Dialectic

Dialectic is the Fallout: New Vegas and Tale of Two Wastelands client for AI NPC interaction.

• Plugin/: native 32-bit xNVSE plugin source for dialectic.dll.
• Mod/Data/: deployable ESP, MCM, JIP script-runner, UI, and voice assets.
• docs/: native-runtime migration and validation records.

Requirements

Game and Runtime

• Fallout: New Vegas. Tale of Two Wastelands is supported but is not required; Dialectic.esp only has FalloutNV.esm as a master.
• xNVSE 6.3.3 or newer.
• JIP LN NVSE Plugin 57 or newer.
• JohnnyGuitar NVSE 5.17 or newer.
• ITR NVSE 1.0.0 or newer. Dialectic uses its dialogue and sound events to capture and suppress vanilla dialogue correctly while AI speech is playing.
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x86). The 32-bit runtime is required even on 64-bit Windows.

MCM

The in-game configuration menu and hotkey binding require the current versions of:

• The Mod Configuration Menu.
• MCM Extender.
• ShowOff xNVSE and UIO, which are requirements of MCM Extender.

Install these framework mods before Dialectic. Hotkeys are unbound by default, so MCM is part of the supported installation rather than an optional convenience.

Server

Dialectic requires a running, matching-version DialecticServer, normally installed and managed through DwemerDistro. The client can use launcher autodiscovery or a manually configured server address in dialectic_custom.ini.

Build

cd Plugin
cmake --preset x86-release
cmake --build --preset x86-release

Fallout: New Vegas is 32-bit, so release builds must use the Win32/x86 preset.

Validate the tracked package before release:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File Plugin\tests\verify-release-tree.ps1

Development Flow

Changes move through feature/* -> unstable -> dev -> dialectic. Open normal pull requests against unstable; promotion pull requests move the accumulated changes from unstable to dev, then from dev to the release branch dialectic. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full policy.

Voice Samples

Dialectic does not distribute voice audio extracted from Fallout game files. Mod/Data/Dialectic/fallout_builtin_voices.csv maps voice types to samples in the installed game's Data/Sound/Voice tree. Dialectic imports those samples when an NPC is encountered.

Runtime

JIP LN runs Mod/Data/NVSE/Plugins/scripts/ln_DialecticBootstrap.txt once for each new game or loaded save. That script is the single owner of runtime bridge registration. Hotkeys are unbound by default and configured through MCM.