Can I delete/remove Oblivion Gates?

[billyboyburke]

I want to make a house mod in a location currently occupied by an Oblivion gate. It's not an essential one for the main quest, so can I just delete it?

 

Thanks!

[DrakeTheDragon]

I wouldn't really delete it per se, as all Oblivion gates are coded to appear and disappear at certain points in the game, thus there must be some scripts referencing them, which will then break when they try to call a function on a reference that you deleted. And usually Oblivion's Vanilla scripts aren't coded in a way that's introducing proper error handling at all either. So if there's a list of hundred gates to appear on command and 1 of them is a deleted reference, chances are high "none" of them will appear anymore, or better yet, every code line coming after the one with the missing reference will no longer be executed, as the script will break at that point.

 

I'd personally rather "relocate" the gate that's in the way. Maybe even put it into some place where it's properly positioned to "invade" your new house or something, too. Like they placed the gates in front of the city gates or random settlement entries in the wilds for that very purpose in the Vanilla game.

 

If all else fails, just move it down into the ground so it's no longer to be seen. But keep in mind those gates usually aren't isolated entities. Normally they come with a bunch of leveled spawn points, door markers and such as well. Only because you moved the gate away does not automatically mean there won't be swarms of Daedra popping out of the thin air still anyways.

[billyboyburke]

Thanks!