Renee's Modding Thread Options

[Renee]

How change an .esm to an .esp (or vice versa), Games: Oblivion, Fallout, or Skyrim

Open TES4Edit for Oblivion, FO3Edit for Fallout 3, FNVEdit for Fallout New Vegas, or TES5Edit for Skyrim. These utility programs can all be found at THE Nexus.

I am going to change an .esp to an .esm first, as I want to make it so I can give my Af. American Fallout 3 antagonist a cool hairdo which is not vanilla, straight from the GECK.

1). Load whichever editor program is relevant, right-click on any of the Filenames and choose Select None.

2). Pick any .esp and press OK. Or... if changing an Elder Scrolls Master select this, and click OK.

3). Double left-click on the .esp or .esm as it appears in the left window, so the file becomes uncollapsed. Now look at the right window. If the right window appears empty, single left-click on File Header in the left window. Six 'panes' should show up in the right window.

4). Note the area next to where it says Record Flags. If the file being worked on is an .esm the flag will be listed as ESM in this area. If it's an .esp the area next to Record Flags will be blank.

5). So, since I'm changing an .esp to an .esm I am right-clicking the blank area next to Record Flags, and then selecting Edit. "Warning!" the program warns. We'd better know what the heck we are doing!!!

[AHEM] Click "Yes, I'm absolutely sure", only IF you are absolutely sure.

6). The Edit Value panel POPS up, which includes a toggle box. Select ESM and press OK, closing the Edit Value panel.

7). Click the X (in the upper right corner of the program) and click OK to confirm this change.

-------------

To change an .esm to an .esp, the process is the same, except the file will already be listed as ESM next to Record Flags. Follow steps 5 and 6. Voila.

NOTE: I have noticed that the .esm I created from an .esp in Fallout 3, Dreadlocks.esp, is still listed as Dreadlocks.esp in Fallout Mod Manager. It behaves like a master, though.

This post has been edited by Renee: Sep 9 2024, 04:14 PM

[Renee]

1). What you'll need to do is manually download this one, and again, it's an easy DL. There are actually TWO archive files to DL. Go to the Files tab and select the 2nd and 3rd files on that page.



> OBMM Extended 10-12-24 Manual

> OBMM Extended 10-12-24 Setup.



2). After these 2 files download, copy or move the archives to your Modded Oblivion folder. Right click on each and choose Extract Here. Already you can see the beginning of the sprawl that's to come. heh heh.



3). Right click on the Application file called OBMMSetup, and Open it. If you get a weird message that says something about an administrator, just start over again: right-click but this time choose Run as Administrator. It should now ask you where you want to place a shortcut icon. I put my icon on the desktop for easy access.



4). Pick both options (Desktop Shortcut and Start Menu Shortcut) and press Install. :user: There should now be a new icon on your Desktop.



5). Double Click the OBMM icon (on your desktop). It will open up a menu. Choose the second choice (Oblivion Mod Manager).



6). A program should open with several boxes and choices. Right now this is all empty, but pretty soon you'll be able to actually view your mods in the two large windows, and you'll also be able to see if they are active, or inactive, and sometimes whether or not there are any conflicts going on. As you'll see, everything is color-coded.

1). Open up OBMM (this is the part up above where you double-click on the desktop icon, assuming you installed it this way). Click on Oblivion Mod Manager (the second choice). Once the program opens, notice the two large 'windows': there's one on the left, and one in the center. Both are empty, except you should be seeing Oblivion.esm in the left window. Oblivion.esm is the vanilla OB game.



2). On the bottom of the program are several choices. Click Create.



3). This will take you to a new platform with several choices on it. You only need one of these: click Add Archive.



4). You might have to manually find the area of your computer where the UOP Archive was downloaded from Nexus. Let's say the Archive is in your downloads folder. Go there. Or if it's in the Modded Oblivion folder, go there. Once you do, double-click on this Archive.



5). Sometimes it seems at first as if nothing is happening, but just be patient. OBMM will sometimes unzip the archive in a split second, other times it'll take a few seconds or minutes. Smaller files unzip faster than larger ones, see? UOP takes about a minute on my comp.



6). Eventually the archive will be unzipped, if everything goes right. Sometimes it will now ask you if you want to Import info from TES Nexus? Choose Yes. The 'info' it imports can vary. Sometimes it will fill up all the blank areas, but a lot of times it doesn't. These blank areas include Name, Author, Version, the author's E-mail, and website.



7). IF it doesn't fill in these areas, this is okay. I'm an organizational freak, and I like having at least the name, author, and version filled in. I actually will go back to Nexus (or wherever the mod's from) and type this stuff in. You don't have to do this, but if you don't it might make finding the mod more difficult later on. OBMM will name a mod called 'Companion Share & Recruit' to "CSR" for instance, and in my case, I won't be able to locate it as easily.



