David Brasher

The people who made Oblivion were much too fond of quest items. A prime example is the dagger that Lucian Lachance gives you when you accidentally kill an ally in battle. Like you may have no intention at all of joining the Dark Brotherhood, but you are now stuck with this item for a quest that you never plan on completing. That example was by design. The developers meant for you to have this dagger and not lose it, because that could break the Dark Brotherhood quest arc. Seridur's key sounds like it might be tied up with the Order of the Virtuous Blood quest and post quest repeatable activity. In many cases when you complete a certain quest, the scripting will make a key so that it is no longer a quest item and may be dropped. In other cases, the developers failed to do this and left bugs in the game. Or in some cases, they used bad judgement and made a key into a quest item when there was no reason for this. One obstacle to making a mod such as you propose, is that many keys open more than one door or container, and if the keys were set to vanish upon use, then quests and dungeons could be broken by leaving vital doors and containers unopenable because the key no longer exists.

This was a common problem with Windows Vista and I am not surprised to see it elsewhere. There is mod that allows you to access the console by equipping a magic ring in-game: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/13133/?

It seems like I have heard of mods that make it so there are no quest items. Quest items are the items you cannot drop or sell, like the keys you describe. A mod like this would have the negative side effect of making it so you could break a quest and be unable to complete it if you sell or lose the wrong item, but that really doesn't happen all that often. So this kind of mod would not make the keys vanish, but would allow you to sell them or drop them whenever you felt like it. So you might try searching for a mod using key words like "No quest items."

This could require a system of scripts. You would need a quest script on an active quest that had a quest variable that other the other scripts could refer to. Each enemy that must be killed before the door unlocked would need to carry a script. The door would need to be set up as a reference. So you would use many copies of a script like this on your monsters: SCN AAEnemyDeathScript ; Object script attached to each and every enemy that must die before the door unlocks. Begin OnDeath Set AAQuest01.KillCount to AAQuest01.KillCount + 1 End Note that in this example the quest is named AAQuest01. The script attached to quest AAQuest01 is named AAMyQuestSCRIPTwithAnExcessivelyLongName. The object scripts that refer to variables in other scripts must refer to the quest name, not the script name. So it must be like this: Set AAQuest01.KillCount to AAQuest01.KillCount + 1NOT like this: Set AAMyQuestSCRIPTwithAnExcessivelyLongName.KillCount to AAMyQuestSCRIPTwithAnExcessivelyLongName.KillCount + 1You would use a quest script like this: SCN AAMyQuestSCRIPTwithAnExcessivelyLongName ; Attached to your quest. Short KillCount Short DoOnce Begin GameMode If DoOnce == 0 If Killcount == 23 ; If you have 23 monsters on this level that must die before the door unlocks. AAMyDoorREF.Unlock ; Where your door is set up to have the reference ID "AAMyDoorREF." Set DoOnce to 1 EndIf EndIf EndYour quest script would have to be written, compiled, and installed on a quest before you could compile your object scripts. Note that this system is not entirely safe from failure. Like if you had 23 monsters, what if two of them disappeared? Then the door could never be opened. Like a monster might fall through the floor and get lost in the bottom of the cell where you can't fight it and kill it. The game might just never place and render a monster. Maybe the AI is bad and a monster wanders off and leaves the cell. What if the script doesn't always trigger right? You could kill 23 monsters and only have the script fire 21 times. (Oblivion is a bit buggy sometimes.) The door would never open and the mod would be broken. So if you encounter problems when play-testing, you might want to consider changing things so that the door opens when 90% of the monsters are dead, or change it so the door opens when the boss monster is dead, because he is the toughest and will probably be the last to die.

Maybe your border remover mod is not working because you have another mod that adds borders back in. Your border remover mod would need to load after all the other mods that touch the border.

