Ambient Slaves SE/VR

[gargamel9]

28 minutes ago, Tayte said:

I did try old and new saves with no luck,  but i appreciate the help. I don’t wish to move to another mod manager for a single mod unfortunately. If that is indeed the problem, I will likely never figure it out. 
 

i’m gonna try disabling a few mods here and there to see if it changes anything, but overall I think it doesn’t wanna cooperate with my game.

I will keep an eye out incase someone else finds a trick up their sleeve as I certainly am interested in it.

 

 

You're welcome. And thanks. I'd still consider moving to MO2, if I were you, but not because of my mod. I've had very reluctant to do so myself, for over a year, but now that I finally moved to MO2, meaning I was fairly proficient with Vortex, even after just a few weeks, I feel confident in saying that MO2 is the way to go. Gives you far more control, and saves you tons of time – you will never have to be afraid to install a mod again, as it is pretty much impossible to break the install with MO2. Before, when trying out new mods, I used to reinstall the whole game and every single mod pretty much once a week, sometimes even more often, but ever since I moved on to MO2, there hasn't been the need for that, and I installed something in the region of 100 new mods. With about 150 mods I am at three times the amount I was ever able to reach with Vortex. And some of the mods, which did not work under Vortex, work just fine, under MO2, though I can't really figure out why. It did take me about a week before I got my bearings and got over some of the stumbles in the beginning, it did take a lot of searching and reading, but I wouldn't go back now. The main advantage of MO2 being that it leaves the file structure of the original game completely intact, so there is no way to break it.

[Stiffon]

1 hour ago, gargamel9 said:

The main advantage of MO2 being that it leaves the file structure of the original game completely intact, so there is no way to break it.

Vortex also leaves the original structure intact, without breaking the game. For installing new mods, just create a new profile and work in that. As many profiles as you like. I am currently running 556 mods in my play through with Vortex, without any issue. Vortex is the brainchild of the original creator of MO/MO2. While MO2 is also an option, Vortex is by no means a worse option. The biggest difference in my mind is that Vortex is backed by Nexus, where MO2 is community backed. Different style and way to do things, but they both operate along similar lines. I was an avid user of MO for Oldrim, but I like Vortex.

[gargamel9]

3 hours ago, Stiffon said:

Vortex also leaves the original structure intact, without breaking the game. For installing new mods, just create a new profile and work in that. As many profiles as you like. I am currently running 556 mods in my play through with Vortex, without any issue. Vortex is the brainchild of the original creator of MO/MO2. While MO2 is also an option, Vortex is by no means a worse option. The biggest difference in my mind is that Vortex is backed by Nexus, where MO2 is community backed. Different style and way to do things, but they both operate along similar lines. I was an avid user of MO for Oldrim, but I like Vortex.

Don't get me wrong, I do like Vortex, too, but it must be doing something to the files, as it happened to me multiple times that the game broke upon installing one mod or another (everybody T-posing), and even after removing all the mods, even when removing the game from Vortex altogether, and running it from Steam, everyone was still T-posing. Hasn't happened to me with MO2, yet. But I can hardly call myself an expert. But it's a fact that I am running into way fewer issues, if any at all, with MO2, with the same mods.

[Tayte]

On 10/16/2021 at 5:27 PM, gargamel9 said:

You're welcome. And thanks. I'd still consider moving to MO2, if I were you, but not because of my mod. I've had very reluctant to do so myself, for over a year, but now that I finally moved to MO2, meaning I was fairly proficient with Vortex, even after just a few weeks, I feel confident in saying that MO2 is the way to go. Gives you far more control, and saves you tons of time – you will never have to be afraid to install a mod again, as it is pretty much impossible to break the install with MO2. Before, when trying out new mods, I used to reinstall the whole game and every single mod pretty much once a week, sometimes even more often, but ever since I moved on to MO2, there hasn't been the need for that, and I installed something in the region of 100 new mods. With about 150 mods I am at three times the amount I was ever able to reach with Vortex. And some of the mods, which did not work under Vortex, work just fine, under MO2, though I can't really figure out why. It did take me about a week before I got my bearings and got over some of the stumbles in the beginning, it did take a lot of searching and reading, but I wouldn't go back now. The main advantage of MO2 being that it leaves the file structure of the original game completely intact, so there is no way to break it.

This is the first mod I have had proper issues with this way. I currently have 120 mods and 9 light mods on vortex, but if it ever becomes an apparent problem  should such occur with other mods I will consider it, but at the moment I rather just wait and see what happens. Perhaps some smart person figures out what it is, perhaps it is a navmesh, perhaps something else. Hopefully with time we will all have the answers for these things. For now I will definitely check out with each update, and whenever someone else faces a similar problem and may find an answer ?

