Deviously Cursed Loot LE 9.0 (2021-03-09)

[El_Duderino]

3 hours ago, nightwolf said:

Is it safe to disable LAL after you've started a game with it?

I don't think that's advisable. Also, in this case (DCL bandit hideout), I don't think it would change anything as the hideout cell is included in the main .esp and not the LAL add-on. At least I'm pretty sure I've been in there even after I dropped LAL and switched to Skyrim Unbound a while ago to play non-Dragonborn characters (not being able to shout makes the game so much harder!)

 

Edit: If you have Jaxonz' Positioner and Hearthfire Extended (or similar furnish-your-own-place mods) in your load order, I can recommend another use for this hideout: use it as a player home if you can't or don't want to live in a town.

[DonQuiWho]

19 minutes ago, El_Duderino said:

I don't think that's advisable. Also, in this case (DCL bandit hideout), I don't think it would change anything as the hideout cell is included in the main .esp and not the LAL add-on. At least I'm pretty sure I've been in there even after I dropped LAL and switched to Skyrim Unbound a while ago to play non-Dragonborn characters (not being able to shout makes the game so much harder!)

 

Edit: If you have Jaxonz' Positioner and Hearthfire Extended (or similar furnish-your-own-place mods) in your load order, I can recommend another use for this hideout: use it as a player home if you can't or don't want to live in a town.

FWIW, I don't have the LAL add on installed and that hideout cell is in the main esp.  I was glad  @nightwolf mentioned it up thread as, like he or she, I'd been there in passing but had never been able to work out what on earth it was for until now either   ?

 

As for using it as a player home, I like the idea, but OOIC how do we know it's safe to do that?  eg are container contents non respawnable etc?  How can we check that, pls?

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, El_Duderino said:

I don't think that's advisable. Also, in this case (DCL bandit hideout), I don't think it would change anything as the hideout cell is included in the main .esp and not the LAL add-on. At least I'm pretty sure I've been in there even after I dropped LAL and switched to Skyrim Unbound a while ago to play non-Dragonborn characters (not being able to shout makes the game so much harder!)

 

Edit: If you have Jaxonz' Positioner and Hearthfire Extended (or similar furnish-your-own-place mods) in your load order, I can recommend another use for this hideout: use it as a player home if you can't or don't want to live in a town.

The thought of using it as a player home actually crossed me while I explored it. The back area is cozy enough to live there without many changes. But I would clean up the place in the CK first, and maybe add some things.

 

I'm a bit skeptic to "build your home" mods though. How's the performance impact of the mods you mentioned? I have a very heavily modded game with a lot of scripts in it and I don't want to add more cpu load. Also, how can you "transport" furniture into a cell? Seems a bit unrealistic if you can carry tables and cupboards in your bags.

[El_Duderino]

6 hours ago, donkeywho said:

As for using it as a player home, I like the idea, but OOIC how do we know it's safe to do that?

3 hours ago, nightwolf said:

I'm a bit skeptic to "build your home" mods though. How's the performance impact of the mods you mentioned?

The main one I'm using is Hearthfire Extended and besides the general "more content = more impact" rule of thumb, I don't think it adds any particular burden to the game. Also, the author has found a clever way of making it immersive: there's a Carpenter's workbench included, which you can spawn anywhere (AddItemMenu or similar) and through which you can use the Hearthfire crafting anywhere you want. So you still need all the basic materials, wood, nails, fittings etc. before you can build anything. Makes it quite a challenge to furnish a place from ground up as you need to craft or purchase a lot of materials. Then of course use Jaxonz' Positioner to fine tune everything or clutter the place up. The only downside is that the added furniture doesn't alter the navmesh, so your followers might bump into them or get stuck behind them if you place it in their path. Containers placed through the above mod are safe, no matter where you place them.

 

... and now we've hijacked Kimy's thread entirely. Sorry!

[Lupine00]

I never would have imagined that content specific to the LAL start was put in the main ESP.

 

I guess it can be fixed with a few minutes in TES5Edit.

 

 

When I run Jaxonz Positioner, it will never let me target anything, and says objects are eligible to move, no matter what they are, or where I am.

The JP forums has a few people complaining about it, but no explanation what causes it or how to fix.

 

That cave needs a bit of CK love anyway, it's got portal problems.

