quest The Trappings of Fate

[MrBig]

15 hours ago, Frayed said:

Alright, thank you all for your input. The decision's made: no early release.

 

Let me update y'all on the current status:

• I've almost finalized the last major bit before the finale. There's some small bits that still need to be connected properly, but content-wise everything apart from the finale is now in. Call it 90% done.
• I've set up the three different paths that lead from A Snare to Loosen into The Gordian Bind: one to jump straight into it, one delayed option for enthusiastic characters, and one delayed option for the more reluctant ones.
• After some trial and error, I've also made some technical changes to A Snare To Loosen to make it repeatable. Doesn't really make sense from a story perspective and the puzzles will be exactly the same, but it's been requested a few times and was necessary to do some optional integration with other mods (e.g. starting the quest from Simple Slavery, Devious Followers). The Gordian Bind is still a one-off quest and will probably stay that way.
• With The Gordian Bind essentially concluding the main story of Trappings, one of the ideas I'm toying with for afterwards is to see if I can take some of the elements that people like best from A Snare to Loosen and The Gordian Bind and make some repeatable mini-quests with them with more replayability. Whether I'll add that to Trappings or make it a separate mod is still undecided. Gonna be a while before I ever start that, though - I want to do some other stuff after I release The Gordian Bind first. (Like actually playing the game.............. ?)

And of course, let me give y'all another teaser image. A tame one this time, but it shows off a part of the environment that I haven't shown much of yet.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

You can't see it from this static screenshot, but there's some fun dynamic lighting going on in this area. Was a pain to work out and I'm still not totally satisfied with it, but already it has some great moments.

 

I've got a busy few weeks coming up with a bunch of RL stuff. My aim is to finish all non-finale stuff before that starts, and then I'll probably work out the finale after Christmas once things have cooled down for me again. So for beta we're looking at... January, hopefully? I don't dare put a date on it, but that's the current goal. ?

can't wait to see it, the teasers look fantastic. good luck with the RL stuff and take care of yourself

[Burtchin]

This is looking fantastic! Indeed enjoy your Christmas and do take your time to be ready for a proper release. Although I'm very excited about it all!

[linliaoran012]

i do appreciate your responsible attitude and look forward to the release. a grand work, i guess.

[pornomatic]

Hmm, something is blocking me from starting this quest. Once I drink the wine and sleep in the bed, I wake up with all the gear but the post is invisible and I'm not hanging from it (standing normally). The camera is frozen in place and I can press E to interact with the post to struggle free. There are no struggle interactions. After struggling free, the camera is still frozen and I cannot move at all whatsoever, effectively soft locking.

 

I'm using the latest UD (3.0 build 14) and DD NG 0.2.9. Also using SmoothCam and TDM if that matters.

 

epc doesn't work to unstuck however recycleactor does (but breaks everything of course).

Edited January 1, 2024 by pornomatic

[Viri1]

40 minutes ago, pornomatic said:

Hmm, something is blocking me from starting this quest. Once I drink the wine and sleep in the bed, I wake up with all the gear but the post is invisible and I'm not hanging from it (standing normally). The camera is frozen in place and I can press E to interact with the post to struggle free. There are no struggle interactions. After struggling free, the camera is still frozen and I cannot move at all whatsoever, effectively soft locking.

 

I'm using the latest UD (3.0 build 14) and DD NG 0.2.9. Also using SmoothCam and TDM if that matters.

 

epc doesn't work to unstuck however recycleactor does (but breaks everything of course).

 

I haven't tried out DD NG yet (nor have I ever tried UD), but my suspicion is that this mod is probably not compatible with (one of) them. This is probably something worth checking out in the forums related to them.

[pornomatic]

29 minutes ago, Viri1 said:

 

I haven't tried out DD NG yet (nor have I ever tried UD), but my suspicion is that this mod is probably not compatible with (one of) them. This is probably something worth checking out in the forums related to them.

