Modders' Resource Query

[BlueSteelRanger]

Salutations, Nexus!

 

So, I am venturing into creating mods and I think I have the bare-bone basics down. I can navigate the Construction Set with some decency and have now grown confident enough to begin meddling with creating mods. Which leaves me with a couple of questions.

 

Mod Gods, if I'm in the wrong place or if questions like these have already been answered and I've simply missed it, please do tell me and/or do your Mod God thing.

 

1. Modders' Resources: Do these put a strain on the game or can they lighten up the load? I'm thinking of resources like for bookshelves, retextures (i.e. "I'm making an X-themed player home and want clutter to look the part"). Things like that. I'm aiming for a balance between "Epic palace/castle" and "Light enough of a load that I don't have crashes, game-breakers, frame rate drops, freezes, etc."

 

2. Locations: I'm noting that in the "Tamriel overworld", space seems to be at a premium. I want to place my little mod idea somewhere with a view of the Imperial City (or on the southern border of Cyrodill somewhere), close to water. Like on the Niben River east-ish of Bravil. These are the possible coordinates I have been looking at:
14,4

14,10
15,0
15,9
15,10
21,0

 

Are these safe coordinates to mess with? I don't want to create game-breaking issues with spawn points, quests, Oblivion Gates and, if possible, I want to avoid conflicts with other people's mods. Because I have run across some seriously amazing work here.

 

Many thanks in advance!

[Oblivionaddicted]

1- It all depends of the way they were made, whether they use a 4k texture or a low-res one the impact will greatly differ.

2- There are so many mods altering Tamriel it's hard to know but except if I'm wrong you can easily create a compatibility patch with any mod using the same cells thanks to TES4Gecko.

[Striker879]

OB Cyrodiil Cell Grid Map is old (last updated in 2008) so it probably isn't complete plus it only covers the Unique Landscape cell use, but it's about all I know of.

[Pellape]

Well be careful with adding to many light sources for sure... :wink: Making your own home is maybe the funniest thing to make as then you will most likely get it exactly as you want it to be. I have never found a home I like to 100%, well except in Morrowind, but I do like my latest one to 100%... :wink:

 

What you can do when you find player resources you wanna use is to scale down the textures, in case they are to big.

 

I wouldn't bother with the spot I choose really as you pick the spot you like best. I did edit the surroundings a lot for my house, moving both spawn points and also adapted the path grid around the area to fit perfect, so animals and NPC's moves as they should, or they will get stuck at or in anything you add to the area and that breaks the immersion a lot really and if you do that, your house needs to be among the last mods that loads or patched with bash. I have mine last, even after MOO as I do edit it daily.

 

If you wanna make a custom basement in your castle, I would suggest you use Phits Old School Dungeons and I use them right now, retexturing to fit my house and my new Library/Museum section. The benefit with them is that you can build your basement exactly the way you want it to be, in a more Morrowind way of building stuff and they are extremely simple made. I do dislike the premade rooms in Oblivion, that will limit how I want a room to look like or the size of it. I have not checked my retexturing in game yet, as those meshes do have a wet look in game and hopefully it is just the original textures that makes them look like that but I have not checked them yet, which I should today. :smile: I will make them look as close as possible to Stroti's Hobbit home so they fit that theme.

 

When it comes to convenient and fun stuff -> Useful tools for the player, do peek at my scripts which are placed in Data/Scripts as you can use any of them as you do want your home to be more then a shell and storage I guess? The scripts are in tes4 format, which makes them easier to read in Notepad++ but they are nothing else than simple textfiles if you open them in any other texteditor.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Pellape

[BlueSteelRanger]

@Pellape: "Well be careful with adding to many light sources for sure.."

 

Light sources being actively lit (not the "Fake") candles and such, or do you mean ambient (sources not visible in-game) light, such as "Ambientyellows", etc.?

 

You can move spawn points without breaking the game? That's actually quite useful for me to know. There's this little peninsula on the right-hand side of the Niben River that I REALLY like but it's got an Oblivion Gate spawn point. It's that little spot northeast, across the river from Veyond Cave.

 

"MOO"? Pardon my idiocy, but what is that?

