Haravikk

So I've been testing my mod for a while and it seems to work; I'm no longer seeing any minuteman quests for settlements that are well defended. For simplicity I set a settlement as defended at 50 defence (no kidnappings or requests to clear out feral ghouls), and well defended at 75 (no more requests to clear out super mutants, raiders etc.). However one other issue I'm noticing is that now that I have nearly all settlements I am seeing a lot of attacks, not sure if it's just because of the sheer quantity of settlements, or a possible side effect of no other quests triggering. Fortunately I've already tweaked the automated settlement defence algorithm so settlements with defence greater than food + water + 10% will automatically succeed every time, however it does nothing for the frequency of attacks. I'm given to believe that settlements are immune to attack for 7 days after the last attack, but I can't for the life of me figure out where this actually controlled? I know that settlement attack quests are triggered via script event, and I know the script event is triggered by the TriggerAttack() function in the WorkshopParentScript, but what I can't find is how that function is actually called, because I believe this will be where settlements are actually checked for how recently they were attacked. I had expected the immunity to be part of the quest alias conditions (this is how the minutemen radiant quests work) but this doesn't appear to be the case. Does anyone have any idea which quest or script actually picks a settlement to be attacked and enforces the 7 day immunity?

Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately it's not quite what I was looking for; I'm happy to receive quests for new settlements from Preston/Radio Freedom, I just don't want to be constantly helping settlements that should no longer need my help. This seems like it just sets the number of simultaneous quests from 3 to 1 which doesn't really solve the problem. I actually took a little look at the quests themselves and found there's actually already one quest (kidnapped trader) that checks for a defence rating in its AnyWorkshop quest alias, so I've cobbled together a basic plugin trying to replicate this with the other minutemen quests, will see if it works. I may have to take another look at the central quest (which dispatches new radiant quests) to see if I can force it to trigger on demand so I can test faster; once I'm happy that it's working I'll release the plugin.

So I'm working my way across the Commonwealth establishing well defended settlements, but it's getting pretty annoying when Preston keeps trying to send me back to settlements that I've already fortified, especially when there should be more than enough Minutemen nearby to handle it without me. I've taken to never turning them in to block new ones, or using console commands to skip them remotely. I don't mind being sent to help out new or under defended settlements, but most of my established ones have defence 100+ so shouldn't really need a general to personally intervene anymore. Anyway, I've tried searching but haven't been able to find any mods to alter this, though maybe I'm searching for the wrong terms? Are there any mods that can allow me to alter how these quests behave? I'd prefer if I could just prevent them from selecting settlements that are well defended, but am happy to look at other solutions.

Really it's about immersion; I just don't like having to open the console to add items, with individual commands or a bat file doesn't really matter, I just want there to be more starting resources for settlements without having to do anything. Of course I realise the irony of that if I'm making a mod in order to not have to do anything in future, but there are a few other things I'd like to do as mods at some point as well so it seems a reasonable place to start with something relatively simple. I've done some minor modding in Skyrim in the past but am totally unfamiliar with the things that are different in Fallout 4, already there are some difference in scripting. Unfortunately so far my script didn't work and I saved at the wrong point to debug it; I've added a heap of debug messages for the next settlement I unlock so hopefully I can figure out what went wrong.

Thanks for the recommendation instyne49, but I've actually already modified the batch file to get the amounts and types I wanted, but my aim really is to eliminate it altogether. Woah, thanks so much! You've basically written the entire script for me, heh :D I'm going to experiment with it today, I'm thinking I might try to link up a hidden container to hold the starting resources and then "copy" them (go through the list adding the same item in the same quantity to the workbench), this way I shouldn't have to add every resource type I want to the script, and could even change the starting resource types and quantities dynamically (e.g- with an MCM menu, as I should probably learn how to make one of those in Fallout 4 at some point). Looks like I'll need to require F4SE to do it this way (there's really no function to get all inventory items in the base game?), but then I think F4SE is basically mandatory anyway (or should be). I'll post an update once I've made some progress to get some early feedback, then package it as a mod when I'm happy with it. Thanks for the help!

