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I'm in the process of making something that will be pretty large, and I've heard they can only have a limited amount of edits before it can't be an ESL (4095). I'm guessing any thing I add in terms of items, statics, quests, globals etc will count towards this, but how do cells work? I've got one cell which is pretty large, and I'll need to duplicate it either in whole or parts for various quests and events. Does every item I drop into it count as an edit or is the cell itself the "edit"? Also is there anything else I need to be aware of or stuff that might not be obvious as an edit? Thanks in advance.

I've got a holotape that needs to display some dynamic variables. I can get this to work on a terminal that has an alias in the quest. What I'm curious about is whether there is a way when the holotape is inserted to grab the reference of the terminal and force it into an alias. I've done this with NPCs and other objects using a quest to move them about and things, but I'm not sure whether it's possible to do with terminals. When I've done it before the quest was explicitly pointing at what/who it needed to fill the alias with, so it already knew what it was working with. I'm not sure how to get the reference of the random terminal if it's possible, and if it is how to go about putting it into the holotape. I know Pipboys are pretty much dead in the water in regards to text replacement due to the Pipboy not having a reference (IIRC), but objects in the wild should have a reference and unless I'm misunderstanding things it should at least theoretically be possible. Would doing a radius check from the player for the closest terminal (I'm guessing that would be the one in use) and filling the alias that way be possible? So is it possible to grab the reference of the terminal at the start of the holotape running?

Have a look in the templates tab of the NPC, and see if Use Script is checked. If it is that means the NPC is using a template from another NPC and that will cause the script box to be greyed out. Simply uncheck that box and you should be able to add a script. If whatever it's templated from uses a script that you need (settlers have a script that's used for various settlement related things for example), then you'll need to see what it's called and just add it to the script list (I can't remember whether it keeps any templated scripts or removes them).

I've done Summoning Grenades, and although I haven't done them, a random is easily achievable. You need to make a note of all the NPCs you want to spawn (preferably making a duplicate for your mod), and then add them as properties (actorbase IIRC) in a script. When the grenade explodes get it to spawn a small object that has an OnLoad() event attached to it, and attach the script to it. You could then do a Utility.Random(1, X) replacing X with however many NPCs you have, and then write a script that matches the number to the NPC and summon it. You could just do a load of If/ElseIf statements to do it or work out an array to do it. If you're confident enough to spot mistakes then ChatGPT may be able to tidy up any code (I know it has issues with creating arrays sometimes, although if you cut and paste the compiler error it usually works out it's mistake). There are two things I would heavily suggest. Don't summon named NPCs directly. Named NPCs are generally unique and there's only meant to be one in the world, so if you want them clone them. Remember to remove the unique flag if you do this. Make sure there's a time out or someway to disable and delete the NPC. Some NPCs will wander off, sometimes with weird effects later down the line. If you set a timeout, all you need to do is set a timer for X seconds, and then when that trips just call a disable and delete on it. That will need to be attached to the NPC.

I'm making a coin pusher, so I've got a lot of miscobjects that are moving one another around, and this number could get quite high (it starts off at 132, and could go as high as around 300-350). There is a sweep through which culls anything in the gutters or win chute, but it's a handful of coins at a time if any, so things can get quite busy. Obviously I'm looking at reducing the load, especially as it uses a lot of Papyrus. If I pop a roombound out of sight (hidden so you don't see the void) connected to nothing would that reduce a load on the engine/PC, or am I going to end with a CTD or anything that would make it worse, or not have any effect at all? All the coins would do is drop into the box, and my understanding of it is that they should at least need to be rendered any more. Thanks in advance.

Ah OK. I knew certain things were held in the NIF (bounciness seems to be another one), and it appears this is another. Thanks anyway.

As the title asks. Does it have a bearing on anything other than carry weight? Thanks in advance.