It's up to you, though. :shrug:



Note: You don't need to know this right now, but it's interesting anyways. Notice towards the bottom of the OBMM creation platform that there is a button called Plugins, and one called Data File. Plug-ins basically are mods. The two terms are interchangable. Not all archives will contain Plugins or Data Files, but you can view these areas to see if anything has been unzipped, at least. Some Archives don't contain the stuff you need (they're basically incomplete or something), but this you won't have to worry about this with UOP.



8). Click Create OMod, which is the rectangular button on the very bottom-right. If it asks if you want to add a description, you can just choose "No" if you want to skip this, or Yes if you wnat to fill this in. Personally I always skip it. I know what the mod's going to do just by its name. If you choose to fill this in, you'll be able to see your mod's description later on when you highlight it, but this is completely optional.



....OBMM will now compress and create the mod itself. This can take several seconds, or it can take several minutes. You'll be able to watch OBMM creating your mod, which is kinda neat. When it's done, it'll say "OMod created." Press Okay.



9). The OMod creation window will close, and you'll now see the original program. In the center window, you should now be seeing the Unofficial Oblivion Patch. Notice the color next to it, which should be green.



Green means the mod is inactive



Blue means the mod is active



Black means it's got some small conflicts, but the mod itself will run okay once these are taken care of.



Red means there are more serious conflicts. We can discuss this later down the road because you shouldn't be seeing red at all.



There are other colors (I think) but I don't know their meanings, nor have I encountered them.



10. Hi-light the Unofficial Patch Omod and click Activate on the bottom of the page. After a minute or so, the Omod's color should turn from green to blue (inactive to active).



11). Now look at the left window. This is showing the guts of your Modded Oblivion folder, and the UOP should now be there. Actually there should be several UOP choices, four of them. If you go to your C > Modded Oblivion folder, you'll also see that OBMM has automatically added some more stuff in the Data folder. It does all this automatically somehow, placing stuff in just the right places. Kinda neat.



12). Now go back to OBMM's left window, and hi-light each of the UOP choices. It'll tell you at the bottom left of the page what each of these choices does. There's the UOP itself, UOPS Additional Changes, the Vampire Face Fix, and Oblivion Citidel Doors. Personally I don't mind the vampire aging, and don't care about the door issue, so I only pick the first two choices, but you can choose all four if you like.



13). Go to your desktop and double-click on the OBMM icon again. Pick the fourth choice down (Oblivion Launcher). This will bring up several options, but for now we're only going to be choosing one.



14) Click on Data Files. You'll see the game itself (Oblivion.esm) along with the UOP files. If the choices you made in OBMM aren't shown here, go ahead and click on these. What you're doing is turning them "ON" basically.



15). You are done. :dance: :celebrate: The unofficial patch should now be working in the game.

[Renee]

Speech Challenges. Game: Fallout 3

This is going to teach how to make one of those speech challenge moments, when we need to influence somebody and there's a chance of success or failure. I learned once again from Seddon. I am assuming a quest has already been started, okay? And anyone reading this already knows a lot of dialog-making stuff in the G.E.C.K.

Topics tab
1). Start a new topic, or build on an existing one. In this instance, we'll discuss what happens when we're successful. "You saved my life, I'll do whatever you say!" the NPC says. Prompt may or may not be needed.

2). Toggle the Speech Challenge flag ON. And use the Difficulty bar to zero in on how difficult the person is to influence. I just chose Average(55).

3a). Conditions can be set as per whatever NPC we're speaking to, whether there's a QuestStage or whatever.

3b). Right-click > Copy All those conditions.

4). Now, right-click > Add Topic into the leftmost window. I'm calling this new bit of dialog aaaSpeechChallengeFAIL.

5). Right-click > New into the Info window. "Hell no, I will not come with you!"

Note: Prompt is not used for this info.

6). Right-click > Add Topic into the Link From window, and select the topic where the original Speech Challenge resides.

7). Make sure to Paste the conditions Copy All'd from step 3b.

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 8 2024, 06:19 PM

[Renee]

Getting an Xbox Wireless Controller to work on PC.


So I bought this official Microsoft controller from Newegg, like this one, and was surprised at how difficult it was to get the darn thing operating thru my gaming PC.

When I shopped for an Xbox 360 controller (for PC) ten years ago I bought a black Microsoft device from Best Buy. It came with a receiver, which plugged into a USB port, and was easy to set up. Got Xpadder, configured the device, was gaming within a couple hours.

I still have that controller, it still works! 🎮 But it's getting old & creaky, so I got the new one pictured in the first paragraph above. The box was shipped in two days. I opened it, saw the controller but there was no receiver; nothing physical to plug into my PC! Turns out, everything is apparently done through software nowadays (or hardware which is buried within the computer, such as Bluetooth), at least for the product I bought.

