Foina

@ Woggsy: No form ID comes up when trying to click-select the glow. As for my mods, I mostly use texture replacers. The "proper" mods are tiny and just a few (a handful, in fact) and they add missing functionality like de-nocking arrows, calling the horse, letting me delete learned spells... and a couple more I don't remember (can't access my gaming computer right now). @ TheRomans: Haha -- If it's a feature, then, I got the bug the other way around. The vast majority of Gates I closed was shut completely, leaving no lighting or other effect. Guess I'll keep it that way since my game isn't exploding. Thanks for the help guys :smile:

*bump* I'm still waiting to hear anything about this. Am I to believe that this thing only ever happens to me? Please.

*bump* I still need to know how to cure the animation bomb glitch in Fallout 3. Please.

80 hours? You beat me. I remember my very first CTD with Fallout 3 because I had watched an alarming video review made by someone that claimed that FO3 was crashy as hell (like every 2 minutes for him). My first CTD occurred no sooner than 64 hours into the game, and it was the vanilla Fallout 3, just patched to 1.7 (no mods, no DLCs, nothing but vanilla stuff). Pretty damn solid for a supposedly crashy game.

*** forgive me forgive me forgive me *** This must've been answered time and again already - but I can't seem to find it. Oblivion and Fallout 3 share the same game engine and -for the most part- the same bugs. One such notorious bug is known as the Animation Bomb (or ABomb) to the Oblivion community. And for this there's a slick fix (here). I can't find nowhere a similar tool to cure Fallout 3's ABomb. Please, anybody got a link? Or do you know if the Oblivion tool also works for Fallout 3? Or is there another way to cure the ABomb and I don't know it? Any help is much appreciated!

Hi, in the screenshot below there's an Oblivion Gate I just closed. I have reloaded and reclosed it many times but that red light would always remain. This is the 2nd gate that does it - all others I closed (not that many, really) have turned off completely. I don't know whether this is a problem I should worry about, just making sure. But it's a graphical glitch I would like to get rid of. Can a script detect and eliminate that red light effect? Thanks in advance.

That's certainly part of the recipe, and one that you get to appreciate once you find your rhythm. I surprised myself running around no more. Either I walk the roads, or I take the horse for a relaxing excursion. Lately The Orange Road is among my favourite tours (gazing at the scenery, listening to the music and my footsteps - or my horse's. That's a pill of relax :happy:). An aspect of the game that struck me particularly is that I can cover great distances without finding a hostile, yet when I want a fight I know exactly where to go. I'm also making little use of Fast Travel, and not because I made some rule for myself about it, but because I'm just not thinking of using it. A couple months ago my character was level 33. Yesterday night it turned 35. This to say that I'm not rushing in anything. I just explore, pass time wandering, fight the occasional bad guy, collect flowers... and when I want a change in routine I resume a quest. I still have to visit every town, plenty of uncharted locations are hidden in the large unxeplored sections of my world map, the main quest is far from finished (Martin just recently reached Cloud Ruler Temple), and I have mastered only 7 skills so far (2 of which Major). You know? I could go on like this without feeling the urge to improve anything. My savegame number reached 1001 just yesterday (not counting the thousands of Quicksaves) and I logged 376 hours 9 minutes 58 seconds of play (with the A-bomb rearing its ugly head again - but this time I'm ready). Never _ever_ before a game managed to keep my interest this high for sooo long -- I'm still into it as I did the first day.

Since this thread started I've been looking up close at all the female faces. I'm pretty sure that I *don't* have this glitch. Or at least I can't spot it. I'm using Oblivion GoTY ed. (with the UOP 3.4.3 mod, if that matters). In my spartan list of mods there's nothing that alters the NPC bodies - as far as I know. What's the OP's game version?

Well, a game doesn't receive a 5-digits-long amount of mods without a reason. Oblivion isn't just "not so bad after all". It stands the test of time. That said, I'm sure that when TES6 shall be out, the initial wow-factor will strike the masses again, and people shall be quick in forgetting Oblivion (Skyrim too, don't hold your breath) to flock over to the next best thing of the moment. Then, when that wow-factor will fade away -as it always does- we shall see if it was all that due in the first place.