I'd be very interested in something like this as well; I love playing with Frostfall in Skyrim. In that you have a warmth stat, if it falls too low you start freezing to death which impedes movement, blurs vision and will eventually kill you. You can recover warmth near any source of heat (not sure how easy that'd be to track in Fallout 4?), you can also regain warmth temporarily with alcohol, but lose even more once the effect wears off. The better the clothing you're wearing the longer you stay warm in colder areas. There is also a wetness stat, gained from rain or swimming, and reduced by staying near a sheltered heat source (or a source somewhere it isn't raining). The wetter you are, the faster you lose warmth; some clothing items are better at resisting wetness (i.e- they are more water proof). I think both stats would still be useful in a Fallout 4 mod. Since there aren't really cold regions as such I'd say to keep things simple it could be considered cold at night, or if certain storms are in effect (e.g- anything windy), and cold is eliminated as long as you're in shelter (which is hopefully easier to detect in Fallout 4? It does seem to keep rain out of buildings and such), but you won't get warmer unless you're near a heat source. It's probably detecting heat sources like fire barrels etc. that may be the hardest part, also how far you want to go with stuff like temporary relief using alcohol, introducing a warmth chem maybe. Frostfall in Skyrim also goes alongside a camping mod that lets you build a campfire and/or tent as required, but it has a bunch of other stuff. Maybe a basic droppable campfire could be made that just places unlit at the player's feet, and can be lit (in the style of settlement repairs?) using wood and oil as a quick source of heat? Just some ideas, it's something I'd love to attempt but I definitely don't have enough experience with CK, especially for Fallout 4, to do it right.

So I'm having a go at a Minutemen/settlement building focused playthrough, and probably the biggest annoyance is the lack of building materials available when a settlement first joins; it can take a long time to establish a trade route, and really I'd like to spend a few days preparing each settlement then move on, as I'm playing Survival (I re-enabled a few things, but I like to keep no fast travelling). Anyway, what I've been doing for each new settlement is opening up the console and giving myself a bunch of resource shipments. To make this easier I found All Shipments Batch File "mod", which I've tweaked to focus on adding a set of basic settlement resources with a single command. However, what I'd really like is for these resources to simply be in each settlement's workshop automatically once it becomes available, so that I've got a better starting point for building walls/fences and a few other basics. What I'm wondering is: Does such a mod exist? I've tried searching but there are a lot of settlement mods and words like resources, shipments etc. are far too generic so I could be missing the one I want as I try to skim through. If such a mod exists I'd appreciate a link! If such a mod doesn't exist, can anyone lend some advice about what I'd need to do to make it? I've tweaked stuff in creation kit before, and know scripting, but I'm not at all familiar with how settlement stuff works. All I should need is a way to detect when a new settlement becomes available, grab a reference to its workshop and then I can just dump resources into it, but I'd appreciate any help on where the best place to do this would be, for example I assume that editing any basic workshop script would be a bad idea, as other mods may do the same so any ideas for an alternative would be a huge help.

Actually I think most vaults do have some kind of external communications as many of them refer to receiving an all-clear signal from Vault-Tec to inform them when it is safe to open their vault door, some Vault 81 residents make a point about being able to receive the Diamond City radio signal, even though the door had been closed prior to your arrival. So while I would assume radio signals themselves can't penetrate the vault walls, there must be a cable and antenna somewhere that allows for outside signals to be received in a controlled fashion. I just replayed the Mass Fusion quest for the Brotherhood of Steel, and it does seem to confirm that the Institute's Relay doesn't work underground (with the exception of the Institute itself, which has the equipment for it), as while you are attacked by waves of Synths on all floors above the lobby, there are no synths at all on the lower (below ground) levels, suggesting they can relay directly into the reactor control room. So I think there being some kind of Vault-Tec override is probably the most reasonable answer like you say, as I suppose Vault-Tec must have known some of their experiments would be disasters and require vaults to be reopened externally to discovery why. Not sure why Vault 81 has an external panel though, except for "how else can the player get in" reasons, as there's no obvious special reason for it since it's supposed to appear to be a control vault, and the experimental second vault relies on secrecy. Unless the Vault 81 residents put it in themselves maybe, to allow for outside contact while keeping the door closed? Also, I figured out why I didn't have the conservation with Father on the rooftop before; it requires you to stay with the Institute until you get the Battle for Bunker Hill quest, the conversation occurs no matter how you resolved it (even if you informed the Brotherhood of Steel, it's your choice of who to do Mass Fusion for that then locks you out). On my last play through I think I didn't like the sound of the Bunker Hill operation and refused to do it and that either locked me out of the Institute, or meant I would have to go back and agree to do it in order to progress, but I never did. One of my gripes with Fallout 4 is that there are quite a few important conversations that either don't happen at all (the Brotherhood doesn't care at all what you saw inside the Institute, only that you got Dr. Li out or not) or that happen in weird places, like this rooftop conversation when it has questions I wanted to ask right away.

