Striker879

As a test try a new character (if you have a save from just before exiting the sewer it's a lot easier). Don't use quicksave on that character (only use the save from the Esc menu or named saves using the console). Use the same load list for mods and see if the same problem develops. Granted, if the problem only surfaces after a lot of hours of gameplay this won't be a viable alternative. Something that I use to keep two separate character's load lists and save games separate is Multiple Oblivion Manager - MOM, easy to install and a cinch to use.

There could be other reasons, but one common one is there aren't any path nodes close to them, so the first thing they do is travel to the nearest node (which in some areas like wilderness could be quite a distance away). In the CS on the toolbar buttons on the top look for the one with little orange squares and yellow lines. Once you have the cell you're going to drop them into open in the render window click the toolbar button to toggle on 'show pathgrids'. See if there are any orange (or blue) boxes near to where you drop them. If not use this CS Wiki article to get up to speed on getting some pathgrid to the area.

That Salmo the Baker is a known problem causer I know the answer ... yes. The question that you ask about whether or not you need to talk to him for the problems to surface is a very good question, one I wish I knew the answer to. You could always disable the mod (even better, uninstall it during the test) and see if it helps. You should rebuild your bashed patch any time you add or delete a mod (so that it isn't becoming part of the problem). Sometimes troubleshooting is a series of educated (and uneducated) guesses. There's always the tried and true disable half your mods method. If the first half has the problem mod in it you start enabling groups until the game breaks again. If the first half doesn't help, you go after the mods in the second half. There are no dumb questions save the one you don't ask. Dumb answers?? Well I could probably scrounge up one or two of those if you insist ... hehe, I have plenty of them. One of the 'features' of the game is a rather abundance of ways it can crash. Nailing down any particular reason is the tricky part.

The default is the Prt Scn key, usually found to the right of your 'F keys' (e.g. F12) on standard keyboards. You may need to edit your Oblivion.ini file if it isn't working for you, but be aware that when you toggle menus off with the console command 'tm' you won't see the notification that a screenshot was taken. Your screenshots are found in the same folder as your Oblivion.exe (the default location is C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion, but if you are using either Vista or Windows 7 you have hopefully changed that to a folder outside of Program Files when you installed the game). To find Oblivion.ini (NOT Oblivion_default.ini that is in that same Oblivion folder as your Oblivion.exe) look in 'Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion' for Vista and Win 7 or 'Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion' for Win XP (if you don't have 'Show extensions for known file types' turned on it will be the file 'Oblivion' that has a slightly different 'Notepad text file' look to it). It should open in Notepad by default. Using 'Find' off the 'Edit' menu search for the string 'bAllowScreenShot' (without the quote marks). If it says 'bAllowScreenShot=0' change the zero to a one (so it says 'bAllowScreenShot=1'). Save the changes and close the ini. There are a couple of other settings that can be changed ('SScreenShotBaseName' and 'iScreenShotIndex') but normally you don't need to mess with them (you can change your screenshots name when you edit it in Paint.NET or whatever editing program you use). Happy screenshotting.

Awesome ... glad you got it sorted out. And thank you for reporting back. :thumbsup:

Open the console (using the tilde (~) key found on standard keyboards just below the Esc key) and then 'tfc' (without the quote marks) and Enter. Hit tilde again to close the console. This will toggle free camera. When you're done open the console and tfc back to normal. While you have the console open you can also 'tm' to toggle off the menus.

I'm no load order expert, but are you sure that you've run BOSS and then rebuilt your bashed patch? The bashed patch is usually located either at the very bottom of your load order or very close to the bottom (with only mods that need to load after the bashed patch lower on the list ... your's is mid list). Any time you add or delete mods you need to rerun BOSS and rebash.

Now that you've got the vanilla game shaders back you could try rebuilding your Oblivion.ini file. Find the file Oblivion.ini that is found in 'Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion' for Vista and Windows 7 or 'Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion' for Windows XP (NOT the file Oblivion_default.ini that is found in your game install's Oblivion folder). Rename Oblivion.ini to Oblivionini.old so that the game won't see it. Start the game as far as the main menu and exit. The game will rediscover your hardware and rebuild a new Oblivion.ini. You may need to go into the game's video menu and reselect your screen resolution etc. as the game doesn't do a real good job of identifying hardware that hadn't even been dreamed of back when the game was released.

A road I've not trod myself (I'm also Mr. Manual Install, and proud of it Nephenee13). That's who I consider as the up and coming Wrye Bash expert (oh Hickory, where have you gone old buddy??).

