WIP - The Companion friendly Hobbit Home

[Pellape]

I wrote about this a year ago and I writer it again. Editing stuff in CS that is not 0, 90 or 180 degrees is a damn pain.

 

Making the first mesh was done within an hour. Putting all stuff at the right place, at the new ramp has taken 3 hours so far. I guess I am done with the new stairs in 2 days. CS is so stupid... CSE too...

 

I do cheat some but it does not help 100% I changed some angles at some ropes in Nifskope changed z 20 and y 30 degrees, in the NiNode property. It helps for ropes. It is harder with the collisions... as Collisions are separated from the stairs as I use an old Nif exporter, as they did to many changes in the latest Nif exporter that really can export good collisions. I do not want to learn about that right now how to export properly with the newest exporter. I do that at another day, when I have time for it. I want to have a bloody working stair for cows and cats and small tiny dach dogs. Is that to much to ask for? :D

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Pellape

[Pellape]

It went so damn fast in the end, Me and angles are getting along well now. OKAY!!

 

This is the new stairs or ramps, specially made for critters and NPC's at my house. It has no collision, so that is added, do not exploit under it... :wink:

 

If I do see stuff getting under the stairs, I will add side collisions as well, walls, invissible but now I must test this to see that it actually works better. The look in not relevant now. Immersion and movements is. Observing time soon...

 

This is the old stairs:

 

Well the y are not at the same side, well you get the picture anyway. The new has more space, has 30 degrees ramps. The old is narrow, horses and cows get squished in them. Look at the new width and angles :D Damn... I need to make a new schedule, the last one before I check the stairs. The NPC with that schedule will use them, that way I optiize, hitting 2 flies in one smash. I like that... :wink: I like my new cool stair... :wink: So far at least...

 

The path is extremely important. If it is set wrong, it will fail.

 

The pathing is in 2 mods. It is also inside the MOO addon I made. The path there is a bit different. This might cause a conflict but I do doubt it. The last mod loaded will be the master. So if you do not use MOO, it will work fine. If you use MOO, it will work fine. Now I need to edit my MOO addon and if I forget, I am screwed. I took a peek in t yesterday, the path is not 100% right. I will correct that NOW!!!

 

I do see now why my animals sometimes walk into the Potato land, that has wooden stakes and stuff added there. They get so stucked there. Horses, cows and stuff. It is correct in HH but not in HH MOO addon. Damn. This is so damn lame... I cannot do anyyhing about it. The MOO Addon is made for the outside, addon MOO specific stuff to the outside of the house. It is how it is meant to be. Played with MOO.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Pellape

[Pellape]

What is it that is so bloody important with that roof anyway?

 

12:00 - Lunch break. Every NPC in HH that day will go up to the roof eating lunch + 2 servants selling food stuff at the barbeque. The BTA differs, as they go to IC ones a week, on different schedules.

18:00 - Same thing again.

 

06:00 brekfast in doors.

23:00 late supper in doors.

 

If the schedule is in use, all your companions will go to the roof with the rest lot. You have to add them with the spell to that schedule or bring them there manually.

 

The stairs will be crowded that time. The NPCs usually walk nice. All my staff do have weapons in case the house is under siege at these hours. They are also essentiel and if I missed any of them, I will see a body there and correct it. A dog is not essential, so I ress him every 3rd day, if I forget him, well s*** happens. I have one more Black GR poppy that is essential. Added 2 during a test.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Pellape

[Pellape]

I have written about this a year ago or two but I write it again.

 

Do not ever bring your cm Partners to the display room. Over a year ago I use the same companions and stuff disappeared from the entrance floor, mainly weapons and armor. They disapear from the Do not loot these items box that my sorter is using too... ;)

 

Why does they steal and not the staff? Well they do have the Loot Corpse ability checked. I forgot, so I brought the last companion in the schedule chain to the Display Room to buy her 2 weapons. Yes I buy my own weapons, otherwise I would never have any use of all my gold. I saw her reach down at the floor.

 

She managed to loot a whole wall, the south wall from weapons and reach into a weapons chest where I store weapons for testing the scripts :D

 

I bought the 2 weapons and ran out. Did she follow? No... They always follow but not this time. I bet she was busy looting...

