Vagrant0

Nope... There isn't any way to display a non-numerical variable inside a message. But then again, there isn't any way to declare any non-numerical variables. There might be a way around this if variables could be stored as letters, a very complicated way, but a way (I think). This kinda reminds me of the limitations of RPGMaker, there wasn't any way to declare a new name for any of the characters inside the game, until someone, somewhere figured out how. Not sure what they did, or how, but might be worth looking into.

I don't know what kind of thing process you have planned for turning over ownership, but you might want to make a note of how to use the "initially disabled" flag works. It's kinda useful for changing the overall theme of a cell based on the situation. IE, if you wanted the castle inhabited by an army of the undead, you could set everything inside as initially disabled, add in broken and worn stuff to make it look like there hasn't been anything alive inside for awhile. Then when the player takes over, either all at once, or slowly over time enable the pieces of furniture that you have set. Maybe even scripting a carpenter to be hired from one of the towns to come into the castle and build the stuff. Naturally, you could use the same sort of idea to go around hiring all the other NPCs you want in the castle. I might have an alpha version of my mod available next week to give you an idea of how to make all the packages and stuff work. Even if I'm not ready yet, I could probably guide you guys through some of the steps.

I believe the main thing keeping interiors and exteriors from working is collision data. You can't set it within the models yet (as far as I know) so it would all have to be done with collision boxes inside the CS.

Afraid to tell you, but most of this stuff isn't possible yet. While weapons could be done by one of the 10 or so people who can do the modeling... provided they have time. The armor would probably need 3-5 more months of development on the tools before it could be done, unless you just want retextures of standard models. The interiors would probably require the same sort of tool developments made, no idea on how long those would take. The creatures at this point are 100% impossible due to both having to make a new mesh, something that isn't too well supported. And then having to add animations for those meshes which cannot be done in any form currently. That said, it's fine to ask, but there are only a handfull of people who could actually help you. So keep this in mind when you don't get a response for the next month or two.

*Cough* When you finally get around to scripting, and if were planning on having some way of officially making the castle set to be owned by the player. Makes no sense just being able to walk in, say you own everyone and everything. With a little work, you could use a command to allow the player to choose what they want their castle named (similar to the arena champion name thing). They pick from a list, and based on what they pick, the cells get renamed to match. This sort of thing is probably a few months away for you, but I felt that it was worth mentioning, if only to have others pressure you to learning scripting. Technically, you should have had most the basic scripting down before you started adding dozens of rooms. As you start scripting, knowing what you can and cannot do, you can better decide what you want inside. The same applies with NPCs and packaging. Depending on how much scripting you can handle, you could do some pretty cool stuff with this mod, or, you could end up making it just a bland, senseless place to put your stuff.

Sad but true. But this is probably designed to keep some NPCs from being encumbered.

The question of making them visible is because until they are seen by the player once, they don't tend to do very much outside their local package group (IE, don't adjust actions). Just sticking them somewhere obvious like IC market would look wrong. Why would they all be standing there, only to go running off the moment you get close? This would also probably create problems with their packages as I'd have to make a special setting to make them stand in one spot before disbursing to the various guilds, 1-2 NPCs wouldn't be too bad, but since I'll probably be looking at 12+, this could be a problem. Then there is trying to make it work with most mods, and even when it is added to a game in progress.

Um, no. This isn't your standard "add an NPC that doesn't do anything" kind of mod. The goal of this is to make it look like the people of Tamriel do more than stand around with their thumbs up their ass 24/7. The question for this topic is because certain settings within the mod reset key logic functions need to be called every day. Some of these can be used on a quest script so that no matter where the player is, as long as they aren't sleeping or waiting that entire duration, it will trigger. Others require settings to be changed on the NPC's script, this means that the NPC needs to be loaded, or have completed a package to reset. Without going into too much detail, without this, I might as well just have them following a boring static routines day after day like every other NPC in the game. With this, I can have them move about dynamically, changing their schedules based on their actions, and those around them.

It's all helpful, but that 30 timescale thing is looking to be a problem. Sure, when you have an NPC only moving 2-3 cells in a day it isn't too bad, but when you have one running between cities, or to a location it becomes one. Also becomes a problem when having an NPC running all the time just doesn't seem right. 1 Hour gone by in 2 minutes, 12 hours in 24 minutes, doesn't seem a bit fast for you guys? Do you think people would be opposed to a lower timescale, making those 12 game hours take 48 minutes realtime or longer?