....Getting my PC to recognize the new controller was incredibly frustrating. The controller came with some half-baked "instructions" which were useless, as well as a vague Microsoft website link. I only found out how to get the thing working after coming online, and then going on a mad search of a half-dozen or so websites (official Microsoft sites and random tutorials). Was quite frustrating and ridiculous, to have spent all this money on something which seems not to work.

But I did get it working. So I'll try to save some others out there the frustration that I experienced, assuming they find this page. What I'm about to describe is Windows 10.

----------------------------------------

1a). If you haven't done so yet, go into the Microsoft Store (your gaming PC must be online) and select Gaming. Type or search for Xbox Accessories and click on Apps. Download the Xbox Accessories Installer and install its contents.

1b). Connect the controller to the PC via a USB to USB-C cable.

There are several ways to get a controller working described on this page, and I tried a couple of them to no avail. Simply connecting the device to the cable did absolutely nothing.

...If your Windows device doesn’t detect your controller after waking up from sleep, press the Xbox button  on your controller to turn it back on, or unplug it from your device then plug it back in

Nope, didn't work. What worked for me was the "Bluetooth" section.


2). Turn on the Xbox Wireless Controller by pressing the Xbox button .

3). Press and hold the Pair button for 3 seconds. This is the button with the three parenthesis next to it, like ...

)))

...which is on the front of the device, next to the left bumper. The Xbox button should start flashing rapidly.


4). With the light still flashing, press the PC's Start button. Click Settings.

5). Click on Devices, then select Bluetooth & other devices. Make sure Bluetooth is toggled ON. (For Windows 11 the path is supposed to be a little different: Settings > Bluetooth & devices.)

6). Select [+] Add Bluetooth or other device > Bluetooth (on Windows 11 we're supposed to select Add device). The PC should begin searching for your controller.

7). Assuming the device is found, click Xbox Wireless Controller or Xbox Elite Wireless Controller > Done.

8). Try using the left analog stick while the Bluetooth menu is still open. The stick should move the menu up and down. 🎮 If this happens, great.

And of course, next step is to fire up a game which has modern controller support, which (in other words) does not require Xpadder or Joy to Keys to operate. Fallout 3 or New Vegas are the earliest Bethesda games which don't absolutely require one of those programs.

For anyone who's used Xpadder or Joy 2 Keys in the past, a new profile or layout may be needed. But I was able to use the same Xpadder profiles & layouts just fine. I only needed to plug in the receiver which came with my old 360 controller.

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 14 2024, 04:26 PM

[Renee]

Fitting the hair from one mod onto the NPC of another.

A rather unique situation here. I've got an NPC which I made myself, but want him to have hair from another author's mod: Dreadlocks Hairstlyle. This worked with an earlier NPC I created (who is Af. American, not sure if that makes a difference), but with this new white guy it's no longer working.

I am describing how to fix this in Fallout 3 but I assume the process below might work with other game editors. It'll just have a different path. Firstly, I made Dreadlocks.esp into an .esm as per this post. This way, dreadlocks can be shared in the .esp I'm working with.


1). Go into Object Window > Actor Data > Race.

2). Click on a race. The idea is we're going to make a "NEW" race. So I'm clicking on Caucasian and selecting Edit. The Race panel pops open.

3). Single-left-click on Caucasian and selecte Duplicate. This causes a "new" race to called CaucasianCOPY0000 to appear. Open/edit the new race.

4). Select the Face Data tab. There's a drop-down called Default Hair Style. Change whatever default hairstyle to whatever mod hairstyle. So I changed from HairDefaultA to NoukDreadlocks.

5). Click OK. Find the NPC in the Object window, and and change his or her Race from whatever was previous to whatever is new. So I went from Caucasian to CaucasianCOPY0000. Click Ok, save.

Go into the game. Voila. My G Zuss NPC now looks like a cheap imitation of the real guy. ✝

This post has been edited by Renee: Nov 4 2024, 05:04 PM

[Renee]

What we did in the EEKeeper:

1 - Tools-Edit out of party characters-Ajantis-Characteristics-State Flag (change from State Dead -> State Normal)
2 - his HPs were still negative so I set a positive value. However, I needed to do this twice. The first time, his HPs reverted to 0 when saving the game, in the 2nd try they remained positive.
3 - Aia and Imoen traveled to the place, where he "died" and there he was back among the living and he immediately asked Aia, if he can rejoin the party. Even his questline didn't get broken.



This post has been edited by Renee: Nov 26 2024, 10:50 PM

[Renee]

How to fix "Netapi32.dll file is missing" errors / Windows 10

the code execution cannot proceed because netapi32.dll was not found...

