FireFlickerFlak

This sounds like the mod ill wait for before installing Skyrim again. Lots of great ideas, everything in the OP is on my want list. It looks like you have more ideas than one person can handle already, but just for fun here are a couple suggestions on the economy: Not sure how far you plan to get into the economy, but it would be neat to have suppliers in the game. They could be just like traveling merchants except that they have some impact on the goods available in certain areas. For example, traveling NPCs that carry different types of ore from mines to cities, hunters that carry supplies from forested areas to cities and perhaps thieves that carry random goods to the shady pawnbrokers at night. If the economy in a city is only strong enough to attract the suppliers of iron ore, then the smiths only offer iron weapons and probably dont have much to offer for your goods, unless you are offering them some type of ore they need. The suppliers of higher quality materials would be hard to come by, very well guarded on the road and only bother traveling to the cities with the best economies. It would also be neat if you could find ways to make the changes in the economy of certain areas more noticeable. For example, some stores might close down until the economy picks up, the number of beggars might change in a city, the number and quality of guards might change, etc. Anyway, good luck with this project!

Here's a list of some ideas for mods. Take them or leave them. I put in a poll just to see how my play style matches up with the modding community. 1. Beggar Mod: This ones not so much an idea as a general interest. I almost always play as a beggar character and would love any effort to make more stuff for this type of character. I could ask for specifics, but really anything would make me happy from quests, guilds, clothes, items, homes etc. 2. Weary Exiles: I have seen mods that make animals behave more realistically, but still most bandits attack on sight. Rather than messing with that AI, I'd like it if a bunch of small camps were added to the map. When the player approaches the camp the NPCs will try to talk to him (similar to how a bandit walks to demand payment) and when they come close enough to talk the persuasion menu opens. If you can't get the disposition higher than 30 they attack, 30-50 and they give you some time to leave before they come and talk to you again but now with an even lower initial disposition, 50-80 they tolerate you as long as you don't touch their stuff, 80+ they treat you like one of their own. If you by default already have 50+ disposition the campers don't initiate dialogue but you still can. The campers should not all be the same so one type of character might be on good terms with one type of camper but not with others, none of them will attack on sight though (already too much of that going on.) 3. Armor Tweak: A tweak that removes "armor rating" damage reduction and instead makes it so armor only protects the segment of the body it covers. Helmets reduce headshot damage, cuirass reduces torso damage, etc. I've seen some locational damage mods, but haven't seen this yet. 4. Fatigue Damage First: I like the hand to hand system where fatigue goes and then health goes and would like it applied to more element of the game for two reasons: For realism, I like to think of loss of health as only serious injuries, rather than bruises, minor cuts, etc. so hits to an armored body, blocked attacks, etc. should rarely reduce my health (the way I look at it). For gameplay, epic battles would be possible without potion guzzling since fatigue recharges naturally and (sorta) realistically. For this to work the collapse at less than 0 fatigue would have to be turned off somehow or combat would be too frustrating. Obviously, health and fatigue values would have to be adjusted to the new system. In general, I think less health and more fatigue would be needed. 5. Rarer Magic: I'll be brief with this one since I doubt anyone has or wants to make this, but I'd like a overhaul-ish mod that makes the oblivion world more mundane and closer to a midieval environment. More bears in the woods, less ogres, less spell casting enemies, more bandit gangs. This could come in two different styles, I'd be happy with both: No Magic: Kinda self explanatory. Not exactly what I'm looking for but could be fun to try if someone has/wants to make it. Rare Magic: Much harder to find/obtain/use. More rewarding/powerful as well. Mages guild would be more secretive and exclusive, perhaps only using magic when you get to the university. 6. Spawning Traps: It would be cool if someone could figure out a way to create traps that spawn to simulate a well planned bandit ambush. They always say give me your money or else but I always have the option to run away and I almost always see them coming. One idea of a trap would be a pit covered with leaves. When you walk over that area, it collapses and you fall in. Then maybe there are bandits waiting in there already guarding the door out or maybe they spawn above you. Either way they start the "give me or else..." dialogue after you fall in. Another possibility is a physical net that can be cut off or something, although a realistic looking net would probably be really hard to make... I don't know, just more/better/unique ambushes in general. Thats all for now, thought I had more than just 6... Anyway, thanks guys for all your great work!

