Help Understanding G.E.C.K. - how to change starting items

[OldheadGaming4K]

I have very little knowledge of modding, but I was trying to understand how I could tweak some stuff I wanted changed. The biggest thing for me was scatter the Courier's Stash items across the map. I downloaded a mod from 2017 called Courier's Stash Scattered, but I was hoping I could keep two items from the classic and caravan packs: the pair of binoculars and the vault 13 canteen. I was wondering if there's a way to have these games added to my inventory at the start, along with the vault 21 jumpsuit.

[madmongo]

I don't have the Courier's Stash Scattered mod, but the Vault 13 Canteen is normally added via the script VPreorderClassicSCRIPT. I am assuming that the Courier's Stash Scattered mod simply modifies this script.

 

There are a couple of ways that you can do this.

 

The easiest way for a beginning modder would be to just add the canteen during the character generation quest. The Vault 21 Jumpsuit is added in the quest VCG01 in the topic VCG01DocMitchellTopic076. There are two entries in the topic where the Vault 21 Jumpsuit is added, one for males and one for females. Just add this line to the Result Script at the bottom of each topic:

 

Player.AddItem PreordVaultCanteen 1

 

For your own use, something like this is fine. In general though, you probably don't want to mess with the character gen quests or you can run into compatibility issues with other mods. For example, if you are using some sort of alternate start mod, that part of the VCG01 quest might not get executed so your changes might not work.

 

A better method is to make your own quest, just like the Classic Pack does. You need to create a very simple quest script that adds the canteen along with a "do once" sort of variable to make sure the script only adds the canteen once and doesn't keep adding it over and over. Make your quest active on startup and have your script stop the quest after the canteen has been added.

 

It's a bit more complicated than adding one line to the VCG01 quest but in general it's a better way of doing things since it won't break compatibility with other mods. If you are making mods for others then this is the type of thing you want to get into the habit of doing.