 

It's even more broken when I disable those two mods lol. I spawn in the room naked with nothing whatsoever. Sure it fixes the camera and movement issues, but then there's nothing to interact with.

 

It's also been reported that UD should work with Trappings.

 

Given that everything sorta works after recycleactor, I think there's something blocking the contraption from working properly.

Edited January 1, 2024 by pornomatic

[Viri1]

1 hour ago, pornomatic said:

 

It's even more broken when I disable those two mods lol. I spawn in the room naked with nothing whatsoever. Sure it fixes the camera and movement issues, but then there's nothing to interact with.

 

It's also been reported that UD should work with Trappings.

 

Given that everything sorta works after recycleactor, I think there's something blocking the contraption from working properly.

 

I would not be surprised in the least if disabling those mods mid-playthrough completely broke the game, given how sensitive anything DD-related is. It's not a useful data point.

 

If UD allegedly works with Trappings, then the suspicion falls on DDNG. There could be something on Trappings that interferes with DDNG.

 

Perhaps the author will know what's up and you'll be lucky, but for now, my advice: you can try starting a new game, with regular DD and not DDNG or UD, with DD installed and launched normally (an annoying ritual that I assume you know) and see if the quest proceeds normally. If it does, try with UD. If it's still normal, again with DDNG to confirm it is that mod specifically (or one of its dependencies) breaking stuff. I know this sounds really annoying, but there are console commands to advance level quickly and trigger the quest.

 

Keep in mind that Trappings works perfectly fine with regular DD, so if you can't get Trappings to work at all, then the suspicion will be on some other mod, or on how you installed those mods.

 

Good luck!

 

EDIT: forgot to ask, which version of Skyrim you using? The recent one that broke mods, or its downgraded?

 

 

Edited January 1, 2024 by Viri1

[pornomatic]

6 hours ago, Viri1 said:

 

I would not be surprised in the least if disabling those mods mid-playthrough completely broke the game, given how sensitive anything DD-related is. It's not a useful data point.

 

If UD allegedly works with Trappings, then the suspicion falls on DDNG. There could be something on Trappings that interferes with DDNG.

 

Perhaps the author will know what's up and you'll be lucky, but for now, my advice: you can try starting a new game, with regular DD and not DDNG or UD, with DD installed and launched normally (an annoying ritual that I assume you know) and see if the quest proceeds normally. If it does, try with UD. If it's still normal, again with DDNG to confirm it is that mod specifically (or one of its dependencies) breaking stuff. I know this sounds really annoying, but there are console commands to advance level quickly and trigger the quest.

 

Keep in mind that Trappings works perfectly fine with regular DD, so if you can't get Trappings to work at all, then the suspicion will be on some other mod, or on how you installed those mods.

 

Good luck!

 

EDIT: forgot to ask, which version of Skyrim you using? The recent one that broke mods, or its downgraded?

 

 

 

I've played it before a few years ago with just regular DD 5 and everything worked fine. I played it through again after I posted resetting through recycleactor on a disposable save with DDNG and UD all installed and it also worked fine. The problem is most definitely to do with the hogtie pole at the very beginning of the quest not initialising properly, putting on the bondage and then giving controls back to the player. Interestingly enough, the hogtie pole works perfectly fine after recycling.

[Zaflis]

1 hour ago, pornomatic said:

I've played it before a few years ago with just regular DD 5 and everything worked fine. I played it through again after I posted resetting through recycleactor on a disposable save with DDNG and UD all installed and it also worked fine. The problem is most definitely to do with the hogtie pole at the very beginning of the quest not initialising properly, putting on the bondage and then giving controls back to the player. Interestingly enough, the hogtie pole works perfectly fine after recycling.

Try also Cursed Loot with the DD-NG and UD. I haven't actually tested the NG ever either yet. But what you should be testing is if DD contraptions and other gear works for you before you try content mods. You can even spawn a furniture in a world by giving a furniture kit to inventory. In DCL they could be purchased and used in the special house in Riverwood, but they are also scattered as punishment posts in main cities.