Cool, thanks and kudos (even though you have a million already lol), that did the trick. I'm still getting the ctd whenever I try to level up, but it looks like it is just a bug with ROM. It's a little strange that only I and one other person have the issue though, especially since I'm only using ROM now so there is nothing around for it to be incompatible with except for the things ROM requires to run (OOO, OBSE v0018, OBMM). Hopefully when we find out what is similar between me and the other person with the crashes we can solve the issue.

Thanks ben, that actually has the plugin I was using linked. The only thing is my crashes are not from the default oblivion level system, but from something going wrong when the game tries to use the script from ROM which replaces the default leveling system. Nobody else has reported the ctd on level up (I've had it happen at least 20 times in a row now, never getting to a new level without the obse plugin). I'm only using a few mods that are not supposed to conflict, so I'm guessing it has something to do with windows 7 but I don't know. I read somewhere that OBMM works better if you install oblivion outside of the program files directory, so I tried documents... this caused OBMM to say "can't locate bsa" or something like that and now I can't uninstall or reinstall oblivion even after deleting all the files. :(

Hmm that might be true for some of the crashes, but the leveling crashes are consistent without fail, every single time regardless of where I am or what I am doing (it has happened many times now and has only been avoidable so far with an obse plugin underground09 showed me that is specifically designed to stop crashes, "weOCPS". I'd rather not rely on a crash avoiding mod though, especially since after putting that in the rest of the game got buggier. In addition, my issues don't seem to be showing up for anyone else using these mods. People have looked at my save games and can't replicate the crashes, but I get them every time.

You really might want to mention what those issues are ... We're not mindreaders - at least not over the internet.:geek: Lol, my bad. The main issue is that when I level up I get a ctd. (ROM replaces the default leveling system.) There have been a few minor things as well: (examples: I died in game with stats drained into the negatives, then when I reloaded my last save game the stats were still negative... the npc I was supposed to kill disappeared during the anvil recommendation quest... game freeze when trying to enter/leave scripted boats ferry boat along the coast.) I have been told that these issues are possibly because I have been launching the game with OBSE launcher sometimes and with OMBB launcher at other times, so I am currently testing to see if starting a new game only with the OBSE launcher will get rid of the remaining issues that might be caused by lost variables or something.

Thanks and kudos, I didn't know the ctd on exit was a common issue. Someone also suggested "Windom Earle's Crash Prevention System" which I am about to try first, but I am having other issues in game. Here is the load order: Oblivion.esm Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esm MD_Saddle_Master.esm Better Cities Resources.esm Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp Knights.esp Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esp DLCShiveringIsles.esp OOO-Dangerous_Traps.esp OOO-Water_Weeds.esp Harvest [Flora].esp Harvest [Flora] - Shivering Isles.esp ROM Revised Oblivion Mod.esp ROM Patch - Knights.esp MD Saddlebags v3.0.esp Better Cities Full.esp Better Imperial City.esp Better Cities - VWD of the IC.esp Better Cities .esp (And yes, I do have the unofficial patch and obse v0018 installed via the .exe installer)

The title pretty much says it all. I'm using Windows 7 on a new desktop computer. I've only put oblivion on it so far + a few mods, but I am getting crashes to my desktop often during menus in game, and always when I try to quit back to the main menu or out of the game, I get a CTD and I get a message box on my desktop asking me if I want to close the program. I can't click on anything until I open task manager. Here is everything I have added to the game: OBSE (v0018), OBMM, Unofficial Oblivion Patch, OOO (omod lite 1.33), ROM Better Cities.

If you are interested in a good gameplay balancing mod, I would highly recommend ROM. It is built assuming you will be using OOO but everything ROM adds is much more focused on balancing the game. It will change a lot of things so there might be some stuff you don't like that make the game harder, but I have never seen a more effective balancing mod for magicka or any other aspect of gameplay.

Sounds like a neat idea, I'm curious about the mod this is intended for. As for scripting, I'm very new to it and don't even have my windows pc running yet so I'm not volunteering. Maybe in a week if you are still looking I could help out.

KK, good idea, I guess if the environment is not what we want in a city we could always add a few new NPCs with the AI that we think is appropriate for that region. I found some other modders who are working on AI mods, I'm going to contact them and see if they hopefully will help out a little. As for my magic overhaul, I just found a new overhaul called ROM that is awesome and would not be compatible with what I had planned, so I'm dumping that project for now and passing some suggestions along to underworld (ROM modder) in hopes that some of the ideas will be implemented in the future. So all my limited attention and even more limited scripting knowledge is now focused on this, for what it's worth.