Trying to setup a mod so that there is a decent chance of people coming into contact with my NPCs. In order to do this, I'd like to get some people to describe their usual day in Oblivion, what cities they visit, what times they are near cities, what hours they sleep, for how long, ect. I'd also like to know what timescale they use, is it the default 30, or some other value to make days longer? Any information you provide should help be adjust my mod so that certain internal workings as well as key packages work properly for more people. Following this, I may have a alpha version of my mod available, and would need some people to try playing with it. The goal of the alpha test is to get some idea of how resource dependant the mod is, as well as it's compatability with other mods, in addition to putting to work information gained here. Current focus of the project is on Chorral and Skingrad, but will eventually include Bravil, Anvil, and Bruma.

Working on a mod that adds a few new locations and such. In my mod I have a house near chorrol with some rats inside. So anyway, I go over there to test it. I step inside only to find one of the Courers getting attacked. Now mind you, this is a totally new building and interior area. So I stand there with a "WTF?" look on my face for a moment, then decide to kill off the rats. The moment I do, she leaves, I follow. When I go to talk to her she just hands me a copy of the Black Horse Courer. Now I've checked my mod, I'm certain that I didn't go adding a courer to the interior. All I can say is "WTF?".

Are you setting Ren's mod as the active file, or are you loading it and saving a new mod? You should be loading it as the active. If so, I don't get how you mean of a duplicate.

Yeah, I get that feeling alot. Usually when I'm trying something that isn't too wll documented. But, since you have some guide already doing what you want, have you tried making a copy of the Ainmhi folder, renaming it the same as RenMysticElfF, RenMysticElfFtt01, RenMysticElfM, RenMysticElfMtt01 (whichever one you use for your PC) putting it in the same root folder as the Ainmhi folder? Then changing the settings in Ren's Mod (only loading that one and base esm) to whichever race name you just used as a folder? If one mod got it to work, the trick is figuring out how they got it to work.

Alright, I'm going to try this myself. I don't have my own voices, so I'm using a full set of Imperial Female voices, put into a oblivion.esm\woodelf\f\ directory. Loaded up the game ok, but had no sounds and the playerclone I've been playing with (long story, maybe a released mod when I feel it is safe enough for public use) had no voice either. This would lead me to assume that either only the currently selected voice types are valid for player/general NPC use, or the voices need to be setup individually for that race voice. It could also be that I have the directories for those voices wrong seeing as how when changing the settings in Ren's mod, his/her races were also available in that list. Since I havn't found any place that might point to custom sounds used by custom races there really isn't any further advice I can suggest. Your problem with starting up the game might have either been how you setup the voice in the package, or because the directory didn't contain enough voices. Either way, you should probably change back things to how they were until someone more knowledgable comes along to set both of us right.

It's under Character>Race, in the general data tab there's a selector for voice. The voice that is pointing to should be the directory in the data\sound\voice\oblivion.esm\*****\(m/f)\ folder used for the voice files. You'd have to open up Ren's package (or the package containing whatever custom race) as active to change the voice for that race, otherwise there are likely to be conflicts.

Since you're already using a custom race, this makes things alot easier. Sound files for being hit, rumors, and such generics are determined by the race>voice settings. What you'll want to do, since this is for your own use? is to open up Ren's package, and set the voice for your character's race/gender to woodelf. Next, create the directorys data\sound\voice\oblivion.esm\woodelf\ make a new directory based on your gender "m" or "f" in that woodelf directory. Move your voice files with the .lip (if you have one) to that directory naming it exactly the same as the default sound such as generic_hit_00023e40_1 or generic_powerattack_000c454c_1. If you have a BSA extractor, after some time, you can figure out all the sound files you're likely to hear the PC use. Woodelf is used because it isn't in use by the any of the normal settings, so should be available to be used in this manner. And because the CS doesn't seem to like adding new folders for race sounds. It is very possible that even doing this won't let you change the voice of your player. I havn't personally tried any of this. But, without changing the sounds of the default races currently in use, this would be the only way I know of since, as far as I know, the sound files for getting hit, or attacking aren't attached to any dialoge or weapon. If you get it working however, I'm sure there are a few people out there that would like to add their own unique voices to their custom races (Note: ALOT of work involved if for a non-PC). If however, you did not use a custom race, you would have to switch to using one (even if it's a copy of a default one) to get the sound files to work (provided what I describe even does anything). In this, I am making the assumption that Beth used the same checking proceedure for generic sound directories for all race settings. This may not be the case, so try changing directories around if it doesn't work as described.