I have used the Bethesda packages as a guide extensively. What they use in their drink packages is the MiddleClassPewterMug01 in the NPC's inventory and 'Use Item At' package with 'Target' tab 'Any Object' selected and MiddleClassPewterMug01 in the drop down box for 'Object ID'. What this gives you is the NPC standing and drinking, with the swaying idle animation. I give the NPC a -1 count on beer in their inventory (so they won't run out), but I don't know for sure that it's necessary as long as they have the mug. I've also got some NPCs that sit and drink. For that I use 'Use Item At' with 'Location' ticked on the location tab, 'Near Reference', the cell their chair is in selected in the 'Cell' drop down box and then their chair selected in the 'Ref' box. Simplest way to select the chair is use the 'Select Reference in Render Window' button while you have their chair visible in the render window. Their target tab has 'Any Object' selected and then 'Drink Beer' in the 'Object ID' drop down. They also have -1 beer and the pewter mug in their inventory. Like I said, I've use the vanilla packages as guides extensively (that was the only way I finally got my patrols to work for example). It takes a bit of 'game savvy' to know which NPCs to research for what, so you can observe their routine and figure out what will work for you and what you'd change. That way you don't spend all your time with your head stuck in the CS. :tongue:

Ha ... I'm Mr Advice Without Ever Using. I'm also Mr. Links-a-lot ... TES4Edit Cleaning Guide and Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide.

Crashing when changing cells can be caused by a number of things (e.g. badly fragmented hard drive, mods with dirty edits, corrupted saves). We'll need more details to help, mod list and load order (How to post a load order for Oblivion) and whether or not you use quicksave for a start. The defrag utility that comes with Windows does an acceptable if not perfect job. You can find it off your Start menu's 'Accessories' 'System Tools'. Don't worry about your English. You're doing far better than I could ever hope to do in whatever your native language may be.

To add to kingtitan's advice, be aware that there are a few mods that require dirty edits to work correctly (an example is Xtudo's Personality Idles - Modified version - NPCs and companions if I recall correctly). Best course is to make a backup of your esps and then clean one at a time. Back when I first started out I was a big time user of quicksave and quickload. Not too long after I started using CM Partners I entered the 'crash-a-lot' club. I still play that same character, with saves that have those saves in their past. It took a long time of good saving habits, exiting to the desktop before loading a save and leaving the CM Partners behind in my houses or 'appropriated' properties (they do know how to trash a place) before that character's saves became acceptably stable (which I define as between one and two hours between saves, exit to desktop and reload every three hours and only CTD perhaps one every two or three play sessions of 8 hours or more ... usually when I've exceeded the three hours without exiting and reloading). That character has well over 1300 hours. Granted the mod list is modest compared to yours, and doesn't include any of the big overhauls. I have seen others who get good results even with those mods and extensive load lists though. @ kingtitan ... I use Kaspersky Internet Security, have game mode turned on and yet it still does updates while I'm playing. Sometimes it causes problems, sometimes not so bad (depending on what is happening in the game at the time). I guess the only alternative would be disconnect from the internet and disable it completely. Or live with it. Now to fully hijack the thread, how'd you make out on the NPC packages?

First off OBMM doesn't make a good conflict detector ... it hasn't been updated in years. Wrye Bash would serve you far better in that regard, plus it would allow you to cut down the number of active mods via the bashed patch (in addition to being the only way to get some mods running together). Next, your use of frequent quicksaves has given you save file corruption. Quicksave is a known problem causer. Only use either save from the Esc menu (I call it manual save) or using the console (I call that named saves). My final bit of advice is something that should be obvious to you now. Never add a bunch of mods all at once. The time you think you'll save doing them in one big batch will be spent tenfold in the troubleshooting process. If you add one mod at a time and do a thorough test in between it's a trivial matter to ID the problem causer. The tutorial dungeon isn't a good place to test. It doesn't tax your machine. Make a save just before exiting the sewer (that you can use when you want to start a new character down the road). Exit the sewer and go to the IC Market District (preferably around midday when it's busy). Make another save there that you can use for testing purposes. The three day trick is best done by using 'coc center', then wait three full days and a bit and then 'coc weye' or another location if you prefer. It's most successful in cases of letting game scripts and cell contents reset. Won't help much for corrupt saves.

Another thing that may be affecting things is the glitch when packages span the 24 hour mark. Just for testing try setting the lever activate time to something well away from midnight. I would add a 'Must Complete' to the 'Find' (activate lever) package but not the sit package. Also try it with two sit packages, say one from 6 am when he gets up to 11 am (5 hours duration). At 11 am have him activate the lever with the 'Once Per Day', "Must Complete' and 'Skip Fallout". Then give him a second sit package for 4 hours or whatever time your other NPC needs that starts at 11 am. At 15:00 give him his second lever package (same flags set) and his second sit package at 15:00 for say 3 hours. Let him have supper, then have a little default wander time and at 20:00 maybe a drink for an hour before bedtime at midnight. Once you get him executing all his packages try resetting the times where they span midnight and see if that breaks them again.