Elianora is a goddess for tutorials on stuff like this. She does tutorials for Skyrim as well, but a lot of the stuff for Skyrim can be pretty much the same in FO4 apart from a few things you may or may not encounter. You can find her at https://www.youtube.com/c/elianora Your best bet, as long as you don't want to create/modify a mesh, is just an asset flip. Bear in mind, if you want it to be playable you'll need to do textures for the first person view as well as third person (I think the CK calls the 3rd person models Bipeds). Also, you'll find most of the actual armour in Armor add-ons in the CK, and not Armour which is what add-ons make up a complete set. If you want custom packaging, you will need to alter the NIF in the Armour section. There's also Outfits as well which are several armours put together - confused yet? It's pretty easy once you realise how everything is put together, but at first it can be pretty daunting.

The water purifier uses an actor value so it knows what to produce. Most of the stuff in settlements that produce resources use either keywords or actor values to let it know what to make. If you're looking to make what you want then you're going to need to script it. You could even get away without making any actual machinery and just create a quest that deposits items into the workshop chests, and using a holotape to turn it on or off. The actual object doesn't do anything in itself, and it's all down to scripting or stuff the engine does itself.

I'm modifying the vault suit textures and I'm having a massive problem. I cloned the relevant ARMA, ARMO and MSWP files x 2 as I need two different types of the vault 111, and while the suits are fine it seems to be the patch that's borking, and using 1 patch (actually the first edit I did) across the board. When I alter the biped model data in the armour addons section, it shows the different patches fine, but then when I put the NPCs in the game they both have the same patches despite using different outfits. I've checked everything making sure everything is pointing where it should be multiple times, and I even went back to scratch with it to make sure I hadn't messed it up somewhere, and still get the same results. The only thing I'm doing that's unusual is giving the NPCs the outfits as needed, and all the other outfits they can wear seem to work fine, although they don't use material swaps. Is there something I'm misunderstanding about material swaps or something I'm doing wrong? Thanks in advance for any help.

Many, many thanks. It's back up and running

Is there any way to rollback the CK to the previous version? I need to use F4SE and I don't want to update yet.

Ah, I thought the terminal did whatever it needed to with the quest and waited for that to complete before moving on. I'll try your suggestion in a few days. I've also had it cause a CTD a couple of times so I've replaced it with something else as a stop gap while I work it out.

I've got a script attached to a quest, which moves the player to another location, and it's shared between a terminal and Pipboy (you can use either the terminal or a holotape to move). The terminal works absolutely fine, but when it comes to the holotape it's not detecting the exit event. If you open the Pipboy again it then detects the previous closure event, and when you exit again it also detects that event and does what it needs to. It's being called with... Function CheckfortheExit() Self.RegisterForMenuOpenCloseEvent("TerminalMenu") Self.RegisterForMenuOpenCloseEvent("PipboyMenu") Utility.Wait(0.5) EndFunction When it detects the exit event it does this... Event OnMenuOpenCloseEvent(string asMenuName, bool abOpening) Debug.Messagebox("Exiting: " + asMenuName) If (asMenuName == "TerminalMenu") Float ftstage = lfvr_ftstage.GetValue() If ftstage == 1 battlebuttonenabler.Enable() slotsbuttonenabler.Enable() PlayerRef.MoveTo(lfvr_entrypoint) ElseIf ftstage == 2 (Self As Quest).SetStage(1020) ElseIf ftstage == 3 (Self As Quest).SetStage(1030) ElseIf ftstage == 4 (Self As Quest).SetStage(1010) EndIf lfvr_ftstage.SetValue(0) lfvr_inpip.SetValue(0) EndIf If (asMenuName == "PipboyMenu") Float ftstage = lfvr_ftstage.GetValue() If ftstage == 1 battlebuttonenabler.Enable() slotsbuttonenabler.Enable() PlayerRef.MoveTo(lfvr_entrypoint) ElseIf ftstage == 2 (Self As Quest).SetStage(1020) ElseIf ftstage == 3 (Self As Quest).SetStage(1030) ElseIf ftstage == 4 (Self As Quest).SetStage(1010) EndIf lfvr_ftstage.SetValue(0) lfvr_inpip.SetValue(0) EndIf Self.UnRegisterForMenuOpenCloseEvent("TerminalMenu") Self.UnRegisterForMenuOpenCloseEvent("PipboyMenu") EndEvent I just can't figure out what's stopping it the first time around. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The NIF for the caps isn't animated. For most animations, they also tend to use a grid of separate images, and with the DDS format you could end up with an absolutely massive file for something that does very little. If you know your way around NIFSkope you could probably use that to edit the NIF for the Cap object. If you're happy with it being static, then it's a simple asset flip.