That's what showed up about a month ago while trying to open LOOT, GPU-Z, and a couple other programs, and this page is what I used to fix the prob.

https://malwaretips.com/blogs/netapi32-dll-...i32-dll-errors/

While searching for a solution I came upon several other "this .dll file is missing" videos and tutorial fixes, so that page might work with other missing or corrupted files as well.

That malwaretips page is so comprehensive and visual, I won't bother writing my own version. All I had to do was run the DISM scan and then the SFC check. Restarted my computer, shazamm!!! LOOT, GPU-Z, and Galaxy Client are back to normal. ☕




This post has been edited by Renee: Nov 28 2024, 03:05 PM

[Renee]

Making our Character's birthday show in-game. Game: TES IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3 or NV

I'm writing this up for Oblivion but no doubt shall expand the idea to other games. 12/30/24: Fallout 3 works as well. I will discuss Oblivion below, and then make additional notations for the Fallout games.

My character, Joan of Arkay, was created in May of 2013 but I have determined her in-game birthday is Morningstar 23, and was born in the Year 409, but who can remember that exact day? While questing and adventuring around, going into holes and killing monsters? I've decided that for certain people, they're going to want to know and celebrate their birthdays.

Firstly, there are thirteen birthsigns but only twelve months. Here is the UESP lore page to determine which sign goes with each month, with the Serpent being a "cursed" sign which gets used for those of undetermined births.

If I'm undecided about which sign a character shall be, I've been in the habit of leaving the decision to fate: rolling a 20-sided die for the birthsign.

1= The Apprentice
2= The Atronach
3= The Lady
4= The Lord
5= The Lover
6= The Mage
7= The Ritual
8= The Serpent
9= The Shadow
10=The Steed
11=The Thief
12=The Tower
13=The Warrior

14 thru 20 = roll again. 🎲

RollADie.net is a site for random dice rolls, for those who don't have the dice!

Now that I know my character's birthsign I can use the UESP page to determine which month. A 30-sided die, or a combination of 6-sided and 10-sided, are what I use to determine which day of the month they were born, assuming I don't already know.

Here is how the months are defined in the Construction Set:

0 = Morningstar
1 = Sun's Dawn
2 = First Seed
3 = Rain's Hand
4 = Second Seed
5 = Mid Year
6 = Sun's Height
7 = Last Seed
8 = Heartfire
9 = Frost Fall
10 = Sun's Dusk
11 = Evening Star

Again, my character's birthday is Morningstar 23, which translates to "0" for month and "22" for the day. Remember, the CS starts the GameMonth and GameDay variables from 0.


Fallout games use twelve months, and no birthsigns. I use the actual date I rolled my character for their birthdate. Cho Zen Wan was created August 13, for instance. Months in Fallout work in a similar way as they do for Elder Scrolls, with the same silly offset.

0 = January
1 = February
2 = March
3 = April
4 = May
5 = June
6 = July
7 = August
8 = September
9 = October
10 = November
11 = December

Days are also offset. So my Fallout 3 guy, who was created August 13, 2013, will have a GameMonth of 7 and a GameDay of 12.


1). Open the Construction Set or GECK. Go to File > Data. The way I'm writing this idea needs to be fixed on one character at a time, okay? I already have an .esp called Joan of Arkay's World.esp so I'm opening that. If there isn't a dedicated .esp already in the CS, it'll need to be saved in such a way that it becomes character-specfic.

EDIT: It is possible to make just one .esp (with one page of script) work with more than one character's birthday. Scroll down to the Notes section at the bottom of this post to get an idea.

2). From the main toolbar, press the Q button (Fallout, it's Object Window > Actor Data > Quest). Right-click > new into the main window and start a new quest. I just made aaaCharacterBirthdayQuest.

3a). Give a Quest Name (Joan of Arkay's Birthday).

3b).Priority can vary. For a character who really wants to celebrate from the moment they awake, set it high. In Joan's game, she's not so particular, Priority is set to 10. In the unlikely event that some other quest will put a Message into the game that quest's message will either come first, or get delayed.

3c). Start Game Enabled should be toggled ON. In the GECK, Script Processing Delay should also be toggled on.


4). GetIsPlayableRace NONE == 1.00 goes into the Quest Conditions window if Oblivion is being modified. No condition is needed in Fallout games.

Optional: Select the Quest Icon button if you like, and find an appropriate icon. I've got a slew of icons from other mods after 10+ years of modding this game, and found a picture of a blueberry pie in the Settlements of Cyrodiil > Ingredients folders. 🥧

(This does not work for Fallout, at least not for MessageBoxes).

5). Click OK, and save. Reopen the quest.


6a). Open the script button (the button which looks like [...] this).

6b). Change Script Type from Object to Quest.