 

 

If you want a cave home (or several) try Beastess Lairs: 

 

 

[Kimy]

7 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I never would have imagined that content specific to the LAL start was put in the main ESP.

 

I guess it can be fixed with a few minutes in TES5Edit.

 

The plugin is just a launcher to start the quest. It otherwise doesn't do anything. Not sure what would need to be "fixed" in this context, because nothing is broken. The quest is in DCL because it's a part of DCL and uses a lot of its resources, so it's where it belongs.

[LazyBoot]

2 hours ago, Kimy said:

Not sure what would need to be "fixed" in this context, because nothing is broken.

 

I think this was the main complaint:

On 10/7/2018 at 7:44 AM, nightwolf said:

Oh I see. Well, in that case there is too much stuff to loot in there. Orcish armor just being one of the freebies.

[mrjokala]

I need help, i got ctd after i talk to sasha. right now im doing Leon and Leah, the Dominant Followers quest.

[Guest]

19 hours ago, El_Duderino said:

The main one I'm using is Hearthfire Extended and besides the general "more content = more impact" rule of thumb, I don't think it adds any particular burden to the game. Also, the author has found a clever way of making it immersive: there's a Carpenter's workbench included, which you can spawn anywhere (AddItemMenu or similar) and through which you can use the Hearthfire crafting anywhere you want. So you still need all the basic materials, wood, nails, fittings etc. before you can build anything. Makes it quite a challenge to furnish a place from ground up as you need to craft or purchase a lot of materials. Then of course use Jaxonz' Positioner to fine tune everything or clutter the place up. The only downside is that the added furniture doesn't alter the navmesh, so your followers might bump into them or get stuck behind them if you place it in their path. Containers placed through the above mod are safe, no matter where you place them.

 

... and now we've hijacked Kimy's thread entirely. Sorry!

Sounds easier and faster to do it in the CK. Personally I don't want to play The Sims in Skyrim, but each to his own. ?

[Zaflis]

I just realized that there is no clear way to remove some of the (especially anal) plugs. I also know this has been discussed before, but still. I had just triggered Cursed Collar quest, so i unlocked everything i could except the "rusty iron pear of anguish" type of plug. I even visited blacksmith but it didn't have a talk option for the inescapable and reinforced restraints, that it is according to its item infos when i examine it. It is a problem because the quest wants you to wear a different plug in that slot. I tried dozens of times to struggle and lockpick out of it with easiest DD setting, but no luck. No key fits it, i had all sorts.

 

How i fixed it? First i tried simply giving myself the cursed collar from console, and it worked... i think. But it didn't give me the hint paper of which name i forgot and who knows what else it skipped, so cancel that... I then installed Devious Devices Equip at this point so i can remove individual items later in these cases. But it started "hardcore" mode enabled so it became complicated:

- DCL: Free Me! from MCM. Collar and plug removed.

- Disable hardcore mode from DDE.

- Export DCL configs.

- Change loot chances to 100% cursed collar and near 0% rest, also 100% getting trapped chance. (Still the collar can only come from some chest-like container only), and set so menus aren't locked when restrained.

- After collar was on, import configs and menus locked straight away.

 

Also a minor bug with the arcane chests, once they spawned in same location in a row. I loaded the game at where i entered the zone and let it choose a different place ?

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, Zaflis said:

How i fixed it? First i tried simply giving myself the cursed collar from console, and it worked... i think. But it didn't give me the hint paper of which name i forgot and who knows what else it skipped, so cancel that... I then installed Devious Devices Equip at this point so i can remove individual items later in these cases. But it started "hardcore" mode enabled so it became complicated:

Sometimes I can remove this plug, and sometimes it is broken and can't be removed except via FREE ME!!!

When it can be removed, I think it pops up a message box and clearly says it needs a key (or something) to remove it, but I can't remember exactly what the thing you need is.

However, if it won't tell you when you try to remove (there should be a message box about how you can't close it up to get it out) then it's broken.

 

I thought it was just me.

[Lupine00]

18 hours ago, Kimy said:

The plugin is just a launcher to start the quest. It otherwise doesn't do anything. Not sure what would need to be "fixed" in this context, because nothing is broken. The quest is in DCL because it's a part of DCL and uses a lot of its resources, so it's where it belongs.

