[LE] Adding modded armor to Skyrim, without requiring .esp master files

[Dahveed]

Hi there everyone!

 

I was thinking about making a mod which would distribute modded armors from various mods to NPCs throughout Skyrim... to named NPCs. Leveled lists tend to be annoying (part of the reason why people avoid putting their armors into the game), so I'll be avoiding them for now.

 

However I was wondering if it were possible to make an .esp without any other .esp or .esm master files. I know how to accomplish this already with TesVEdit, but once a user installs my mod without the .esp they would need, They wouldn't CTD necessarily but the edited NPCs would be naked, since the outfits don't exist.

 

I am wondering if it's possible to make each NPC have a "backup" armor set (i.e. their default) that they would automatically wear. Would something like this require scripting?

 

I don't want to embark upon something that is too complicated just to waste a lot of my time.

 

Here's an example:

 

myesp.esp

 

with Master: ElvenChainmail.esp

 

I use (for example) ElvenChainmail outfit in the CK on Elwen at the Thalmor Embassy. Normally this would be fine.... the user would need elvenchainmail.esp in his load order or he'd CTD at startup.

 

However, I was planning on using many different Nexus mods for myesp.esp. It would be unrealistic and impractical to require Nexus users to have to download (for example) 12 different .esp files in order to accommodate one .esp file in their load order.

 

So I'd run TESVEdit to get rid of the master files.

 

So taking the above file, we're left with myesp.esp, with no master requirements.

 

But now, what happens if elvenchainmail.esp isn't in his load order and he visits the Thalmor Embassy with my mod installed?

 

My hunch is that Elwen (Elenwyn? Forget her name) would show up naked.

 

So my question is, how would I avoid this. I am thinking I could somehow incorporate a "failsafe" mechanism so that she would wear vanilla Elven armor if the .esp weren't present. But I'm not sure if this is even possible, and if it were, how I would go about this kind of thing.

[aippersbachj]

Did you have any luck finding the answer to this?

[MShoap13]

If your mod refers to a form that doesn't exist it could potentially cause CTDs and other weirdness beyond naked NPCs.

 

You could always ask for permission to redistribute the armor(s) as part of your package to avoid sending users to umpteen different Nexus pages. Outside of making multiple versions of your .esp and a scripted install, or creating a wrye-bash/reproccer style program to compile your .esp on the fly, I'm not aware of any other solutions.

[lofgren]

The way to do this would be to create your outfits using leveled lists. Each leveled list would be composed of two leveled lists, one with vanilla items and one empty. Both would use global variables to determine their chance none. Initially the vanilla armor would have 0% chance none and the empty list would have 100% chance none. When the mod is installed, it runs a script to search for modded armors by form ID. If the appropriate armors are found, they are added to the second list and its chance none is set to 0% and the vanilla armor list chance is set to 100%. Boom.