Things in the Dark

[chuckyw]

After tunneling I used the console some but not all the time. I ended up back going through it again a second time by chance, FTD sold me to Ibn so the quest started. Using what I learned the first time I have had to only setstage I think 3x and I'm about to recruit the 2nd markarth servant. What I did different, don't loot or do much that I'm not told to do. The only problem so far was that I can't speak with old vanilla falmers. So I couldn't hand the outpost delivery to him. That is a setstage. When you are told to go with azrha and meet the falmer who wants sex, again I couldn't talk to him so setstage. The last time is the skooma delivery. The esp talks about giving it to maven but the game says her employee who insisted you shorted the delivery. The quest is bad and needs setstage. Other than that I know where to go and do it's all working well. I am working on a helper file to add some improved translation and add some debug helper text for some of the quests without markers. I am still very happy with it. 

[chuckyw]

Lupine, 

How are you able to load TID in CK?  I can only use TESedit.  It crashes everytime I try to load TID. 

 

[Delzaron]

19 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I'm trying to play through TiD now.

 

I'm using the "modified" version.

 

I made some good progress with that at the start, and almost everything was fixed by the modification patch, bar some little details. Quests all progressed...

 

Then I got the Tunneling, and I guess I reached the end of the fixes. 

 

The spying quest and the plot that followed worked ok, but once you get to aTID1zEnd, things go to pieces again.

 

 

Now, to progress, I think I spend half an hour in the CK for every fives minutes in the game.

 

Every quest, and every dialog has some problem with it, from things as basic as top-level dialogs not being set top-level (progression blockers) to quests that simply lack any possible way to progress, to bad markers, to the NPCs constantly porting themselves out into Skyrim so they can't be found, to ... well ... it goes on. Things like the broken dialogs cannot be blamed on interactions with other mods, nor can the missing progression steps, that stuff is just ... wrong in the ESP, it's as simple as that. No other mod, and no load order, can be blamed for it.

 

 

None of this stuff is rocket science to fix, but there are so many bad development patterns that have led to this situation - that it's really time consuming to work on. Plus, it's so large, that various dialogs instantly crash the CK.

 

The pattern that irks me the most is quest stages that rely on the dialog fragment that sets the stage to set up some state, otherwise they are inconsistent/corrupt.

This means you cannot simply setstage when things go wrong, because you will end up skipping important script actions, the quest later relies on, to progress.

So then you have to setstage again, and again, and you're not playing any more, you're just using the console.

 

If those things had been done in the stage init fragment - making each stage self-contained - it would have saved a ton of fixing, because you could just setstage instead. But if that had been done, the quests would have been easier to test too, and with an established pattern, wouldn't be prone to errors where something gets forgotten, so probably wouldn't have been broken to start with.

 

I keep hoping that if I persevere I'll hit a bit where it goes smoothly again, but if anything it only seems to be getting worse as I progress.

 

I honestly can't understand how chuckyw managed to finish it without using setstage on just about every step of every quest from Tunneling onwards.

 

 

There are lots of neat "things" in the dark, but practical playability is zero.

 

Having played the modified start, I don't think it needs a total revamp, it just needs a few playthroughs to clean up the bugs.

The modified version has fixed a lot of stuff, but there is a whole lot more to fix. Each quest needs tracing through to see that it can be completed, then playing to see that it really can be completed.

 

The other big issue is the wandering NPCs. In most cases these can be fixed by resetting their position on a regular basis, especially whenever they become a quest objective, in the way Daithe is reset on occasion. Daithe fails to get positioned throughout the later stages of Tunneling, and that causes problems.

 

However, it's likely a mod is causing this. Maybe AI Overhaul. The problem can probably be fixed by ensuring that such an offending mod leaves the NPCs alone, and there's likely a way to do that.

 

Also, some travel packages fail in strange ways, but I think it's mainly down to aliases not filling, despite being tied to specific unique NPCs. This might also explain the strange quest objectives. Something 'funky' is happening with those aliases, there seems to be issues with all unique actors. Maybe setting them in code might fix them, but it's clutching at straws. Azhra and Daithe have both had this problem.