You mean the elevator control? That isn't a mechanism for opening the vault door, it just triggers the elevator, which wouldn't be receiving any power if the vault door were closed. You can use this button after leaving the vault because you've opened (and left open) the vault door itself, thus connecting the elevator to the vault's power grid. I expect in reality the button would just be a signal to vault security, who could then decide whether to let the elevator descend or not (as Vault 81 do when you try to enter that vault from outside), but with no-one there to say no it just goes ahead and does it. But if the vault door were closed the elevator wouldn't be able to operate at all. Also, what I'm referring to as an observation post is something different; it's a tiny little camp (not even really that) up on a hill overlooking Vault 111's elevator pad (slightly to the north east I think), it's just a chair, a table, some ammo boxes and Kellogg's favourite cigars and beer. But thanks for the reminder about the rooftop conversation with Father; guess I either missed those dialogue choices or wasn't paying close enough attention (probably too busy weighing up whether smashing his head off with a power armour assisted super sledge counts as bad parenting or not).

So these questions have been bugging me a little bit, as to my knowledge the game never actually confirms either. Regarding how Kellogg gets into Vault 111, for those who haven't looked closely at how the vault is setup, the external elevator is actually unpowered so long as the vault door is closed, as the final step of the vault door being reopened is that a pair of umbilical cables is connected to the elevator. This means that once the door was shut, the elevator was taken entirely offline. Since the vault door can only be opened from the inside, this means that there is no way to access the vault from outside. Now, when I first exited the vault, I stumbled upon a little observation post overlooking the top of the elevator, which I didn't realise at the time but it had all the hallmarks of Kellogg (Gwinnett Stout and cigars), meaning he must have observed the vault exit for some reason, but was this prior to him breaking in? My working theory is that maybe the Institute relay was capable of sending people directly inside the vault, bypassing the door entirely, but nothing at all establishes this; the exit to the Institute itself is a huge piece of tech, implying it's not simple to just relay someone in and out of an underground bunker, and it's supposed to work using radio signals which surely wouldn't penetrate the vault walls? The vault itself must have a radio receiver (to receive the all-clear signal from Vault-Tec) but that wouldn't be any use for relaying surely (not unless you wanted to relay into a terminal). Now, regarding who unfroze the player, my assumption would be Father/the Institute, because otherwise the player would have been frozen forever since there's no sign that the system just randomly spat them out. But Father never mentions this; only mentions I could find are of the Institute being aware you are free and looking for Shaun, and the suggestion is that they just expected you'd eventually find a way. The only event that Father suggests was planned was the player catching up to Kellogg. If Father did order the player unfrozen, then this might explain why there was an observation post for Kellogg, who presumably was ordered to watch for the player leaving, but it seems really weird for Father to not just say "Hey mom/dad, I unfroze you btw, also you owe me 60 years of allowance". So yeah, these are things that have been bugging me a bit, and while I have theories about them, I'm curious; does the game ever actually specify either of these things somewhere that I've just missed or overlooked?

Thanks for the info! Load doors shouldn't be an issue (the dream sequence should take place in a single area). The left hand issue is a bit weird; fortunately the player won't be visible in my case (I'll move them to a hidden part of the dream sequence area then make the switch), but does that mean that a puppet can't block or just that the player continues to use left-hand actions at the same time as the puppet does? Might be able to work around that by equipping a shield temporarily perhaps (to prevent spells being fired or such)? Since they're being set to AI controlled I wonder if there's an AI package that could render them unable to respond to your left hand attack somehow?