6c). Start a script as so....

scn aaaCharacterBirthdayScript

short DoOnce
short StartDay
short Timer

Begin GameMode

End

Close + save that script. Click OK, closing the Quest window. SAVE. Reopen the quest. Find the script in the Script scroll-bar, click OK again (solidifying that this script is firmly attached to the quest).

Since my OB character's bday is Morningstar 23, the rest of the script shall look like this.


scn aaaCharacterBirthdayScript

short DoOnce
short StartDay
short Timer

Begin GameMode

If (GameMonth == 0) && (GameDay == 22)
If (DoOnce == 0)

MessageBox "Today is Joan of Arkay's day of birth"
Set DoOnce to 1

EndIf
EndIf

If (DoOnce == 1)
If (Timer == 0)

Set StartDay to GameDaysPassed
Set Timer to 1

EndIf
EndIf

If (DoOnce == 1) && (Timer == 1)
If ((GameDaysPassed - StartDay) >=1)

Set Timer to 0
Set DoOnce to 0

EndIf
EndIf

End


That script works for Oblivion or Fallout.

Conversely, since MessageBox pauses the game, it's also possible to use the line Message "Today is Joan's birthday", X, with X being the number of seconds the message displays. This is for gamers who don't like messageboxes POPPING into the game. Problem is, a timed message can easily get missed if we're distracted.

Multiple Characters using one script: It is also possible to make the same script work for different characters, by using a different DoOnce, Timer, and StartDay for different people (DoONce2, Timer2, and StartDay2 can be used for Lady Saga, perhaps) but since I already have an .esp dedicated for each of my guys & gals, that's how the above is written. This is also supposed to be a "hand-holding" tutorial, for noob scripters!

This post has been edited by Renee: Jan 3 2025, 09:36 PM

[Renee]

Installing Skyrim from Scratch (Legendary Edition)

Yes it is Thanksgiving and here I am gaming! Well I've got a couple hours before people show up, so gonna start a task which has been on my todo list for several months. This'll be my third time installing the game from scratch. First time was in 2014. Second time, I was trying to learn how to script and royally screwed my Skyrim up. Couldn't sleep in ANY beds, and other problems. Couldn't find the problem (which happened to be just one measly .psc file) so I decided to reinstall the entire game from the disc. Pissed me off at the time, but the good thing was I learned a lot. I also took detailed notes, on everything I included and why, everything left behind, and why.

This time, the third install, it's because the hard drive in my gaming computer crashed in August, and I've got a new one.

This'll discuss the Legendary Edition of Skyrim, rather than Special Edition. Unfortunately for me, this means dealing with Steam. GOG has the Special Edition of Skyrim (which means not having to deal with Steam's bloatware and illogical folder structures, plus GoG has a lighter footprint overall) but not LE. So I've added Steam to my computer, which I won't discuss. This tutorial only deals with the game install itself, any patches and utilities, and finally a handful of mods.

One thing I've been in the habit of over the years is backing up everything to an external disc. Not just saves, but also my entire Downloads folder, along with the folder paths of multiple games (Morrowind, Skyrim, Fallout 3, etc.). This is a good idea because there are times I'll need to get a glimpse at how those games' folders were structured in the past. Yes we can read readmes or visit each mod's Nexus page to learn how things should be installed there as well, but it saves time to just take a glimpse at how I did things in the past.


1). Firstly, if you've already got some saves made from a previous game, this helps get things rolling. However it's best to begin with an EARLY save. Something which hasn't got any material added to it (except DLC from Bethesda: Hearthfires, Dragonborn, and Dawnguard). Don't use a save which already has third-party material added to it, especially if it includes LOTS of material, at least not right away!

Reason: it's easier to get a young, unmodded save to work. I've got a save for Celeste Yael's game (my healer) which was converted straight from Xbox in 2020, so that's perfect.

If you've got one of your latest saves with everything added, this can also be dropped into the Saves folder. This way, as the game is built from scratch and mods are added, eventually we can check to make sure that latter save opens, rather than CTDs or freezes after load.


2a). I am using the Anthology disc (circa 2014) for my install. And unfortunately since I have to install thru Steam, this means my gaming computer needs to be online, at least for a few minutes. I wound up with the folder structure: Modded Skyrim > steamapps > common > Skyrim.

...twenty minutes later...

2b). Use the desktop icon to open the Skyrim Launcher. Set graphics if that needs to be done, and press Play. Again, I'm using a converted Xbox save, with only the official DLC and Hi Resolution packs installed. My character save opened in Belethor's Goods Shop. "I'd even buy one of your relatives if you're looking to sell," Belethor jokes. Ignorant bastard.