The hold boundaries are just nonsensical and someone scrawled them on the map in five minutes so they could meet a deadline. In real life, political boundaries tend to follow areas where strong political control can be exerted. Capitals are often centrally located. Failing that, there are often firmly loyal cities and towns in the controlled political areas which extend the control far beyond the reach of the capital. But Skyrim is in a state of anarchy. Bandits and monsters rule most of it. The only places you see guards and soldiers are the big cities, a few small villages, and a few forts. So if I was to draw a political map of Skyrim, I would draw little circles around each town with dotted lines rather than solid lines. In addition to the name of the town, I would write the name of its ruler's hold capital in parenthesis. Like how small islands on a world map may have a notation such as (United Kingdom) or (France.) The lines around towns would be dotted instead of solid to indicated "boundary undefined" such as it is with certain boundaries in the desert on the Arabian peninsula.

Mod dirt is kind of a misunderstood thing. If something is an intentional edit, then it is not mod dirt. But it can still cause mod conflicts. But maybe it is supposed to conflict. It depends on the intent of the mod. If you want to change the base game and have your mod win conflicts, then it will need to load after conflicting mods and you can more frequently do things such as use search-and-replace. If you want to avoid more mod conflicts, then you will more frequently disable and replace conflicting objects. If you delete conflicting objects rather than disabling them or moving them under the floor, then you will cause CTDs when conflicting mods are running. (This is the rational behind the misnamed TESVEdit UDR references.) If you really want to avoid mod conflicts, then don't be editing Breezehome. Get a new cell, even if it is a replica of Breezehome.

Go to CK > Object Window > Items > LeveledItem. Add your spell tome book objects to leveled lists with names starting in "LItemSpellTomes-"

I hate Steam Workshop because it is built wrong and they won't fix it. Steam Workshop is bad because it severely limits what types of mods you can upload. On Skyrim Nexus you can upload practically anything. Here are some common types of mods you can't upload to Steam Workshop: 1. Mods that have both an .esm and an .esp. 2. Mods that have loose files. 3. Mods that include documents like readme files, user guides, walkthough documents, and spoiler documents. 4. Mods with images such as maps or pictures of the different options that can be installed. (Like maybe the armor comes in two colors depending on which texture files you choose to install.) 5. Mods that have multiple .esp files for things like different difficulties, different item colors, different degrees of lore-friendliness, or for compatibility with different mods.

In the same object list in the CK where you built your "Recipe" you will also see "Temper" entries. So for an example of the two object types, there is one called "RecipeArmorDaedricBoots." This is for crafting daedric boots. Further down the list there is one called "TemperArmorDaedricBoots" This is for improving daedric boots. In your mod, you will need to build a second crafting object for tempering. Follow the patterns used in these vanilla Skyrim objects whose names start with "temper-."

I would say that you should not do this for your first Skyrim mod. This mod idea is like what an expert modder would try to do and fail at. Some of the ideas might be possible, but it is certainly not what the CK and the Skyrim game engine are designed for, so it would be cutting across the grain and fighting an uphill battle the whole way. I suggest you pick an easy thing for your first mod.

Vanilla Skyrim level scaling stinks. It just causes all kinds of problems. I guess if you are using vanilla Skyrim level scaling and you don't want to get one-shotted by a musket, then the textbook answer would be to put them on the leveled lists such that they only appear at a certain player level. Like if a musket can kill a level 10 character in one shot, but kill a level 11 character in two shots, then maybe you would only want the muskets to appear at level 11 and higher. At level 10 and lower, people would still get bows or something.

Okay. There has indeed been a new CK version uploaded between 10:33 and 12:08. So far it seems to work properly like the old one did before the Skyrim update. I think we are back in business. Unfortunately, it does not look to me like the update supports scripting for Dawnguard.

The CK still does not work for me. Is this to say that the update is more recent than my 10:33 AM post?

"Corrupt" is not really the right word. You could argue that Bethesda is doing a really good job in this one aspect. It is actually building things that lots of people want. People want vampire content and houses and crossbows. In my opinion, it would be bad if Bethesda built things nobody wanted. A killer mermaid DLC. A roleplay as a street sweeper DLC. A DLC where you roleplay as an Imperial clerk and fill out stacks and stacks of forms in triplicate. A DLC to make vampires sparkle in the sunlight. A DLC where there are lots and lots of political attack ads as the pretenders squabble over the throne in Solitude.

