Construction set help

[exanimis]

I'm new to the forum and new to modding so forgive me if I post in the wrong place. I need help with my mod but before I give you the details, I need to give a description of my mod. I'll try to make it brief.

 

On the road outside of Weye the player finds a vampire skeleton. The skeleton has a journal that describes his search for the lost Vella den Keep. (my mod) It directs you to the lake behind Fort Nikel. There you fight slaughterfish and find a flooded mine leading to Vella den Cave.

 

Inside Vella den cave you find a weak potion of waterbreathing, two treasure chest containing more potion, the body of the vampire's wife (she drowned while searching for him), two skeletons, two rumare slaughterfish and as many as eight slaughterfish. Swimming through this flooded cave leads you to the Sunken Garden.

 

The Sunken Garden is a huge underground cavern with a lake surrounded by a walkway. There are nine caves leading off from the Garden. The caves lead to exits to all the cities. Anvil, Bravile, Bruma,Cheydenhal,Chorrol,Kvatch,Leyawiin,Skingrad and the imperial waterfront.The exits are outside of the city walls. The all in one basement mod was just too easy for my tastse. Also in the garden I have two Guards, one argonian merchant enchanter, three pet wolves, one Kvatch refugee who is also a merchant smith and one lady who does nothing but swim in the lake.

 

Everyone with the exception of the Kvatch refugee are vampires, by the way.

 

There is also a castle within the garden. Inside the castle there is a merchant fence, one guard, two Khajiit sisters who run the second floor store around the clock, two pet rats and one lady who just wanders arround. There is also an exit that leads to the Imperial Palace district.

 

The castle has a main floor, a second floor and a basement. There are three blood servants (cattle) in a cage in the basement. There is also a book detailing the history of Vella den Keep.

 

I also have a secret passage leading to a hidden basement. In the hidden basement are seven treasure chests, guarded by six creatures all of different levels who also respawn. The creatures are in cages that the player can open if he dares.

 

The mod is completely built. Treasure chests, keys, NPC's, Named doors and chests and other items are saved in a differant file

 

Now for the problem I'm having with the mod. Every time I try to connect all the doors the construction set crashes on the last door. Always on the last door. It took me one and a half months to build this mod and I have spent more than two months trying to connect all the doors while adding NPC's and the extras. I figured out an order in which to do things that prevents the construction set from crashing but it has strange side effects. Chairs get moved and sunken into the floor. NPC's get moved to other cells. Dead skeletons stand until you knock them down, dead rats move around. Merchants either don't sell anything or they will not leave their shops. For some reason that I can't figure out members of the thieves guild use my garden and castle as a shortcut from the waterfront to the imperial palace. None of this bothers me that much, the one thing that really bothers me is that every time I have managed to connect all the doors, place NPC's, place creatures and chests and all the other little things, I have gone into my game only to find out that the construction set has erased my pathgrid from my Sunken Garden. As you can imagine, the garden is the largest and most complicated pathgrid in the mod.

 

I am at a loss I have literally attempted to connect this mod more that fifty times. I have combined all the levels of the castle in an attempt to lesson the amount of doors. I have taken out all my NPC's and creatures. Nothing works. Am I going about this incorrectly? What am I doing wrong?

 

This is my very first mod and I know I have bitten off more than I can chew but I have worked very hard to make sure that this is a clean mod. I am at the point of giving up, Can someone please help?

[Ethre]

Huh, that sounds crazy.

 

I assume you tried saving right before you connected the last door in the CS?

 

I do not know of any way to "go about this incorrectly,"

[exanimis]

I always save before and after connecting each door, it helps to keep the construction set from crashing. I build all the exterior doors and link each teleport. I then build the outside entrance at Fort Nikel and use that link to enter the mod. When I reach the sunken garden I move all the teleport markers into place. I then link the castle and from that cell I link the rest of the doors. When I do it in this order the construction set doesn't crash and I can link all the doors but the construction set saves my mod without the pathgrid for the garden.

[Khet]

Interesting problem you have there... nothing I've ever heard of. Have you tried reinstalling the CS and/or Oblivion? Dunno, but it could help. I just don't understand why it's crashing on you like that. I've had a few crashed myself but that was when I didn't understand it's limit and tried to copy/paste over 200 tiles, 150 items and 32 actors lol

[exanimis]

That's the thing! I'm new to modding and I'm not sure that I'm not doing exactly that. When I open the CS I copy my files, cave,garden,castle..etc..etc. I then set lighting RPG fog and interior information on each copy. I rename all items that I can't copy, like books, named doors and chests and then add them to my mod. Is that the order I am supposed to do it? I have NPC's like Orradene, when I rename them I add something like OrradeneX2. If I don't rename each npc and item they disappear and are not in my mod when I enter the game. I am sure that the fault is either with my limited knowledge of the CS or with my PC, it's a laptop with vista.

[Khet]

There really isn't a true 'order' to do this, however since you're new to modding I highly recommend you put this current project on hold and try out some of the beginner tutorials on TES CS WIKI to learn your way around better and how exactly to do things. It'll cover everything you need to know.

 

Here's a link to the main site: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...onstruction_Set

 

and here's a GREAT beginners guide: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...inner%27s_guide

 

While I'm not doubting that you know the CS (and it sounds like you do) it could merely be an issue of doing something wrong, not necessarily the order in which you are doing it.

[exanimis]

I have a quick link to the wiki and I often have it open while I am working on my mod. I didn't do any of the tutorials after adding the crystal ball to waynet inn but I have read most of them and refer to them a lot.

[Khet]

Wait, after reading your first post again you say All NPC/named doors/everything else are saved in different files. You mean you've made different ESPs for each of those? If that's the case then that might be an issue there. Everything should just be thrown in one ESP. Only time you'd need multiple ESPs is for optional things that won't have any effect if you don't have them on, or compatibility ESPs to work with another mod that changes something (like terrain) near your mod, thus making your mod unplayable with that mod.

[exanimis]

One esp file contains my mod Vella den Keep. The second esp has NPC's chests, doors, books, creatures, weapons and AI packages. I open both files in the construction set and set the file to active. I made the second file after losing all that information several times when the construction set crashed. This seems to work and I have several working versions of my mod complete with NPC's and everything. I just don't understand why little things get moved, why members of the thieves guild use my mod as a shortcut even though the doors are locked until the player enters the mod through the main entrance and retrieves a key, or why my pathgrid vanishes. If I can figure out how to do it I will post my mod here and maybe someone will try it out and make some changes. Any suggestions on how I could do that?

[Khet]

You shouldn't have them in seperate esps to begin with but with your unique problem... ah well.

 

 

As for members of your thieves guild using your mod, NPCs are programmed to take the SHORTEST route possible to get from point A to point B. That just means that wherever that NPC was heading, your mod turned out to be the shortest distance and so they decide to use your doors and such.

 

Just hit me like two seconds after hitting post. One thing that might be causing your missing path grids, moving items/NPCs is the fact that you're using two esps in the mod. Think you could try to reduce it down to just one ESP? I know, probably NOT what you want but that's the only reason they could be getting moved and your pathgrid getting deleted that I can think of.