People with any multicore CPU might want to take advantage of this undocumented .ini setting: bUseThreadedAI=1 To be pasted anywhere inside the [general] section up top in the .ini file. This setting should make your Oblivion spread the AI threads all over your cores. Might improve performance in presence of multiple actors (like in a town). Then again, maybe it doesn't. Your game is never the only program using your cores, keep that in mind. People with a CPU with 2 cores (for example a Core 2 Duo) may want to take advantage of another undocumented .ini setting: iNumHWThreads=2 To be pasted anywhere within the [general] section up top the .ini file. This setting should make Oblivion take full advantage of your *dual* core CPU. It has been reported that the iNumHWThreads setting only works in presence of up to two cores. It should improve stability some (it sure does for me). If you have more than 2 cores and try to use them (say, iNumHWThreads=4), this setting may fail to produce the expected results, and actually hinder the performance since it -apparently- hard limits itself to max 2 anyway (only citing what I did read elsewhere myself. I got no first-hand knowledge of the GameBryo inner workings). Why not try anyway and come back here to [confirm | deny] that your game ran better? Some people have also used the iNumHWThreads setting to force their game to run exclusively on 1 core (instead of both). I don't know why they'd want to do that, but hey... who am I to judge?

Interesting. In which case I wonder, would the problem disappear if _after_ the Lod generator has created its distant lod files, the OP reinstates the mod-supplied (Valenwood Unleashed's) original distant lod files? Thanks

Thanks guys for your comments. The more Gates I step into the stronger the temptation to just tcl to the tower's door becomes stronger. I know I'll eventually do it. Level 32 still, with a Luck of 102, and I keep finding nothing but ordinary loot from the denizens of the Oblivion Planes. The only interesting stuff is being found up top near the sigil, either in the containers (The Punished) or looted off the guards (they occasionally cough very nice rings and amulets). Instead my undying love for Cyrodiil and its Ruins, Forts and Caves is as strong as the first day. I just crave to lose myself in all that vegetation, collect flowers (okay it's a girly thing, but I still like it >_<), and murder the crap out of any opposition.

Efficient leveling sounds boring and restrictive. But really it isn't. Of course if you take it as a chore it'll wear you out fast. But things will be different if you take your time. I myself have been going for efficient leveling. My goal is to reach 100 in all skills and attributes. There are two types of efficient leveling. The difference between them is in your Luck attribute: do you want to max that too? Or not? Ignoring Luck may sound the best idea at first (since you can only raise it by +1 per level). But that implies that your efficient leveling will force you to care about 3 Attributes (and their _30_ skill ups) at once, per every level. That becomes a chore fast. Having to control so many skills together is stressful, especially in the early stages of the game when you rack up skill points for any wall you bump into. Instead, if you choose to maximize Luck as well, then your efficient leveling imposes to focus on 2 Attributes (and their 20 skill ups) at once. That's much easier to manage, believe me, and makes you rack up levels faster than you would if you chose to leave Luck at the base value of 50. Having to assemble only 20 skill points also implies that you have to hold back less than you would if you had to accumulate 30 points. Think about it. Me? I'm currently level 32, Luck is 96, Strength and Endurance are 100, Willpower is 85, other attributes are at 80. And you wouldn't believe how I'm enjoying the game. If there was any difficult part, it was in the first levels where I focused on getting Endurance and Strength to 100 a.s.a.p. (Endurance because of the well known issue with HP, and Strength because I'm a pack rat). Then I was able to relax a lot, to the point I decided my schedules on the fly. I just had to keep an eye on the Personality skills -Mercantile especially- to ensure they wouldn't rise too much while I was supposed to focus on other Attributes' skills. In hindsight, it wasn't difficult. Right now my Mercantile is 95. I'm thinking to use 5 training sessions and painlessly bring it to Master level. Then I'll have one less worry on my mind. Or maybe not, and I'll level it manually. What's the rush anyway? The skills are so high that they almost never trigger out of schedule anymore - I can play the way I like based on how I feel at the moment. I'll hit level 40 and my Attributes shall all be at 100. At that point I'll have 120 Major Skill points yet to allocate, netting me 12 more character levels. So I'll climb to level 52 and wind up with 690 base HP (my Nord began with 55 base Endurance). I'm a tough tin can to dent already with 490 base HP. They have to be many & mean to have me worried. Imagine what it'll be with two hundred points more and full access to my skills. *mumbling* Hmm, I'll have to channel all that Powa into a cause. Give a meaning to it. Something worth of my epicness. Aah, I'll turn into a bloodthirthy villain and slaughter whatever can die. My bounty is gonna rocket through the roof and the only way to clear it shall be *not* to go to prison, but to kill any guard who would dare arrest me. This is a fine piece of logic: if nobody can claim my bounty it's as good as if I don't have no bounty at all. I'll be clean & saint. Who will be able to stop me anyway mwa-ha-haa? :devil:

Hello. I logged about 300 hours of play so far. Almost all of them spent in leveling my character (lvl 31 now) and seeing the world. In short: I'm taking my time. Only recently I started to close the Oblivion Gates. So far they're 4 (out of the many more I discovered). The first 1 (Kvatch) was done like this: enter, explore every corner, collect (and sell!) every last loot piece, then go for the sigil. Too much work. The next 2 were done like this: enter, explore every corner, collect only the best loot (sold later), then go for the sigil. Still felt like too much work. And it's got old fast. The last one has been done like this: enter, do the minimum necessary to get to the sigil, kill whoever stands in your way, collect the best loot only. It felt... good. But then I thought about the missed opportunities I left behind. Maybe I'd have found something nice if I had explored every corner as usual. But gods, those planes are unattractive as hell. To visit the entire landscape feels like a tour de force, sort of a self-inflicted punishment. I can't stand it... yet I realize that in so doing I throw in the bin a good slice of game assets. It's a pity, I *so* enjoy the game. I enter every Cave, Fort and Ruin I find, and I make sure to explore every corner and collect every last piece of loot - then sell it. But I can't bring myself to do the same for the Oblivion planes. How strange. Is there something wrong with my attitude? Do you throroughly cleanup the oblivion planes, or just go for the essential (like I'm doing lately)? What's your stance?

There, she nailed it. If I have to look at someone's back for hours while I play, it's got to be a pleasant sight. I've played pretty much only female characters. It gets awkward when there's to go through romance, though... Occasionally I make the exception. In Fallout 3 I played a guy. Same in Oblivion. Guess it's because I gave them my face, and, you know, I can't stick my beardy traits on a female, gods! the poor thing would look hideous...

Let's see if I understand what you say... Every Oblivion Gate is child to an xMarker entity (some abstract -dummy- object the Player can't interact with, but it's there nonetheless). As far as the Enabled flag goes, a Disabled Parent automatically disables all its Childs (regardless of the Childs' flag). If the parent is Enabled, then each Child's Enabled state will match that of its very own Enabled flag. So... when checking for the Enabled flag I should first get a ref to the Oblivion Gate, then climb up to its parent ref (with GetParentRef, I suppose), which is the Marker, and check its (the Marker's) Enabled flag. Am I correct? Sorry, my questions must be terribly boring to you guys. Have patience, I'm learning the ropes. I'll strangle myself with 'em soon enough :P

Thanks for the input. Good thing you mentioned those flags. I just finished making tests: A working Oblivion Gate, such as the one appearing in Kvatch is: - Enabled && not-Destroyed After closing said portal, the very same gate appears to be: - Enabled && Destroyed Other gates (still functioning) elsewhere on the map appear to be: - Enabled && not-Destroyed I take it that the discriminant I should care about is the Destroyed flag. I don't suppose I can find a Disabled (that is: not-Enabled) Oblivion Gate -- can I? On second thought, reading about the Enable and Disable functions I gather that a not-Enabled object is present in the world and can be worked with -- it just is not rendered on screen. Does it apply to *any* object? So... it's technically posssible to run into a hidden Oblivion Gate? Anybody can confirm or deny, please? I don't have a savegame from before closing the Kvatch gate anymore.