@Genzel: Even if you just want to try and get some script written up as a learning project I'm sure that could help, but no pressure :whistling: Hmm, isn't there another AI calc, aggression? If a NPC had really low aggression but really high confidence it might make them indifferent? Just a thought in case the "calm" effect doesn't work for some reason. I agree about making it work with Reneer's overhaul, I'm thinking we should assume the player has this and then make sure it works with the default game afterwards just so the two mods work really well together. It's hard to imagine that anyone interested in this sort of mod would not have reneer's guards active. So I guess as the base of the mod we will need this table as the possible NPC reactions to a guard fighting: 1: Indifferent 2: Watch 3: Back Away 4: Flee (hopefully rare) 5: Defend Guard 6: Attack Guard 7: (add more results?) The variables to calculate this might include: 1: Responsibility 2: Confidence 3: Aggression 4: Faction 5: Interior/Exterior 6: Region 7: Guard HP 8: Guard Level 9: Distance From Guard 10: (add more variables?) I'm not sure what the capabilities of the faction element of the game are, but it seems that there are no neutral relationships, only aggressive and friendly? I guess calm may be the only way then unless that aggression thing works out. We would still need the faction element so that the script would never apply to any guards. If we did use different factions it might make the mod more capable of expanded functionality like having different reactions to observing criminal behavior or having different regional behavior come as a result of population concentrations rather than specifically stating that people in this area behave this way uniformly. For example, if we use factions, then we could have a person naturally from the imperial city behave as if he is from his native city even if he is visiting Bravil, while possibly allowing him to still take into consideration that he is less confident in Bravil. The reason I did not put any variables specifically about the person the guard is attacking is because I'd like the effect to be similar when a npc is attacked. Other questions are: How often would this script fire? What would trigger it? What would happen if two guards fought each other? (Rare, but I've seen it.) Should we modify AI values of NPCs each time the script fires? Only once when the NPC loads? Keep them as they are and build around them?

This might be easier if instead of adding physical things to the map, you could create a completely separate world where the PC is summoned to. All the new NPC would be here and maybe this world would seem similar to Tamriel. The PC would not know if he is dreaming or actually visiting these places. I'm guessing this idea stems from the movie Inception or whatever its called. Fun idea, I'd just try to find a way to make the mod lore compatible, maybe have some sort of daedra/god that is currently in the lore be in control of these dreams?

Sorry if I'm repetitive, I read that whole description and then decided to post, haven't read any other comments. I have a lot I'd like to suggest for game play, but it seems you want to get the story line on its way. So here are my suggestions: In my opinion, the best stories are mysteries. If the player does not understand something mysterious about the island until he has completed the city, it will provide, I think, ample motivation to continue. A mystery can be built either by having some other character(s) who know something and hides this information from you in a creepy way, or it could be from little physical clues the PC discovers hinting at something that doesn't seem possible. I'm sure there are other ways to write a mystery, but those are good methods. Either way, building the city must be paramount to solving the mystery, so what sort of mystery requires building a city? Well cities attract people, so anything that require lots of people to solve could work. Maybe there is a need to attract lots of people for a labor intensive goal like digging a deep tunnel or constructing a huge observatory. Maybe there is a strange material on the island and you are searching for its source. I read that there is a new type of currency here, maybe the material used for this currency is rare and has something to do with the story? Three suggestions for central mysteries: 1. I found maps of cities that have been here before, but no other traces of civilization anywhere. What would happen if I tried to recreate one of them? 2. An NPC who discovered the island with me seems to know a little too much about the island. What is this NPC's story? 3. Natives seem to only be interested in stopping me from building in this one area of the island. Why? What is hidden there? The quests would ideally have something to do with the central mysteries. For example, if you went with the first suggestion, maybe weird things start happening as the construction continues and you get news of a complaint from a local cook who says a group of customers she had never seen before came for food today and kept whispering, laughing and pointing at the recent construction. Should you tell the cook to respect the customer's privacy, or will you ask her to pay closer attention next time? If you went with the second suggestion, quests could include complaints about the NPC in question or about something of interest to that NPC. Maybe the NPC is really interested in the local forest and a side quest has something to do with a strange and extremely painful rash that has been spreading among the people gathering wood. Should you tell them to gather elsewhere like your companion NPC suggests, or are you curious to see what happens if you keep going? With the third suggestion, quests would probably serve more as a tool for showing aspects of what the natives are trying to hide. Maybe a group of natives attack a mine, one of them is captured. Your job is to figure out what to do with her, but as you do you see a shell like the type you use for currency tied to her ankle, only it seems to be glowing. Should you take it from her and examine it closer or try to build trust with the natives? Anyway, I thought this was a cool looking mod so I figured I'd give some contribution to the creative juice flow. Sorry they aren't full stories, but I figured it would be best not to put entire plots into the forum for the mod as it would kinda ruin the fun if we all knew the story before we tried the mod. Plus I don't even know where those stories were headed, I just made up random stuff.

