[LE] Question about modifying an existing mod (for personnal use)

[Deleted12891130User]

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Edited May 30, 2020 by Guest

[l1ft0ff]

I'm not clear on the specifics of how conjuring spells work and trying to pick it apart in the CK has revealed that it's a bit more complicated than I expected, but this question is mostly a question about how to make mods depend on one another so I think I have the part you need. For simplicity's sake, I'll refer to the existing mod (the mihail mod) as Mod A and the mod you want to make as Mod B. Basically, you can totally do this as it is perfectly possible for mods to call on resources installed by other mods, provided the obvious caveat that Mod B won't work if Mod A isn't installed as the models and textures called by Mod B's plugin therefore would be absent. What you'll want to do is

-load Mod A into the CK (if you get an error about "multiple masters" just google it, it s a simple INI fix)

-don't mark a file as "active", tell CK you know what you're doing when it complains about that

-find the NPC entry associated with the creature you want to be able to summon

-make a copy of it, then edit that copy to be flagged as "summonable"

-find a Magic Effect form for one of the atronach summoning spells, copy it, then edit the copy to utilize your summonable version of the NPC instead of an atronach (in a field labelled "Assoc. Item 1" in upper-left quadrant of the window that pops up)

-find the corresponding spell to whichever atronach-summon Magic Effect you duped, dupe that Spell form, then unregister the atronach summon effect and register the Mihail summon effect you created in its place.

-save your work. It will bring up a Save As dialogue instead of saving anything since none of the loaded plugins were registered as the active plugin, just name your mod something like "NecrophageSummonSpell.esp"

 

Now unless the Mihail mod is a .esm plugin, which it probably isn't, in this state your mod is not usable, as the CK refuses to register normal .esp plugins as master files for some reason (Cue Bethesda's classic "we did not think anyone would want to do that") You will have to manually re-add this dependency with TESVEdit so that the duplicate NPC you created can access the contents of the original mod's plugin (dependencies to assets like models and textures don't need this, but in-game stuff like potion and spell entries do.) Just load it up in TESVEdit along with Mod A (the Mihail mod) and right-click Mod B, Add Master..., and select Mod A. Close TESVEdit, save work. Likely all sorts of balance stuff may be off and other issues arise since this touches on a ton of things I don't know well like NPCs and summoning spells, but here's the part I can help with.

 

 

Edit: You use the phrase "personal use" so I imagine you know this, but in case you don't I feel obliged to point out that once this is made, you shouldn't upload it to the internet without contacting MihailMods for permissions

Edited April 22, 2018 by l1ft0ff

[Deleted12891130User]

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Edited May 30, 2020 by Guest

[l1ft0ff]

 

Just found out that the mod is a .esm plugin, so it should be easier. Thanks for the tips!

And now I just found out the typo in personal... welp.

 

At least most typos are easily auto-corrected in the reader's mind. I want to stress again that I know next to nothing about NPCs and their related topics like AI packages, combat styles, etc. and I'm not sharp with summoning-archetype spells so you could run into issues with balancing or behavior. Simply using a duplicate of the existing NPC record will carry over all the stuff like behavior subgraphs, animations, AI, etc. so it shouldn't take more than tweaks and changes instead of setting everything up from anew. (and to elaborate for learning's sake, all the references to AI package, race, magic/power forms etc. that the existing NPC record uses to give the creature its attacks and animations would be stripped out on save if the original mod was not a .esm, since as I stated the CK refuses to register master dependencies that target non-ESMified plugins)