 

I summoned her with my summon Companion spell for 6 companions and checked her backpack. She looted 10 weapons + I did see 2 axes she should not have before we went down, and that should told me she is a bloody thief. But I did not expect her to steal my stuff while using a follow package really. Now I saw it in Real Time. I never seen it before, not that they bend down, take whatever is in the cell, 10 meters away even... She is an octopus... :D

 

I know this was a huge problem before the release of Oblivion as they did mention this in a Bethesda develop video at YouTube, how they had to fight to really force the NPC to behave when they started to test the "new" AI. NPC stole everything, ride in with stolen horses into Chorrol, the Guards hunted every damn thief, killing them. It was a bloody anarchy.... They really had a hard job to find the balance, well they failed.... Look at my Cute Elves... they are the proof.

 

Before she stole the weapons she killed my Librarian. I did understand why and checked her aggression. 70. I set them to 20 in CS but as they all went into war at Chorrol Inn, the Oak and whatever, they killed the Khajiit innkeeper, my staff at my store in Chorrol and made Havoc. A bloody anarchy war...

 

I ported them out, one by one... They did all have different aggression but I did skip to check it until I used them and this last one I plan to use today.... :D

 

[Pellape]

Finally sorted this out

 

The new stairs works perfect. 30 degrees instead of 45 and wider. Nothing got stuck up and they could even pass each others without any issues or problems. I started to test the pets before I awaited all staff to ebter the roof 18:00 but they did only pop up one and one, which i suspected but when they walked away 19:00 almost everyone was on the stairs. So impressive to see almost all at the same time. So how many are they that use the stairs? IDK Lets find out.

• All critters, from small chickens to dogs, cats, a Dingo, enemies, cows and sheep. The Dingo, popped up from no where and was the first to use the stairs. He ran up the stairs within a second or 2, no problems at all.
• 12 different BTA but max 8 at a time. I did see one in the library 08:00 that was not supposed to be there, a female mage, bloody Oblivion bad cell using... :wink: NM. Everything is cool when not expected. I had to check as a chair was busy and she wanted that chair.
• 6 staff members
• 2 servants
• 6 companions.

That is 26 NPC max... Damn the math do not lie... Wait, 22 at the same time. 4 is always in IC... Toggling... Damn i only made 16 chairs... NM some stands eating... :wink: First up on the roof gets a chair. Not all will pop up anyway... It depend in which cell they are and if it is their turn to run low lvl scripts. Low level running only occurs with some minutes in between to save CPU. It feels very random. All these NPC and my 3 pets use Low level scripting. Otherwise the AI will not work good at all.

 

 

 

 

 

It is always something I forget. The BTA will also have companion abilities, so we can control them I will use the Knights of the 9's scripts for it and that Quest as it is already running, No point in inventing the wheel again is it? I will not break it and if I do... We sort that mess out. At picture 1, you see a knight with broken stuff. He is at the bottom of the stairs, in a green shirt and bow at his back. I will add AutorepairToken to him and a repair hammer and it only works on a follow package. So I demand him to follow me in a while so he can repair his own bloody stuff. :wink: I will not help him doing it, he is not lame nor have a limp... I use a home made script to add hammers to any creature or NPC. :wink: + tokens

 

I am so bloody happy now.

Damn i waited for this moment to use the roof for them all on over a year as i started to plan this 1-2 years ago, so i saw this in my mind, seeing the future. I am a bloody mantis, a seer.. It feels so good I finally did it, and it works so smoothly as well. Damn. A long journey will only be longer anyway. We can never reach all goals... I am happy so many now that so many really are full filled.

 

The farm was infull chaos today, even a lost Criminal from MOO popped up that we killed. I will get a bounty for that one. I took a screeny that I post later. This is only fun and exciting with MOO installed. If you plan to play it without MOO, suit your self as it will be boring. Your choice, not mine. The path's in my MOO expansion works perfect. One cat went under the stairs. i leave them un-solid for now. I can always add collisions there whenever i feel like it.

 

Only Steve Vai can play on all strings at the same time, I cannot do this:

Edited April 22, 2022 by Pellape

[Pellape]

I am so stupid, well do not think stuff through 100% :wink:

 

I did think that it was gonna be a fast, quick and easy hack to make all 12 BTA to followers, They are not a single object and I think single. Okay, I could maybe do a bloody Object oriented hack, reinventing the wheel using OBSE as the base I use do not, The Knights of the Nine. I make it simple, some copy and paste. I still need them to use 24 packages, for this, 2 each. How many packages have I made? Well something between 42 and 2112.

