Newbie modding questions

[evanbgood]

I'm a bit new to the modding scene, so I apologize in advance for my rather simple questions. I'm not too interested in making new dungeons or buildings or that sort of thing so the GECK tutorial only helped me out so much. I'm more interested in tweaking/adding to the core elements of the game.

 

The first thing I wanted to do was do a little stat "fix" for some of the weapons in the game (like the .32 pistol or the chinese pistol to give them a purpose). I realize the obvious steps, going into the GECK and finding the apropriate weapon and adjusting its stats. However, every bit of advice on this subject seems to tell me how to make a "new version" of the weapon, not replace the old version with new stats. Or, if it does replace it, it seems to replace it in the core fallout3.esm file (I may be wrong about that, I'm finding the .esm/.esp loading system to be the most confusing part of the GECK). What I'd like is to be able to make an .esp file that I can turn on and off like any other mod in the launcher "data" menu, or the FOMM. Something that, when on, would make the adjustments to the weapon I wanted, and when turned off again, the items would return to normal (and not be wiped from the inventory or anything of that nature).

 

I also have a bit of a "dream mod" that I'd like to work on eventually, but I'm guessing there's a lot of scripting to learn. I'd like to figure out a way to add a new menu to the pipboy (perhaps in "notes") that updates each time you pick up a skill book in the game. It might require replacing all the books in the game with unique versions of each one (right now all 25 of each book are the same item), but I'd like for it to keep a log of where each one was found. Better yet, I'd love to make it so that each individual book has a note entry (under a branching tree menu, of course) that has humorous individual information about the book, in addition to the practical information of where it was found. Writing a summary of "Flamethrower recipe #22" for the Big Guns book sounds like fun to me... even if I would have to do it 324 times.

 

Any advice on these two projects would be greatly appriciated!

[Spiney4]

You can't write to the Fallout3.esm with the GECK, so, don't worry about that. You want to modify the base objects currently in the game. Thats very straight forward. In fact, you sound like you know what to do in this regard. Just make a small hange to something, and then when the "*" appears in the title bar you can save it as whatever esp name you want. When you open the GECK at another time, you'll select the esp you made and push the "Make it Active" button, to let the GECK know you'll be making your saves to that file. It also will tell the GECK to show you the "*" modified marker on anything that ESP modified or added.

 

I hope that answered your question on that topic.

 

As far as the "Dream Mod", it sounds like you'll be modifying the current skill books base objects by adding a script that keeps a counter. You might need an unmarked quest for this project to centralize the data. That's just a quest you never tell the player he is on :) There are a number of them in Fallout 3, of which I don't know them by name :) I can not say anything about adding a pipboy menu as I have not attempted that. A brief look in the GECK doesn't give me any indication how this might be done, either. Be creative, you'll figure out something :)

[evanbgood]

Thanks for the advice! I think I understand that "make active" thing now. Unfortunately, even the tutorial seemed to skip that part (which, now that I think about it, was the reason my tutorial dungeon was erased after I spent an hour making it).

 

I'll look into quest scripting when the time comes. If nothing else, maybe I can work on it with someone who knows more about what they're doing :)