@ Monkybuttface Heh, yeah, good points. It would be cool to have citizenry act different locationally like Bravil citizens helping against the guards. I also like the idea of having responses to different types of guards. As for that redneck, shoot you in the face part, that makes me think of something else. What if the citizens approach you first in dialogue. Ex. "Give that back or I will call the guard." in Anvil, while in Bravil "Ok, I saw that, hand it over or you get a knife in the back." Maybe nobody even calls the guard in Bravil, they just send the gangs they are associated with after you. That being said, I'd like it to be based on the individual not on the location so things aren't so predictable. There would just be more people in the "notTrustingGaurds" faction in Bravil. If you ran into a fight with royalty in Bravil, they'd still run for a guard. Kudos. @ Genzel Thanks for the scripting tips. I am already working on a magic overhaul mod and hardly have time for that, but if I finish the base of the overhaul and still nobody is interested in working on this, I'll try getting the project rolling at least. Unlike a magic overhaul, this is the kinda project that really need to be done perfectly because there isn't much to replace it with if it doesn't work out and the possibility for lots of incompatibilities is, I think, high. If I get some free time I might check out OBSE and see what functions could be used towards the mod. Maybe if we get a model together it could be easier to attract a potential scripter. That invisible effect could definitely come in handy. Kudos. One more thing, Does anyone know if there is a faction situation or something that might cause an actor to ignore combat within their proximity other than calm? I can't think of any right now, but it would be nice if this could be down with a script that does not use spells if possible.

Hmm, I guess I just don't understand how patches work. Is there a part of the cs specifically for making a patch? When you patch are you basically writing a script that changes your previous script or something?

Heh, I learned something new today. Never heard of steampunk before. Anyway, I did wiki it and it seems like these are all kinda like gadgety things, so shouldn't this steampunk suit be activated rather than constant effect to simulate turning on the steam powered gadget? Maybe it has a little animation when activated and steam shoots out for a few seconds? Also, would this be a stealthy suit? Sounds like it would be hard to sneak around in a suit of gears and whatnot, although I don't know what the thing does, maybe it generates a sound dampening effect?

There is a combat mod that does that, slows combat down to help lower end pcs with fps and also makes it easier to pull off interesting moves, maybe you could contact the modders behind these effects and see what they think about creating a bubble effect of slowed time. The game I think has a uniform time thinger going on so that mods like clocks of cyrodiil (makes working clocks around cities) and natural environments (creates seasons) will be able to function, so any time slow down that does not apply to the entire world would probably have to be more like a motion/speed slow down if you want to avoid messy conflicts. The visual effect would be just about the same except you wouldn't be able to slow down the clock's of cyrodiil and other time based objects. I would definitely shoot for the orb effect, sounds possible to me :) Cool idea.

Hmm, that would be better than the way it's currently set up. I'd actually prefer for them to ignore me rather than run from me as long as I'm not getting in their way. More like a calm effect without the pulsing green radiation visuals. I guess a simple version of the mod would be to send out a spell like: Demoralize = Guardlvl in 10 feet and a Calm = Guardlvl in 200 ft Demoralize would be for just a few seconds so the person hopefully wouldn't go sprinting out of the city and pee his pants. The calm would probably have to last longer to prevent stuttering attempts to enter and leave combat before and after each attack. There would have to be absolutely no visual effects for the spell for it to seem at all convincing and the spell might still cause a lot of unwanted side effects. I'd really prefer for it to be part of the AI instead of this kinda fragile system. If we are fighting in a room I guess I'd want them to leave or cheer for one side of the battle or something, maybe the few combat ready citizens would join in, but when outside and less threatened by the fight because they arent trapped in the same room, they would be more likely to just ignore the fight... hmm.. I guess the variables (interior, exterior, proximity, confidence, responsibility, relationships, etc.) makes the mod harder than I thought it would be. But there are already so many AI variables in the original game that it seems a shame to not put them to use here. A bunch of mods have already configured combat and animal AI so they behave realistically, why not do the same thing for the common citizenry? I guess I could try to make it myself, but I'd really prefer that a more experienced modder took on the challenge for a mod like this.