 

 

The lesson from DF was that patching up badly designed quest architecture and dialogs ends up more time consuming than making new ones that are clean, but building the architecture and setting markers, and creating NPCs, is highly time consuming. Cleaning the quests and packages out of TitD and remaking those, but keeping the cells might work, but a lot of the cells lack polish too, with misalignments showing up in all the infrequently traveled areas, doors that open into things, and some oddities of design, like the wooden houses in a stone cavern, that does actually have trees growing in it.

I all know these problems. TID have huge ocntent, but it's buggy as hell.

It's why I intend to redone it.

 

The wood houses are norma. The idea is only the more important falmers lives in dwemer towers. The city was extended as people can, mostly with wood (Ibn produce wood).

My main idea for a redone is to make dwemer towers dominate quarters made in cabans.

 

In fact, I wosh to redone TID, but failed regularly. The mod surely need to be redone from scratch, and due to the content, I can't barely do it alone...

2 hours ago, chuckyw said:

After tunneling I used the console some but not all the time. I ended up back going through it again a second time by chance, FTD sold me to Ibn so the quest started. Using what I learned the first time I have had to only setstage I think 3x and I'm about to recruit the 2nd markarth servant. What I did different, don't loot or do much that I'm not told to do. The only problem so far was that I can't speak with old vanilla falmers. So I couldn't hand the outpost delivery to him. That is a setstage. When you are told to go with azrha and meet the falmer who wants sex, again I couldn't talk to him so setstage. The last time is the skooma delivery. The esp talks about giving it to maven but the game says her employee who insisted you shorted the delivery. The quest is bad and needs setstage. Other than that I know where to go and do it's all working well. I am working on a helper file to add some improved translation and add some debug helper text for some of the quests without markers. I am still very happy with it. 

I all know these problems. TID have huge ocntent, but it's buggy as hell.

It's why I intend to redone it.

2 hours ago, chuckyw said:

Lupine, 

How are you able to load TID in CK?  I can only use TESedit.  It crashes everytime I try to load TID. 

 

You need to allow several master files.

[chuckyw]

I have CK finally fixed. I thought I had multiple masters setup already but I fixed it. TID loads on CK Now, I will move fwd with my help / patch file. I found one quest bug that I should be able to fix. Maybe I can figure some more out. Delzaron I hope I can ask you some questions as they come up. Delzaron and Lupine00, do either of you know why the Happy (? It's late it might be a different word) Chaurus inn lags so bad? I have the same issue in the Riften inn but not in any other inns? I would like to address that if possible. 

[Lupine00]

53 minutes ago, chuckyw said:

Delzaron and Lupine00, do either of you know why the Happy (? It's late it might be a different word) Chaurus inn lags so bad? I have the same issue in the Riften inn but not in any other inns? I would like to address that if possible. 

Oddly, the inn doesn't lag badly for me.

It might be related to the milkers though. I find that are running non-stop and you hear the moans and cries all the time.

 

The area that runs really badly for me is the Deserted Animonculary. When I first go in there (initial stages of Tunneling) it is almost a freeze-frame, then after the scenario advances, it's merely a poor frame rate, much improved, but still not great.

 

Maybe it's the same bug, but occurs in different places due to some quirk of the quests?

 

[ovidius171]

On 1/23/2020 at 9:24 AM, chuckyw said:

Well I just finished TID.  Very good mod, I expected some script problems and such so it never bothered me.  Delzaron did a good job being 1 person trying to do something the size of an official DLC.  I'm very happy I tried this and I will definitely be trying FTD next.  

 

hello there!

you finished it??? you must be the first one who did it without a "problem"

congratulations!

[ovidius171]

hi Delzaron i see you acive here so i have a question please

i was in FTD then enslaved in TID (just to get that falmer bow) and now i cant find Frabbi to start TID....

so how to start TID afther FTD???

[Lupine00]

9 hours ago, Delzaron said:

I all know these problems. TID have huge ocntent, but it's buggy as hell.

It's why I intend to redone it.

Building a completely new TitD is a huge job.

Fixing the existing bugs, moving forward from the modified version, it's not an impossible task.

