Mod newbie

[gooch503]

hay all, im getting a gaming laptop next month (Alienware M15X) with the sole intent on modding RPG games, i was wondering if anyone could direct me to a good "beginers guide" or "how to" video. also, a list of good and easy mods to get me started would be very usefull. the only expirience i have with modding is editing game saves for the xbox so all this will be new to me.

 

the games im getting are Oblivion & Fallout New Vegas

 

thanks for all your help

[drakeelvin]

hay all, im getting a gaming laptop next month (Alienware M15X) with the sole intent on modding RPG games, i was wondering if anyone could direct me to a good "beginers guide" or "how to" video. also, a list of good and easy mods to get me started would be very usefull. the only expirience i have with modding is editing game saves for the xbox so all this will be new to me.

 

the games im getting are Oblivion & Fallout New Vegas

 

thanks for all your help

 

 

The GECK Reference Guide is both a reference and a guide, and even though the tutorial is based on Fallout 3 it works very similar to New Vegas so you can benefit from it. Video tutorials are also linked, so thats even more educational!

 

I recently did my very first mod creating and placing an item in Goodsprings and I used this very concise 1 page walkthrough: Creating Items, and Item Placement. I had a bit of previous experience with the Morrowind Construction Set which is similar in how it works so that helped me.

 

A couple of brief tips that come to immediate mind:

 

1. Get The GECK Power Up for New Vegas and launch using it, and run it as an Administrator from within Windows if you have file permission issues.

 

2. When you reopen your mod file to edit it, after having saved it and closed GECK, click just on your mod and use the "Set Active Plugin" button. When it loads, any masters it depends on are automatically loaded so you don't need to check them explicitly. In the official GECK/NVGECK documentation it explains that you can only change the active plugin. Masters and non-active plugins may be loaded but cannot be changed (i.e. saved). So if your plugin is NOT active you might think you are editing it, but GECK won't let you save it. And even if you were to save changes to a new file that won't help, because the save would only capture what you updated during the current session. So remember, setting the Active File is key for editing/saving your plugin later on.

 

3. Setup the Data folders so you can switch between playing and modding. I decided to move my entire everyday NV data folder to a backup folder named "Data - Everyday", then I also reinstalled a clean data folder with no mods and I moved that to a folder called "Data - Clean". And I make a COPY of my clean Data folder whenever I start a new mod so I have a brand new sandbox. Once setup, simply swap whatever folder name to Data, depending on if you want to play the game or work on modding. (Do NOT archive/zip the Data folder because the files are already compressed so you get almost no worthwhile compression but it takes ages to run compression. Copying is pretty fast, just a few minutes for the 6+ gigabytes, and renaming is instant.) Once setup you'll quickly swap back and forth between a modding data folder, everyday game data folder, or in a few minutes create a brand new clean data folder when I want to start a new mod or a fresh unmodded game. So I wasted lots of gigabytes of space on copies but HD is cheap and switching between playing/modding is much faster, and I always have a clean Data folder available whenever I need it. (NOTE: I only use Fallout Mod Manager a.k.a. FOMM on my everyday data folder, I have not made any mods of my own that require it yet.)

 

Also, in the official GECK guide/reference I linked, do read the section on GECK files, and on the "DeckStack of Cards" system which is how plugins work -- it explains the importance and workings of load order in a very clear way and will help you understand how your own custom entries in the GECK files 'stack' with others and each other too.

 

The item creation/placement article I linked is very simple and you'll learn the fundamentals of file management and object creation/placement. Master that and move on to bigger things. One small thing he omitted was using the "F" key in the render window when placing your container. Drag your container to the desired location then release the mouse button then tap the F key and the selected object drops to ground level. Another useful Render Window key is T for top view looking straight down from above. The full listing of Render Window hotkeys in GECK under the Edit Menu and a partial selection is on the View menu. Getting the hang of the Render window was the hardest part for me, but once learned its quite simple.

