damanding Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 (edited) Since I released my mod "Home Plate Exterior Revamped" I've learned that I did some things in ways that are not best practices. For instance I deleted a few items from the outside of Home plate like a chair, grill, bathtub and a concrete block from the roof of the next building over. I know now to disable items instead of deleting them. I also discovered that when I moved the trap door into the interior slightly it wasn't a change I could "undo" when cleaning the mod in FO4edit. I had also deleted the original nav mesh and recreated it because so much of the roof area of Home Plate got changed. I'm betting that was also a bad idea and that I should have figured out how to just adjust it. I have an update I had already planned before learning these things so it'll be a good excuse to redo the mod the correct way. So with that in mind I have some questions. 1. There is a DmndSecurityMarketMarker02 in the way of where I want to place something in a future update, it it safe to move it roughly 20-30 units away?2. I wanted some non-respawning containers so I duplicated loot chests of the style I wanted and gave them a different name and checked the no respawn marker (but left the loot lists for the one time only loot). Is this the best way to do that? Edit to add I did make sure I picked generic loot chests rather than quest ones.3. Any additional tips on the things I already know I did wrong that might help me or future modders finding this by google? Thanks! Edited August 25, 2016 by damanding Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 Yes you can move the marker just don't delete it or disable it. (I would have to look at it but it's likely part of an NPC's package. the NPC will need it but it can move out of your way.) Yes, your new forms are fine I did tell you in the other thread how to fix the deleted refs and again feel free to PM me if you need help.Ya you probably shouldn't have deleted the original navemesh you should have just edited it to fit your needs. How could you not fix the moved trap door in xEdit? You should be able to revert every change back to vanilla so maybe you just didn't see how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damanding Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 Every time I tried reverting the moved trap door, saved/exited xEdit it would be back in there again when I opened it up next. I had gotten in the habit of cleaning the mod after every work session so things would be fresh in my mind as to what were legit vs accidental changes, plus it made it easier to find accidental changes that needed undoing as there were not quite so many things to go through each time. I just opened up the file in FO4Edit again to double check and it's not there now so apparently I was imagining it or something! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 also it's best to test changes on a clean save from before the mod was installed (this is in game of course) some edits will be included in saves so you may fix something but think it's still not the way you want it if you test on a old save. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damanding Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 Yes that I did do. I didn't play the game the whole time I worked on the mod so that I didn't have that issue. I would always load the save from before I loaded the mod for testing so that it was always a fresh experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 Just wanted to put that out there because I still sometimes just hit the continue button when I'm itching to test a change and have a WTF moment when it's not right!!! :wallbash: I'll admit there have been times when I've fixed something and tested it and it wasn't fixed! Spent hours trying to solve the issue and well it was a save issue! :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damanding Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 Well so far I haven't done anything with scripting and the like that could definitely get baked in a save but I figure it's better to START with best practices so they're a habit when it really becomes important. Right now I'm working with two others on a big settlement crafting mod which is adding a whole new layer of things to learn. Thankfully they both have more experience. But working with meshes that inexplicably crash the CK or worse, pass the CK but then crash when you load that part of the workshop menu in game is frustrating. Especially when there's no obvious mistake and you just successfully made a prewar version of the same thing so it's mostly the same vanilla mesh parts with different materials. Ugh. >.< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 Persistent Ref's get baked into saves. ie. doors, activators, triggers, quest items, markers and so on. (This goes into my point about DO NOT DELETE VANILLA REF's) Not everything that get's into the save has to be related to a script. I suck at scripting I was getting good in FO3/NV but now I'm starting from scratch in FO4. I can't argue about the meshes in FO4 I've crashed my game with them simple (or what I thought was a simple) edit, so many timesI have lost count. I have found to just finish the model, place it in it's file path and double click on it to launch it in the Ckit preview window. If it doesn't crash I test it in game. If it then crashes I don't spend much time trying to find the problem I look but if I don't see it right off I just try to rebuild it again. Yes it sucks! I know but some crashes I have never been able to figure out and rebuilding it even rebuilding it in the same way as I built it the first time fixes the issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damanding Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 Ah! Very good to know about persistent refs! With the mesh I had problems with tonight I actually did recreate it from scratch and that one crashed too! I'm making pre-cluttered furniture for lazy settlement decorating. In this case it was a coffee table, with chess board and caps, coffee mugs, an open comic book and a Nuka Quantum. I made the same thing with prewar coffee table and coffee mugs, it worked fine. Postwar coffee table and mugs as the only change--crash. Sanitized in Nifskope and everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucksteel Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 For something like that you may be better off by cheating! by cheating I mean. place a table and all the objects you want on it in a test cell in the Ckit. select all objects and create a static collection. (Alt + O) find the static collection you created and generate .nif find the new mesh in the SCOL folder and move it to a new custom folder Create your craftable with the new .nif moved from the SCOL folder. I haven't tested this in FO4 but in FO3/NV you could use .nif's created by the GECK in other ways and they had there collisions and everything. Note: if you are using non static forms such as Nuka quantum you'll need to create static versions first. On the plus side you could do this all outside of your mod is a junk mod you don't ever instal. Use it to create all of your SCOL nifs to move into your Mod's folder for use as craftable items. just a thought and it should work but you'll have to try it. Hope that's clear I don't feel it is. :tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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