Some "bad news" about formlists and other stuff

[prideslayer]

MtM, who isn't a native English speaker, has shared some interesting information with me that all you other modders need to know about as well. I have not verified any of this yet but it makes sense given some of the bugs we've been running into, and he has a test ESP of his own to check for it. All credit and thanks to him for this information.

 

1. Formlists

Because formlists are a game item and are not intended to change much as the game progresses, it seems that in some cases the engine will NOT load formlist contents from a save game unless the form list has at least one "permanent" item in it, added through the GECK. It will usually load the formlist data, but not always.

 

What this means is if you add things to a formlist with AddFormToFormList (the GECK function, not the NVSE one), there is a chance that when a different savegame is loaded, the formlist contents will not change. They are ALWAYS saved in the savegame, but not always LOADED, such as when you load one save game, and then load a different one, in the same game session. Interestingly this function is never actually called anywhere in the vanilla game scripts.

 

Right now this is not a big problem in sexout, but it might be in other mods. He came up with one solution and I have another.

 

His solution is to ensure that every formlist you create has at least one item added to it in the GECK. You can remove it in a script when your mod starts. Apparently this causes the engine to revalidate the list contents on every game load.

 

An alternative solution I intend to implement is to add formlist saving and loading, automatically, to the extender. When the extender saves its data, I am hoping I can iterate through every form list in the game and dump them all into its save file.

 

This MIGHT break some mods so the v11 extender beta will need extensive testing.

 

A better solution for the future is the NX arrays, which we can all start using instead of formlists as soon as I have them implemented.

 

2. Removing Items

MtM has also informed me that RemoveAllTypedItems and RemoveAllItems will reset all the players hotkeys when called on the PC. I wasn't aware of this, but I don't use this function myself anywhere in sexout.

[Halstrom]

Would it be simpler to just create a dummy item in Sexout and add that to every blank formlist in GECK and just ignore it providing it wasn't the type of formlist you copied into the players inventory or similar?

I'm already thinking there's a good reason this dosn't work in some cases the 2 of you Guru's would have nutted out

I'm just thinking I've got a lot of Formlists in SCR, DoctaSax has a lot in his Clothing Evaluation system and that might be a quick fix to add a dummy item into SCR for now.

[prideslayer]

Would it be simpler to just create a dummy item in Sexout and add that to every blank formlist in GECK and just ignore it providing it wasn't the type of formlist you copied into the players inventory or similar?

 

I can do this to every list that sexout creates itself.. I'm not going to do that to the vanilla lists though of course' date=' and it doesn't cover the lists in other mods. The only one in sexout that actually needs saved is the player orientation one.

 

The other lists it uses can more or less be safely cleared every game load. It's just scanner targets, the global notification lists for spells and other formlists, and the nude bodies / safe for sex clothes.

 

All of those but the scanner can be refilled by the mods using them when they detect a game load, and the scanner one doesn't really matter.

 

I'm already thinking there's a good reason this dosn't work in some cases the 2 of you Guru's would have nutted out

I'm just thinking I've got a lot of Formlists in SCR, DoctaSax has a lot in his Clothing Evaluation system and that might be a quick fix to add a dummy item into SCR for now.

 

MtM indicated the more dynamically added items there are in the lists the more likely it is; you guys though can also safely just add the items to your lists via the GECK which solves the problem without any dummy items.

[Halstrom]

MtM indicated the more dynamically added items there are in the lists the more likely it is; you guys though can also safely just add the items to your lists via the GECK which solves the problem without any dummy items.

Yeah, I've been following the idea of using GECK to add stuff to Lists created in SCR, but I know Docta Sax's SCES mod inside SCR has a few empty lists he writes to and adding a dummy item might fix them easily.

[prideslayer]

Just make sure only one of you adds stuff statically to the same list and you'll be fine.

[MtM]

MtM has also informed me that RemoveAllTypedItems and RemoveAllItems will reset all the players hotkeys when called on the PC. I wasn't aware of this' date=' but I don't use this function myself anywhere in sexout.

[/quote']

 

I'm sorry. I'm afraid it was not clear. These functions resets hotkeys because proper equippable items are removed from player inventory (casino entrance syndrome).

[ChancellorKremlin]

Oh come on, the very thing I've started using in my plugin, and its bugged!

