SSE Basic Keyword Question

[Radioactivelad]

Hi, i've not spent a lot of time Creation modding, so I'm not up to speed on what all the Keywords system is used for:

 

I'm making a Food rebalance mod, and I've noticed many prepared foods, such as Beef Stew, do not have the "VendorItemFood" keyword; will adding this keyword cause the items to be offered by Food Vendors?

(In gamebryo vendor merchandise is handled almost entirely through Leveled Lists, so my first thought was this would be a convenient advancement in the engine.)

[IsharaMeradin]

Simply adding the keyword will not allow vendors to sell the item. Items the merchants sell are added directly to their merchant container. Often times by means of leveled lists in order to vary the stock. The vendor item keywords are used to tell the merchant what types of items they can or cannot purchase.

[maxarturo]

To add a little more info to the above.

Keywords define the 'Icon' an item will have in the inventory (for inventory items).

Keywords are a basic 'tool' of CK/game to define and retrieve information about the object, it's like a kind of signature that can be use distinguish 2 objects of the same kind but with different attributes.

For example:

- You have in game 2 brothers (twins) and one of them is a vampire. A quick way to distinguish and to grab the vampire actor by script if you need to aaply something only to that actor, is by using the Keyword 'IsVampire' that the vampire actor is carring either in his race or in the actor's properties.

Keywords have multiple applications.

Edited October 26, 2022 by maxarturo

[Skybroom]

I have another question.

How does the skyrim's system recognize keyword -- by its Editor ID (name) or by its Form ID (number)?

I am asking because it will be much easier for me to use a keyword with the same name as the original rather than use the original keyword which will require adding more master files to my esp. I have a bias to think it's the latter (Form ID). Everything in Skyrim seems to work through the Form ID. But I noticed some of the mod authors do create new keywords with same name as the original. Not sure if it does the trick though.

[scorrp10]

It is 100% FormID.  If two mods define a keyword with exact same name, these are in no way connected.

If you want to use keywords from anywhere in the main game, just include the extra files.  If you want to use keyword from another mod (and have that mod recognize it), your options are:

1.  Include that other mod as master.

2. In your main plugin, do not use the keyword.  But create a patch plugin that has both your and other mod as masters, and overloads forms from your mod, but with keyword.

3. Use KID.  I.e.  you define a keyword A in your mod, tag items with it, and add a KID distro file to add a keyword B from mod X to any item that has keyword A from yours.

[xkkmEl]

To change what foods a vendor sells, heed Ishara's advice.  Look into Leveled Items.  If you look closely at the game database with CK or xEdit, you will see that is how the merchant selling chests are populated; this is also how you'll know which leveled items to change if you want to add/remove food items from specific merchants.

Keywords are useful to trigger other features of the food item, like whether it is a poison, who will buy it, etc.  Keywords are also easy to test using the condition system.  They play no part in determining what is sold by merchants, however.