BadPenney

You can extract the .ogg voice files and .lip files from the vanilla Fallout3_voices.bsa and reassign those files to new dialogue for your custom merchant. The new dialogue uses the same text as the old (you can even copy and paste the text in the GECK) and sounds exactly the same but has a unique ID for your mod. It is not as easy as you had probably hoped, but it is possible.

Drop the other two threads on this same subject please and I will tell you of another possible solution to your puzzle. Think of a shell game, but instead of switching the shell around so that it is alway empty, switch it around so that it is always full. Follow me? Instead of tracking, sorting and updating inventory to different boxes in different locations, move one box with one inventory to different locations. Here is an example: Generate a footlocker from the Item List and place it at a location in the game world with the GECK. Settle it into its final resting place in your mod. Name it LockerA. Copy it. Go to another location where you want the inventory to be accessible. Paste a copy of LockerA there. Move and settle it but leave its orientation exactly the same as the original, meaning if the first locker was oriented at a certain angle of rotation (the default zero degrees is simplest) then copies should also be at the same x, y, and z rotation as the original. You can place as many copies as you want, but for this example let's say 3 copies and one extra, so four lockers total. LockerA, LockerB, and LockerC are placed in different cells, but all facing the same direction. Now place a fourth locker and name it TRUNK. Increase the Scale of TRUNK 1.05%. TRUNK will hold your inventory. Place object scripts on LockerA, LockerB, and LockerC that Begin OnActivate and work to move TRUNK to their location when they are activated and activate TRUNK instead so that you add and remove items from its inventory only. It would be a good idea to include a timer to the script, so that there is a delay of 2 seconds or so between moving TRUNK to the current location and activating it. That should avoid glitches caused by lag. Get the idea? Each Locker will have basically the same object script, only the MoveTo location will change. Only TRUNK will ever open, and if you close it and then try to open it again immediately, it will activate instead of the dummy target Locker because it is slightly larger and in exactly the same coordinates, so the dummy locker is inside of it and inaccessible at that point. Since all of the lockers look the same and face the same way, and TRUNK is only imperceptibly larger, it will give the illusion that several boxes have the same inventory when TRUNK moves from place to place. I think that this should work, though I may be wrong. I will let you work out the details of the scripts. I'm ill-motivated to do all of the work and test it for you, but the different way of looking at the puzzle should make it easily workable. Besides, tweaking and testing is the fun part of modding and I don't want to deny you that. It should not be too difficult, and far simpler than any OnAdd "polling inventory" script which would likely fail with other mods and their custom inventories anyway. With a "Shell Game" method it should not matter whether items placed into TRUNK are vanilla objects or custom modded ones.

I count 3 threads that you have started on 2 forums for the same subject, one of which had a suggestion that you rejected. This approach will not yield the results that you seek.

Your first script appears to require a menu which you probably have not set up. The second script creates a loop that displays the message continously until the game crashes or you hit escape since there is nothing to tell the message to stop displaying.

Your heartlfelt thanks is enough to make me jump at the chance to rip them off, but please consider buying the game that has your idol in it (FALLOUT NEW VEGAS is it?). That way the programmers can feed and clothe themselves and survive long enough to make another game for us.

Have you created and properly stored a message entitled BookPage1 that the script can display?

Sometimes you just have to think inside the box. A jet engine is similar to a steam turbine but the parts are not interchangeable. There are mods that change the same weapon in different ways that are less magical in appearance than what you describe. For instance: start with an assault rifle and add modular components like a scope, flash suppressor, extended ammo clip, etc. So the answer is probably yes and no. No, you can't do the same thing, but yes, you can do something similar. Item IDs are an issue in FO3. I don't know if the programs that you are used to operate in the same way. The people who could answer your question the best would likely be involved with FOIP (Fallout Inter-Operability Program). They make different popular weapon mods co-exist.

Download FO3Edit and its accompanying guide to learn to fix mod problems efficiently if you are interested. Disable mods one at a time until Fallout works if you like the slow and unsure method. Some glitches persist even after the offending mod is disabled.

Goto Search... in the upper right corner. Type Race. Select the looking glass. Wait. Scroll through threads like: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/236762-tutorial-on-custom-race-creation/page__p__2102126__hl__race__fromsearch__1#entry2102126 http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/244444-custom-race-creation-trouble/page__p__2178242__hl__race__fromsearch__1#entry2178242 and so forth. If this forum doesn't yield results for you then try Mod Troubleshooting. Some subjects need tutorials but they don't exist. Some may never exist. Some that do exist are bad or incomplete. Research is your tutorial. It is a search and create mission. Good luck.

Meatcaps are the grisly, exposed stubs of amputated limbs that appear when an actor is dismembered. They are necessary for realism if they are part of armor that will be worn by an actor that may be blown apart. Without them you would only see clear holes.

Like a great deal of software, it will only do what you tell it to do and not what you want.

The more clearly you provide information regarding your needs the more likely that you will receive a useful answer. Do you mean that you do not know how to alter the FALLOUT.INI file? Have you seen any information about Fallout Mod Manager or Archive Invalidation Invalidated? Have you installed any mod .esp files into the /Data subdirectory of your Fallout 3 installation?

This is a popular topic. There is even a pinned thread for it @ What Mod Is This?

I second that emotion. Miax has made an instruction manual for it as well. It will allow you to eliminate those issues and to find others that you do not know exist right now. The world would be better if modder's clean their mods with FO3Edit before uploading.

It could simply be poorly linked doors in a mod, with nothing to do with the type of building. It's to be likely a GECK programming error, I think.

Start with a lawyer and lots of money.