Oddly, I needed to reset a lot of little things in the menus: Music was playing (I prefer it off), the Crosshair was on (I don't use), the vertical camera was backwards (I prefer Invert Y to be on) and so on. Go ahead and go through those options.

2c). Go ahead and make an additional save, just to make sure the game actually saves. Now try loading that save. All good? Close the game.

2c). The Creation Kit is next. This has to be downloaded from Steam.

Click on LIBRARY.
Under the Home icon is a bar which says All. Left-click on that and toggle Tools on (if it was off).
Now scroll down to Skyrim Creation Kit and double left-click on it. A progress bar should show up.
Creation Kit should automatically install to the Skyrim folder.

I had an error message show up saying it couldn't be installed. Closed Steam and tried again, now Creation Kit is installed.

3a). I find it best to make a three folder "conveyor belt" system, early on. This allows me to see what's inside each archive, most of all folder structure. 📂

First folder = the Downloads folder. Assuming you've saved your archives in the past, open this folder

Second folder = an empty folder, with nothing in it at all.

Third folder = should open directly into your main Skyrim folder, where the SkyrimLaucher is.

Place these folders side by side if you like. I am going from left to right.

3b). First thing I am going to add are the Unofficial Patches and I've got four of them: Unofficial Skyrim Patch (USP), Unofficial Dawnguard Patch, Unofficial Dragonborn Patch, and Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.

Right-click > Extract the USP from the Downloads folder (or wherever your archives are kept) into the empty folder, just to get a look at its folder structure. Four files show up in the folder, plus the Docs folder. These can be cut-paste into Skyrim's Data folder. I followed the same Extract > Cut > Paste process for the other three patches.

For anyone who has Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Patch (USLEEP) this is supposed to replace the four patches mentioned. However I had serious, game-breaking problems show up when trying to use USLEEP.

3c). Try starting the game launcher. For now, have a look in the DATA FILES section. Make sure the patches have been toggled on, along with the DLC and Hi-Res packs. Now start the game.

Recommended to keep starting the game after X number of additions. Though this seems redundant; some of us have a LOT to install if we've had previously modded games, this becomes my process for the rest of the install. I'd rather go slowly, making sure my game works with every set of new things I add. This past summer (when reinstalling Fallout 3 to my brand-new Seagate disc) I simply dumped everything into the game folders at once, before even checking whether FO3 would load. BAD idea. Forget loading the save: my game crashed on launch! And I had no idea what the problem was.

3d). Next comes Skyrim Script Extender. Nowadays there are multiple versions of SKSE. I use 1.7.3, which is the Current Classic Build, but newer versions are available, all for free, for the Special Edition, Anniversary Edition, and so on.

Again, I'm doing the conveyor belt: Downloads folder, which extracts to the empty folder, which winds up with a folder called skse_1_07 inside. Everything within this folder gets cut > pasted into the main Skyrim folder (NOT Data).

3e). Right-click on skse_loader and send its icon to desktop. And now that it's there, the original Skyrim icon can be deleted (if it was on desktop in the first place). From now on, the SKSE icon is going to be used to start the game. Go ahead and make sure it actually launches & loads.

My character is still in Belethor's shop, so I had her walk into the market area, and into Arcadia's Cauldron. Went back outside and left Whiterun. Reason being: it's a good idea to move into a few cells and worldspaces. We're making sure the game's content continues to load as we move around.

I had Celeste leave Belethor's shop and into Whiterun's market. Entered Arcadia's Cauldron. Made a save. Left Arcadia's and walked back outside. Walked to Whiterun's gate and left the town altogether. It's important to occasionally move the character around like this, just to make sure the game's content continues to load.


4a). I continued the same "conveyor belt" method for Sky UI 5.1 (goes in Data folder), TES5Edit (goes in main Skyrim folder. Made a desktop icon for it), Missing Content Identifier (main Skyrim folder, though the mod author says it'll go anywhere. Made a desktop icon because MCI is so useful for quickly identifying missing stuff). Also extracted > cut > pasted Silent Voice Generator (Data folder).

4b). I went into the external disc I've been using since 2021 to backup all sorts of stuff. Copy-pasted five of my homemade content mods: Celeste's World.esp, Claire's World.esp, Laprima's World.esp, Sir Vyvoor's World.esp, and Skyrim Additions.esp. These were all manual installs.

Now, two of the bigger utilities..

5). LOOT (goes in main Skyrim folder.) You might want to ignore LOOT's advice that we can just stick LOOT anywhere. This works for Fallout but not for Skyrim, at least in my case. LOOT is important of course, because it automatically sets load order so the game runs to peak performance, and hopefully won't crash on start or other problems.


6). Install the mod manager of your choice. I prefer Wrye Bash! I use 3.07 which is an older version; I think they're up to 3.12 now. Oddly, I needed 3.12 for my Oblivion install, but 3.07 still works for my Skyrim. This went into my main Skyrim folder, which created a brand-new folder called Mopy. Make a desktop icon (it should automatically request one either way).

