How to remove categories from existing settlement mods in FO4Edit (e.g homemaker)

[apasserby1991]

Been asking around for a little while but I haven't been able to get a straight answer to this question.

 

Due to the settlement build menu limit we have to be conservative with which settlement mods we use but a common response to requesting a mod author to release a scaled down version of the mod without the less popular categories included is usually just met with "Just do it yourself in FO4Edit", which is totally fair enough and totally reasonable.

 

However no one has been able to explain to me exactly (or even vaguely) how we're supposed to go about this, I don't know how big of an ask it is, maybe it's too difficult to explain or maybe there's already a million tutorials out there but I haven't been able to find anything that actually has an answer tailored to this exact problem and I don't have the skills or knowledge to take the existing guides I've found and make them applicable to what I want to do.

 

I also think it would be hugely helpful not just for myself but for the community in general to have a guide tailored to this exact problem, how do we edit existing mods to remove categories and items that we do not use but are taking up valuable space in our settlement menus? Any help would be hugely appreciated.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I've been wondering the same thing actually. I'd like to remove some objects and menus from some of the settlements mods I use simply because I never use those particular items, and A) it gets tedious to scroll through them all them time (I'm the kind of player who just spent 4-5 hours building a wall around Starlight Drive-in....), and B) removing things I don't want in the game would give me more room to add things I do want, right?

 

So if anyone has a tutorial or good explanation or something else helpful, please do share? :)

[BlandSauce]

I don't know your familiarity with FO4Edit at all, but I wrote up a beginner guide a bit back. That should get you the basics if you don't know them already.

You're now going to look under "Constructible Object" section and the "FormID List" section (of the relevant mod esp file).
Depending on how the mod author set it up, and what your goal is, you have a few options.

If you have a Constructible Object for just a single item, and it's an item you no longer want, you can either remove the Constructible Object record completely, or change the keyword to something not used by the menu system (that second one I haven't actually tested). Second is better if you think you might want that item back in the future.

If the item doesn't have its own Constructible Object and is instead part of a group, you'll look in the FormID List. If you don't want anything in that group, you can do the same as above with the Constructible Object that points to that FormID List. If you do want to keep other items in the group, you can remove specific items from the FormID List by right clicking on that row and selecting Remove.

Hopefully some of that made sense.

[vashts1985]

from what i understand its all in the keywords. an item that is to appear in a particular category will contain that keyword in its record.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Thank you BlandSauce. I'm still very, very new to this (as in I've been doing some reading, but haven't actually used the program yet), so I got one more question. Could you edit one mod, say Homemaker and save your edits as a separate patch, thus keeping yourself from having to go back and redo the changes every time the mod updates?

[BlandSauce]

Yes. Instead of modifying the record in the original mod directly, you would do a "Copy as Override" into your own new esp file. Then do the changes in there.
You might need to account for the circumstances here they use the grouped method and add new items (that you do want) to groups that you've removed from.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Cool, thank you! I'll start playing with it once I've had a good nights sleep! Hopefully it turns out to not be too difficult, but even if it is it's so much easier to motivate yourself to keep going if you're actually working on something you intend to use. :)