Hello. As the title says, how do I have my script detect the presence of a *working* Oblivion Gate within a certain distance of the player? The script must ignore those gates that have been shut off already. Loosely browsing the list of functions I've found these (I use OBSE v0020): - GetFirstRef - GetNextRef - IsOblivionGate - GetDistance With them, a construct of this type should do what I need (I think): ref pDoor set pDoor to GetFirstRef 24 1 while (pDoor) if (pDoor.IsOblivionGate) && (pDoor.GetDistance Player < 5000) ; Found a working Oblivion Gate ; within 5K units of the player ; (do stuff) ; . ; . ; . break endif set pDoor to GetNextRef loop I'm just new to scripting for Oblivion. Maybe there's a more efficient way? Also, notice the 1 in the call to GetFirstRef. I intend to scan the cell the Player is in, plus the ring of 8 cells surrounding it. Will that be enough to catch any Oblivion Gate within 5000 units? (how big is a cell, btw?) Thanks in advance.

I got this odd curiosity, and thought I'd ask about it. Having played many many many RPGs I noticed how some companies [that often specialize in making RPG-type games] tend to introduce in their games a creature that -for a reason or for another- makes appearence (her itself, or her 'traits') in all their games, even if slightly modified/disguised. I don't know much about Bethesda. So far I played Fallout 3, and am still playing Oblivion. I plan to move on Skyrim when done with Oblivion. Now, I noticed how in Fallout 3 there were the Mirelurk creatures, with their thick carapace. Although anthropomorph they were mutated crustaceans -- that is: crabs. Then in Oblivion I find the Mud Crabs (hehe), and much later those things I can't spell the name of. An NPC referred to them as "billys", I reckon. Again there's a carapace'd critter. I think at this point to have seen the whole bestiary of Oblivion. So I was wondering if in Skyrim there'd be any creature ascribable to the crustaceans family, or anyway shelled by a carapace.

I found the OAF tool (this afternoon), have used it, and it worked like a charm. Slick, painless, flawless. I was back to report *success*, and post a link to the OAF, but you've been faster :cool: I won't mind that the bug is due to reoccur, since it takes this much to build up. But sure I wouldn't have thought that such extravagant problem could lurk in a game. I've read a bit about it. Considering that it's the same for the console version, this bug becomes game-breaking. A broken save on a console is a middle finger rudely waved at the player -- and an embarassing situation for the game developer at the same time. These things normally receive Highest Priority, to the point they hastily cook and release a hotfix just for that. So... how come they _never_ patched it?? And I read that the same thing occurs in Fallout 3 (guess what, I own that too) which was released 2 years after Oblivion. Funny policy from Bethesda :confused: Oh well. My game works.

Really?? Then it's a known thing! What a relief ;D I was fearing that my savegame was doomed. Writing my post I kept saying myself << figures... this is so peculiar, nobody will even know what I'm talking about. Likely they'll ask which mods I use, what's my system specs, and if I know which end of the keyboard is which -- classic >> :happy: Thank you very much, sir, you've lit me a candle of hope. May you have a very good day today. I'm off to fetch links and docs on this ABomb thing.