Sounds promising! Are there any particular functions you're using to do this or are there a lot more moving parts required to make it work? I just found a mod that sounds like it may actually already do something similar, Alternate Actors, but really I'm hoping to just integrate a temporary switch into my mod without having to introduce any new dependencies. Yeah I thought that might be the case, just like reading the Elder Scroll at the Throat of the World.

I'm curious whether it's possible to switch the player's control over to an actor other than the player character? My intention is to do something similar to the Dreamstride sequence in Waking Nightmare, where the player is temporarily acting out a "dream" as though they were a different person, however I'd like to be able to have them able to engage in combat using the other character's weapons and abilities, so it won't be enough for me to just force them into first person and disable weapons which is what I believe the Dreamstride sequence does, as I need the player to at least see the correct arms, but also have the correct weapons and stats so I can balance them against the enemies they'll face. So, is it possible to temporarily switch the player's control from the default player character reference to a different actor? If not, what are my options for workarounds (if any)? Ideally I need to at least to be able to pretend the player is someone else in a first person view, I'd prefer to be able to have combat support, but it isn't critical.

So I'm playing with a power armour oriented character for the first time, but one thing that's been bugging me is that when a power armour piece is damaged it disappears completely from the frame, which can look really weird. Does there exist any mod that allows pieces to remain visible on the frame in some kind of damage state instead? If not, anyone have any ideas what might be required to do something like this? I was thinking it might be possible to have something very basic with a piece remaining visible (or a substitute swapped in) with a scorched and scarred texture, maybe sparks or smoke for good measure, avoiding the need for any new 3d models (which would be required to have the piece look twisted or such).

This is a request/"is there one" thread regarding physical shields for power armour. I ask because when wearing power armour all melee weapons are wielded one handed, and it seemed to me like it would have been ideal to have a shield to carry in the off-hand as an alternative for blocking, i.e- like in Skyrim. Plus I've always really loved the vibe of the Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield combo in Warhammer 40,000. I've searched around but so far all I've found are over-shield type devices (i.e- force fields) rather than a traditional physical shield; the only exceptions have been a few gimmicky types like a Captain America shield. I would love to be able to, for example, just pick up a car door as a shield when wearing a raider's power armour, or use something purpose-made for brotherhood armour etc.; or alternatively have something built into the armour itself (e.g- a mod for the off-hand hand gauntlet to add a reinforced plate on it for blocking). Do any mods along these lines or similar exist already? If not, does anyone have any idea how hard it would be to make something like this? I have a bit of experience modding for Skyrim, but not really in creating new 3d models, so if I did this myself I'd probably look to use existing props I can just attach onto a power armoured arm, e.g- like the car door idea, or some other kinds of metal panel.

Oh I didn't really mean bloat as in memory or such, I meant just that if I want to use say 10 shared infos, then I need 10 corresponding topic infos, if each one of these needs a script than that's ten scripts as well. I'm hoping to just use the shared infos as-is, so I don't have to extract and copy audio files at all (since I don't need to edit them, they should be fine as they are). I just had a thought though, but is it possible to force the use of a single common script between multiple topic infos? If I copy them then the CK creates a new copy of the script as well, but could I use tes5edit or similar to point each topic info to a single script instead, i.e- the 10 topic infos would all use the same single script for their before/after fragments rather than one each?

Okay, so I've investigated the the WISharedInfos lines, and there are definitely lines in there that should suit my needs, thanks! The only problem is that it seems that to use these requires a separate topic info per voice type, whereas I'd hoped I could chuck them all under a single response instead. Copying and adjusting will be a little annoying, but not insurmountable, except for one issue; is there a better way to handle lines that require scripts? Let's say I have a topic "Will you give me the book?", and all responses are some variation of "Yes", one for each voice type, resulting in a book being given to the player with a script-fragment. Is there any way for me to run my piece of scripting without having to copy it along with every single topic info? Aside from the bloat of having an extra gajillion scripts, it could become a maintainability nightmare if I ever have to change it somehow, e.g- to call some extra function before handing over the book. Really I had hoped I could just find dialogue files and link to them in my response entries, but I assume this isn't possible at all? I couldn't find anywhere to change the file names/paths in the CK or tes5edit. I can't even begin to imagine how Bethesda is able to make an entire game's worth of dialogue with this system, it's horrifying!

