Some questions about doing a housing mod

[DarkFaeGaming]

Trying to do my first housing mod, and I just have a few things that I'm unsure of, and I'm hoping to get answers. Not very experienced in the GECK/Creation Kits
If I group objects in the render window; a table, crafting hot plate, and some storage crates, will they all still function as separate objects and work as normal in the game?

How can I place things like ammo or bottles, and have them as only decorative static, and not able to be interacted with and moved around and taken?

That's all I can think of right now, but I'll edit this post if anything comes to mind

Thanks

[madmongo]

Don't group objects. That is only for statics, and the objects will not act as separate objects. The idea of SCOLs is to reduce the number of objects in a cell and in my experience SCOLs are of questionable value anyway.

 

Things like ammo and bottles will always be able to be interacted with. If you don't want them to be interacted with at all then you need to create static versions of them. You will have to extract the models from the bsa files so that the GECK can interact with them, then create a new static and point it to the bottle/ammo/whatever model you want. There are static ammo boxes in the GECK already (AmmoBoxSTATIC).

 

If you just don't want NPCs messing with objects like bottles and containers, double click on the item in the render window and check the box that says Ignored By Sandbox. If that box is checked then NPCs won't touch the items but the player can still interact with them. This will stop NPCs from stealing all of your ammo, eating all your food, and drinking all of the Nuka cola bottles that you have lying around for decoration.

[Mktavish]

Housing mods are the best place to start imo ; ) Ones in the exterior cells are cool too ... but have some limitations to interior cells.

 

To add about SCOLs ... unless the textures are compatible ... I don't think you are gaining in the memory loading dept ... and even at small amounts (homes) would be negligible.

Butt !!! They are great for dropping in collections of items arranged for duplication. So you would create/save a SCOL ... which will stay in the item tree ... then break SCOL in render window back apart.

And when you want to drop that duplicated collection in , drag drop the SCOL / re-orient ... and break apart ... which then each piece can be manipulated independently again.

 

And as far as activatable items ... some can be attached to SCOLs if I remember correctly . . . not all. But Like madmongo said , it would then become nonfunctional in the group.

Not sure but maybe activators only can group when they have a "Static" in the tree ? Inventory items ... same maybe ?