Female guards at Battlehorn castle

[MysticImp]

Hi,

 

I've been trying to add some variety in the gender of the guards that patrol Battlehorn castle, much like OOO did for the guards in the rest of Tamriel (albeit on a much smaller scale :) ). I thought it would be just a matter of checking the female flag in the NPC description (through TES4Edit), with maybe some additional work needed on the FaceGen data (a part where I did not get to yet). This does not work at all however. Is there another option I should check? Or is there some kind of hard coded way that Oblivion changes the Battlehorn guards back to male? I thought this would be a simple task to accomplish, but it's already got me stumped :confused:

[HeyYou]

Might be save issues..... The information for who is what at battlehorn might already be in your save, and therefore, overriding any changes you attempt to make. Going there with a character that has not yet been there would tell the tale on that one.

[MysticImp]

I tried a save game from directly after I exit the sewers, but it still didn't work.

[HeyYou]

Are you directly modifying the DLCBattlehorncastle.esp? Or, are you trying to make another esp, while battlehorn is loaded??

[LordEmm]

As HeyYou is suggesting i guess, directly modifying the DLC is not a good idea. However to change the guards into females you don't need the CS. Tes4Edit does this much easier and faster. Just copy all the guards you want into a new esp, and then flag them as female.

 

NOW. They will still have male face features, which can be ugly as heck (tried to do that with Martin ;), and if they wear armor that has no female version then they will look to have a male body too, as armor overrides the body underneath. Check by stealing the armor or killing them and then disrobing them.

Then make sure they wear armor that has a female world model.

 

Games do get updated for the body immediately (kinda like when you change your own body size, it shows immediately, since it is a nif that gets loaded, not something out of the save game) facedata for NPCs is not saved in the savegame it is always taken newly from the mods. So it should work by changing the flag. There is no hardcoded way for the game to determine gender (although you may lose voice if the NPC has voiced lines for male and not for female).

[MysticImp]

I am using TES4Edit to make the changes, and have copied all the men-at-arms as an override into a new .esp. I have set the female flag inside this new .esp and have used OBMM to make sure it is loaded after the DLCBattlehorncastle.esp. There are no discernable results though. If I use the console to kill the guard and strip him of his clothes, it is the male .nif that is visible. I do have success with the vintner though, as he/she has a female body, female voice, but keeps the male head (creepy as hell, but as expected :blink: ).

 

Could anyone perhaps repeat these steps and see if you get a different result?

 

@LordEmm: Good to know that the bodies are updated immediately. Saves me the repeat trip from sewer exit to battlehorn castle every time I try something different :)

[LordEmm]

I am using TES4Edit to make the changes, and have copied all the men-at-arms as an override into a new .esp. I have set the female flag inside this new .esp and have used OBMM to make sure it is loaded after the DLCBattlehorncastle.esp. There are no discernable results though. If I use the console to kill the guard and strip him of his clothes, it is the male .nif that is visible. I do have success with the vintner though, as he/she has a female body, female voice, but keeps the male head (creepy as hell, but as expected :blink: ).

 

Could anyone perhaps repeat these steps and see if you get a different result?

 

@LordEmm: Good to know that the bodies are updated immediately. Saves me the repeat trip from sewer exit to battlehorn castle every time I try something different :)

 

hmmm, actually i may have to bite my own tail on this, since it seems that gender is coded into the save. The face is not though, you can change that freely. I just tried to prove my theory with another mod, and a respawning dude, but i crashed before i could find out if he respawned as the other gender, and i am too tired to try this again today. Will do more tomorrow to test it ;)

 

It definitely worked on a new game though (just the face was the same as before, as all i did was change gender in my test, but he had the female armor and voice, and after being killed also the correct female body under.)

 

My theory is that they need time to respawn and i tried that but as i said i crashed twice before i could find him again...