(I think to enter that house in a new game you would point the door in console and use "unlock", since the questline would take a long time.)

Edited January 2, 2024 by Zaflis

[pornomatic]

10 hours ago, Zaflis said:

Try also Cursed Loot with the DD-NG and UD. I haven't actually tested the NG ever either yet. But what you should be testing is if DD contraptions and other gear works for you before you try content mods. You can even spawn a furniture in a world by giving a furniture kit to inventory. In DCL they could be purchased and used in the special house in Riverwood, but they are also scattered as punishment posts in main cities.

(I think to enter that house in a new game you would point the door in console and use "unlock", since the questline would take a long time.)

 Yeah that was one of the first things I tried. It's specifically the ones spawned by Trappings as they have an extra script on them. Other ones work fine.

[Frayed]

On 1/1/2024 at 4:47 PM, pornomatic said:

Hmm, something is blocking me from starting this quest. Once I drink the wine and sleep in the bed, I wake up with all the gear but the post is invisible and I'm not hanging from it (standing normally). The camera is frozen in place and I can press E to interact with the post to struggle free. There are no struggle interactions. After struggling free, the camera is still frozen and I cannot move at all whatsoever, effectively soft locking.

 

I'm using the latest UD (3.0 build 14) and DD NG 0.2.9. Also using SmoothCam and TDM if that matters.

 

epc doesn't work to unstuck however recycleactor does (but breaks everything of course).

 

I've seen this problem before myself, but I don't recall when or what the underlying issue was. I don't remember changing anything afterwards, so I think I concluded it was a load order or other DD-related mod issue. I do know that I've tested Trappings successfully with both UD (an older non-beta version) and with DD NG (again, an older version). However, both of those mods are under very active development and so compatibility can change as new changes and versions are made.

 

I tried reproducing your setup but I can't even get UD and DD NG setup properly at the moment. So thank you for the report, I'll keep an eye on it, but for the sake of my sanity I'm not going to dig too deeply into this issue at the moment. I'll spend time on UD/DDNG compatibility when the next part is done.

 

One thing I can suggest is the use of the "setplayeraidriven [0/1]" command. Contraptions set the player as AI driven, but I've seen this fail to release sometimes. Using epc and "setplayeraidriven 0" tends to fix most "stuck and can't move" bugs that I've seen.

[pornomatic]

3 hours ago, Frayed said:

 

I've seen this problem before myself, but I don't recall when or what the underlying issue was. I don't remember changing anything afterwards, so I think I concluded it was a load order or other DD-related mod issue. I do know that I've tested Trappings successfully with both UD (an older non-beta version) and with DD NG (again, an older version). However, both of those mods are under very active development and so compatibility can change as new changes and versions are made.

 

I tried reproducing your setup but I can't even get UD and DD NG setup properly at the moment. So thank you for the report, I'll keep an eye on it, but for the sake of my sanity I'm not going to dig too deeply into this issue at the moment. I'll spend time on UD/DDNG compatibility when the next part is done.

 

One thing I can suggest is the use of the "setplayeraidriven [0/1]" command. Contraptions set the player as AI driven, but I've seen this fail to release sometimes. Using epc and "setplayeraidriven 0" tends to fix most "stuck and can't move" bugs that I've seen.

setplayeraidriven doesn't seem to have any effect. The weird thing is that (probably because of TDM) WASD still wiggles legs as if trying to move. Camera is still fixed though it shifts to different positions every time tab menu is reopened.

 

FYI, recycleactor (or epc or setplayeraidriven) does not fix or free the camera, this could only be done by attempting to struggle out of the armbinder.

