GECK limits

[MikePayne307]

Apologies if this has been answered before, but I have not managed to locate it through searching any keywords that come to mind.

 

Does anyone know what the limits are on the number of recipes, lists , etc that can be added in an ESM?

[madmongo]

The only limit that I am aware of is that anything with an ID number has to be under the 16 MB boundary of the ESM. This is because the first two digits of the ID are used for the ESM/ESP number in your load order, leaving 6 hex digits, or 16 MB for the offset into the file.

 

So the big question then becomes how are you creating your ESM? If you are creating an ESP and then are using FNVEdit to convert it to an ESM, the GECK will add things to your ESP in the order that you create them. If you are creating worldspaces, the data for a worldspace landscape can easily be more than 10 MB. Add in your navmesh and other things and you can easily get over 16 MB. Add anything with an ID after that, and your mod breaks completely, with no warning whatsoever from the GECK. The GECK will happily save it without warning, but then if you try to load it in the game, it crashes the game. Go back to the GECK to fix it, and it crashes the GECK. Better hope you have an older version of your mod to go back to at that point. Otherwise, you're hosed.

 

Things that don't have an ID number (conversation topics, landscape data, navmesh data, etc) can all be placed above the 16 MB boundary. Just keep in mind that if you add anything with an ID number once your mod exceeds 16 MB, the GECK puts it at the end of your file and you permanently break your mod.

 

If you are using the GECK in networked developer mode instead of in single user mode the way that most people use it, and you use version control to check in your changes, then it automatically puts new things with ID numbers down well below the 16 MB boundary when you check in your changes to the ESM. The ESP that you are merging in to create or add to your ESM can't have anything with an ID above its 16 MB boundary, but the GECK will put those IDs in the lower 16 MB of your ESM during check in, so that tends to only be an issue with the ESP that you are merging in, and not an issue with the resultant ESM.

 

16 MB worth of stuff with ID numbers is a HUGE amount of stuff. I've never come anywhere close to any limits with it.

 

Aside from the 16 MB limit, I'm not aware of any other limit with respect to things like recipes and lists. I've never managed to create one that's big enough for it to be an issue. There's a formlist called "everything" which has over 1500 entries in it, so the limit for formlist entries is definitely higher than 1500. I suspect that you'll break things long before you reach the 16 MB limit, though. Things tend to break on powers of 2, especially at character and short integer size boundaries (255 and 65535), or at exactly half of that due to one bit being used for a sign bit (128 or 32767).

 

Scripts are limited to 32k characters. Comments and whitespace are counted in that size.

 

Exterior worldspace cells are something like 128x64 or maybe 128x128 (I don't recall which) or the game engine goes wonky. Again, the GECK will happily create a worldspace with more cells than this, and doesn't warn you that things will break. But the game's physics engine will totally barf if anything is placed outside of those limits.

[MikePayne307]

Ok Brilliant, thanks madmongo

[Mktavish]

Wow lots of good info in there mongo ... thanks for that , and thanks to the OP for asking the question ;)

 

On the world space cell limits ... wouldn't it be 64x64 since that appears to be where the Fo3 and NV world map limits are ? Or is it a rectangle , being able to go twice as wide on the X axis compared to the Y axis height ? Does it have something to do with where you start the 0,0 ... thereby you could get more space out of it by only adding to the + coordinate for example ?

[madmongo]

I have never seen anything official from Bethesda, but the numbers I have seen most often are 128x128. Technically the map can be bigger than that (I think 512x512) but the havoc engine goes goofy anything is outside of 128x128. In other words, you can have a map bigger than 128x128 but you can't place anything other than landscape outside of that 128x128 square. I haven't done any experimenting with it, but apparently it's an offset from zero being greater than 64 (I guess technically it's -64 to +63) that causes the issue, so adding only to one coordinate won't help you.