As a matter of separation of concerns, I would have put any ESP content that is required only for the LAL quest in the LAL launcher ESP.

 

It is not really part of DCL, so much as its a quest with a hard dependency on DCL. Or, at least, could be just a quest with a hard dependency on DCL.

 

I suppose you could say the same thing of some of the bondage quests in DCL though. They could have been split into a separate quests mod, and their features made as soft-deps. The primary beneficiary of this would be the developer, so I guess if you're Kimy, and you don't find it easier that way, then splitting it up makes no sense.

 

Obviously, some people would need to merge the whole thing back together anyway to save slots.

[CGi]

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

It is not really part of DCL, so much as its a quest with a hard dependency on DCL. Or, at least, could be just a quest with a hard dependency on DCL.

DCL is a ESP and having an ESP as a master is a bad idea and complicates things for the author.

[Kimy]

7 hours ago, CGi said:

DCL is a ESP and having an ESP as a master is a bad idea and complicates things for the author.

Beat me to it.

[Lupine00]

17 hours ago, CGi said:

DCL is a ESP and having an ESP as a master is a bad idea and complicates things for the author.

A vague objection like simply asserting it is a "bad idea" shuts down any possibility of a technical discussion of the trade-offs inherent in different approaches.

 

If you check your files for wild-edits in TES5Edit before each distribution, flipping a master flag is a minor chore.

For somebody, like CGi who lives in TES5Edit, it can hardly be that much of a problem?

 

 

Of course, the LAL launcher is already dependent on the DCL ESP as a master, as you can see from this little snippet from my TES5Edit window:

[CGi]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

A vague objection like simply asserting it is a "bad idea" shuts down any possibility of a technical discussion of the trade-offs inherent in different approaches.

 

If you check your files for wild-edits in TES5Edit before each distribution, flipping a master flag is a minor chore.

For somebody, like CGi who lives in TES5Edit, it can hardly be that much of a problem?

 

 

Of course, the LAL launcher is already dependent on the DCL ESP as a master, as you can see from this little snippet from my TES5Edit window:

And it's still not a good idea hence why i don't use DCL's LAL ESP.
Aside from that everytime Kimy opens the LAL addon in the CK and saves it, the ESP master will be removed forcing her to go through the plugin in xEdit to re-add it and reslove any errors.
So i ultimatly merged the LAL addons into DCL on my end and changed a few things, making LAL a softdep in DCL itself. Maybe Kimy will do this for the next version?

[Lupine00]

3 hours ago, CGi said:

Aside from that everytime Kimy opens the LAL addon in the CK and saves it, the ESP master will be removed forcing her to go through the plugin in xEdit to re-add it and reslove any errors.

Not, if, as I alluded to above, she keeps her development DCL flagged as master, and then strips the master flag when she saves the final copy for distribution.

 

 

Again, you failed to explain this bit "And it's still not a good idea hence why i don't use DCL's LAL ESP."

You seem to be saying there's a reason other than the CK strips masters not flagged as master issue.

 

You raise a good point though, regarding merging.

 

There are reasons why it may be convenient to split a mod, design it to be almost entirely soft dependent on a core component that holds shared forms like formlists, keywords and consumables, and then merge the components using auto-merger for final release. What reasons you may ask? The ability to test each component in isolation. The confidence that you know exactly what each part of your mod depends on - so you can't create cross-dependencies in quests that you didn't think through, or forget. Basically, all the benefits that we like to obtain by splitting things up into well-defined components and minimizing bindings in software development. But end users want a single ESP for slot reasons. Doesn't mean you have to develop like that.

 

Now, Bethesda, and Kimy sure don't believe in that (at the ESP level) - though maybe I'm wrong about Beth, and they split their development up into tiny pieces for source control purposes and then merge them for release ... either way when you have two ESPs, seems logical you make each as self-contained and modular as you can, with as narrow a binding to each other as possible. Now that isn't quite the case with DCL and the LAL launcher. Instead, the LAL launcher is made as minimal as possible. I get it. It's a valid trade off. Kimy just doesn't want to load it or touch it ever, so there's almost nothing in there.

 

Going down that path... Soft dep on LAL seems more logical, it's already a pattern in DCL.

 

I was able to make the revised MME patch work with zero ESP changes by taking the existing DCL approach of using global scripts to its logical conclusion.