 

There are a few simple blockers (missing stages, so you can't progress) and a recurring issue with NPCs that don't go into aliases that they need to be in.

Sometimes AI packages don't run, but I think it's just that the priority is too low.

 

If you use a needs mod, or expect to be able to deal with most vendors, their vendor chests need fixing.

Some food needs a patch for RND etc, so it provides nutrition.

Some valid water sources need adding to the city.

Things like skeever gang-rape and chaurus sex needs to inform player what animations they will need installed.

 

Though most quests are broken in part, that's still not hundreds of fixes, just a couple of dozen.

[Lupine00]

49 minutes ago, ovidius171 said:

i was in FTD then enslaved in TID (just to get that falmer bow) and now i cant find Frabbi to start TID....

so how to start TID afther FTD???

Frabbi is a unique NPC with base XX011DE4 and an instance XX01968E

prid XX01968E

player.moveto target

 

Where the XX are the load ID of TitD.

She's probably standing on the Windhelm bridge though. She seems to pop there whenever she's bored, often stranding you in Ibn.

 

You might need to coc to Ibn and then port her there.

[ovidius171]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

Frabbi is a unique NPC with base XX011DE4 and an instance XX01968E

prid XX01968E

player.moveto target

 

Where the XX are the load ID of TitD.

She's probably standing on the Windhelm bridge though. She seems to pop there whenever she's bored, often stranding you in Ibn.

 

You might need to coc to Ibn and then port her there.

thanks a lot

but i cant use the console because a keyboard problem that i not yet resolved

thanks anyway for your answer

[Lupine00]

9 hours ago, ovidius171 said:

i cant use the console

If you can't use the console, TitD is not going to work out well for you.

[chuckyw]

22 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Oddly, the inn doesn't lag badly for me.

It might be related to the milkers though. I find that are running non-stop and you hear the moans and cries all the time.

 

The area that runs really badly for me is the Deserted Animonculary. When I first go in there (initial stages of Tunneling) it is almost a freeze-frame, then after the scenario advances, it's merely a poor frame rate, much improved, but still not great.

 

Maybe it's the same bug, but occurs in different places due to some quirk of the quests?

 

I think the Animonculary problem is the lava flowing down from the ceiling, I just look down and away from the animated flow and my fps jumps back to normal. 

 

A lot of the bugs I won't be able to fix until I learn more about papyrus scripts. I hope to learn how to do it while working on this. 

[ovidius171]

11 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

If you can't use the console, TitD is not going to work out well for you.

i know,thanks

i played many playtrough with TID in my load order, i dont really care to "finish" TID i just love it....the underground city,the music...

so load a save before make my choice in FTD and i will continue by joining the cult but i would like to know the answer at my question

thanks anyway

 

[Lupine00]

Only just noticed it ... something was wrong with my game ... Things in the Dark 2.11 to blame.

 

Things in the Dark 2.11 install contains an overwrite for SKSE.ini

If you use MO, that just "gets in the stack", probably near the bottom of your left-pane, and causes utter mayhem.

 

No mod should ever deploy SKSE.ini

- that file is specific to the player's personal game configuration, and no mod has any business messing with it.

 

If it needs to be edited to support something you've done (such as hi-res tintmaps), that should be made known to the player on the mod front page, under install instructions, and if there's a FOMOD, in there as well.

 

It should not be part of the mod's install, unless it's just as an example file with a modified extension.

[Lupine00]

I'm still creeping forward with TitD.

Relatively few issues that aren't an unfilled alias or an NPC who has wandered out of place.

This seems to afflict many mods, for many players, and I keep wondering if AI Overhaul is the cause of it all.

 

I've fixed a couple of quests that had broken conditions.

I've fixed a few quality of life issues, such as broken merchants, and even a few lines of dialogue, object names and so on.

I've also fixed some problems I had with the "Pure Falmer" race, which did not render well for me in Caffeine ENB.

The race swap process in the quest probably needs a bit more work to finish it up, but it's rote stuff, no mysteries there.

 

Something I keep finding is that dialog fragments do not match their source and need rebuilding.

I suspect that doing an exhaustive rebuild of all scripts would reveal some problems and fix others.