 

"Well, I hope that's enough to get you started, I'm heading back now. Hope I didn't miss anything good on the juke-box, Cheyenne would never forgive me." -- Sunny Smiles Quote

Edited March 23, 2011 by drakeelvin

[davidlallen]

Also, in the official GECK guide/reference I linked, do read the section on GECK files, and on the "Deck of Cards" system which is how plugins work -- it explains the importance and workings of load order in a very clear way and will help you understand how your own custom entries in the GECK files 'stack' with others and each other too.

 

Excellent post. I believe I understand how multiple esm/esp stack, but it is a confusing topic. I tried to find the exact description at the geck wiki on "deck of cards" based on your recommendation, but I was not able to find "deck" at all. Can you give an exact link to that? It is surprising / sometimes disappointing that there are good articles there, but no good way to find them.

[gooch503]

thanks guys

[drakeelvin]

Also, in the official GECK guide/reference I linked, do read the section on GECK files, and on the "Deck of Cards" system which is how plugins work -- it explains the importance and workings of load order in a very clear way and will help you understand how your own custom entries in the GECK files 'stack' with others and each other too.

 

Excellent post. I believe I understand how multiple esm/esp stack, but it is a confusing topic. I tried to find the exact description at the geck wiki on "deck of cards" based on your recommendation, but I was not able to find "deck" at all. Can you give an exact link to that? It is surprising / sometimes disappointing that there are good articles there, but no good way to find them.

 

Yes, the deck of cards illustration is found on this page: Data Files and part of the specific quote I was thinking of comes from the following section, I quote:

Records and Overrides

 

As mentioned before, a mod file (master file or plugin) is basically a database of all the objects in the gameworld. To be more specific, the mod file is a collection of records. The records in a given mod are mixture of 1) new records, and 2) modifications of existing records (i.e. of records defined by the mod's masters). E.g. "Cool Guns.esp" might introduce three new guns, as well as modify two existing guns defined by Fallout3.esm. Each of these guns is represented by a single weapon record (so 3+2 = 5 records in total).

 

The important thing about records is that each record is a single indivisable object as far as GECK and the game engine are concerned. Thinks of the game world as a table with stacks of playing cards. You can add a new card, or you can override an existing card by putting a new card on top of it. So, in the example above, the three new guns form three new stacks, and the two modified guns go on top of existing stacks overriding the original cards/guns/records

 

Now, suppose that there's a second mod "Heavy Guns" which adds two new guns and redefines four guns from Fallout3 to be more "heavy". Suppose that of these four overridden guns, one conflicts with an override done by "Cool Guns" -- i.e. they both try to change the same gun.

 

Again, this is just like the card game. The two new guns form two new stacks, and the four redefined guns go on top of existing cards, overriding them. But in this case, one of those cards goes on top of the card added by Cool Guns -- thus overriding its changes as well as as original Fallout3.esm gun/card. Note in particular, that they changes are not merged. Each newly added card/record completely replaces the card/record under it.

 

...

 

Hope that helps. I guess they use the word "stack" not "deck" and stack is the appropriate word in their example so I got the word wrong. Also, as I mentioined before, the document references Fallout 3 but for the most part NVGECK works identically.

 

When I was trying to figure this out on my first mod I just started reading through the document section by section until I understood what I needed to know because I was concerned about making a mod that avoided conflicts.

Edited March 23, 2011 by drakeelvin

[drakeelvin]

Important Addendum:

 

Regarding my earlier suggestion on the use of multiple data folders, and how quick and easy it is to rename them when you want to switch between everyday play and modding, or make a new clean folder, there was something I missed.

 

Apparently the game engine does track the integrity of the data folder so when you rename/move it, there is one additional step I discovered.

 

Within Steam on the Library Menu, right-click on Fallout: New Vegas and select Properties.

 

Then, within Fallout: New Vegas - Properties, select the Local Files tab and click the button, "Verify Integrity Of Game Cache..."

 

I was running into a higher than normal number of CTD's so I looked around for potential causes and found that whenever I rename my data folder there was always one file that failed the integrity check. And running that check/repair does seem to have significantly reduced the number of CTD's I was getting. Even though I don't understand the full details of what file(s) are involved, I thought I should mention this and I've PM'd the two gentlement who read my earlier comment.

Edited March 28, 2011 by drakeelvin