@ slainia I am still waiting for the Oblivion CS update to fix the broken voiced dialog software from the Shivering Isles update. This was indeed sort of an end of the world scenario with Oblivion modding. Have you noticed how Oblivion mods almost never have voiced dialog? This is not because of the modders, this is because Bethesda broke the CS and never fixed it. What about Dawnguard? There are certain ways in which Dawnguard doesn't work with the CK. Dawnguard has been out for a good long while and Hearthfire has even been released. But where is the CK update to make it so the editor works right with Dawnguard?

Bethesda just killed Skyrim modding. There are certain types of mods which are no longer possible to build, debug, or expand. Now the question is: are they going to resurrect Skyrim modding?

I fully agree. If a person uploads a mod, in the same package they need to upload the readme file which includes the installation and usage instructions. It is absolutely shocking how even some of the top 100 files fail to include this most basic information.

I have been trying out something radical. I used Wrye Bash and Windows Explorer to build myself a new .esm named Update.esm. It is totally empty and contains no edits. With it in my load order, I was able to open up a mod that required Update.esm in the CK just fine. I play-tested Skyrim to see what would happen and it loaded and started just fine, and it did not CTD. But it turns out that Update.esm is important. I couldn't use any magic, and Serena wouldn't wear her hood out in the bright sunlight. (I am sure there are other things too if a person looked.) Maybe I could keep two copies of Update.esm -- a real one and a fake one. I could rename them depending on whether I am modding or play-testing. Use the fake one when modding and the real one when playing. I imagine in these circumstances that it is quite destructive to save an .esp that is dependent on Update.esm if it actually edits that master, but I suspect that most mods which use it as a master don't really edit it.

I have been busy at work and low on energy and low on enthusiasm. Now I finally get some time and energy this weekend to work on my mod and the CK is broken because of the Skyrim update. It looks like it might be impossible for me to do the work. I can't just remove Update.esm as a master and restructure the mod that way because the mod uses Dawnguard.esm as a master and that DLC uses Update.esm as a master. It kind of looks like I am dead in the water and will have to wait for the CK to be updated. (Which may never happen. Has anyone heard when they are planning to update the Oblivion CS? The Shivering Isles update broke the voiced dialog part of it and I am still awaiting the CS update.)

These sound like bad mods, or else mods that told you to use a program to generate silent voice files. In a properly built mod, there will either be voiced dialog and text delay, silent dialog files and text delay, or instructions to use another mod to give you silent dialog files and text delay. There is also the possibility that you have not installed the mods completely. If the dialog files were not installed, then the text would flash past too quickly to read. It might be that you would have better luck if you refrained from clicking on the text and just waited for another line to display.

The standard answer is that you use BOSS to set your load order. Sometimes you you Wrye Bash to build a bashed patch to iron out minor mod conflicts. The most important thing is probably that you read the installation instructions of all the mods and learn what they conflict with and what load orders they should use. Skyrim is so complex that there is no automatic software that can save you from all headaches. Your best tools are your eyes and your brain. You can easily deal with problems that BOSS and Wrye Bash have no possible chance of coping with. One good approach is to install your mods slowly: Install one mod. Play Skyrim for a few hours. If your game is not broken, install the next mod. Play Skyrim for a few hours. etc. etc.

To build mods with more draugr or less wolves, you would edit the leveled lists. Most enemies in the world are placed by spawn points that are controlled by leveled lists rather than being hand-placed individuals. So it would be a fairly quick and easy task to go through and change all the many creature leveled lists so that there were more draugr or less wolves or whatever you wanted.

All weapon mods conflict with SkyRe and fail to use the special perk system it adds. The only exceptions are those weapon mods which are integral to SkyRe or which have had patches built for them. There is a downloadable document at the SkyRe download point which explains how to build a compatibility patch for your favorite weapon mod to make it work with SkyRe. This work involves lots of use of the CK, and I would assume Wrye Bash also.

A mod like this could be structured as a patch that uses SkyRe-Main.esp as a master. It would edit the leveled lists so that the oriental weapons do not appear on the leveled lists and crafting options. If one was skilled at doing this sort of modding work in the CK and Wrye Bash, then the project could be done in less than two hours. Such a patch would most logically fall under the jurisdiction of the makers of SkyRe themselves. You might request the patch from them first before seeking a freelance modder to do the job.