[gargamel9]

18 hours ago, Tayte said:

This is the first mod I have had proper issues with this way. I currently have 120 mods and 9 light mods on vortex, but if it ever becomes an apparent problem  should such occur with other mods I will consider it, but at the moment I rather just wait and see what happens. Perhaps some smart person figures out what it is, perhaps it is a navmesh, perhaps something else. Hopefully with time we will all have the answers for these things. For now I will definitely check out with each update, and whenever someone else faces a similar problem and may find an answer ?

Thanks again. And, if it's the navmeshes, sadly, there's nothing that can be done about that, and no update will change this. There definitely had been some people posting here with issues similar to yours. Unfortunately my expertise isn't sufficient to figure this out. In particular when I am not experiencing any issues myself, on any of my machines, be it with MO2 or Vortex. Good luck and thanks for commenting!

[angelofdeath]

I can't get the dialogue option to appear. Is anyone aware of what could keep the "hello" dialogue from appearing?

[012009]

Could you possibly make a patch that moves the whiterun dealership down the road a bit so it is compatible with Wartimes?

[gargamel9]

On 11/25/2021 at 7:06 AM, 012009 said:

Could you possibly make a patch that moves the whiterun dealership down the road a bit so it is compatible with Wartimes?

I'm afraid that's far more of a chore than you imagine, for reasons how things are done in CK, as the navmeshes under the current location will remain modified even if I move the house. Restoring them to original would mean reverting to a backup before this house was built, which would mean throwing out the better half of the work I have done in this mod. I could reinsert the lost work from the newer versions into the old one, but given the amount of assets, it would take ages. At least that is the only way I would know how to do this. And I still would have to recreate all those NPCs AI packets and such... weeks of intense work. So, sorry, as things are now, I barely have any time to make progress on what I have planned. But if you like and can find a way, you're welcome to do it yourself and publish it as your own redux. 

[012009]

Yeah I had no idea.  I thought that was a simple click and move.  That sounds crazy.  Well I guess the Wartimes house is just gonna have to be built-in to the dealership...  Makes the story a bit more interesting.

[gargamel9]

1 hour ago, 012009 said:

Yeah I had no idea.  I thought that was a simple click and move.  That sounds crazy.  Well I guess the Wartimes house is just gonna have to be built-in to the dealership...  Makes the story a bit more interesting.

I would be really surprised if that worked, I would expect the game to crash due to navmesh conflicts.

[012009]

On 11/27/2021 at 2:27 AM, gargamel9 said:

I would be really surprised if that worked, I would expect the game to crash due to navmesh conflicts.

What if I told you I had Whiterun Valley and Civil War checkpoints running in the same area?

The FPS drops a bit with the ENB on, but the main paths still seem to work fine.  The frostbite clan dealers never wandered far from the building so they're still chilling there.

There is a third building from WR Valley that intersects both the Wartimes house and the dealership lol.  Luckily Jaxon's Positioner is an incredible mod, so I can just noclip into the buildings, grab the doors, and stick them on another exterior wall for full functionality of all three buildings.

Edited November 29, 2021 by 012009

[gargamel9]

58 minutes ago, 012009 said:

What if I told you I had Whiterun Valley and Civil War checkpoints running in the same area?

The FPS drops a bit with the ENB on, but the main paths still seem to work fine.  The frostbite clan dealers never wandered far from the building so they're still chilling there.

There is a third building from WR Valley that intersects both the Wartimes house and the dealership lol.  Luckily Jaxon's Positioner is an incredible mod, so I can just noclip into the buildings, grab the doors, and stick them on another exterior wall for full functionality of all three buildings.

Interesting. Not sure I follow, though. From what I understand, for the game to work, navmesh triangles on the border of a cell expect specific numbers from the adjacent triangles in the neighboring cells. Those numbers change when you edit the triangles on the border, also affecting the neighboring cell. If multiple mods are installed that touch navmeshes close to each other, the numbers will mismatch and there's a CTD. So maybe the mods you are speaking about simply use the vanilla navmesh? Or their author made the very painstaking effort of preserving the border triangles, in which case such a mod will be compatible with anything. Big respect for people who do that, but I simply don't have the patience.

[gregaaz]

5 hours ago, gargamel9 said:

Interesting. Not sure I follow, though. From what I understand, for the game to work, navmesh triangles on the border of a cell expect specific numbers from the adjacent triangles in the neighboring cells. Those numbers change when you edit the triangles on the border, also affecting the neighboring cell. If multiple mods are installed that touch navmeshes close to each other, the numbers will mismatch and there's a CTD. So maybe the mods you are speaking about simply use the vanilla navmesh? Or their author made the very painstaking effort of preserving the border triangles, in which case such a mod will be compatible with anything. Big respect for people who do that, but I simply don't have the patience.