[CGi]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

Not, if, as I alluded to above, she keeps her development DCL flagged as master, and then strips the master flag when she saves the final copy for distribution.

This adds one additional step to the existing procedure and while you might have no problem doing that every time, others might not.

Btw: You insisting on this step makes it sound less like a suggestion and more like you're trying to tell a modder how to do what they do.

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

Again, you failed to explain this bit "And it's still not a good idea hence why i don't use DCL's LAL ESP."

Plugins with an ESP as a master contribute to lowered stability.

if you know want to know why this is, ask Beth for the source code or try google.

[Lupine00]

46 minutes ago, CGi said:

This adds one additional step to the existing procedure and while you might have no problem doing that every time, others might not.

Btw: You insisting on this step makes it sound less like a suggestion and more like you're trying to tell a modder how to do what they do.

Plugins with an ESP as a master contribute to lowered stability.

if you know want to know why this is, ask Beth for the source code or try google.

No. It doesn't. It was purely an example to counter the example you'd phrased in the exact same way.

You never quit with the rhetorical tricks, do you? It's like everything you say is "When did you stop beating your wife?"

46 minutes ago, CGi said:

Plugins with an ESP as a master contribute to lowered stability.

if you know want to know why this is, ask Beth for the source code or try google.

And yet there are hundreds of mods that have ESPs as masters. Is this the reason that Skyrim so flaky?

I thought it was more because of devs who incessantly lock the player object with long running scripts and then crash the stack.

 

Every time I see crap in a mod, it's because of that, or mods that have too many auto-start quests, or bad soft-dep coding that crashes in on init, or script sets that aren't completely rebuilt so the objects are internally incompatible and fail to cast. This last one is so amazingly common in mods that people use all the time. If the dev ever opened their papyrus log they would see it, but apparently they don't.

 

Anyway. I've been burned by CGi again. I'm gone.

[CGi]

27 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

No. It doesn't. It was purely an example to counter the example you'd phrased in the exact same way.

You never quit with the rhetorical tricks, do you? It's like everything you say is "When did you stop beating your wife?"

That's rather arbitrary.

27 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

And yet there are hundreds of mods that have ESPs as masters. Is this the reason that Skyrim so flaky?

Many people doing it wrong doesn't make it right and i wrote it "contributes" to instability not by how much as this depends on the mod loadout.
it's commonly agreed upon that it has to do with how the engine merges the data from all loaded plugins and that to many identical records contribute to instability in a similar way.

27 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

Anyway. I've been burned by CGi again. I'm gone.

i did what?

[Fenroo]

Is there any way to use the console to unlock the menu? I usually uncheck the "lock menu when bound" box, but I forgot to in my latest experimental run. 

[Laura]

6 hours ago, Fenroo said:

Is there any way to use the console to unlock the menu? I usually uncheck the "lock menu when bound" box, but I forgot to in my latest experimental run. 

You can go back to a previous save where the menu is unlocked. Then change it to not lock when you're restrained, and then export the MCM settings. You can then go back to the save where it's locked and import the settings. The menu should then no longer be locked.

[Fenroo]

3 hours ago, Laura 'Lokomootje' said:

You can go back to a previous save where the menu is unlocked. Then change it to not lock when you're restrained, and then export the MCM settings. You can then go back to the save where it's locked and import the settings. The menu should then no longer be locked.

Didn't even know that this was possible. Thanks yet again, Laura.

[Zaflis]

23 minutes ago, Fenroo said:

Didn't even know that this was possible. Thanks yet again, Laura.

Minor spoiler for release mechanism:

Spoiler

That and 1 other thing are also things i too discovered only recently. The other thing is that if you read the books about Devious Devices in Winterhold, you'll learn to smith restraints (and chastity and piercing) keys. You can't unlearn this information now that you've read, but you can either choose to not visit the bookcase or change DD and DCL settings stricter/different. I mean it's really easy, with just 1 iron ingot you get a key even with armbinder on. As long as you have access to a forge.

 

[Fenroo]

5 hours ago, Laura 'Lokomootje' said:

You can go back to a previous save where the menu is unlocked. Then change it to not lock when you're restrained, and then export the MCM settings. You can then go back to the save where it's locked and import the settings. The menu should then no longer be locked.

The only one I can find requires scripting. Oh well....