Second, you have only about half the mods that your list could potentially hold. The most dependable way that I know of to get to the bottom of such mod issues is to become acquainted with the use of the mod FO3Edit. It will check any or all of your mods for errors that cause the sort of conflict that you describe. This is quicker and more reliable than trial and error disabling or casting out lines to forums hoping for informed readers to help. FO3Edit will also allow mod creators to check and clean their mods before uploading them, which it seems at least one of the creators of the mods in your list has not done. So if you find out which one is dirty, it is always a kind gesture to let the author of the mod know about it, if you are so inclined. Hopefully they will be appreciative of the heads up, and learn to use FO3Edit also.

There are many text-to-speech softwares available. Google TTS and you should be able to find free downloads easily enough.

Think of it like a script: GetIsID Butch: "If I lose, kill him." GetIsID Sundance Kid: "My pleasure." NPCs only look at lines that have their ID designated. If you want to start a conversation with an NPC then you must give them an opening line in the existing "GREETING" topic, with at least one choice leading to the next line of dialogue.

You must have "Archive Invalidation Invalidated!" (or recreate the method manually) in order for custom sound files to work with Fallout 3. You can not access the existing voice files directly, but must extract them from their .bsa file and recreate their sub-directory location outside the .bsa with new filenames that are provided by the GECK. AII allows Fallout 3 to access custom files outside of the .bsa source files that the game uses normally. Without it, those files are invisible and are ignored by the game.

Do you have Archive Invalidation Invalidated! active on your computer either as a standalone or as part of Fallout Mod Manager?

It sounds as if the proper quest stage is already set, otherwise the flag would not have been set to give you that quest instruction. Mods can interfere with vanilla quests. I would recommend using FO3Edit to check over all of your mods for conflicts to be certain that is not the case(not as bad as it sounds). But there is also a chance that you just have a messed up savegame. I have had luck clearing up some weird glitches with the player death and resurrection method. The easiest way is to find a nice safe place for your player character to frag himself (grenades work well). The player dies and resurrects from a point just before the self destruction, but often times without a great deal of screwy savegame baggage that can accumulate even without adding and removing mods. Starting a new savegame thread from that point might give you some relief, otherwise maybe try FO3Edit.

It may be possible to make dialogue initiate by console command. I can't say from first hand experience because I haven't done it. I use scripts mostly to get actors to speak, move and emote on cue. First of all there is the quest script that you can attach to the same quest that contains the lines of dialogue and NPC to NPC conversations. That is where I put most of the work in orchestrating the scene. NPC actors can be placed like props, given AI Packages that will make them go places and do things as well as deliver lines of dialogue and emotes. As a director/camera operator then, I like to use a crude sort of mechanical device to call "Action" once the scene is framed and ready to record. I place a unique copy of an electrical switch at the feet of where my player character/camera will be standing when the shoot begins. It has a simple object script that is activated by flipping the switch. The first component of the object script is a timer that I usually set to about 20 seconds. That gives me time to reorient my first person view away from the switch and back to the composition that I want to record. When the timer reaches zero, the object script sets conditions that the quest script recognizes as commands to begin the desired sequence of events; which can be actors speaking, a rolling barrage of mortar bursts, a squad of soldiers rushing a gate, etc. I treat the scene just like a movie set (anything off camera doesn't exist) so switches can be placed off camera and moved, deleted or reprogrammed as needed. I only operate this way for cartoons, not player mods. Those have to be clean and contiguous. Cartoon mods are combinations of throw away variations of a plug-in and save games in my book. I make one foundation mod that holds my scripts and characters. I make special races so that main characters can have clone copies as both NPCs and as player characters. I find that gives me the most flexibility in scene creation. PipBoys can be added to NPCs to make them look like players and disabled on a player character to give the impression that his third person view is that of an NPC. I have found that combining a scripted scene of multiple NPCs (like the assault on the mutants in Bucketheads) while participating as an actor/camera can be great fun. I like to set the scene and do several shoots to get several choices. The process is a controlled accident and some really surprising and interesting results can occur. Another helpful script device that I use for cartoons allows me to control outside lighting easily. If I want my scene to appear to occur outside between 10pm and midnight, then I add a line to the script that resets the time to 10 once it passes midnight. I can waste as much time as necessary before beginning the recording that way without "losing my light". Btw, in case you want more information on scripting for Fallout 3, there are some great tutorials by Cipscis that you should find helpful.

The fastest way is to re-use NPC dialague that is already in the game. You can use FOMM to extract the voice files and associated lip synch files from the voices.bsa and then use them for your own NPCs. It doesn't allow you unique dialogue, but it is fast, and I have used it many times for less central characters in both mods and videos. There are many ways to trigger dialogue. Trigger boxes are just one of them. Check out the player force greet script for Lucas Sims for clues. If you want to have a line of dialogue begin with a console command so that you can record it and want to avoid the line being spoken too quickly for a good recording then just program in a delay. That can be done easily enough with silent dialogue and no difficult scripting. If your character says "umm... (14 second pause)Get out before I kill you!", then you have a 14 second pause that you can edit out as needed. I use silent dialogue combined with NPC emotional gestures for more complex NPC reactions as well. For instance, a 3 second bit of silence with anger followed by "OH!" and surprise gives a better impression of someone thinking about something and then figuring out the answer a bit better than simply a surprised "Oh!". BTW, if you do want to record your own voice tracks for custom dialogue for Fallout 3, then it is very handy to have an early copy of Oblivion's TES Construction Set in order to create custom lip synch files for them. The GECK won't do it alone. I'm hoping that feature is returned with the New Vegas GECK.

It occurs to me that there just may be a few cactus and other desert type plants included in Fallout New Vegas soon.