This being a crucial moment, I started up the game once again. Ran through a few cells and worldspaces, saved, exited. All good. -- There were a few other utilities left to install, but these are secondary programs such as ENB Boost and Cell Stabilizer. Stuff which is not absolutely needed just yet.




7). With Wrye now up and running, the install strategy mostly changed. I opened Skyrim's Installers tab and began dragging the dozens of archives directly into the Installers window, starting with my Animal Mods folder.

Started with Birds and Flocks Hearthfire Edition. Right-clicked on that, selected Install, LOOTed the load order (helps if the computer is online, so the program can check for updates and premium load order). I also checked the Bash Patch occasionally. ALWAYS make sure the Bashed Patch is happy. If it's not the color green, something usually needs to be bashed.

Checked my game. Launched & loaded, very good.

8). From there, I mostly used Wrye, installing through the Installers tab: Animal mods, Animations, Civil War content, Clothes & Armor, and so on. Right now I'm up to about 2 hours with my install as I write this guide. I anticipate within five hours everything should be done. 🍷

Only Warburg's 3D Paper Map and a couple others would not install correctly thru Bash. The map texture was all warped after installing thru Bash for some reason. Doing a manual install (which gets placed under the Bashed Patch) is what worked for me.

Wrye Bash (or any comprehensive program such as Mod Organizer) is incredibly recommended for those who are dealing with lots of installs. Main reason: we can also Uninstall anything with a few clicks as well.

Being able to safely uninstall is very useful for removing scripts. Those who use older programs might be able to toggle an .esp on and off, but if those scripts are still in their folders they will often continue to run in the background, which causes all sorts of problems.


TROUBLESHOOTING:

1a). I had a problem with the Creation Kit crashing when trying to edit dialog. Got a message like: "No device capable of recording dialog found..." FIXED this by going into my computer's main Settings > System > Sound > Microphone Privacy Settings and scrolled down to the Microphone section. Voice Recorder was toggled off!

1b). If the Creation Kit crashes on launch and a message says something about the MASTERFILES, go into the main Skyrim folder and open SkyrimEditor text file. In the [General] section make sure there are two lines.

bAllowMultipleMasterFiles=1
bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=1

If those lines are not there they can be manually pasted or typed in the [General] section.

1c). Furthermore, if the CK crashes on launch and a Masterfile Localization error shows up stating one of the three official DLC, go into the main Skyrim folder and open SkyrimEditor text file. In the [Archive] section make sure this line is extant.

SResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Update.bsa, Dawnguard.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa, Hearthfires.bsa

That entire "string" of code should be there, if an .esp is to open which requires Dawnguard.esp, Dragonborn.esp, or Hearthfires.esp

2). If Wrye Bash doesn't open later on, especially after lots of stuff has been installed/bashed and the program previously worked, a message shows up like this...



Make sure your gaming computer is online, and then try simply LOOTing the load order. Problem occurs somewhere in the Data folder if the plugins.txt / loadorder.txt aren't the same.

This post has been edited by Renee: Dec 29 2024, 11:08 PM

[ghastley]

Making our Character's birthday show in-game. Game: TES IV: Oblivion (CURRENTLY UNTESTED)
. . .
short GameDay
short GameMonth

I suspect that these declarations will create variables that are local to your script, but you want the values in the globals. The rest should work if you leave out these two lines.

[Renee]

Horse Rentals, Game: TES V: Skyrim

Winter is here, been playing some Skyrim on Xbox for almost a month. And now that I'm finished installing/bug-squashing the game on PC, I'm going to start my Skyrim Season with a mod idea I've had for a while. And this will be perfect. The ability to rent a horse (rather than buy one, blowing lots of money if the horse gets killed or lost) shall be perfect for my miner's game.

Nassqa mines ores, that's pretty much all he does. No combat. No adventuring. Not even any smithing. But the cool thing about his game is he's often exploring areas none of my others ever go, such as riversides, up craggy hills, and so on. His goal: to find the ultimate vein to dig ores from.

So far, all he's located are a couple iron veins: one on the north outer wall of Whiterun, another near Riverwood. He wants to explore more territory, but it's dangerous for him, since he's not the typical adventuring type. He needs a horse! But Whiterun's steed costs a thousand gold! 💰 And this guy is making 30 gp on a good day. Wouldn't it be cool if he could rent a horse for much lesser fee, maybe for an entire month? And after that month, the horse returns to its home stable unless we rent it again?

What a dumb idea. How is it possible horses even know when a month has passed?

Same way they know if we've mounted some other steed. We get on some horse which is new, and the original horse we bought somehow knows it's time to walk home. 🐎

Well just use the console! Give your toon a thousand gold. Heck, give him a hundred thousand.

