Striker879

If there is a 25% chance that no pearl of any kind will be found (the Chance None field) then you get a 75% chance of finding something. At level 9 that means using the vanilla list you have a 25% chance of finding an empty clam, and a 37.5% chance of finding a flawed pearl and a 37.5% chance of finding a pearl. If I'm interpreting your change to the list correctly I get a 50% chance of finding an empty clam, a 16.67% chance of finding a flawed pearl, a 16.67% chance for a pearl and a 16.67% chance of finding a flawless pearl. Populating a list will change depending on what you are trying to achieve ... no such thing as right or wrong, just different. Some different will lead where you hoped to go, another different will lead elsewhere.

The three flawed pearl entries are so that once the player hits level 9 there is a 50/50 chance of the clam holding a flawed pearl (unless of course it is going to hold no pearl). If there was only a single entry for flawed pearl once the player hits level nine then the chance for a flawed pearl goes down to 25% as the game could use any of the entries in the list (i.e. any one of the three pearl entries opened up by level 9 or the flawed pearl entry that has been available since level one). I'm not saying the Bethesda way is right or wrong ... my guess is they wanted the pearls to be less common than the flawed pearls to make them more 'special'. The same concept can be used to make anything distributed by leveled list less likely to be spawned. It's not much of a problem if the list has a fairly large number of possibilities, but a list that only has a small set to select from will spawn any of the list with equal chance. If there were three entries each would have a 33.3% chance of spawning. If you wanted one of those to be an uncommon find you just increase the entries for the other two until your 'uncommon' one actually becomes uncommon.

So overall there is a 25% chance you will find no pearl regardless of your level, and at no time will you find more than one. When populating the clam (which is simply a container) the game evaluates the chance, and 75% of the time it will select a single item from the list. At player level 1 and 2 it cannot select anything except one of the three flawed pearls so you will only ever find a flawed pearl or 25% of the time nothing. At level 3 the game can select either a pearl or a flawed pearl from the list, and because there are 3 flawed pearls and only a single pearl that it can select from you have a 75% chance of only finding a flawed pearl rather than a pearl (but at least you have a 25% chance of finding a pearl). By the time you are level 9 half the time you'll find a pearl and the other half only a flawed pearl (and of course through all of this there is an overall 25% chance of finding nothing).

What happens if you click on the path shown for the textures and remove everything starting with your D:\ and ending with Oblivion\Data (so just leaving the Textures\Armor\... part)?

Yes .. by unchecking PC Level Offset they will become static level. Providing you manually set a level for each as you go through them (otherwise they will be unleveled at whatever the default is, probably level 1).

That is correct.

Ah ... that would be the 'Striker mini-games'. I've learned a few tricks, which when paired with some of the mods I use allows me to populate various locations (player owned and otherwise) with NPCs you would normally not find there (various bandits, marauders, necromancers and conjurers ... anyone from a leveled list). Some cells are set to not respawn very often, others need me to 'recruit' fresh additional inhabitants when I see the previous 'have moved on' (been lost to a cell reset). Much time (as in much much time) has also been spent Blockheading many of the candidates for this ongoing operation. Another explanation could be I'm easily amused.

My current character ... 6452 hours, started playing him Nov 2014. Thieves Guild is the only questline he hasn't done (previous characters have been down that path though). A few of the hidden miscellaneous quest also haven't been done by this guy.

Probably because an ESP can't be a master for a patch. Wrye Bash has/had a utility to flip the flag that identified a master to the game (Esmify Self) but I believe that has been removed from more recent versions of WB. As has been pointed out the modern way is to use Construction Set Extender which includes the ability to use ESPs as masters to other ESPs.

I drop them onto the floor in an open space and the use the grab key to position them. The Havok physics engine doesn't like dropping from inventory onto other things like tables/crates/etc. - Edit - I use shadeMe's Put In Place mod to make the moving easier.

Bashed Patch doesn't appear to be activated ... in conjunction with properly used bashed tags it can work miracles that are otherwise unavailable.

Your post made me remember Hickory (hope you are doing well). His advice was exactly the same every time the keychain mod showed up in a load order.

How about providing another place for my external microbiome to thrive?

Install the required skeleton.nif (usually Coronerras or Universal Skeleton NIF).

Completely possible, would you happen to know if it's safe to change the load order mid-game? (not currently sure about that Yes it's in general OK to change your load order mid game (with the exception of removing some mods that imbed info into the the ESS save file). Note that BOSS is no longer updated so it will be necessary to create User Rules for newer unrecognized mods. Not a big deal if you are used to manually sorting (the same general rules for load order still apply). I also open the BOSS list in Notepad to use it as a guide (looking for mods similar to the unrecognized one). That is good to know, better to avoid another restart if possible. Might not need manual sorting if LOOT can do the job, assuming it's "compatible" with Oblivion and up to date. I haven't used LOOT myself (I tend to hang onto what I know) but many do use it. LOOT is maintained so all but the most recent mods should be recognized.

Completely possible, would you happen to know if it's safe to change the load order mid-game? (not currently sure about that Yes it's in general OK to change your load order mid game (with the exception of removing some mods that imbed info into the the ESS save file). Note that BOSS is no longer updated so it will be necessary to create User Rules for newer unrecognized mods. Not a big deal if you are used to manually sorting (the same general rules for load order still apply). I also open the BOSS list in Notepad to use it as a guide (looking for mods similar to the unrecognized one).

Yes.

That is for the Construction Set.

~ Double post ~

I'm not sure if the fix would have been a mesh fix and then replacement but that seems the most likely to me. I'll be home late Wednesday and if I think of it I'll have a look at what meshes the UOP includes (just means checking the extracted UOP download).

I thought the Unofficial Oblivion Patch included a fix to stop the spazing roots.

Something similar results from using NPCs Yield Refined except it affects NPCs as well as creatures. You may get some ideas from looking at the scripts Quabla added to/changed on kuertee's original scripts.

You will need to go to the Posts tab on that mod's page, not the Forum page for those same comments (posts are disabled using the Forum interface).

Count me in ... I'm a hand pick, roll up my sleeves manual installing dinosaur. My current guy's setup took the better part of three weeks installing, testing and tweaking INIs back in 2014. I have a bunch of additions downloaded and waiting for the 'next guy' to happen. Maybe sometime in the next decade.

That sounds like a Mod added NPC not vanilla. Not sure if K'mar would be from Better Cities or MOO. Check you installion for those mods. It also could be they have no voiced dialogue assigned.