 

https://youtu.be/1sCxCHggxEI

 

I can also just delete their inventories in their own scripts and add new ones a week. I will not. It is more immerse to force them to repair their own stuff.

 

Damn good i have made followers earlier, as my wild Rooster is also using similar packages, It means I do not need to think hard to make it work, just a few hours of boring editing... ;)

Edited April 22, 2022 by Pellape

[Pellape]

I also deleted "Skip fallout behaviour" that forces the follower to skip anything else than just focus at the current package, the follow package that is.. So cool, so Unpredictable... I really like it but I did not expect her to kill the Librarian and steal ten weapons anyway... ;)

[Pellape]

I finally edited all 23 BTA's into followers, IDK if it works. Their dialogue is added to quest ND00, not that will matter any as dialogues do not get dirty as you must point a dialogue to a group or to a NPC. I added 48 conditions that use 12 new shorts in a quest and 24 new packages. I also added a few lines in each BTA script. They ave their own script as they send individual scrolls to the player about their state but that do not make sense now not after I made them essential. The respawn check box is bloody broken. I have not seen any NPC respawn that has it checked. I check my Book burglar assassins that I only saw in game ones, before i cut their heads off. NPC inside a LL cannot be in it if they are set to respawn.

 

MOO solve this with copy a NPC from the LL, set it low lvl processing as they need to set that way, to actually start searching after the player, slowly move closer to the player, to cut their head off. Damn... I could let a rat use place at me or peek later in the MOO script how Maskar is doing it. I saw it briefly and did not see the whole picture as that is mostly not possible... ;) It requires a beer and patience to read those scripts. A rat can be placed out side the farm ...

[Pellape]

Auto repairing and companions. I really need to add a script that auto repair companions. There is one available. I add the tokens manually and it works best with a spell really. It is outside the mod right now but needs to be added, so the player really can share the tokens and the repair hammer with the companion. It can be added n a script as well but, well in the repair quest script really. One script that do it all. :D

1. Check if the target has repair token and a repair hammer
2. If not, add them
3. Repair the stuff if it is broken
4. Update3D

Go to the companion that has broken items and add the repair token to him and ask him to follow you VOILA. Add the spell one more time or use update3D from console - VOILA. It is magic.

 

 

I did Update3D on a tamed dog from MOO ones. Do not do it. It lost all levels and lost contact with the player and went wild. Taming has limits... Therefor I made my own pets. They update3D... several times a day after they drop their stuff to the player, arrows and misc stuff they carry around, given to them from enemies. Nice enemies. So generous of them- Well time to go back in game to see if i added all BTA right or if I did miss any. adding 12 NPC can blew out anyone's mind and brain really. I think I had a good overview about what i was doing, I still missed some and had to go back and fix the miss.... ;) So boring really...

[Pellape]

Sooo... What about the last script or scripts in the Display room Well the 3 and 5 hook racks works so good and they are so few that I will leave them. They cannot be made more effective than they are as they would still need some GameMode code to actually be good and I feel that are fast and reliable.

 

So what about the staff rack? The staff rack is very unique and it does steal a lot of performance. It is 40 trigger boxes that needs to be removed as I really can live with out them with SOLID state. No need for those trigger boxes to actually force the staff to hang against the divider in the big room. Not the way the code is written now. Removing 40 trigger boxes, filled with GameMode code and scripts will have impact on performance. It has to be so. Think about it. Those 50 trigger boxes scripts runs every frame, 30 times a second at the moment , without really do any good. Just removing them might have the result that the racks will break. Stop working and make the whole divider side broken.

 

I need to study these scripts, move their code to functions, and call these functions from the quest script. I do not care if it takes 10s to get a staff in place with the quest script running ones each 10 seconds. I will write about it in the manual and if you do bot read it, is it really my problem? I will answer all postings about this in the forum that is added with the DL at Nexus if anyone whines there and they most likely will. I am prepared for all questions really. I also will point out it is in the manual - Read it but this is what you need to do. Sit on your hands, stay patient. It takes 10s for a weapon to get from the table to the divider or to the small racks to increase game performance as much as possible.

 

Well, first I really need to move those scripts to functions or a function. I do not remember what they really looks like. I do recall it is strings involved and also a check at the 2 buttons of each letter added into the MessageBOXEX textinput stringie. It does not matter. I only need to redirect the 2 buttons to the quest script and that is it, hopefully. :D When it is done, I release this. I peek at them tomorrow.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Pellape