Better Cities Modularity

[BlackBaron2]

Yeah, sorry, I got confused :P I'm a bit of a space cadet sometimes...

[sjors boomschors]

In the beginning I liked the fact that I could choose which mod’s to use.

But with choice comes issues and compatibility problems.

 

I like to have the choice for the following:

 

• Better Closed Cities (All cities a separate ESP file)

• Better Open Cities (All cities a separate ESP file)

 

As long as better cities is compatible at all times with:

 

• Unique Landscapes

• Weather Mods

• Texture Mods

• Mods that ad some really good quality stuff / quests

 

Then I will be a happy modder / player.

[Vorians]

In the beginning I liked the fact that I could choose which mod’s to use.

But with choice comes issues and compatibility problems.

 

I like to have the choice for the following:

 

• Better Closed Cities (All cities a separate ESP file)

• Better Open Cities (All cities a separate ESP file)

 

As long as better cities is compatible at all times with:

 

• Unique Landscapes

• Weather Mods

• Texture Mods

• Mods that ad some really good quality stuff / quests

 

Then I will be a happy modder / player.

 

Well you're out of luck a little there, since we've been recreating Open Better Cities within the Better Cities ESPs, so you can't have OBC in separate ESPs to BC. Luckily the OBC content is entirely optional, and disabled by default, so if you don't want OBC, simply don't enable it, and pretend that it isn't part of the BC ESPs.

 

As for compatibility with those other mods and mod types:

 

• Will always be so, with compatibility patches

• Will always be so as BC doesn't touch weather

• Will always be so as BC isn't a texture replacer

• Erm, sometimes! Especially with compatibility patches for some which conflict

[Hjorlwulf]

I have refrained from voting as at this time I don't actually use this - but it is high on my list of "Going To Try" list. My reasons are as follows:

 

I am an avid user of ships and the entire nautical aspect of Oblivion leaves me unimpressed. All of the cities to which water-born traffic SHOULD have access to is shown in miniature or lacking facilities, there are few ships and in vanilla Oblivion you can't even REACH the IC from the sea! For this reason, I use the "Under the sign of the dragon - Tamriel heightmaps " and "Slide's Ships" mods, which together allow me both a selection of ships and the water routes to use them. I am very afraid, based on my experience with other mods that modify the waterfront areas, that the changes in water tables due to the height map mod will render the areas unusable or worse. Not to even mention the total lack of any Empire Navy ships, men or harbors.

 

I am also ex-military, and have commented in other forums on the lack of any viable military in what is supposed to be the heart of a thriving and LARGE Empire. No defenders on key entrances or walls, the countryside littered with masses of abandoned military works and worse, allowing such to become the havens of necromancers, bandits et al jars in every sense my immersion. One of the functions of the castles and town militias should be the defense of AT LEAST the town and surrounding areas, if not as well any vital economic areas for that town's economy.

 

Finally, I use the "Kvatch Rebuilt" mod and have to wonder if your mod changes anything in that area.

 

Can you give me an idea of your thoughts on these?

[Arthmoor]

However if VWD of objects from the child worldspaces also appears in the parent worldspace, thus duplicating every VWD building in the Tamriel worldspace (something I was unaware of)

 

No need to worry about it, that doesn't happen. If it did, there would have been no reason for RAEVWD (for instance) to need a cities ESP to handle making the buildings visible and Bethesda would not have needed to make their own generic VWD meshes for the cities.

[Vorians]

I have refrained from voting as at this time I don't actually use this - but it is high on my list of "Going To Try" list. My reasons are as follows:

 

I am an avid user of ships and the entire nautical aspect of Oblivion leaves me unimpressed. All of the cities to which water-born traffic SHOULD have access to is shown in miniature or lacking facilities, there are few ships and in vanilla Oblivion you can't even REACH the IC from the sea! For this reason, I use the "Under the sign of the dragon - Tamriel heightmaps " and "Slide's Ships" mods, which together allow me both a selection of ships and the water routes to use them. I am very afraid, based on my experience with other mods that modify the waterfront areas, that the changes in water tables due to the height map mod will render the areas unusable or worse. Not to even mention the total lack of any Empire Navy ships, men or harbors.