 

I plan to keep on fixing until I can make it to the end.

 

After that, I probably need to play through it again and pick up the couple of quests I didn't fix in the early stages, and have a serious look into the alias problem.

If the aliases can be made to act reliably, that would solve a whole raft of problems.

In some cases, such as alias used as quest objective, it seems like simply swapping the alias for the PC it holds will clean things up nicely, as that always seems to work reliably.

[Nymra]

17 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I'm still creeping forward with TitD.

Relatively few issues that aren't an unfilled alias or an NPC who has wandered out of place.

This seems to afflict many mods, for many players, and I keep wondering if AI Overhaul is the cause of it all.

 

I've fixed a couple of quests that had broken conditions.

I've fixed a few quality of life issues, such as broken merchants, and even a few lines of dialogue, object names and so on.

I've also fixed some problems I had with the "Pure Falmer" race, which did not render well for me in Caffeine ENB.

The race swap process in the quest probably needs a bit more work to finish it up, but it's rote stuff, no mysteries there.

 

Something I keep finding is that dialog fragments do not match their source and need rebuilding.

I suspect that doing an exhaustive rebuild of all scripts would reveal some problems and fix others.

 

I plan to keep on fixing until I can make it to the end.

 

After that, I probably need to play through it again and pick up the couple of quests I didn't fix in the early stages, and have a serious look into the alias problem.

If the aliases can be made to act reliably, that would solve a whole raft of problems.

In some cases, such as alias used as quest objective, it seems like simply swapping the alias for the PC it holds will clean things up nicely, as that always seems to work reliably.

there already is a TID modified that fixes some quests and stuff from chapter 1 think. 
 

Would be awesome if you could pick up where it ends. Would love to have this mod in my LO again. It is one of the best when it comes to pure horror and feeling of beeing hopelessly lost. Only wolfclub comes close (which is also broken sadly. maybe you can give it a visit? :D) 

 

[Lupine00]

On 2/14/2020 at 4:07 PM, Nymra said:

there already is a TID modified that fixes some quests and stuff from chapter 1 think. 

That's what I *started* with.

 

  

On 2/14/2020 at 4:07 PM, Nymra said:

Would be awesome if you could pick up where it ends.

You're in luck.

 

 

Actually, the modified version lets you finish the slave quest very, very easily, so the horror feel is toned down a bit.

There was also a bug in how it handled the end of slavery, letting you get stuck forever with the usual unfinishable quest, but I fixed that one.

 

Even if I don't finish this, I'll release it when I give up. Or if I keep going, I will go back and clean up some stuff.

There are some things I think are easy - but time consuming - that will lift the overall feel enormously.

 

1) rewrite all dialog and messages for native English.

2) remove debug chests and other cheats

3) fix the arena fights so that they are both fair and actually fights

 

It can be very tough for a level 1 disparity-handicapped character with no skills and 50 health going into an arena fight.

Fortunately, the NPCs don't react until you've hit them a lot of times.

This means only one NPC puts up a fight of any note. They nearly killed me, because I had a 1H skill of around 2, and as I noted above, level 1, with 48 health after debuffs for starvation and tiredness, etc.

[Delzaron]

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

That's what I *started* with.

 

  

You're in luck.

 

 

Actually, the modified version lets you finish the slave quest very, very easily, so the horror feel is toned down a bit.

There was also a bug in how it handled the end of slavery, letting you get stuck forever with the usual unfinishable quest, but I fixed that one.

 

Even if I don't finish this, I'll release it when I give up. Or if I keep going, I will go back and clean up some stuff.

There are some things I think are easy - but time consuming - that will lift the overall feel enormously.

 

1) rewrite all dialog and messages for native English.

2) remove debug chests and other cheats

3) fix the arena fights so that they are both fair and actually fights

 

It can be very tough for a level 1 disparity-handicapped character with no skills and 50 health going into an arena fight.

Fortunately, the NPCs don't react until you've hit them a lot of times.

This means only one NPC puts up a fight of any note. They nearly killed me, because I had a 1H skill of around 2, and as I noted above, level 1, with 48 health after debuffs for starvation and tiredness, etc.