 

My experience has been that Skyrim is pretty tolerant of navmesh conflicts as long as it doesn't create a situation where a package or similar element can't path an actor to its target. Even mismatched border triangles are often "OK" even though they can cause a lot of NPC confusion. 

 

That said, I always repair navmesh deletions and resolve navmesh conflicts in the CK before I start playing with a new mod. Even just seeing NPCs walking into walls and stuff because they don't know they're there hits my immersion, so I figure it's worth the hassle to fix it.

 

One final note about edge triangles, there's a script you can run in xEdit to fix the way the CK messes these up ("Clean Edge Links in Navmeshes" - see below). For bonus points, you can then clean for ITMs after running this to dramatically reduce the navmesh count in most mods.

 

Hope that's helpful information. I'm interested to see if I can integrate this mod into my own build - though it looks like it might require some in depth CK world to move buildings and update the navmeshes.

 

[gregaaz]

@Gudulba From your load order...

Quote

*Bondage Furniture World.esp

 

That's most likely what the paddles are from. IIRC the mod has a script that distributes zaz spanking gear to NPCs who are theoretically capable of being vigilantes. 

[gargamel9]

5 hours ago, gregaaz said:

 

My experience has been that Skyrim is pretty tolerant of navmesh conflicts as long as it doesn't create a situation where a package or similar element can't path an actor to its target. Even mismatched border triangles are often "OK" even though they can cause a lot of NPC confusion. 

 

That said, I always repair navmesh deletions and resolve navmesh conflicts in the CK before I start playing with a new mod. Even just seeing NPCs walking into walls and stuff because they don't know they're there hits my immersion, so I figure it's worth the hassle to fix it.

 

One final note about edge triangles, there's a script you can run in xEdit to fix the way the CK messes these up ("Clean Edge Links in Navmeshes" - see below). For bonus points, you can then clean for ITMs after running this to dramatically reduce the navmesh count in most mods.

 

Hope that's helpful information. I'm interested to see if I can integrate this mod into my own build - though it looks like it might require some in depth CK world to move buildings and update the navmeshes.

 

Wow, I've never heard of this before. This is indeed helpful. I never thought navmeshes could be fixed as easily as this. (I am not very well versed in using xEdit. Skyrim modding has a steep learning curve. On par with becoming a commercial pilot   I'll keep this in mind for future updates. Thank you!

[gregaaz]

10 minutes ago, gargamel9 said:

Wow, I've never heard of this before. This is indeed helpful. I never thought navmeshes could be fixed as easily as this. (I am not very well versed in using xEdit. Skyrim modding has a steep learning curve. On par with becoming a commercial pilot   I'll keep this in mind for future updates. Thank you!

 

Yeah, navmesh work is still a huge pain in the neck under the best circumstances, but there are a few tools that make it more bearable... and that script is one of the major ones!

[Gudulba]

15 hours ago, gregaaz said:

@Gudulba From your load order...

 

That's most likely what the paddles are from. IIRC the mod has a script that distributes zaz spanking gear to NPCs who are theoretically capable of being vigilantes. 

Thank you for your input. Yes, that could indeed be the case. A while ago, I disabled Bondage Furniture World. Since then I haven't noticed any new paddles or canes appearing on NPCs. There are still some NPCs running around with paddles they got when the mod was enabled. Once I delete the paddles from their inventory, these items don't seem to reappear anymore, at least so far.

 

I was a bit immersion-breaking seeing slaves running around with paddles ? Would there be a way to disable this script feature?

 

[gregaaz]

5 hours ago, Gudulba said:

Thank you for your input. Yes, that could indeed be the case. A while ago, I disabled Bondage Furniture World. Since then I haven't noticed any new paddles or canes appearing on NPCs. There are still some NPCs running around with paddles they got when the mod was enabled. Once I delete the paddles from their inventory, these items don't seem to reappear anymore, at least so far.

 

I was a bit immersion-breaking seeing slaves running around with paddles ? Would there be a way to disable this script feature?

 

 

I'm sure there is. One of my back burner DIY projects is removing that script and also the Devious Devices lockout (or significantly narrowing both scripts' scope) from BFW, because I agree with you... while the mod is a good concept, it's a little heavy handed with some of its features.

