Confused by leveled lists

[tommy311]

Hello.
Could someone, please, explain to me how distributing items to NPCs in Skyrim works? (or just point me to a good tutorial?)
I am using many mods that adds items, but some of them do the distribution by themselves, some need bashed patch, etc. and I dont know if I need to use distribution plugins when I make a bash-patch, or not.
The mods that I am most interested in are (among others):
SkyRe, JaySus Swords, Immersive Armours, OmegaReds Armor Compilation, Bandolier (even for NPCs), The Chronicles of Steel, and maybe Ill throw in some more.

Example:
Bandolier for NPCs has loads of compatibility plugins. Do I only need to pick the most suitable ones, and do a bash-patch later with the mod checked?

Thank you and have a nice day :-)

T

[SilentSpike69]

I'm not the best at explaining new concepts to people since I grasp things so abstractly, but here goes:

 

Imagine you have a list of items, just item names. This list is the items that have a chance of appearing on bandits (I'm using this as an example).

Now within the list, next to each item is a percentage and a whole number. The whole number is the amount of this item that has a chance to spawn and the percentage is the spawn chance it has.

 

Okay, so that's a basic leveled list. Now when a mod alters an existing list, the changes it makes will overwrite the last list. Which is why when you have multiple mods things can get broken due to lists being edited by more than one mod - causing the latest loading mod to have its changes overwrite all the others.

 

What a bashed patch does is merge the changes from each mod into one list that will overwrite them all. So if one mod changes the percentage next to an item in a list and another changes the percentage next to a different item, those two percentage changes will both be added into the final list. (This is the function of the Relev bashed tag, by the way). If a mod removes an item from a list so that it no longer has any chance of spawning, that removal will be added into the list (Delev tag). If a mod adds new items to a list, those will all be merged into the final list and will all have a chance of appearing on said bandits.

 

So in short, you should always make a bashed patch if you want changes from each mod to apply to your games lists. :)

 

No idea about the bandolier stuff, sorry! Hopefully someone else can answer that.

[tommy311]

So far, I understand, but to be sure, correct me if I am wrong.
Lets say, there is mod "A" and mod "B". They both have Relev tags on the same weapon "W". Mod A sets spawn chance to 20%, and mod B sets it to 30%.
If I do NOT use bashed patch, it sets the spawn percentage to 30% (if B is loaded later), or 20% (if A is loaded later).
If I USE the bashed patch, it takes both percentages and sets it to 50% ?

[SilentSpike69]

I'm not familiar enough with the bashed patch coding to answer the second part of that question. The first bit is right though :)

 

I don't think it would go to 50% though, it'd probably go to the average or the last loaded.

[tommy311]

Then I still dont know which mods to add to bashed patch.
Maybe its me, but everytime I do bash-patch from mods that add weapons/armour, it seems like some of them are not added, or are overhelmed by spawn chance of vanilla items.
Maybe I am doing everyting right. I am kinda confused (hence the name of the thread :-) )

[SilentSpike69]

You pretty much want to add them all unless you don't want a mods changes included. It should do that for you anyway though