(SPOILERS) Dead Money - Elijah Was Right!

[HereticNoir]

Yarrh. I've already been improving exponentially. Although I expect this to level off at some point.

[HereticNoir]

Hello, again. I've come up against a new hurdle that I need a bit of help with.

 

And I promise I am trying to search these answers out in a manner that doesn't bug actual people, but I don't seem to yet know how to phrase questions to get useful answers.

 

So copying objects, recipes, etc. has been working wonders for me but I've finally hit something I can't copy my way out of.

 

I want to make an in-world object that would work mostly like spare parts, but with the .nif of a holo-emitter. (nvdlc01holoemitteroff.nif, to be precise).

 

I copy SpareParts and change to model to nvdlc01holoemitteroff.nif, and save. But the object in game, while functioning fine in containers and in my inventory, will just hang in mid-air if dropped. actually, if I jump on it just right, I can stand on it.

 

So, how do I tell the GECK that I want my objects to react like spare parts while still changing the .nif? does that have to be keyed in manually and, if so, where do I start?

 

As usual, thanks in advance to anyone willing to help me on this.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Burning Heretic

[Skevitj]

And you just hit the fun little problem which has stalled most of the dead mods I've worked on.

 

Whether an object is movable or static is determined by it's Havok properties, which is a set of properties contained within the nif file. You will need to create a copy of the nif file and modify it such that it has the properties of a dynamic object, it's not something which can be done in the GECK. It may also need other work done to it, I've only managed to successfully change an object around once, and even then there is still a bug which has single-handedly killed off the mod it was intended for.

 

The first step would be to download NifSkope (or Blender if you're feeling brave, although I don't think either can do it completely by themselves), then this tutorial is the most informative and useful one I've come across with regards to editing the physics properties of an object. Hopefully you'll have more luck with it that I did.

 

If all else fails, there are a number of people who appear frequently on the chat page and whose help has been invaluable in troubleshooting mesh/texture problems, but that's about as much help as I can give on the problem, it's not a trivial one when you're useless at making/editing models.

[HereticNoir]

Ooohhh.

 

I...uh, I think maybe I'll just copy the spare part item for now until I've got something I'd feel comfortable rolling out the door.

 

Don't get me wrong, I knew I'd have to put together a .nif for some other parts of the mod, but that was not a concept I had in mind for the initial release.

 

But at least now I know why I couldn't find anything about tweaking .nif's with the GECK.

 

Thank you, as always, for all your help, SkevitJ.

[someguynamedjoe]

I agree. There's no need to open the Sierra Madre as a casino, when you can just take its technology and turn yourself into a faction capable of destroying the Legion, the NCR, and Mr. House all on your own.

 

The vending machines can effectively supply you and your followers indefinitely. The holograms are capable of defending a single position by themselves with a well-hidden emitter, and the Cloud makes a nice weapon in and of itself (Cloud Grenades, anyone?). Maybe there can even be a way to use mind control on the Ghost People...

 

But you know who would benefit the most from this? The Brotherhood of Steel. You should be able to do what Elijah wanted, minus the extinction event. You should be able to head to Hidden Valley, tell McNamara/Hardin of the treasure trove of Old World technology, and then have the BoS bring the casino back online while discovering its toys... as well as reuniting Veronica with Christine.

 

We were going to do this with this mod, but it seems to have fallen through.

[HereticNoir]

After a brief fever, I'm back!

 

...And confused again.

 

I'm trying to build a script for the terminal in the Abandoned BoS Bunker. It should check to see if the player has an item, and then check his skill level. If everything checks out, it should allow the player to exchange said misc item for a note, which will in turn allow the vending machine to create a new set of items in exchange for chips.

 

I've got the item needed, the recipes, the notes, all of that. I just need to know how to get the terminal to:

 

A: Do a Skill Check

 

B: Check for possession of an item

 

C: Take said Item

 

and

 

D: Add a note.

 

As usual, thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

Edited May 12, 2011 by Burning Heretic

[Skevitj]

It's a rather simple process once you've managed to create the menu item for one, but the overall structure depends on how you want it to look, and the number # types of items you want exchanged. For large amounts of items, it can get very tedious to plan and make.

 

Sub menus are actually implemented as different terminal objects, so a good way to do it would be to create your own terminal capable of carrying out the operations, and then adding it to the bunker terminal at the end as a "Sub Menu"

 

Plan out how you want it to look first, If I remember right, you can't have more than 6 or 7 menu items in a single terminal, so if you have more you're going to need nested menu levels. ie:

 

1) "Disk Programming"
 1) "Weapons"
	1) "9mm"
 	2) "10mm"
 	...
 2) "Ammunition"
1) "9mm"
  	1) "HP"
   	2) "AP"
   	...
	2) "10mm"
  	1) "HP"
   	2) "AP"
   	...
 3) "Misc Items"
1) "Fission Battery"
	2) "Scrap metal"
	...
	6) "Show More"
  	1) "Empty Soda Bottle"
  	2) "Turpentine"
  	...
  	6) "Show More"
	 	1) "Plunger"
  	  ...
2) "Erase Disk"
 1) ...

 

 

etc etc. Each increase in indentation represents a new terminal object. Planning is the biggest part, since it's a pain to find out you've run out of menu slots and need to change the entire structure to use another indentation level.

 

The easiest way I know to set up the actual terminal menu items is to have two mutually exclusive menu items for each item. If that makes any sense. Basically, you have a terminal item with conditions that they have the skill and the item, and in the "Result text" you indicate it's successful and use the "Item Result Script" to add the note and remove the ingredients (player.additem ... player.removeitem ...). The alternative menu option has the conditions that they fail one OR the other of the conditions (not xor, damn binary logic), and the "Result text" indicates "Missing ingredient" or something similar. The menu items like "Show More" which just lead to another menu instead of doing something don't need anything other than for the "Sub Menu" entry to point to the terminal menu you need to go to.

 

I don't know if you've already looked at it, but the wiki entry for Terminals explains most of what you'll need to look at.

 

EDIT: Damn post formatting, at least

 doesn't kill all your formatting.

Edited May 12, 2011 by Skevitj

[HereticNoir]

Thanks again, SkevitJ.

 

One of the things I hate the most about the note system in Fallout 3/New Vegas is that notes just show up in chronological order. Period. No way to change it or to organize notes.

 

For that reason, I'm going to have to schematic notes be for large groups of items.

 

For example: The Ammunition note would unlock the recipes for 9mm, 22LR, BB's, 12 Guage, etc., with the HL Ammo note unlocking all the Hand Loader Ammunition Recipes.

 

That way, the collected notes don't end up taking up a massive amount of space in someones list.

 

And I'd looked at the terminal entry in the wiki, but I either don't know enough of the terminology or am just plain missing something 'cause I couldn't find what I was looking for in there.

 

-EDIT-

 

Also, this is just a minor thing, but it worried me. Every time I click on anything in the GECK it gives me an annoying "bong" of an error sound. It still does everything I tell it to, but that worries me. That coupled with the fact that when I make a note, it will spell-check it with a dictionary that has not a single word in it. So that even words like "a" come back as mispelled. Did I install the GECK incorrectly?

Edited May 12, 2011 by Burning Heretic