Creating my first mod to fix annoying weapons mod system, technical assistance required.

[dgabbless]

So its always pissed me off the way you cant take a scope off of a pipe rifle and attach it to say, a bolt action pipe rifle, and I'm using FO4Edit to try and rectify this. My understanding of the way the weapon mods are structured is thus:

each weapon links to a set of objects called modcols, which in turn reference the mods themselves (often via other modcols, eg: 'modcol_10mm_Receivers' references 'modcol_10mm_Receivers_SA' and 'modcol_10mm_Receivers_Auto', which in turn reference the mods).

 

Once I figured this bit out I thought the solution would be simple: you copy a scope mod from the pipe rifle and make all the modcols that would usually reference their own specific scopes reference that mod instead, however it turns out its not so easy. Instead of the weapons deciding what they should look like based on what mods are installed, the relevant model the weapon is built out of is stored under the mod itself, so taking a mod from one weapon and trying to apply it to the other is probably going to severely screw with the in-game model, if not crash the game altogether.

 

I'm not really sure how to proceed from here. Maybe I could separate the mods i want to be generic into two layers, one layer can hold all the property changes the mod makes (eg weight changes, magnification level), this layer can act as the generic item, while the second layer is weapon specific, and applies the model changes while pointing to the mod item.

 

What do you reckon?

[pootthedestroyer]

It probably won't crash the game. It'll just look suuuuuuuper weird sometimes. The game doesn't really "care" if a modded weapon "looks right," and I don't even know if it "cares" that part of the new graphic is out of bounds. It may just chop it off.

 

However, here's a crazy idea to try:

 

Construct each OMOD individually with the call to the specific texture and/or Material Swap, but then assign the same MISC miscmod object to all of the OMODs you want to be fungible with each other. Don't forget to make a Constructible Object entry that attaches to that MISC object.

 

I have no idea if this will work, but hey, worth a shot. Maybe the game's code will be able to take the one MISC object in your player's inventory and recognize it as a qualifying mod for multiple weapons. The individual OMOD entries should then take care of the graphical problems once you attach it to a specific weapon.

 

 

 

Slightly Off-Topic: I was able to successfully create a (graphics-free) "universal" material mod for multiple melee weapons without ever having to touch or create modcol files. I honestly still don't know how they fit into the organizational structure.

 

I just made the OMOD, slapped two keywords onto it (one for the category of mod, one to restrict it to only weapons with that keyword,) made a Constructible Object and MISC object reference, and, voila, one Depleted Uranium materials mod can be attached to a combat knife, revolutionary sword, switchblade, or any other bladed weapon that included my "Material Mod" keyword in one place and my "Bladed Weapon" keyword in the other.

Edited December 11, 2015 by pootthedestroyer