i was going about trying to do otherwise, editing a current suit of armour, renaming it to the item filename i wanted it to replace which was not armour(which noone was equipped with), then editing the hex values to make the decriptions match up, and keeping the same player look and stats for debug reasons.
as soon as i load an area with that numbered object, the game crashes...
anyone know what else has to be done in this situation?

I'm not sure I'm grasping everything that you're saying but here goes...

I highly suggest not chaging the current item types as there are a lot of script which refer to the ID of istems directly (checking if you have armour and the like).

For as much as possible I suggest sticking with FIME and FIC for item editing except for stuff not supported by them (which I think pointing the description is part of said unsuported editing features...).

Now for the crash, I'm not sure what causes it however note that most mods don't change items TYPES, they just change the item's properties/description. Perhaps the link between the map and the item is sensitive to the type?

Another thing is that armour and "misc items" don't have the same length .pro files, did you use the proper length for the type you wanted to use?

err... ill go step by step...
1.extract proto\items\00000001.pro (metal armour) from master.dat place in fallout2\data\proto\items\
2.rename to 00000439.pro(pocket lint)
3.random stuff, like changing description in items.msg, nothing that would cause a prob
now, if i do that much,even just 1 and 2, it would cause the game to crash...
perhaps you're right, maybe for it to override the master.dat, the new file would have to be the same length as the lint, but i think that the lint is a shorter file.

Oh, you just have that problem "overwriting", where it keeps the old object?

That's simple. Reason is you need to place it into data/proto/items, NOT proto/items. You also need to make it read-only or Fallout will delete it.

The only way to use the proto/items directly is to delete/rename the master.dat entirely.

maybe i worded it wrong...
dont worry, i think i answered my own question

Another thing is that armour and "misc items" don't have the same length .pro files, did you use the proper length for the type you wanted to use?

Yes Red is right the *.pro file must have length acording to it type (misc,item,critter itp).
Renaming fille of one type to another will do no good.

well the thing is the new item does the proper length for its OWN type, its just that i think that the length of the misc lint item in the master.dat is a shorter file than that of the armour that i am replacing it with, and when the game loads up the lint, then whatever the game loads up next, when it finally gets through themaster.dat and starts overriding the files from the fallout directory, the longer length of the new armour replacing the lint overrides whatever was in memory after the lint, causing some mem error, thus crashing the game

This might be an issue with the map (ie: the map assigns specific stuff given the item type contained), but I know it's not linked to the master.dat nor the Fallout engine.