Unused Fallout Records Useable?

[Deleted2547005User]

I was working on a large project to optimize New Vegas/Fallout 3 when I ran into something strange. I was using the search and replace feature to replace 5 Donation Boxes in a Quarry Junction shack to a Metal Box to remove the old Fallout 3 record that was being referenced. When the little window pops up, it'll show the object selected and then the next object alphabetically to replace it with. This object happen to be DoNotCreateNewIngredientsWeArentUsingThemInFallout. It was an Ingredient record, a record type from Oblivion that wasn't used in the game. I've known about this for a while, but I was under the assumption that the GECK would ignore objects of this record.

Guess not. I looked in the All section of the GECK's Object Window and lo and behold it is in the list, I was able to open it, modify it, and save it. Then I closed the plugin and the GECK and reopened the file to confirm the GECK had indeed made changes. Another surprise, a new record type appeared in the Items section of the Object Window. The field was blank, but when I clicked on the tiny sliver, it displayed all of the Ingredients.

Turns out the GECK can edit/make, and even place these objects in the game. To make the list of the hidden objects appear, any one of the records of that type must have a world model. The GECK can sort out these records by their world model, as they would appear in the BSA's file hierarchy.

It tricks the GECK's porgraming into displaying them. I did the same to the other "hidden" record, Constructable Objects. Again, it appears in the GECK, only Constructable Objects are Skyrim's version of Recipes.

 

 

Unlike Ingredients, Constructable Objects cannot be edited, double clicking on a record does nothing, but the right click will bring up the standard window. I took a Constructable Object from Skyrim and added it to my test file. The GECK will recognize that the objects the Skyrim Constructable Object references are missing or are invalid references, but still will not allow the record to be edited.

 

Worse still, the GECK will save the records in a broken format, resembling that of a simplified Key, Book, or Misc Item instead of the format Skyrim has, and how the GECK actually reads the record. It's not a loss, Recipes are their equivalent, and compared to Constructable Objects, are much simpler to create. So I focused on Ingredients, I placed the one I made into the game, and it appeared in the game world.

 

When picked up, it will appear in the aid section of the inventory.

It also can be used like any other aid item, and it's affects will appear in the Status section.

 

It can also be dropped like any other item.

 

In the end, it's nothing more than a simplified Ingestible Item. It does not have a pickup and drop sound, no addiction field, it cannot be made a Medicine, and you cannot change it's value in the GECK, only in FNVEdit.

 

I'm not sure how informative this will be to others, I thought I'd just share my findings. I apologize for the images, I had little time before work to crop the images, and when I get home, I would completely forget I found this out. I cannot attach my esp to this thread, so I've uploaded it here for folks - it does not contain the Skyrim Constructable Object I used to test the GECK. Unused Object ESP

Edited July 25, 2014 by Kuroitsune