Yeah, that'll happen.


First thing I did was made an NPC who'll be in charge of horse rentals. He's an orc, because ya know... orcs and horses. Anyway, he dwells in the stable area. This idea might also be possible with Skulvar Sable-Hilt, Whiterun's actual Hostler, the guy who sells the black from the vanilla game. But I prefer using my own people, especially for new ideas like this one.

I put the orc into the Reference Window. Clicked the Persistent Reference tab and chose WhiterunStablesLocation.

Traits: selected MaleBrute for his Voice type

Stats: Class is Citizen. Skulvar's class is 1H Combat Warrior, not that it matters. Anyway, for my orc I clicked Auto calc stats on and made him Level 13, just so he's somewhat tough.

AI Packages
Gave him some AI (DefaultSandboxEditorLocation1024) so he'll move around and stuff.

Nothing else is really pertinent. Faction, AI Data, Relationships, Inventory, all that stuff can vary.

Object Window
1a). Go into Actors > Actor > Actor and expand the final Actor selection. Find the HorseRace.

The horse which is always in Whiterun's stable by default is EncHorseSaddledBlack, and if we buy a horse from Skulvar, WhiterunPlayerHorse becomes Enabled while EncHorseSaddledBlack becomes disabled. Pretty sure that's how it works.

Note: Unlike Oblivion, there doesn't seem to be any difference between Skyrim's horses. They all have a Speed of 100, all have the same 250 base health, and so on.

1b). Right-click > Duplicate any of the EncHorseSaddled horses. I just duplicated EncHorseSaddledPalomino. Right-click > Edit on the new horse (which is called EncHorseSaddled"Horsetype"DUPLICATE) and give it a new ID. I'm renaming it aaaWhiterunHorseRental. I also changed its in-game Name to Palomino Rental, just so I can tell my horse from any others nearby.

1c). Toggle Respawn and Unique on.

1d). Click OK. Create a New Form? No. Are you sure? Yes. There, the DUPLICATE has been renamed.



Stats tab: By default horses are Level 4, with 250 Base Health (289 Calculated Health) if Auto Calc Stats remains toggled on. As anyone who has owned a horse in the game knows, it really sucks whey they get killed somewhere remote. So I'm immediately quintupling Level to 20, and not feeling guilty at all. Voila, Calculated Health is now 497! Our humanoid characters can eventually attain far above the vanilla default of 250/289 Health, so my opinion is it's ridiculous that a horse, which is supposed to be much stronger, can get surpassed by a bipedal being.

Factions tab: By default, horses are part of the PreyFaction and SprigganPreyFaction. I experimented with changing this in TES4 because I hate the way so many enemies attack our horse (NOT US!!!) during combat. Skyrim, however, seems to have improved this. Only Hunters and actual members of the PredatorFaction will attack us in TES5, and spriggans are Allied with horses. So I'm leaving those those two factions where they are.

AI Data tab: By default Aggression is Unaggressive and Confidence is Cautious. Again, I don't have a problem here. Changing Confidence to Cowardly is tempting; the horse will simply flee (avoiding attacks altogether) but this also means I'm going to need to find the horse when combat is done.

1d). Drag the horse into the Render window and give it a Reference ID. Copy this ID and paste it somewhere safe.

1e). Select the Persist Location tab and set Persistence Location to PersistAll. This seems to be an 'all around' choice for creatures which are going to move around a lot.

Also select Ownership, and make the NPC created earlier the initial owner of the horse. Click OK.


OBJECT window > WorldObjects > Static
2). Drag an XMarkerHeading wherever the horse is supposed to return to and give it a Ref ID. aaaWhiterunHorseRentalXMarkerHeading is in my game. Copy/paste this to a Notepad or Wordpad.


Object window > Character Quest
3a). Start a new quest and give it an ID. Name is not important, unless for some reason you want the quest to appear in your journal.

Priority: 30*
Start Game Enabled: ON
Run Once: Toggle this OFF.

Type: Miscellaneous

*"stables" is the name of the quest which deals with vanilla horse sales. It uses a priority of 30 as well.

3b). Click OK, save.

Miscellaneous > Global
4a). Right-click > new into the window, and make two global variables. Here's what I got.

aaaRent
aaaTimer

Both of those can remain Short, with Values of 0.



Go into Dialogue Views or Player Dialogue tab, whichever you prefer.

I'm not going to describe exactly how to structure dialog. Have a look at

ID: aaaHorseRentalQuestIntroID
Branch: aaaHorseRentalQuestIntroTopic
Topic: aaaHorseRentalQuestIntroID

This post has been edited by Renee: Jan 4 2025, 12:33 AM

[Renee]

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