[LE] [Question] Dialog Topics and multiple plugins

[IsharaMeradin]

I am asking this because I am curious.

 

Let us say that there are two plugins which both add additional dialog topics to the same dialog branch.

Do they both get to have their content or is it only the last one loaded? Or is it something different which determines what gets used?

 

I am looking at such a scenario in xEdit and the only thing that I find different is the TIFC - Info Count value.

Example:

A is the base mod. B is a patch mod. B was built from an older version of A.

Plugin A - Dialog Topic Y - TIFC 40

Plugin B - Dialog Topic Y - TIFC 35

Plugin B has 15 new Info Topics listed ergo Plugin A originally had 20 Info Topics

 

With an actual total of 55 Info Topics (40 in A and 15 in B) and a listed total of 35, are 20 info topics lost somewhere?

If I were to change the TIFC to 55, would all info topics be available as intended?

[IsharaMeradin]

Answered my own question. Using a testing profile in Mod Organizer, I setup two folders for each plugin. One set of folders, I edited the TIFC values in the last loading plugin to a combined count of entries. The other set I left original. Started the game with the unmodified plugins active and paid attention to the dialog options given. Exited and repeated the process with the modified plugins, this setup had additional entries that were not present with the unmodified setup.

 

Answer is: TIFC value determines how many entries get used. Last loaded plugin seems to get priority over earlier plugins, perhaps because dialog is loaded with the quest.

[zilav]

It is merged at runtime

https://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3940-skyrim-tes5edit-records-that-merge-at-runtime/

[IsharaMeradin]

I don't think the value is merged. It may go with the highest value. However, if that value is lower than actual count, some topics do not appear.

 

Lets revisit my example, only this time with a bit more detail discovered in testing. (Please note, I'm not using actual values. I'm using sane values for demonstration purposes)

 

Plugin A v1 - Dialog Topic Y - TIFC 30 (30 original)

Plugin B v1 - Dialog Topic Y - TIFC 35 (30 original plus 5 new)

Plugin A v2 - Dialog Topic Y - TIFC 40 (30 original plus 10 new)

 

Author says, do not activate plugin B until certain point in mod. They say this because if plugin B were loaded then none of plugin A's v2 additions would appear.

In testing, that statement appears correct.

Then the question becomes, what happens to the new entries added by plugin B when it is activated. Do they even appear?

They may not as the quest that the dialog is associated with has already started.

 

However, by increasing the TIFC of plugin B to 45 (consists of A's 40 and B's 5 new) all topic infos are made available even if both plugins are active from the beginning. This leads me to believe that the TIFC's highest value needs to take into account ALL unique entries across all plugins.

 

 

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I don't work with dialog much, if at all. So I don't know if one can simply load the patch plugin with the base plugin in the Creation Kit and both sets of new editions exist and the TIFC value automatically update when resaved. If that is the case, then wouldn't updating the TIFC in xEdit be the same thing? If one has to re-do all of the dialog related records because the base plugin was updated, I can certainly understand why the author has not bothered to update any patch plugins.

[zilav]

I still believe that this value is merged at runtime and only affects reading INFOs from the current plugin.

For example TPIC in DialogueFollowerDismissTopic "It's time for us to part ways." [DIAL:0005C80C] has a conflict even between DLCs and still I don't remember any troubles with it.

[IsharaMeradin]

Maybe the topic infos (NPC responses) themselves may be there, I don't know. All I can say is what happened. In a test of the unmodified plugins, dialog options that had not been present when the last loaded plugin was created did not appear. In a test where the TIFC was modified, those dialog options appeared.

 

Either the TIFC is used or xEdit edited something else behind the scenes when the record was modified in order to update the last loaded plugin to recognize entries that it did not know about beforehand.

 

Any idea what is actually going on here?

Mod in question if you want to look for yourself is Vilja in Skyrim and its Dragonborn patch.

[zilav]

Pretty sure that TIFC is not the reason as vanilla DLCs conflict on this field too in the number of topics (reducing previously increased value) and they work just fine.

Your problem is probably invalid PNAM links in INFOs.

Edited January 28, 2017 by zilav