[gregaaz]

@gargamel9, I started inspecting this mod today with an eye to incorporating it into my load order. Since I'm running over 1100 mods currently, I anticipated conflicts based on your earlier comments - especially in the navmesh realm. Initial review did reveal a lot of potential issues; for what it's worth, it looks like most or all of them are Construction Kit problems rather than author issues. 

 

While I'm not going to pretend this is my #1 priority, I do plan to go through and clean up the file. When I have time to do that, would you like me to do either of the following?

 

• Reply here with a breakdown of what I did to stabilize the mod for my setup; or,
• Post my modified version of your ESP file?

 

Let me know your preferences. I'm happy to share if you think it would be helpful or constructive.

[gargamel9]

22 minutes ago, gregaaz said:

@gargamel9, I started inspecting this mod today with an eye to incorporating it into my load order. Since I'm running over 1100 mods currently, I anticipated conflicts based on your earlier comments - especially in the navmesh realm. Initial review did reveal a lot of potential issues; for what it's worth, it looks like most or all of them are Construction Kit problems rather than author issues. 

 

While I'm not going to pretend this is my #1 priority, I do plan to go through and clean up the file. When I have time to do that, would you like me to do either of the following?

 

• Reply here with a breakdown of what I did to stabilize the mod for my setup; or,
• Post my modified version of your ESP file?

 

Let me know your preferences. I'm happy to share if you think it would be helpful or constructive.

Hey gregaaz, that sounds really great. I'd love both options, if you are willing. I just hope it doesn't all go to waste when I get back to updating this mod. Right now, the posted state is the state in which the mod is on my side, too, and it'll still take some time before I'm done with my new mod, so I'll use your patched version as the basis for my future development }and credit you, of course), but if you can teach me how to avoid those issues, that would be great! Unofrtunately, my new job is very demanding, so progress on my side will be very slow. 

[Tayte]

Thanks to messaging a bit with Gregaaz, I finally figured it out. I thought I had all the required mods needed for this, and I do, but I apparently also had ZAZ 7, and it counteracted zaz 8+ or maybe overwrited it. I had never noticed this issue before with other mods, so it never quite stood out to me as a problem on my end, but now I know there's no need to have both zaz 7 and 8. This is truly my own stupidity, but at least now I know what caused my CTD's and maybe would help others if they turned out to have both as well for whatever reason.

I assume it started due to the fact some mods just listed zaz 7 and some 8, so in my mind looking at these things and not thinking much of it. I just got both, but that's not the solution, and now I know that going forward. Thanks to Gregaaz I can also easily recommend netframework logs to check for crashes, as it does give a fairly detailed description of whats going on ?

This is my bad, so I apologise if I wasted a lot of peoples time figuring this out, for something that was right before me.

[gregaaz]

Hi folks, I was hoping to post the full compatibility/cleaning guide tonight, but it looks like I need to break it into a couple parts. Here's the first part, which covers the navmesh deletions and starts to touch on conflict resolution.

 

 

[gregaaz]

@gargamel9, I have a quick lore question for you. I notice that the Frostbite Clan agents are wearing Nightingale armor. Are they affiliated with Nocturnal, or did you just choose that armor because you liked its look? I'm trying to decide if I need to mess with their outfits for my own private game or not.

[gregaaz]

Here's part 2 of my conflict resolution blog. @gargamel9, please check out the final part at the end regarding the Windhelm docks. Is this something you are planning to address in future versions? There are some conflicts with other mods in this area because of other statics in the area and of course floating terrain can always be problematic, but I don't want to go in and spin up a super complex patch if you're going to be addressing it on your own.

 

 

[gargamel9]

6 hours ago, gregaaz said:

@gargamel9, I have a quick lore question for you. I notice that the Frostbite Clan agents are wearing Nightingale armor. Are they affiliated with Nocturnal, or did you just choose that armor because you liked its look? I'm trying to decide if I need to mess with their outfits for my own private game or not.

Hey gregaaz, and thanks again for your most amazing work! To answer your question, I gave the clanners the Nightingale (and in APM the white-elf armor – officers only) primarily to distinguish them from your run-of-the mill thugs. There aren't too many sets to choose from in Vanilla, and I did not want to rely on even more external mods (even now I'm using more than was necessary, because I didn't really know what I was doing when I started – my next mod will have much fewer requirements). But I did look into Nocturnal and considered involving her somehow in the Frostbite lore. I even put a statue of her on the fence of the Frostbite fort. I wanted to make the clan sort of a cult that would worship some evil goddess. Namira would have been my first choice, but, unfortunately, her statue isn't much to look at, and I wanted her to be sexy... So that's pretty much the reasoning behind it. I'm open to suggestions.