See my edit above ... her eat package has the same time as her worship package.

Yes that is probably what you need. When the girls use the altar they move right on to their next package (a wander package if memory serves). - Edit - The one girl I checked has an eat package after both worship packages ... she's goes to Jerall View for that, but it's set to 9am and 18:00 same as the worship package. Because it has the 'Must Complete' flag set it takes precedence (plus it's set to the spot on the list above the eat package, as I believe the packages also evaluate from the top of the list down).

The only thing I have used that's similar is a few of my girls use the altars in the chapels. It's a 'Use Item At' package type with the flags ticked for 'Must Complete', 'Once Per Day' and 'Skip Fallout Behavior'. The schedule is set to 'Any' for day of the week, month and date. I use two separate packages if they worship twice a day ... one at 9am with the duration set to 0 (zero) and another for 18:00 (again zero duration). No conditions are set, the location tab is 'Location' ticked and 'Near Reference' and 'Cell' whichever chapel (e.g. BrumaChapel). Then the 'Ref' is set to the altar I want her to use. They have a sit package (travel package to their bench) for a couple of hours before using the altar (two hours to give them travel time to get there ... it also means that they'll be relatively close to the altar when that package fires). I'm guessing that you need to set the duration to zero to keep him from spamming the lever. - Edit - Their worship package also has a Target tab set to 'Specific Reference' with the cell and ref the same as the location tab.

Next time I'm close to White Knight Lodge I'm going to spend some time carefully watching the little details on package change. I have found with different NPCs that they'll 'warp' to their seating position at package change (I have them sit to read). If I recall correctly I lessened the effect by giving them a wander package and assigned a location marker close to their chair (but I'd need to confirm that, as it been a while since I wrestled with that one ... now that I've thought on it the other trick I used is to just have them sit for the first part in their reading chair and then have them read). By 'relaxing' package I mean anything other than eating, sleeping or patrolling (in the case of the White Knight guards they're either reading, drinking or just wandering). If you look at how Bethesda worked their packages you'll see they have a default wander package that executes whenever another package doesn't take precedence. I generally use one of the 'editor location' flavours for my 'Inside Girls' esp (used to liven up the player owned homes) and either editor location or current location on my 'Outside Girls' esp (who add some flavour to the towns). I try to give them as much variation as possible, so that occasionally you get a bit of a surprise on finding them somewhere, but without knowing how to script I'm limited to the conditions and differences between different package options. When I first started using packages I tried filling the whole 24 hours like you're doing. It is easier using Bethesda's method.

I've run into that on a couple of patrols I set up near White Stallion. They like to wear their boots and gauntlets to bed. Vilja on the other hand (who has a separate inventory for you to place her sleepwear) doesn't suffer from this at all, even if you come in after her bedtime in full armor. You tell her to relax here for a while and she switches to her sleep package, she dons her proper sleepwear and goes to bed. I wonder if it has something to do with the vanilla single inventory vs having a dedicated sleepwear inventory (and the extra scripting around using that). - Edit - And by the way, the reason I knew that answer was because I went through exactly the same steps when I first stated using AI packages ... standing there waiting for a package change that me standing there was stopping from happening. :facepalm: - Edit 2 - Thinking on this some more there's another thing comes to mind that I haven't really taken note of before. The four patrols work 6 hour shifts. Sometimes they'll go straight to bed at the end of their patrol and others they'll either sit and read or drink (depending on if it's raining). When they switch from patrol (armored) to read or drink they change to their clothes completely. Also when they get up they don't immediately go onto patrol (4 hour sleep packages), and when they get up they take off the oven mitts and boots if they slept with them on. I need to check to see if they sleep without the boots and mitts if they start the sleep package after having a 'relaxing' package. Something about that vanilla sleep package and unequipping armor is part way broken.

If you tick 'Continue while PC near' your NPC will not change to his next package while your character is standing there waiting for him to change to his next package. Here's a couple of CS Wiki links that may help: AI Package Flags on Packages

I believe it has to do whether or not your character is facing the NPC when they first start talking (or maybe that only has to do with whether or not their lips move).

I believe that's fixed by switching to large textures in the Options menu.

In general the Construction Set isn't something for most people. Those who want to make their own mods, or personalize mods they've downloaded find the links to the CS and the wiki articles on getting started. You'll also see quite a few threads on here about CS related questions. If a mod said you'd need to load it into the CS and do something to get it to work I'd consider it a work in progress.

I have a round-about suggestion. There is a wiki article on Removing havoc on an object. I'm thinking that perhaps once you know how to remove Havok the way to apply it may become apparent.