Some questions about a 'Contiinue after Cloud ending' mod I'm trying to make

[PlatinumShad0w]

I was looking at making a super basic but functional mod to allow the player to continue playing and return to the Mojave after choosing to ally with Elijah to work towards destroying the NCR using the Cloud at the end of Dead Money. I'm not looking to overhaul the worldspace or anything as a result, I'm talking a few tweaks at most.

 

I looked at this mod (unfinished) in an attempt to see how they implemented it and for ideas. I have a file made for my mod but I have some questions for how to get it to work properly.

 

1. What is the best/cleanest way to make the ending slide take the player back to the game? My scripting knowledge is basically nonexistent and I just copy what I see that works. Currently I have this script embedded into the narration for the Cloud ending which is intended to complete the Dead Money quest, give a lot of bad Karma, set the NCR and Brotherhood to hostile against the player and make Holograms allies as well as add a perk called "Elijah's Successor" to the player, mainly to act as a condition check:

 

 

 

setStage NVDLC01MQ03 100
player.Addperk NVDLC01ElijahSuccessor
RewardKarma -1000
Player.RemoveFromFaction NCRFactionNV
Player.RemoveFromFaction BrotherhoodSteelFaction
SetEnemy BrotherhoodSteelFaction PlayerFaction 0 0
SetEnemy NCRFactionNV PlayerFaction 0 0
Player.AddToFaction NVDLC01ElijahFaction 1
Player.AddToFaction NVDLC01HologramSecurityFaction 1
Player.AddToFaction NVDLC01HologramFaction 1
Player.AddToFaction NVDLC01SuitesFaction 1
Player.AddToFaction NVDLC01HologramStarletFaction 1
Player.AddToFaction NVDLC01VaultSecurityFaction 1

 

 

 

I also altered the NVDLC01FadeToCreditsTimerSCRIPT to just this (based on the edits I saw in the unfinished mod above):

 

 

 

scn NVDLC01FadeToCreditsTimerSCRIPT
float    Timer                                    ;Timer used for animation control
short bFadeOutDone

BEGIN GameMode

        if (bFadeOutDone == 1)
            return
        endif

END

 

 

 

But that same unfinished mod also removes the script from the NVDLC01FadeToCreditsTimer Quest so I'm not sure how it's supposed to work or if that's necessary also.

 

Finally, there are only two more tweaks I want to add:

 

1. is the possibility for Ghost People to become a random spawn in the Mojave, but my question when adding them to a general wasteland random enemy level list is how to make it conditional so that they only start to appear in the Mojave IF the player has the Elijah Successor perk (indicating that they chose the Cloud Ending). I don't want to handplace new spawns for them in GECK or anything, I just want them to have a chance to replace some other boring enemy type if the right conditions are met.

 

2. is to add Cloud weather to one of the possible weather types in the Mojave so it will randomly become overcast with the cloud. I made a super basic script for this tied to a CloudWeatherInMojave QUEST here which works:

ScriptName AddToxicCloudToMojaveWeather
Begin gamemode

    If playerREF.hasperk NVDLC01ElijahSuccessor ==1
    SetWeather NVDLC01VillaWeather
    endif
end

But... I know it would be better if the quest didn't run constantly and, when you fast travel, the weather goes back to normal and then changes which looks jarring. Ideally I'm trying to figure out how to just add that weather type the possible weathers which can occur if the player has chosen that ending (and thus has the perk).

 

Thank you to whoever reads this for any advice or help you can give. This seems more complex than what I've attempted in the past but I really want it to be possible to live with this choice for mad scientist characters.

[ashtonlp101]

The ending slides are controlled by dialogue. So you'd find the dialogue that narrates Elijah's ending and follow where the scripting kills the player. Delete the command that kills the player and use the moveto command to move the player to your desired location. Then create your quest with the changes you want to make within a stage of that quest and use the setstage command within the narrators dialogue to set the stage to wherever those changes are made. You kind of picked a hard project to work on for being new to modding because this requires a moderate level of knowledge for scripting in the GECK. Also, it looks like the mod you're referencing has granted permission for anyone to take over working on it. Would save you a lot of the heavy lifting if you just built off of that mod.

[PlatinumShad0w]

Thank you, that's very informative. That makes sense connecting it to a stage within the quest so the changes don't take effect unless that condition is met. Didn't think of that.

 

I saw that the old mod had open permissions and was definitely building off of it, or at least looking at which records it edited to see what changes needed made. Is there a way to use the console to test it by skipping straight to that ending though to make sure it works?

 

I know this could be really complicated which is why I am trying to keep it as simple as possible and super-focused. Just the basics, continue after the ending with a only the mildest changes for flavor.

[ashtonlp101]

You could likely find a game save on the Nexus. I don't like to use Console commands to get to certain points since there's so many things Obsidian does regarding variables. So chance are it won't work using one or two commands.