I don't know if this is true everywhere, but where I live, if a criminal runs he's unlucky if he gets chased by more than one authority for a petty crime. Bystanders might take notice for a moment, but usually they grow bored in a few minutes and go on with their lives. In Oblivion, if I say "No, I don't want to pay for accidentally stealing brandy from the counter between me and the vendor," the guard tries to kill me! Not only that, some smiling old lady suddenly summons daedric armor and starts shooting fireballs at me, a mob of pitchfork wielding shopkeepers comes rushing around the corner and the local beggar starts punching me in the back... Well I don't know if this is part of a mod already, if it is let me know. But I'm requesting some sort of AI tweak mod that makes it so the commoners of Cyrodiil aren't so enthusiastic about law enforcement.

Cool trick, I'll probably do this :) Thanks Another interesting trick, the altars kinda need to be visible though, I need the pc to be able to leave the objects they summon in these areas. I might use the underground thing later though. That makes sense, but it sounds frustrating :wacko: I think I get this, the basic idea anyway, I'm only confused on the dependancies part, I'm not sure what "dependancies" are, Im new. Do all mods let you open them in cs? I want to be compatible with stuff like ooo, fcom, open better cities, etc but I'm not sure if those bigger projects can be opened. (My comp that can run this stuff is in the mail right now so I'm currently just writing script until it arrives.) Anyway, thanks all for the tips, I'll probably use all of them. Kudos all around.

I'm a new modder and I basically just have one mod in mind for personal use (which I might release here if I can get it stable) and I want to know before I get too committed to the next part of the design what advice people have for designing a highly compatible mod. So far I know that avoiding putting things into the physical world is a plus, but what if you have to put stuff into the physical world for your mod to work? As an example, the mod requires adding a bunch of spell tomes to the game in some form or another and it also adds several altar-sized locations used for summoning. So how would I go about figuring the safest place to put these items? Are the interiors of buildings safe even if the exterior is modded or moved? Is there a way to search for safe exteriors? How safe is it to put tomes in level lists or in specific containers? So far I've mostly been using script and I'm thinking this is safer than the physical stuff but I'm not sure so any cautionary advice here would also be appreciated. Most of my script happens during sleep, but a few are attached to spells. In the long run, if I get the base sturdy, I might want to think about altering the ways NPC's use magic so that it resembles the PC more and I'm hoping this can be done with script after I finish the base of the mod... but that can't be done until I figure out this compatibility stuff. So - got any tricks of the trade to save me (and other newbies) some time here?

What's the magic hostility bug?

Very cool! The gardens look neat and I like the smaller dragon statues. I am a little confused about how the interior waterfalls work. Is the castle going to be built into a cliff with a river running into it, is it powered by a pump/magic or is it just for cosmetic purposes for now?

I'm just learning script so I might not be much help, but at least for testing you could see if the same script can be used to cast a generic spell, like a really big fireball on self. You could also try adding a magicka cost and some generic effect to the spell like light on self to see some sort of visual confirmation and possible issues with ai not understanding the spell being cast. If the light effect added to the spell works, but the rest doesn't, you will know that the spell can be cast but is not working. Otherwise you would know that some issue is stopping the spell from being cast. All that is based on the assumption that the game will not be smart enough to prevent the casting of a spell that was improperly scripted. Is the boss a huge Guar? I don't think creatures that can't cast spells by default are able to use the Cast function. Also, if the spell script isn't compatible with an on self effect maybe that is messing things up? My last suggestion is to try reducing the spell to just causing running or just causing the big Guar to leave combat for testing purposes. Since you seem to know what you are doing and I don't have much of a clue, I'm guessing you wouldn't make this mistake, but your if statement seems to me like there is nothing to cause it to go through a second loop. Wouldn't it just cast the spell that doesn't work, set himself to restrained, set the timer to 30 seconds minus the amount of time since the last frame in which the script was processed, do some visual effects and set DoOnce to yes... and then end? I don't know, maybe you have another script calling it back to loop again or (more likely) there is something about timers I don't understand. Anyway, sounds like you are working on a cool mod, hope somebody more useful than me helps out soon :whistling: