Kapteyn

Is this position still open?

If no mod support is possible in the first place, that's never a good sign. A lot of games require an extractor of sorts, usually the stuff is compressed into a non-standard archive - then you get companies like EA encoding everything as if they're trying to protect it from Ukrainian identity thieves. Packaging the core files is standard procedure, but providing the means to access them appears to be a luxury nowadays and often impossible without a release from the company. So if they're half-arsed about providing a simple little program to extract everything then they are surely hoping people buy the game, play it for a short time, forget about it and move on to the next release - and since ELEX 2 has apparently been announced already (before the initial release as it were), I have even stronger doubts of any mod support. So here's to hoping that GOG put it on offer sometime in the next year.

I'm not concerned with the graphics - even more so given my experience with Skyrim and going so far as compressing the textures and disabling shadows in order to facilitate stability. I'm actually better off with a game of low-resolution textures if my video card is precisely the minimum recommended. I've seen a lot of people comparing against Gothic and Risen. I have Gothic 3, it's alright but if that's the kind of mood I'm in then I simply pull up Skyrim instead, so I've hardly played it. Risen, haven't played any of them but I have just bought the first one off GOG because it's on offer at the moment (actually, the entire series is going for under £10 right now which is pretty good no matter how bad the sequels may be). Keybindings? Yeah, I'm not your average WASD guy and I've never been into controllers unless it's a racing game... so I need customisable controls and not something like Elite Dangerous which is impossible to get a refund for on Steam because it take an entire day to set up the key-bindings. So anyway, what I'm most concerned with is if it can be modded - I don't mean right now, but in the months to come. The world can be as vast as it wants, that is where most of the positive remarks focus on so I'd expect it to be an endless game to an extent - except I'd probably get very bored with it if I'm forced to use the same guy all the time, with the same boring voice, same bland actors everywhere else and with no way to mod them. I'm half expecting a relentless zombie spree, something like a cross with Left4Dead but in an open world. And a jet-pack.

I'm sort of curious about ELEX, not sure what to do. A lot of reviews don't exactly paint a pretty picture, so I guess I'm gonna need to know a few things before I fork out £40 on something unplayable. Most importantly - is it moddable? If it's anything like DA2 Inquisition then I'm staying away (but that's EA, they're terrible for making it difficult to mod their games). If it's a bug-fest like a few reviews have purported then it needs to be open for modding. I'm also expecting the AI might need improving. This question might need time, some games require tools to be made if the game doesn't come with a SDK. How stable is it? Mods can help with bugs and crashes, Skyrim for example is brilliant for people finding ways to sort out the quirks - but again it's no good if ELEX can't be modded. Is there absolutely zero means to customise the main character? I read that he's just your regular next action hero kinda guy, which may well suit some people but it won't me. I've heard he talks to himself as well, so here I am expecting Matt Damon. Are the keyboard controls for the PC remappable? I've read otherwise - if they can't be changed then they screwed up because not all everybody uses those four blue-coloured buttons (yes, they're actually coloured on my keyboard). If the keys are not changeable then it's no good to me. And finally, do those pole dancers... wait, never mind.

Apparently not, no.

I dunno what the deal is. They will just stand there in front of me, or follow me around, with two swords drawn... but they won't actually use them. They're custom Draugr though, it could be something to do with the packages I assigned to them.

I realise that, but surely it's doing a similar thing as hard code does in grabbing data from a property in the first place and then a function still has to do something with it. In any case, I don't actually need these functions just because I'm not using properties - it's more to make the script easier to work with and look at, so yes there's probably an extra function involved but I can't see it adding a significant amount of overheard. What's calling the script might be more relevant. If it's a quest for the player then only one script instance would occur so it may be neither here nor there in such a case; but if it's being called by NPCs which are randomly and regularly spawned then script instances can accumulate dangerously. Thus, by not using properties none of the data is being stored in the save file, which is the main purpose. For a single mod it's not exactly a problem, but if people have well over a hundred mods then collectively they can contribute to save bloat, so I'm trying to alleviate it as best I can. Before I created those functions I had about a dozen form lists which were being called via properties, this in itself limited the number of properties being used but it was still a fair number of lists. By calling the forms directly I've got it down to 3 lists - so the reality is that the overall size of the ESP file and the scripts has been reduced. Even if it shrinks by only 5%, and even if I'm essentially using an additional function, less form lists is surely better than heavily relying on them. Think about it like this: if I have a form list as a property, and in that list I have more form lists... the game code has to call a function in the first instance to grab the property data, then it calls another function to grab a form out of the list and then it calls the function again to deal with that final list (if you catch my drift). So what I'm doing is bypassing the entire need to call either properties or form lists and instead referencing the form directly by its ID. So again, even with an extra function in there I'm possibly causing the game to use less calls than it typically would.

It's not so much about the need to use the property, it's not really necessary at all in this case... I was just trying to figure out if it's possible for a global function to access a property which is in its own script. I don't really care anyway, I have six scripts for my mod and between them they don't use a single property, and hence creating these global functions to handle repeated calls to get forms directly from the file. As long as the form IDs don't change, surely it's more efficient to do it this way. Like this... If bThingy LeveledActor rThingy = getThingy(0x1000) As LeveledActor Int iThingyMin = getGlobal(0x2001) As Int Int iThingyMax = getGlobal(0x2002) As Int If getGlobal(0x2003) iNum = Utility.RandomInt(iThingyMin,iThingyMax) rSomething.PlaceAtMe(rThingy,iNum) Else rSomething.PlaceAtMe(rThingy,iThingyMax) EndIf EndIf So what I wanted to do was have that one single property which defined the plug-in as a string. But sod it, there's no point breaking what don't need fixing.

I suppose I could set the property on the other script and then pass it along every time I call these functions, but I'm trying to avoid doing that - if it's all I can do then I'll just not bother at all with using a property and define the file name in the global script instead, which is currently how it is and it works just fine.

The problem with using GetFormFromFile is... the entire point is not using it. I'm actually trying to create a string property for the ESP file name. If getGlobal(0x123ABC) Debug.Notification("This thing is enabled") EndIf Float Function getGlobal(Int iForm, Bool bMod = True) Global GlobalVariable vGlob If bMod vGlob = getThingy(iForm) As GlobalVariable Else vGlob = getForm(iForm) As GlobalVariable EndIf Return vGlob.getValue() EndFunction Form Function getThingy(Int iForm) Global String sFile = "BobMeThingy.esp" ; "This is where I want the property" Return getFormFromFile(iForm,sFile) As Form EndFunction I guess it just can't be done, so I'm stuck with defining the file name in the script itself.

Use the code tags to enclose your script, like this... Scriptname FullchargeWeapon Extends ObjectReference ObjectReference Property weaponRef Auto Function weaponmaxcharge() Float maxcharge = weaponRef.GetItemMaxCharge() String name = weaponRef.GetBaseObject().GetName() Debug.Trace(name + "'s maximum charge is " + maxcharge) EndFunction So yeah, you messed up the first line. :wink:

I'm at my wit's end with this, it just doesn't seem possible. ScriptName SomeScript Extends ReferenceAlias String Property sSomeString Auto Event onInit() Debug.Notification(getString()) ; "This works fine" EndEvent String Function getString() Return sSomeString ; "Works for the above, but not below" EndFunction Function doThingy() Global String sThis = sSomeString ; "Errors because it's not defined" String sThat = getString() ; "Can't do this using a global" EndFunction What gives?

I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or if they just don't have the animations for it. But I cannot for the life of me get them to dual-wield. Same with skeletons, actually I can't even get my custom ones to use a shield and sword. I've duplicated the races, the combat styles, the classes, I've set the flags for dual-wielding... nothing is working. What actually needs to be done to get them to use both hands?

I don't know anywhere near enough about packages, but I'll hazard a guess and suppose TraveltoRadius will give them a bit of leeway in where they stand. What I think you might need is TravelandUseIdle.

I think the main problem with alternate start mods is if another mod either changes how the game starts in and of itself or unexpected things happen during the starting sequence. When it comes to spawn/encounter mods, what we don't want is things appearing out of nowhere and killing everybody because it could cause the initial quest to stall (as amusing as it would be to see the headsman get a taste of his own medicine, if he dies before raising his axe the dragon may not appear - I cannot confirm this but it wouldn't surprise me). It's also important to consider how the player starts out. I've seen one start which dumps the player by the coast and pretty much in a snowstorm, with basic rags and no weapons - with no way to defend oneself and very limited stamina to run away, it certainly wouldn't be nice to see a bunch of bandits spawn on the player in this case. It is for these reasons that my mod is not enabled by default; it must be activated in the MCM before anything can spawn.