How long does it take for your stuff to disappear from containers?

[Zalmoxis]

Hi,

 

the basic question is in the subject of this post.

I've tested some lockers in the GNR building; I had put thing in one and stayed away from that location for over a week (in-game time). All my stuff is still there. While that may be nice, it puzzles me; doesn't it say somewhere in the manual that stuff put anywhere beside your own house makes it prone to disappear?

Does the game make a distinction between containers somewhere in the wastes and containers at places populated by friendly guys?

 

 

Thanks for any insight given,

-Zalmoxis.

[omgwtf666]

i was wondering same thing, since dead bodies stay, and all stuff that was on them stays too...

[nosisab]

Hi,

 

the basic question is in the subject of this post.

I've tested some lockers in the GNR building; I had put thing in one and stayed away from that location for over a week (in-game time). All my stuff is still there. While that may be nice, it puzzles me; doesn't it say somewhere in the manual that stuff put anywhere beside your own house makes it prone to disappear?

Does the game make a distinction between containers somewhere in the wastes and containers at places populated by friendly guys?

 

 

Thanks for any insight given,

-Zalmoxis.

This depends on the container being constant (and so the item will remain forever) or spawning... you'll lose the items the first time it does that spawning.

 

PS: Saw now this is Fallout, maybe the concept is the same, but I can't say for sure anymore.

[Zalmoxis]

Thank you for the reply.

 

Do you know if using a "SetOwnership"-command automatically makes a container constant? Especially if that new owner is the player, of course. ;)

[nosisab]

Thank you for the reply.

 

Do you know if using a "SetOwnership"-command automatically makes a container constant? Especially if that new owner is the player, of course. ;)

No, this is something is done in the CS, have nothing to do with ownership. Most of house mods have their containers 'fixed' so the player doesn't lose the items, but most of vanilla containers are respawning ones. Consult the mod documentation or look the desired container in the CS to be sure.

[Zalmoxis]

I've looked into this matter more deeply and discovered a funny thing...

 

According to this page in the "Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages", the first byte in the DATA subrecord of a CONT record decides, whether a container's contents respawn or not.

 

I've just gone through the whole list of CONT records in Fallout3.esm with FOMM - it's record structures are pretty much the same as Oblivion's, besides some minor things - and noticed that the only container's contents respawned are those of the vendors' containers (besides only two other containers, of which one seems to belong to a food vendor; and even the other one belongs to a named NPC ("Belle"), which would make that container's activation message be shown in red anyway).

 

Not a single other container has it's contents respawned. Ever.

That's really cool. It means you can set up camp almost everywhere and have stashes to keep stuff in. :)

 

-Zalmoxis.

[AdamV]

Cool but unrealistic. Finding stimpaks, food or purified water in an easy to reach area has always irked me. That and regardless of whether food has been on the surface soaking up radiation for years or underground in a bunk the radiation level is the same. I can't consider the game realistic when I nuke a bottle of purified water 100x times and it's still purified or when I nuke a building and it remains in tact but shooting a car with a 10mm can send the car flying....