Ah, I'll take a look, thanks!

You mean there are already suitable shared responses? I don't suppose you know offhand what they're called, the list is quite long and doesn't really indicate what most of them actually are, otherwise it looks like I'd have to trawl through quests looking for any with shared topics in them.

I'm trying to avoid using top-level topics to prevent clutter, but maybe there's some alternative; could I for example use top-level topics in such a way that they appear and function to the player like sub-topics? What I'm thinking is, all of my "sub-topics" would become top-level, but rely on a condition that's initially false. Then, when the player selects "I'm looking for work", the condition is set to true, causing the top-level topics to appear. Each "sub-topic" would then reset the condition when selected. The questions I have then are: Can I hide all other top-level topics? Can I detect when the player exits dialogue, so I can reset the condition then as well?

That's what I'll be doing if I have to, I really just wanted to check whether anyone had already done something like this, e.g- to create a bunch of shared topics for use in responses. I've searched around but didn't see anything; it seems like it would have been handy for a lot of modders to avoid having to rely on unvoiced subtitles.

It's because at least one of the plugins is going to be quite large and complex, but not necessary to the main plugin, so I want to provide it as an add-on without cluttering dialogue with a bunch of similar top-level topics. My hope was also to leave things open so if others want to they could also provide their own add-ons under the same top level topic. But it's looking to me like this simply isn't possible at all, and that I will have to leave some kind of placeholder quests in the main plugin, which my add-ons can then replace to provide their full expanded dialogue. If there's another to do it though then I'd still love to know!

Actually you were right the first time; the quests will indeed be in their own plugins. So I'll have one plugin that contains a quest with the top topic ("I'm looking for work") with some basic starting options. I'll then have another plugin that contains additional jobs I'd like to add under the same topic. On this note I'm bit confused myself; in your first reply you mention using the section to the right of the dialogue window to link my topics to the main quest; I assume you mean the Link to section, but this doesn't appear to be what I need, as it would only allow me to move on to topics from the first plugin, what I really want to do is inside the second plugin, add new topics to the first plugin's top level topic. Put it another way, let's my plugins are "Work Hard.esp" (master plugin) and "Hunt Bandits.esp" (add-on), my combined dialogue tree might look something like: "I'm looking for work" [Work Hard.esp]"I'd like to serve drinks" [Work Hard.esp]"I'd like to hunt bandits" [Hunt Badits.esp] i.e- I need to somehow add my new topics into the existing quest without having to overwrite it. The only way I can currently see would require me to add Hunt Bandits.esp as a dependency of Work Hard.esp so that the bandit hunting topic can be added to the top topic, but that's the opposite way around to what I want, as I'd end up with the Work Hard.esp dependent upon every possible add-on.

Sorry to bump the topic, but I had a mod move it from the less appropriate Mod Talk (thanks WastelandAssassin!), however I also wanted to add that I'm also looking for generic voiced thank you responses. I guess maybe it's a long-shot to hope that anyone has already built up share topics for these, or documented the best sound files to use, but I thought I'd ask anyway in case it could save me some time. Otherwise I guess I'll see what I can find and maybe package it up myself somehow!

So I think I have a reasonable grasp on how projectile impale works; I've mostly just copied arrows, but I'm assuming the part that actually does the work is the Impact Result "stick" setting. But I have a few questions: Why is "stick" used rather than "impale", what's the difference? The Creation Kit wiki doesn't go into any detail about the types unfortunately. What exactly controls the duration of impaled projectiles and decals applied to a character? Is it possible to change these for some effects but not others (e.g- tweak my own without changing behaviour for arrows). Specifcally can I have some impaled projectiles last longer than arrows, and other removed sooner? Have can I remove impaled projectiles via script? I know that Archery Gameplay Overhaul does this, but it doesn't include script sources. I'm particularly interested in knowing if it's possible to remove projectiles of only a specific type, for example if I made mine last forever to instead have a script remove them. Thanks in advance for any help! I'll keep up my usual trial and error to see what happens, but as you probably know it's not the quickest process to open CK, tweak, save, close, open Skyrim, load game and test, close and repeat!