I know all these problems.

 

I solved (an partially) the arena problem only in Dark Arena. The problem are the factions (slaves and ibn factions are friend with themselves).

 

The mod truly need a full rebuilt. Problem is i lack of time, motivation, inspiration... as i said, help is welcomed.

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, Delzaron said:

I solved (an partially) the arena problem only in Dark Arena. The problem are the factions (slaves and ibn factions are friend with themselves).

I wasn't 100% sure it was the same issue as Dark Arena (which I followed, if you recall) but the way the slaves behaved made me think it was likely.

 

The fights need another change though. All participants need to be made essential (presumably with aliases for participants) and then bleedout needs to be considered as defeat.

While it would make sense for the fights to be to the death, the Falmers can say "I like to see you bleed, but lose too often and we will cook you", so there's still some peril.

With all participants essential, the same slaves can be reused over and over, so the fights become reliably repeatable, like every other task.

 

And when the PC loses, they don't gain any slave points, but may return to Daithe for a different task.

Maybe they could even lose a slave point if the lose, but that would just be a tweak.

 

2 hours ago, Delzaron said:

The mod truly need a full rebuilt.

But it doesn't.

It wants a full recompile for a start, before we even know where things really stand, but the number of genuinely broken quests (in the modified version) is not large.

Admittedly, the original intro quest was a non-stop chain of progress blockers, but that's been fixed in the modified version.

There are probably a dozen or so broken fragments or messed up stages to get to the slaver quests, and by no means all of those are even blockers.

Beyond there, I haven't played yet, so it remains to be seen.

 

Compared to the dozens of complex inter-linked fragments I had to fix for DF, it's not that bad at all.

However, the issue with aliases that don't fill properly is a huge pain. That needs to be resolved, but it could be an interaction with another mod, or something else easily fixed. It's possible that a lot of players do not see that problem.

If not easily fixed, many of these aliases didn't need to be aliases, and can be removed.

The remainder can probably be forced filled via papyrus, or some other trick.

It will just be more bother.

 

I agree there are hundreds of small issues in the "build" of the cavern world and other cells, but very little of that has any impact on real playability; just looks a bit messy when there are doors to nowhere, flickering overlapping tiles, typos and debug objects here and there. All that stuff could be fixed incrementally once the main quest could be played start to finish without more than the occasional hiccup.

[DocClox]

Concerning rewriting things from scratch...

 

 

[Lupine00]

21 hours ago, DocClox said:

Concerning rewriting things from scratch...

And there are some large areas of TitD that look fantastic. The huge cavern area off the Solitude Passage for example (where you can fight enemy Falmer) is better than most of Beth's Dwemer areas in terms of style and impact. Why would you recreate all that again?

 

The overall layout of Ibn is great. A more interesting town than Windhelm or Whiterun.

 

Yes, there are missing merchants, no temple facilities of a practical Skyrim kind, trainers that wander off and can't be found, a lot of characters that look sort-of-alike (Daithe and Hashep excepted) and way too many Pure Falmer and other generic NPCs with nothing to say for themselves, and no real purpose in the mod except to stand around looking aimless. Most of these issues can be fixed incrementally, and aren't broken, they're just not done yet.

 

Some of the factions probably want revision - for example Kaithe will tell you about Ibn, even when she's just a Forsworn drug addict living in the Warrens.

Too many NPCs are keen to tell you about Ibn facilities. It should probably be confined to merchants and officials you deal with immediately after conversion.

 

Slaves lack nice new reactions as you are elevated that would sell the experience, but again, not broken, just not done. Yet.

 

Ibn is probably a bit too big, but it runs smoothly enough, so it's not a problem. It just leaves a lot of empty, atmospheric space. This had led to an excess of factions and people that are supposed to be fleshed out, but aren't - such as the Mutators. Again, these aren't broken things, they're just things that aren't done yet. Abandoning Ibn would only postpone them further.

[Nymra]

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

And there are some large areas of TitD that look fantastic. The huge cavern area off the Solitude Passage for example (where you can fight enemy Falmer) is better than most of Beth's Dwemer areas in terms of style and impact. Why would you recreate all that again?