 

As much as I dislike spoilers before I'm ready to release, the basic idea I want for my home is this: "Floating island with impressive Ayleid architecture". If it's relevant, my machine specs are thus:

525 GB of free space on C drive

Windows 8.1, 64 bit

8 GB of installed RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GT 720

 

My machine is a few years old by now and two years ago could no longer handle TESV: Skyrim + its DLC + mods. It is however, handling TESIV: Oblivion + KotN + SI + OBSE quite well. I have handled several mods (one at a time) such as "Servant of the Dawn", "Dark Brotherhood Renewed", "Dark Brotherhood Chronicles" and much of "The Lost Spires" beautifully overall.

 

@Striker879: I am thankful to have found an image that marks off every single location on a Cyrodiil map -- everything from mines and camps to ruins, cities, etc. So that helps quite a lot.

 

@Oblivionaddicted: I generally stick with vanilla-level textures, as you can see my specs above.

[Striker879]

I believe that Oblivion Gates are a rather special case, as each one includes changes to the landscape. If you moved it the landscape edits wouldn't line up in the new location (my guess mind you ... don't think I've ever seen it done or attempted).

 

When arranging your light sources the biggest killer after flickering and casting shadows (leave them off as much as possible) is when you have them intersecting/overlapping. A case of one too few is better than one too many.

[BlueSteelRanger]

Ahh, okay. Hmm. I'm trying to place this thing so it isn't too terribly close. I'm hoping that the "in the sky" bit might help with that since my design intention is to leave the immediate landscape as unchanged as possible.

 

On lights: Ah, okay. Hmm. I'll check my space again. I want it nicely lit in the more "public" rooms but not laggy or crashy. You know, "Palace banquet hall", "throne room", "alchemy/magic room" kind of light and then something softer/dimmer for bedrooms.

Edited January 19, 2021 by BlueSteelRanger

[Striker879]

I think I know where you are talking about. The only mod I know at that spot is Aranmathi Ayleid Home. Arthmoor's Vergayun is just north of there at the little dock east of Fort Variela (and Arthmoor's mod takes over the Oblivion Gate just north of that ... which just means that you can then have a maximum of 61 gates).

 

- Edit - I use the map at UESP Wiki a lot ... for example Oblivion Map - Fort Variela shows where the dock I'm talking about is, and if you scroll south just a bit so that the rock south of the point shows that has a Nirnroot you'll see the straight section of coast that is where Aranmathi sits (it's just in the water off that part of shore, not quite up to the two large rocks on the shore south of the dock).

[BlueSteelRanger]

Arthmoor?! I LOVE their mods! I used a lot of them when my machine could handle Skyrim.

 

"Takes over" an Oblivion Gate? How is that managed without crashing or other issues? Or does it just kind of "leave the OG alone on the grounds"?

 

Ah, okay. I'm eyeing the peninsula spot south of Culotte. As for exterior design, I'm hoping to use something as impressive as the Imperial Palace towers. Something grand like that.

[Striker879]

If you are talking about the point where the Corbolo River joins the Niben (so pretty well directly across from the previous spot) I don't know of anything that touches that spot ... but that doesn't mean nothing touches that spot. There is a possible Oblivion Gate site just north of that (you'll see it if you scroll down a bit on the UESP Wiki map for Culotte).

 

In all there are 100 possible locations that can spawn an Oblivion Gate. In a normal vanilla game there can be a maximum of 60 of those gates spawned (ten locations are guaranteed after you find Martin and deliver him to Weynon Priory, but in practice you will have 20 as you progress further into the main Quest). The remaining 40 of the 60 will be randomly picked from the 80 locations that are left. When your character gets close to one of the possible spots you'll see it appear in the HUD compass.

 

I'm a "60 gate guy" (aka a bugger for punishment) and on my current playthrough I thought I had already found my 60 gate locations (with one of those being the one just north of Vergayun) I generally only close the ones that are close to roads or other "busy" spots as I find them, the rest I close as I get around to it. I was very surprised when I saw the "undiscovered" Oblivion Gate marker show up on my compass to give me 61. After I got around to closing the gate north of Vergayun I had my "Paul Harvey" moment.

 

Arthmoor used the location and Tamriel part of the gate but as you step into it you are in a ruined representation of the Inn at Vergayun ... gives you a sort of "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" vibe. It is a hallmark of Arthmoor's work to disturb the vanilla game as little as possible, so the Vergayun gate doesn't count towards your possible 60 (hence giving you 61 possible).