 

MtM has also informed me that RemoveAllTypedItems and RemoveAllItems will reset all the players hotkeys when called on the PC. I wasn't aware of this, but I don't use this function myself anywhere in sexout.

 

Luckily I don't use hotkeys lol...

[prideslayer]

Oh come on' date=' the very thing I've started using in my plugin, and its bugged!

 

MtM has also informed me that RemoveAllTypedItems and RemoveAllItems will reset all the players hotkeys when called on the PC. I wasn't aware of this, but I don't use this function myself anywhere in sexout.

 

Luckily I don't use hotkeys lol...

 

I don't either, but that's fine anyway. As he says, it also happens whenever you go into a casino (or the fort I imagine) and they strip you of weapons so.. whats one more.

[Guest user29]

resetting the hotkeys really isn't a bug. You can't hotkey something you don't have in your inventory. It's annoying but it makes sense.

[prideslayer]

resetting the hotkeys really isn't a bug. You can't hotkey something you don't have in your inventory. It's annoying but it makes sense.

 

If you drop it and pick it up, isn't the hotkey 'remembered' though?

[Guest user29]

resetting the hotkeys really isn't a bug. You can't hotkey something you don't have in your inventory. It's annoying but it makes sense.

 

If you drop it and pick it up' date=' isn't the hotkey 'remembered' though?

[/quote']

 

I'm not sure but my gut says no.

[MtM]

resetting the hotkeys really isn't a bug. You can't hotkey something you don't have in your inventory. It's annoying but it makes sense.

 

If you drop it and pick it up' date=' isn't the hotkey 'remembered' though?

[/quote']

 

I'm not sure but my gut says no.

 

You are right. It is not a bug, it is side-effect.

[DoctaSax]

I can do this to every list that sexout creates itself.. I'm not going to do that to the vanilla lists though of course' date=' and it doesn't cover the lists in other mods. The only one in sexout that actually needs saved is the player orientation one.

 

The other lists it uses can more or less be safely cleared every game load. It's just scanner targets, the global notification lists for spells and other formlists, and the nude bodies / safe for sex clothes. [/quote']

 

MtM indicated the more dynamically added items there are in the lists the more likely it is; you guys though can also safely just add the items to your lists via the GECK which solves the problem without any dummy items.

 

Uhm, yeah, SCES writes to a lot of formlists. And allowing the player to add to them & have those decisions saved in the game save according to his/her own tastes is pretty much the whole point of the system. Geck-adding clothing to a 'sexy' or 'ragged' list is just making decisions for people they ought to make for themselves.

 

I've never encountered the bug - things saved fine last I tested, but I never tested with hundreds of items added. To make sure, adding a dummy misc item or something (best not clothing) is probably a good idea.

 

The lists SCES writes to are mostly the clothappear lists in SCR, but ALSO the safe for sex lists, pride, so I'd rather not those get cleared automatically.

[prideslayer]

I'm not clearing them intentionally, but if I do it's not a "big" problem.. since a script to just readd them to the sexout list in a gameloaded/restarted block is pretty easy. I'll try to prioritize getting an NX replacement for the lists in place. I haven't personally experienced the bug either.

 

edit: I will add.. something to them. Maybe an actor token.

[DoctaSax]

I'm not clearing them intentionally' date=' but if I do it's not a "big" problem.. since a script to just readd them to the sexout list in a gameloaded/restarted block is pretty easy. I'll try to prioritize getting an NX replacement for the lists in place. I haven't personally experienced the bug either.

 

edit: I will add.. something to them. Maybe an actor token.

[/quote']

 

Great

 

I don't think doing a gameloaded/restarted script would work in this case. The choice to add something to a list is the player's, the adding is in-game with AddFormToFormlist commands. Unless there's an easy way to export & import that data now, data retention all depends on the save.

[prideslayer]

Ahhh well that "could" be a problem then. I'll get some dummy item added for next release, guess we'll see when we see till then, but so far I don't think anyone has complained about lost items in the lists.

[DoctaSax]

Shh... don't hex it - or the big thing from up on high will fall down on our heads & there will be 7 years of skinny cowgirls and never-ending bugfixes

[prideslayer]

I already have never ending bugfixes.. bring on the cowgirls.