 

The overall layout of Ibn is great. A more interesting town than Windhelm or Whiterun.

 

Yes, there are missing merchants, no temple facilities of a practical Skyrim kind, trainers that wander off and can't be found, a lot of characters that look sort-of-alike (Daithe and Hashep excepted) and way too many Pure Falmer and other generic NPCs with nothing to say for themselves, and no real purpose in the mod except to stand around looking aimless. Most of these issues can be fixed incrementally, and aren't broken, they're just not done yet.

 

Some of the factions probably want revision - for example Kaithe will tell you about Ibn, even when she's just a Forsworn drug addict living in the Warrens.

Too many NPCs are keen to tell you about Ibn facilities. It should probably be confined to merchants and officials you deal with immediately after conversion.

 

Slaves lack nice new reactions as you are elevated that would sell the experience, but again, not broken, just not done. Yet.

 

Ibn is probably a bit too big, but it runs smoothly enough, so it's not a problem. It just leaves a lot of empty, atmospheric space. This had led to an excess of factions and people that are supposed to be fleshed out, but aren't - such as the Mutators. Again, these aren't broken things, they're just things that aren't done yet. Abandoning Ibn would only postpone them further.

Any chance you could make arena fights and beeing shot when escaping defeat/naked dungeons/other rape mods compatible?

I always like the idea that you can really try to run away from Ibn, but I also remember that it fucked things up a lot when defeat mods fired, too.



I was wondering if Ibn could get its own system of escape prevention. Like arrows that will blackout you on first hit and teleport you to a rape chamber (group rape then released to slavery again). 

As for the arena fights: I barely lost them, but I wondered if they could work more reliable when no weapons or armor was used and the fight would be over by like 25/33% ish health to prevent defeat mods from firing. 

 

Also, then a "loser gets raped or cooked" might be integrated, too.  

 

[Akasha77]

any tip to help me with quest were Frabbi was taken and you are supose to confront that fellow with his sister about the truht?

 

 

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, Nymra said:

I always like the idea that you can really try to run away from Ibn, but I also remember that it fucked things up a lot when defeat mods fired, too.

Here's my plan to fix a bunch of issues with Ibn...

 

Create new race.

Put falmer skin on XP32MSE skeleton using Outfit Studio.

Now have a Falmer that can play human sex animations and take part in dialogs.

This fix would allow Falmers to partake normally in combat defeat mods properly.

 

Being able to interact with all the "friendly" Falmers would allow them to make their brutal sex demands and so on.

 

That leaves the issue of fixing the escaped slave functionality to be compatible with combat defeat mods.

That's not trivial, as you have to decide what the desired outcome is.

Probably the defeat mod shouldn't be triggered - the slave should either be captured without health loss, or escape.

In practice, escape from Ibn is impossible. The only ways out are through multiple passages, heavily guarded by falmer warriors.

If outer guards pick up a slave, or even defeat a regular PC who hasn't entered Ibn via the normal enslavement channels, then some special extra handling is required.

A slave who runs away should probably be eaten.

A PC caught "invading" should simply be enslaved and start the enslavement quest, minus Frabbi.

That Frabbi is wired into that stops it being generally applicable as an SS outcome, game start, etc.

It could be fixed with a short, simple, prelude quest that links the PC with Frabbi for those entering without doing the usual investigation quests.

 

With the arena fights, fixing them will require considerable thought and effort, beyond simply making there BE a fight.

If SLS is knocking your health down to 60, and debuffs knock it to 40, and then you take one hit, that's it, fight over.

 

I can imagine some sort of area effect for the arena that reduces damage dealt, so the fights drag out a bit.

Among other things.

[Lupine00]

6 hours ago, Akasha77 said:

any tip to help me with quest were Frabbi was taken and you are supose to confront that fellow with his sister about the truht?

If you aren't using it, install the modified version.

https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/6730-things-in-the-dark-modified/

The main Delzaron download for TitD is a non-stop chain of broken quests you have to setstage to advance.

It will require a new game. If you install the modified version after starting a game with the original, the original data is loaded and modifications will not all take effect.