 

I am also ex-military, and have commented in other forums on the lack of any viable military in what is supposed to be the heart of a thriving and LARGE Empire. No defenders on key entrances or walls, the countryside littered with masses of abandoned military works and worse, allowing such to become the havens of necromancers, bandits et al jars in every sense my immersion. One of the functions of the castles and town militias should be the defense of AT LEAST the town and surrounding areas, if not as well any vital economic areas for that town's economy.

 

Finally, I use the "Kvatch Rebuilt" mod and have to wonder if your mod changes anything in that area.

 

Can you give me an idea of your thoughts on these?

 

BC widens and deepens the water of the Lower Niben where it flows past Leyawiin, and replaces the stone footbridge with a raisable drawbridge - so ships should now be able to sail straight through - there's still a blockage further north of Leyawiin, but that's beyond the city so not something BC would touch. I'm not entirely sure what your concerns are with regards "water tables" but if you're worried that Onra's Tamriel Heightmaps might conflict with mods editing the IC Waterfront or Bravil/Leyawiin/Anvil coasts, don't worry, Tam Heightmaps does not touch any or these locations at all.

 

BC adds one Imperial Navy ship in Leyawiin harbour, and (optionally) adds city guards along the walls of every city (excluding the IC).

 

BC does not touch anything in the Kvatch area at all. Kvatch does make some edits immediately east of Anvil outside the city walls, but this should be fully compatible with BC.

 

However if VWD of objects from the child worldspaces also appears in the parent worldspace, thus duplicating every VWD building in the Tamriel worldspace (something I was unaware of)

 

No need to worry about it, that doesn't happen. If it did, there would have been no reason for RAEVWD (for instance) to need a cities ESP to handle making the buildings visible and Bethesda would not have needed to make their own generic VWD meshes for the cities.

 

Oh that was based on something someone else had said. I already spent a good deal of time since then testing and confirming that it was incorrect. I also found out that DistantLOD for child worldspaces was pointless, as the game completely ignores such files, using instead the parent worldspace files to display VWD content in child worldspaces.

[velvetsanity]

I love Better Cities, and only use the fully merged. I would suggest, if you intend to keep *any* modularity to it, to make it a choice as to whether a particular city is OBC or BC, letting people choose which version, but requiring one version or other of every city be used. Just my $0.02 :)

[Vorians]

I love Better Cities, and only use the fully merged. I would suggest, if you intend to keep *any* modularity to it, to make it a choice as to whether a particular city is OBC or BC, letting people choose which version, but requiring one version or other of every city be used. Just my $0.02 :)

 

That choice automatically exists as soon as you install BC. As I already said, the OBC content is inside the BC ESPs, but disabled by default. A console command (or using the BC in-game OBSE menu) is needed to enable OBC for each city.

[Tomlong54210]

I love BC, but its installation must look pretty intimidating for new users and I can't imagine what the upkeep is like. The only patches I that have ever caused me trouble are those for the UL mods. I don't want to say there are too many different versions, but I'd guess that the hardest work is given to the BC team, updating all of them. There are other unique city expansion mods available as alternatives, and as long as the latest BC version with full modularity is available, that would be nice. According to what I read in the first post, if a large part of the future expansion plans is to integrate quests and other cross-city functionality, then maybe it is time for BC to step onto the next stage. The old, super modular BC would still be available, and those of us who are happy with the merged version can enjoy the expanded functionality for with the merged project provides. I am among those who have felt that BC was already at a nice "finished but not actually finished" mod state a number of versions ago. This would be kind of a new BC.

 

Anyway, those are just my thoughts...

 

 

Thank you all for putting so much work into this great mod, a definite keeper!

- Tomlong54210

Edited December 28, 2010 by Tomlong54210

[Lysanias]

I voted in favor of modularity. When I installed Better Cities, I used everything except the IC Market District because of another mod (which I highly value--Nexon's Armory) which places an Ayleid cask in the IC Market District.