Tips on ensuring your mod's compatability

[Tchos]

There may be another such thread...there certainly must be several for Oblivion, but Fallout 3 modding is starting to show signs of needing a list like this. I've been seeing some things happen in some mods which cause conflicts with other mods unnecessarily. Here are a couple things not to do, if you want your mod to play nicely with others:

 

1. Don't alter the default NPC dialogue, especially things like "GREETING". Seems the cleanest, safest way to add dialogue to a character is by creating a quest for it, or a faction, or an AI package. Yes, one of the AI package types is "dialogue" type. Any of these things can be used as conditions to test for to see if an NPC should offer new lines of dialogue. If you alter the default greetings, you may screw up the dialogue options for all other mods.

 

2. Don't add new items directly to a vanilla vendor's inventory or their original inventory container. Firstly, if you add your new item directly to the vendor's inventory, they'll only offer it once, and it'll never be restocked, unless the NPC itself is set to respawn (which most are not). Plus, this counts as editing the NPC, and any other mod that edits that same NPC will override your change, or yours will override theirs, depending on the load order.

 

Same goes for adding items to their vendor container. Any other mod that edits that same container will override or be overridden. What you should do is create a new container, add your item(s) to it, set it to respawn, and assign its ownership to the vendor NPC. Bury the chest behind a wall or under the floor, whatever. As long as the NPC owns it, s/he'll sell whatever's in it, and no conflicts.

 

3. Don't delete items from the vanilla game. For instance, you open a cell interior, you see some clutter you don't like? Don't delete it! Just move it below the floor or anywhere else it won't be seen, or set it to "disable" in the properties. If you delete it, and then another mod tries to move or otherwise edit that same item, the game may crash.

 

Corrections, clarifications, or additional tips, please add.

 

P.S. Please, please, read this:

Mod Cleaning Tutorial / Dirty Mods