Edited January 3, 2024 by pornomatic

[Frayed]

6 hours ago, pornomatic said:

setplayeraidriven doesn't seem to have any effect. The weird thing is that (probably because of TDM) WASD still wiggles legs as if trying to move. Camera is still fixed though it shifts to different positions every time tab menu is reopened.

 

FYI, recycleactor (or epc or setplayeraidriven) does not fix or free the camera, this could only be done by attempting to struggle out of the armbinder.

 

Hmm, now that I haven't ever seen. Could you post me a papyrus log of a session where you try to start the quest? That might give me a hint as to what's going on. I should at least be able to see if the hogtie pole or quest scripts are getting interrupted due to errors.

[pornomatic]

6 hours ago, Frayed said:

 

Hmm, now that I haven't ever seen. Could you post me a papyrus log of a session where you try to start the quest? That might give me a hint as to what's going on. I should at least be able to see if the hogtie pole or quest scripts are getting interrupted due to errors.

Please take a look. I can't see anything out of the ordinary. This is a script of loading just before the drinking the wine and ends right after struggling out of the invisible (and disabled) hogtie pole.

Papyrus.0.log

Edited January 3, 2024 by pornomatic

[Frayed]

1 hour ago, pornomatic said:

Please take a look. I can't see anything out of the ordinary. This is a script of loading just before the drinking the wine and ends right after struggling out of the invisible (and disabled) hogtie pole.

 

Thanks. I don't see anything here indicating any incompatibility either, though. The log even reports devices getting correctly equipped and contraption is sending log events normally. Hm. And you're certain this only happens for this particular contraption in Trappings? If so, the only thing I can think of is that I vaguely remember similar issues way back in earlier versions when I had timed the paralysis effect on the wine wrong so that the player was still paralyzed while getting locked into the contraption. This shouldn't happen anymore. But since I've got no other ideas: could you check whether your issue still happens when you fast-forward past the inn scene by getting the letter and using "setstage frayescapequest 30"? That way you'll skip drinking the wine and the scene that applies the paralysis effect, so we can maybe eliminate it as a possible cause.

[FromMindoir]

For the record, I do not know if it's related, but I have tried reinstalling the game from scratch and DD is currently majorly screwing things up. As in, with just DD the game won't even start because of a DLL issue, and with DD + NG, the game starts but crashes whenever I try to start a new playthrough.

 

I never had this issue before, and it might have to do with the latest AE update messing up with DD. I assume that those who kept their games away from updates are faring better at the moment, until everything is patched at least.

Edited January 3, 2024 by FromMindoir

[Zaflis]

1 hour ago, FromMindoir said:

For the record, I do not know if it's related, but I have tried reinstalling the game from scratch and DD is currently majorly screwing things up. As in, with just DD the game won't even start because of a DLL issue, and with DD + NG, the game starts but crashes whenever I try to start a new playthrough.

 

I never had this issue before, and it might have to do with the latest AE update messing up with DD. I assume that those who kept their games away from updates are faring better at the moment, until everything is patched at least.

Your DLL's are wrong for some of the mods, it could be some of your Nexus mods too, anything with a DLL.

 

Check here for latest DD and DCL patches:

https://www.loverslab.com/topic/99700-devious-devices-se/page/110/#comment-3077930

[zarantha]

2 hours ago, FromMindoir said:

For the record, I do not know if it's related, but I have tried reinstalling the game from scratch and DD is currently majorly screwing things up. As in, with just DD the game won't even start because of a DLL issue, and with DD + NG, the game starts but crashes whenever I try to start a new playthrough.

 

I never had this issue before, and it might have to do with the latest AE update messing up with DD. I assume that those who kept their games away from updates are faring better at the moment, until everything is patched at least.

 

Crashes with DD NG on 1.6.1130 are usually because of the wrong consoleutils being used. Make sure you're using the correct version of consoleutils ng (the original consoleutils for se does not work).