I'm having a most curious problem. I don't even how to name it, so I'll do my best to explain. Kindly, read it all carefully. 234 hours, 11 minutes, 58 seconds. That's the time I played Oblivion, according to my latest savegame. And I haven't had a single problem in all this time (save for 7 CTD's - yes, I kept count of them). All has been fine up until about 230 hours. Lately I was in Skingrad, talked with some Fighter Guild's members. They pointed me to the goblin caves nearby. I cleaned up Derelict Mine first, then went for Goblin Jim's cave. Only a few steps into Goblin Jim's cave I noticed something was wrong. Once in a while some sprites from the fire animation on my torch were sticking in mid air, without disappearing - as if time was frozen while I was able to move. Walking backwards would clearly allow me to spot these fire sprites frozen ahead of me. They would disappear after a few seconds. If I unequipped my torch all fires in mid air would instantly vanish. If I re-equipped the torch, for a moment I'd spot a fire sprite appearing were last I was when I unequipped the torch. With hindsight I'll say that the strange behaviors started right then. But at the moment it didn't look like something to worry about. So I kept delving into Goblin Jim's cave, fought the occasional goblin, looted their corpse, done the usual stuff you do when you explore a new place. Nothing was out of order - save for the occasional freezing in the sprites animating the fires on the many torches present in that cave. The campfires too would occasionally freeze their animation. This would happen whether or not I had my torch equipped. That cave is on 3 levels. The problem with the fires got worse as I got deeper into the cave. At some point *every* fire animation anywhere I looked was frozen. Some fires would return to animate if I rotated my point of view as to bring them fires to the edge of the screen. Other times the fires would animate correctly only if I walked while watching them. Other times again the fires would sporadically play 1 or 2 frames of their animation over 1 second of play. It all gave me the impression of stuttering, or anyway of something "engulfed". But the framerate seemed steady. I used the tdt command to make sure. The framerate was indeed steady, and in the high 70s all the time (my screen refresh rate is set to 75 Hz). After cleaning up Goblin Jim's cave I got out of the place, leaving behind those defective "fires". A quick stop to Skingrad to sell the junk, then I saved and quit. The day after I resumed play and headed for Fanacasecul, that Ayelid ruins located West-South-West of the IC Waterfront. Once in the dark of its dungeon I immediately noticed something weird in my spells. That sparky particle effect swirling around your body when you cast any spell... that effect wasn't playing. At all. The spells itself would work, and their sounds would play correctly. Just the particle effects were missing. I used a few Starlight spells (they last 60 seconds) to lit my way as I fought a couple zombies in the dark corridors. Then all of a sudden I noticed a thick particle effect rising around me. A *very* thick one, and it was the typical Illusion spells' particle effect (Starlight's). They just were *many*, and playing all together, and playing real slow. Only when I looked down, at my feet, all those effects would speed up their animations. At that point I tried more spells. None would play the particle effect immediately. The effect would start playing only when I looked down or went up against a wall. Certain to be having a problem, I save and quit. Then launch the game anew and reload. The problem persists. I get out of Fanacasecul. I'm now in the wilderness. Two bandits attack me. I dispatch them. It all played fine, smoothly, without glitches, except for my spells' particle effects that wouldn't play at all. Then I spot a butterfly a few meters on the side. She's flying oddly. In fact she _isn't_ flying. She's frozen mid-air, much like the fire sprites from my torch, back in Goblin Jim's cave. Observing the butterfly, she occasionally plays the next frame of its animation depending on where I look with the camera. That's when I perceive that the _framerate_ has something to do with the problem. When the fps is steady, the animations are frozen. When the fps drops, even momentarily (for example making a quicksave), the animations *do* play, but only to freeze back again once the fps stabilizes to high 70s. I also noticed a problem with doors and gates. In Fanacasecul there's a pressure plate that you must step onto in order to lower a metal gate blocking your way. If the framerate is high, stepping on that plate does nothing. Only when the framerate drops, does the gate lower, and its animaiton is choppy and slow anyway. Similarly, the IC Arena Gate (when starting a fight) won't drop at all even after the speaker has given the 'go'. I have to look somewhere that will drop my fps for the gate to play its animation and let me pass through. Gates activated by the player work the same. In Skingrad there's many small gates to access this or that house backyard. I may click them to open/close but they won't move nor make a sound until I look up in the sky or point to somewhere that will drop my fps a little. Even then, their animation won't be smooth. This is all I have observed. Everything was absolutely fine (for 230+ hours!) before I entered Goblin Jim's cave. What the hell is going on, and how do I cure it? Help me, please.