 

I went poking around on google and didn't really find anything other than a reddit post where someone confirmed the same 128x128 numbers that I have seen before. Apparently Skyrim is 128x512 since the havoc bug on that game affects the X axis before the Y axis. This makes me wonder if the limits are actually the same on FNV. Then again, there seems to be some argument online about whether Skyrim is 128x512 or 128x128.

 

Here is an example of Skyrim's physics engine breaking if you go beyond +64 in the X direction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qndePb5jEO4

Note that the map is larger, it's just the physics engine that breaks (horse starts going through the ground).

 

Every map that I have made is 64x64.

[Mktavish]

Well that's good to know that it might be possible to go beyond the 64x64 with FNV .

There is some nice looking real estate (valley)

from 40 to 48 ish x coordinate / by 8 to -12 ish Y coordinate .

For making those battle arena's for Devins mod. And being that direction , I guess it should all be against the Legion ?

 

But anyways ... what I noticed poking around out there in geck ... is the "Cell View" window seems to break. It ceases to update what cell the object selected is in. And I was placing radio towers to have something selectable. But even rock objects beyond a certain distance (think it was 38 ?) would not update the cell view window. Albeit I seem to remember wonky behavior with that at lower numbers on previous sessions.

But then I noticed another thing with the "WastelandNV" world space.

 

It has 2 different "Default Water Height" 's

The lower river after dam height "-2300" as set on the world space window.

Then the upper water for Lake Mead . Which I thought was placeable water , but it is not.

However I noticed a flag on the world space window that is checked ...

"Needs Water Adjustment" lower right corner.

 

I am curious about the water , because I wanted to have boats cross the lake to another place to set up stuff. Which the water for the upper height stops at Y coordinate 30 . So I would have to put some placeable water there to extend it , and hopefully matches ... assuming I can build stuff up there into the +30 to 38ish Y coordinate ?

[madmongo]

Don't ever use placeable water in an exterior cell. That breaks things.

 

The way that you adjust water height for a cell is to view that cell in your render window, click on that cell to make sure you have it selected, then click on World -> Cells...

 

If you selected the cell you want to modify, then that cell will automatically come up selected in the Cell window. From there you can change the water height and the water type.

 

Looking at your area, if you go to 30,29 and bring up the Cell window, the water height is 2600 and the water type is Potomac. If you go up to 30,30 then the water height is -2300 (the default for the worldspace) and the water type is also Potomac (again, the default for the worldspace). So in this case all you need to change is the water height for 30,30 and it matches the other nearby cells.

 

Poking around in the GECK, it looks like the FNV worldspace is 128x128. They have a heightmap for -63 to +63 in both the X and Y directions.

 

The GECK's heightmap editor only displays +/- 32 in each direction, so it only shows a 64x64 heightmap. The rest of it is blacked out even though you can go to cells beyond that in the render window and see that the cells are both heightmapped and textured (just a uniform brown dirt texture).

 

My GECK tends to want to crash if I get close to the edges of the map, centered on +/- 63 in either the X or Y direction.

[Mktavish]

Don't ever use placeable water in an exterior cell. That breaks things.

 

Ok , but I have seen even vanilla placed water in the exterior. Placed plenty myself.

 

The way that you adjust water height for this case ... all you need to change is the water height for 30,30 and it matches the other nearby cells.

 

Ahh so it is one cell at a time ... typical geck seems. thanks for the new concept learned .

 

Poking around in the GECK, it looks like the FNV worldspace is 128x128. They have a heightmap for -63 to +63 in both the X and Y directions.

 

The GECK's heightmap editor only displays +/- 32 in each direction, so it only shows a 64x64 heightmap. The rest of it is blacked out even though you can go to cells beyond that in the render window and see that the cells are both heightmapped and textured (just a uniform brown dirt texture).

 

My GECK tends to want to crash if I get close to the edges of the map, centered on +/- 63 in either the X or Y direction.

have you found the ocean in the east yet ? I found it in game , not geck

gotsa beach and then somE. . .^~~~