[pornomatic]

8 hours ago, Frayed said:

 

Thanks. I don't see anything here indicating any incompatibility either, though. The log even reports devices getting correctly equipped and contraption is sending log events normally. Hm. And you're certain this only happens for this particular contraption in Trappings? If so, the only thing I can think of is that I vaguely remember similar issues way back in earlier versions when I had timed the paralysis effect on the wine wrong so that the player was still paralyzed while getting locked into the contraption. This shouldn't happen anymore. But since I've got no other ideas: could you check whether your issue still happens when you fast-forward past the inn scene by getting the letter and using "setstage frayescapequest 30"? That way you'll skip drinking the wine and the scene that applies the paralysis effect, so we can maybe eliminate it as a possible cause.

Guess what worked? No problems at all when I skip the paralysis scene with console. It could be exactly the issue you identified.

 

Just an additional minor issue if you can be bothered to look into it, I noticed the unfade from black is much shorter with DDNG/UD than with DD5.2 so you can see everything being equipped. Maybe the timing is also related to the previous issue?

[Frayed]

17 hours ago, pornomatic said:

Guess what worked? No problems at all when I skip the paralysis scene with console. It could be exactly the issue you identified.

 

Just an additional minor issue if you can be bothered to look into it, I noticed the unfade from black is much shorter with DDNG/UD than with DD5.2 so you can see everything being equipped. Maybe the timing is also related to the previous issue?

That's probably it then.

 

The fade-in is scripted to start only after LockDevice is called for all devices. Apparently this function isn't synchronous, though, and maybe neither is locking the player into the contraption. But I think what's happening here (with both issues actually) is that DDNG and UD have made the synchronous parts faster and now it's exposed some mistakes on my part. I'll be sure to chastise them for doing too good of a job  ?       Thanks for the clear reports. I'll bundle some fixes into the part 2 beta.

[Viri1]

Question: will the future update require the latest version of Skyrim SE/AE? I'm asking because of that late 2023 AE update that broke mods. Since I had auto-update disabled, I did not get hit with that, and I'm still playing with version 1.6.64. Not sure whether it is now safe to update the game and I'm not inclined to do it unless a mod I'm following (like this one :D) says so.

[Frayed]

2 hours ago, Viri1 said:

Question: will the future update require the latest version of Skyrim SE/AE? I'm asking because of that late 2023 AE update that broke mods. Since I had auto-update disabled, I did not get hit with that, and I'm still playing with version 1.6.64. Not sure whether it is now safe to update the game and I'm not inclined to do it unless a mod I'm following (like this one :D) says so.

The update won't change any of the dependencies or versions required. I'm still using v1.5.97 myself, and for maximum compatibility I'm intentionally developing relative to DD 5.2 and not using any of the fancy stuff DD NG adds. I suspect (but haven't tested) that this way it should even work for LE.

 

 

I'll also use this opportunity to post another progress update: the layout and basic design of the environment for the finale are done, next up are its scenes, scripts and gameplay. I've made it a bit challenging for myself by writing a story with three possible endings. The endings are not that different, but I'm aiming to at least do better than Mass Effect's "RGB" endings, so there's some branching involved that I need to take care of. As per usual, here's another teaser image, this time a work-in-progress shot of part of the finale's area with its more spoilery parts removed:

Spoiler

 

This was the last area I still had to finish, bringing the total tally for A Gordian Bind to 7 interior cells and a small worldspace. A bit bigger than part 1 ?

[lktforever]

3 hours ago, Frayed said:

at least do better than Mass Effect's "RGB" endings

Everything will be better than mAss Effect's endings xD

Edited January 9, 2024 by lktforever

[0astr]

wow this is the greatest quest mod i've played in a while. The mix of in game mechanics, elder scrolls lore and of course sexlab, its brilliant. Do you have a donation page or discord friend?

Edited January 17, 2024 by 0astr

[FromMindoir]

When this second part is released, will it require to restart a game entirely?

 

I currently have one where I have only unlocked the first part but have not played it.