You're not playing in survival mode with a mod that allows mods are you? There's one that restores the console window ( https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/26163 ) and has it borked for some reason? What happens if you try and open the window and type TM (toggle menu - it can also hide the console window)? Open the window, and wait until the game freezes and the cursor appears. Without clicking anything else, just press T, M and then return and see if the window reappears. I've never known toggle menu to be persistent across saves (I use it for screenshots a lot), although I tend to ALT+F4 out without a save. Having said that, TM also kills most of the UI so I guess it would be noticeable. If the menu comes back when you've done that, exit out (with a save) and reload and see if it still happens. If it does then I'd guess there's a mod playing up, glitching out or possibly even doing it by design.

Do you have the Ballistic Ammo in Magazines mod installed? https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/47878

Like I say there's a trade off. For music files that are around 8 minutes long will break the maximum filesize which is actually a massive limitation. At that point you start dropping the bitrate and it introduces artifacts. I've managed to compress tracks in excess of an hour long, but there was a massive quality hit (although it did give the mod the authentic 15th generation copy of a mixtape effect ). If you want to mess around with it, I'd recommend Lazy Audio ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71749 ). It's for Skyrim, but Skyrim uses the same formats (same engine almost). If you want to experiment with long files then Yakatori Audio Converter ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/73100 ) has a GUI, which makes altering bitrates easier. Basically, if you crash it (it will just fail the conversion) then you need to drop the quality.

You can't use MP3 files. Try using MP3 and see what happens. Most of the dialogue in the game is compressed using the .xwm format, and if you listen closely you can hear the artifacts (little tinkling noises) when characters speak, and it's especially noticeable when you first meet Piper. If you extract the audio in the game BSAs and try and play the files in something that plays .wav, but doesn't support .xwm, you'll encounter files that seem to be corrupted wavs. These are just xwm format, renamed to wav. A mod that's audio heavy can benefit from .xwm because the files are reduced greatly, but they need to have the extensions changed to .wav for the game to see the files. I've done a few radio and mods with a lot of audio, and I can get 20+ hours of audio to fit in around 500MB. Yes, there is a trade off (there is a maximum file size that .xwm files can be) in terms of quality, but it's preferable to downloading and wasting 13GB. Even my conversions of videos for Videos of the Wasteland had to have the sound ran through a converter because I'd have ended up with around a gigabyte more added to the file sizes, and Razorwire even recommends it in his video tutorials (although you didn't need to rename them to wav).

I guess the loop points lost if they're converted to wxm?

You will need to add the pex files. The psc files are just your source code and can be opened in a text editor (I edit mine in Notepad++). The pex files are the compiled executables, and what works in the game. If you have a look in the script directory, and then in the source directory, there should be a corresponding psc for every pex that was supplied with the vanilla game (assuming you let the installer unzip the source files). You can take the psc away and the game works fine, but if you take the pex away then the quest scripts and so on won't function. As an asides, don't feel too bad about it, I completely left out the pex and psc of one of my first mods.

I think that's what I'm going to have to do. I'm going to have to script an abacus as there's some maths involved, but easy enough.

I've got a global variable that I need to display in the terminal. That bit works fine, but I'm wondering if there's any way to force it to display a number like 89 as 089. Thanks for any help in advance.

I've got a levelled item (well actually 5 on one form) that's injected into various item lists like lunchboxes, chests, etc. The drop rate was too high, so I've updated it so it's not as high. Will this be automatically applied to the game at load, or do I need to write a function to remove the old forms first, and then reinject them? Thanks in advance.

Cheers. I've got that installed so I'll have a look at that.