Question re changing NPC inventory

[zymurgy65]

If I change Alawen's inventory so she practices what she preaches and uses an Elven bow, will it break the UOP change that tags her as essential until she agrees to train you?

 

The reason I'm asking is that I've just finished beta-testing a mod and I've discovered that changing Hauls-Ropes-Faster's eye colour (using Phaedra's vanilla eyes add-on) is enough to keep him from offering training. Crazy, but true! :confused:

[Striker879]

Changing an NPC's eyes is a much larger change that changing an inventory item. You can't touch anything affecting race records without a lot of other records for that NPC also being reverted to whatever status is contained in the masters you have loaded (and if you are using the vanilla Construction Set and aren't using any of the tricks to make ESPs masters then that means when you edit eyes you'll revert most of that NPC back to vanilla as Oblivion.esm will be the only master).

 

One solution is to use Construction Set Extender and set the UOP to a master while making the eye change. You could also research "mod deisolation" and learn how to use the vanilla CS to do the same thing.

 

As far as inventory is concerned, I've never run into a case of changing an NPC's inventory reverted any of that NPC's UOP changes, but I must admit I've not ever changed a trainer's inventory before. If you do a test using a separate test ESP it will be easy to test to find out (if you are like me and have an ongoing "MyTweaks.esp" ... do the test separately before committing to your ongoing project). If you make any saves during testing consider those as disposables (i.e. don't do anything while testing that you won't want to lose).

[zymurgy65]

Thanks for the advice. Since I've already made a change to the Wood Elf race (I hate the ears, so I'm using the Dark Elf meshes) I've probably already broken the script.

 

I'll see if I can get my head around the CS Extender, otherwise it looks like a do-over.

 

EDIT: I remember now, there's a required component you need to get the CSE to work, and I can't get it to install on my computer.

 

Also, I see now how I should have changed the Wood Elf and High Elf ears, by copying the Dark Elf meshes to the relevant folders without touching the CS. Hey, at least I'm learning from my mistakes! :smile:

Edited May 20, 2016 by zymurgy65

[DrakeTheDragon]

Also, consider reading up about and using a Bashed Patch from Wrye Bash for your game.

 

It is true that most data records in Oblivion work like "change 1 part, change all", and race records definitely are among these. With only a select few exceptions whenever you touch a single item in one of the race dialog's tabs, you effectively store all settings from all other tabs in your plugin as well, basically "reverting" everything about the race back to Vanilla that was changed by patches or mods previously.

 

I think touching the inventory is one of the exceptions, but even if it's not, the Bashed Patch feature can make use of proper Bash Tags you applied to your plugin to only keep those intact at the end of your load order and disregard all others, or better yet, likewise Bash Tags already applied on the other plugins changing the race record will prevail in the end, unless another plugin with the same tags overrides them again.

 

The "rule of one" that is in play in all of Oblivion modding really can be a bother at times. For example, in Vanilla Oblivion design there isn't even a distinction between gender, male and female, as when a plugin changes one of the male settings for a race, the females will be back at Vanilla as well. For a long while that's why male and female body replacers were actually mutually exclusive and a horrid bunch of compatibility patches needed to be made, if you wanted to use both.

 

With the Bash Tags you can then for example tell the Bashed Patch that you only want the male part of the race's settings of the male plugin to be merged into it, while the female plugin tells to keep only the female settings at the same time, and in the end you'll have a merged plugin at the end of your load order containing only all the partial features from all properly tagged plugins, and thus the correct male and the correct female settings will survive, instead of excluding each other mutually as by Vanilla design.

 

I couldn't be bothered with race changing mods at all, if it wasn't for the Bashed Patch and them being properly Bash Tagged already since release. Making your own mods "dependent" on monsters like the UOP instead, in order to not mess up their changes by your's, I don't really consider a viable alternative. The UOP is "intended" to be overridden by any and all plugins loading later for a reason. Effectively "merging" it into your own plugins is bound to cause the exact same issues just with other mods instead later. "Isolating" only the features you're aiming for specifically instead, via Wrye Bash, the Bashed Patch and proper Bash Tagging, to me, will always be the only sane way to go.