How to make a Book an aid item

[americanwierdo]

I have an idea for a very specific mod but not idea how to make it so.

 

I want to make it so that pre-war books found in the game can be used to gain experience. For example, if you consume one book, you gain +15 experience. Not much, but consider places like The Lucky 38 which are filled with books.

 

The problem is that a pre-war book is a misc item and not an aid item. I don't know how to change the class of an object, and I'd like to make it so you wouldn't have to create a whole new item for the game: you could just edit the ones already existing in the game.

 

How can I fix this? Any ideas? I'll give credit to the people who help out the most in the mod.

 

Any feedback, good or bad, is appreciated.

 

 

[PushTheWinButton]

It's a bit of an unbalancing idea, and encourages player's to ruin the decor of some interiors, but hey - that's not stopped people before.

 

Anyway, you can't add an effect to a misc item, but you can add a script which swaps Pre-War books for a new ingestible-type (aid) item when you pick them up. The new book will have to be an aid item because you won't be able to attach a new experience-adding effect to books (the form type - i.e. the one skill books use). Such an effect would also need to be scripted.

[Mktavish]

If all they want to do is add XP ... could they just put a script on the book to do that , and skip turning it into an aid item.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SCN MyBookScript

 

Short DoOnce

 

Begin OnAdd Player

 

If DoOnce == 0

RewardXP 15

 

Set DoOnce to 1

 

endif

 

End

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Or do you think that would have problems ? So maybe skip the DoOnce and just remove the book / markfordelete ???

 

But then again turning the book into an ingestible may just be the easier solution , while also giving the player the second stage of choice to consume it.

[PushTheWinButton]

Well that was partly my point with the first bit. Basically it adds a slightly meaningless 'must scavenge all Pre-War books for extra XP' aspect to the game. Why make the player actually use the book as an item when, if they pick it up, they're pretty much guaranteed to use it? I mean you could just cut out the middle man and make activating a book give XP in a do-once block. That way you wouldn't even have to pick it up and ruin some nice clutter placement.

 

But meh, I was just answering the question as the OP posed it.

[uhmattbravo]

I kinda like the ingestable option. I don't always use skill books right away, myself, so I like the option.

 

Now, replacing every book could be a hassle, but isn't there a find and replace feature in the geck? I've never used it, but I think vaguely recall seeing something written about it.

 

If not, or maybe as well as that, you could put a script on the original misc. version to run once, replace it with the new one, then delete. It'll be more compatible, but that first run processing might take it's toll on system resources.

 

Making the aid versions of the books is pretty easy. Just extract the meshes from the .bsa (preserving the file structure) drop them in your data folder, make the ingestable versions in geck, delete the loose files and they'll read from the .bsa.

 

This method could cause a slight problem for TTW users (BoS at Arlington Library wants them), but a patch would be easy enough to make most likely... Probably also for other mods that might want them as well.

[Mktavish]

This method could cause a slight problem for TTW users (BoS at Arlington Library wants them), but a patch would be easy enough to make most likely... Probably also for other mods that might want them as well.

 

FNV vanilla has only a few prewar books that would be the same as Fo3. The majority of books in FNV are of a different variety. So no problems crossing with TTW , as long as the OP doesn't use those 5 books I think. The majority in hundreds are the other books ... which still have their name "Prewar Book" But they are not Base-ID Prewarbook ... which is what the Fo3 file uses. FNV has another 8 base ID's of books that it calls PreWar books.

[uhmattbravo]

Well, I did say "could".... :p

 

Still though, TTW's FO3 is not a direct port. They did a lot to integrate stuff exclusive to NV into the FO3 side of it. Did you check it on TTW or just FO3?

Edited December 2, 2016 by uhmattbravo

[americanwierdo]

If all they want to do is add XP ... could they just put a script on the book to do that , and skip turning it into an aid item.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SCN MyBookScript

 

Short DoOnce

 

Begin OnAdd Player

 

If DoOnce == 0

RewardXP 15

 

Set DoOnce to 1

 

endif

 

End

 

 

Alright, I could try that. But I'll also experiment with the idea of making a book you can ingest whenever you want: see which one works better. Because I feel like if people are trying to collect books (for whatever reason) they won't like them instantly dissapearing and turning into xp if you didn't activate them yourself.

 

 

 

Anyway, you can't add an effect to a misc item, but you can add a script which swaps Pre-War books for a new ingestible-type (aid) item when you pick them up. The new book will have to be an aid item because you won't be able to attach a new experience-adding effect to books (the form type - i.e. the one skill books use). Such an effect would also need to be scripted.

 

True, true. I can try scripting. But how exactly would I write that script? I've only ever made weapons in FNV so i'm not that familiar with scripting.

[Mktavish]

Well, I did say "could".... :tongue:

 

Still though, TTW's FO3 is not a direct port. They did a lot to integrate stuff exclusive to NV into the FO3 side of it. Did you check it on TTW or just FO3?

 

LOL I in fact didn't even check it on F03 , just FNV... I just assumed "PreWarBook" was the Base-ID being used by Scribe Yearling.

Turns out F03 and FNV share 2 base-ID's with regard to books using the name Pre-war book.

"BookGeneric01" & "PreWarBook"

 

But "BookGeneric01" is the only one being utilized in Fo3 ... atleast the base game anyways.

So it looks there would definitely be a conflict with TTW ???

[Mktavish]

 

If all they want to do is add XP ... could they just put a script on the book to do that , and skip turning it into an aid item.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SCN MyBookScript

 

Short DoOnce

 

Begin OnAdd Player

 

If DoOnce == 0

RewardXP 15

 

Set DoOnce to 1

 

endif

 

End

 

 

Alright, I could try that. But I'll also experiment with the idea of making a book you can ingest whenever you want: see which one works better. Because I feel like if people are trying to collect books (for whatever reason) they won't like them instantly dissapearing and turning into xp if you didn't activate them yourself.

 

 

 

Anyway, you can't add an effect to a misc item, but you can add a script which swaps Pre-War books for a new ingestible-type (aid) item when you pick them up. The new book will have to be an aid item because you won't be able to attach a new experience-adding effect to books (the form type - i.e. the one skill books use). Such an effect would also need to be scripted.

 

True, true. I can try scripting. But how exactly would I write that script? I've only ever made weapons in FNV so i'm not that familiar with scripting.

 

 

I'm thinking my script won't work for you either way ... Because with the DoOnce set on the first book you pick up , that variable will still == 1 on the next book you pick up. Because the script does not differentiate between ref-iDs of the book.

And if you don't use the DoOnce ... you can drop and pick up the same book over and over again adding XP.

 

Hmmm ... I'll give it some thought on another approach ... and maybe someone else here has a good solution ?