Need help with radiant quest alias text

[whickus]

Hey everyone. I'm working on a mod that makes the quest descriptions and objectives more descriptive so you don't have to use the quest markers. For instance: The vanilla objective says "Find the book". I've changed this to say "Find the book in Moss Mother Cavern near the western shores of Lake Ilinalta". This way you still have to search a little, but you're not forced to blindly follow the quest marker.

 

I've edited most non-radiant quest descriptions but I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to add a new radiant alias to the objective text. A perfect example is DA10, House of Horrors. There is a pre-existing alias named "Dungeon", which has all the criteria for choosing the location so the actual dungeon name should be set once the quest starts, but if I add <Alias=Dungeon> to the objective text, all I get in-game is "Find the priest of Boethiah in <Alias=Dungeon>". I tried dissecting some of the bounty quests to see why they're able to display location names and the only thing I can discern is that the Target Ref for that specific quest objective needs to be an alias that references the LocationRef in order for the LocationRef to display properly in the quest journal. I tried using that same setup in DA10 and now I get "Find the priest of Boethiah in [...]". That makes me think I'm getting closer because it seems like the game is trying to populate a value, but doesn't know what the value is.

 

I really want to figure this out because I would love to play this game strictly following the quest log and share this mod with others. I know next to nothing about scripting but I've been going through the tutorials, which seem to cover nearly jack squat so I'm afraid that it'll be forever before I'm able to figure this out on my own. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[tunaisafish]

Click 'Stores Text' on the Aliases tab.

 

Great mod idea :) I felt I spent far too much game time just following arrows.

[whickus]

Click 'Stores Text' on the Aliases tab.

 

Great mod idea :) I felt I spent far too much game time just following arrows.

 

 

I forgot to mention that was one of the first things I tried. Still no luck. Thanks for the tip, though.

 

I think the only way I'm going to be able to do this is by setting up multiple objectives with different text based on the possible locations, then scripting conditional events that display the appropriate objective based on the location of the target/dungeon. If I can figure out how to retrieve a quest item's/actor's location through scripting.

 

You can check the mod out here, if you want:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11135

 

Like I said, most non-radiant quests have been modified so you'll definitely see a difference, even in its current state.

Edited March 1, 2012 by whickus

[tunaisafish]

Thanks, I'll grab that :)

 

When I get access to my games machine again I'll take a browse through DA10.

[tunaisafish]

OK, I've looked at DA10, and also some that use an Alias name in the Objectives.

Eg. CWFortSiegeCapital has several Alias's that store text (look for the D flag).

and yeah, your syntax above looks fine, but the string appears to be empty.

 

So I think you're right, and the mod will work...

...but only if the player has not yet started the quest.

 

The quest starts via the story manager as soon as you enter Markarth (so long as your player has done the intro).

As I understand it, that is the time when the 'Stores Text' function actually saves the text.

Even though the quest is running, it doesn't enter the journal until you've spoken to the nosy neighbour.

 

In the story manager 'Change Location' event, search for DA10 and you'll see the start conditions.

So to test this theory, we'll need a save game where DA10.IsRunning = 0, and also not completed (obviously).

 

I'm hoping that if you load the savegame where you tested and got the blank text, that it was already running.

Use the GetQuestRunning Console Command to check. (I don't have one here prior to that quest)

[whickus]

I'm hoping that if you load the savegame where you tested and got the blank text, that it was already running.

Use the GetQuestRunning Console Command to check. (I don't have one here prior to that quest)

 

This is, indeed, the case. It never occurred to me that the quest stage at which the "Stores Text" flag was checked would have an impact. I just kind of assumed that once the quest location was chosen, it was recorded somewhere. I'll check that out when I get home and thanks for looking into it!

[tunaisafish]

There's a fix for games with running quests... I think :)

 

In a fragment just before the Objective is displayed, give the Alias a kick, so that this time it honors the newly added Text option.

(that's the theory anyway)

 

Location tempLoc =  Alias_Dungeon.GetLocation()
Alias_Dungeon.Clear() ; Might get away without this line
Alias_Dungeon.ForceLocationTo(tempLoc)

 

You can do something similar for AliasRef's too, but that might have side effects if it's an Actor.

 

You've probably already got this pinned above your PC for this task, but I'll add the link for those searching this thread later.

[whickus]

That link looks incredibly useful and I hadn't come across it in all my searching of the wiki for aliases and radiant quests. Definitely holding onto it! That snippet of script also looks like it'll be useful.

 

Edit: The script portion did the trick. The only catch is that if that stage has already been set, the "[...]" is still displayed. I can live with this for now, though. This is why I really need to learn scripting; so I can at least start to figure these things out on my own. Thanks a bunch!

Edited March 3, 2012 by whickus