Crushed!

Checked NCCS' comments the other day, as I do once or twice a day. Happened to notice the endorsements were sitting at 301.

I'm pretty sure that's what AP pulls in in an average hour, and it took my crappy mod almost two years to break 300 but hey; whatever.

Was checking comments just now after I got home, and it's back down to 300. Someone actually unendorsed the mod.

Guess I'm not being helpful enough or something.

Links Repaired

As everyone's favorite Neko mentioned to me this morning, I've been slacking again and didn't keep up the links here on the blog.

A while back as part of their plan of whatever the hell it is they're doing over there, the Nexus changed all their URLs; rendering old links and bookmarks invalid.

Most other old links (TES, FO3) still work; but for some reason none of the NVNexus links did.

I suppose this is one of the things I'd have known beforehand if I read those news blurbs.

I had completely forgotten about the NCCS link here on the blog, and it was apparently dead. So, reminded, I went through and updated the link (and tested it). Just to be safe, I updated all the FO3 links too -- they still worked for me, but who knows for how long.

All should be working again; but feel free to shoot me an email if anyone notices one that I missed.


Edited to add:

In updating the "must haves" list for FO3, I see that 20th Century Weapons is finally off the moderated list. It's now gone completely. So, I just went ahead and removed the link.

BURN COMMA CRASH AND

Got a couple hours testing in on a new FNV game this morning.

Was initially pleased -- as we were finishing up the "tutorial" with Sunny (which I always play through to get the extra ammo) the girls stopped me, each in turn notifying me that she was thirsty, but had a drink on hand.

The code fired.

Once.

Never happened again. Nor did the hunger state ever appear at all.

I know the code is valid... but I have no idea why it's failed this time.

Slack-ass pieces of shit actually drew a salary for coding this engine...

Anyway. Now I get the fun of running up diagnostic scripts, to figure out whether the counter isn't running, or the variable checks are stuck, or what.

From as long as it took to get the one successful appearance, I can tell you that their object scripts are not running every frame like they're supposed to -- the girls' timer started running before mine did, and it was still five solid minutes after I got the first dehydration notice before they did.

Once, just once, I would like this game to obey it's own goddamned rules.

So, bets are off for the inclusion of a working HC mode for NCCS in the near future, until I figure out what in the unholy fucking shit is going on this time.

Too Much?

Finished off the HC dialogue this morning.

Contained in its own quest for the sake of my sanity, it was easy to check the counter and see how many lines of dialogue were involved in this rather basic endeavor.

The answer? 201. For three personalities.

I had figured on six for NCCS general; plus seven new personalities; plus four or five extras here and there. Assuming the number of lines needed track into NCCS, that will make for 1206 lines of dialogue.

...I may not have thought this project through well enough.

On the up side, I further modified the code so that when you give a companion a Sunset Sarsaparilla, there's a 10% chance of them getting a Star cap instead of a standard bottlecap. Either way, they also keep the empty bottle, as well.

Edit: remembered to add Nuka Cola, as well (and have them keep cap and empty bottle).

After updating the companion scripts to make use of the new hunger and thirst code, the plugin now weighs in at 485kb; up from 352kb. Assuming the same ~38% increase in size, this alone will put NCCS up over the megabyte milestone.

So. Much. Work.

Bored enough this morning that I'm working on the preliminary version of NCCS' Hardcore Mode again.

Three lines of dialogue per companion (one response for each 'tier' of survival skill); times nineteen possible options, equals a metric fucktonne of dialogue (the metric, or "long" fucktonne, of course being more than the Imperial, or "short" fuckton).

I have to say, this right here is what keeps me from doing more with the companion system. Dialogue.

I hate it. The editor is clumsy and slow, has a shitty excuse for a spell-checker that can't be turned off; and all-round takes forever. It isn't even hard -- it's just the sheer, mindless, monotony of the endless copying and editing.

It's comparably simple, no less -- my personal companions plugin has three companions in it. Each one gets her own dedicated set of responses.

NCCS will be... more complicated. I figure an odd half dozen randomized responses based on gender, alignment, and so on; plus extra responses for each of the seven new personality types -- and a few extras for alignments and genders within said personalities -- all times three for the tiers of survival skill and scripting aside, this is going to end up a not insubstantial amount of work.

It's times like this I wish I really was head of a multinational evil corporation. I'd type up a couple of templates, and have a couple of slaves whittle away their life on the remainder. I'd make a joke here about the market rate for a pair of third world children, but someone would probably think I was being serious and take great offense.



...Like I could afford to buy human beings these days anyway...

NCCS v0.9?

May be a bit early to really announce that as imminent, but it's the next version, so yeah...

Anyhow, doing some scripting this afternoon; as the petulant whining accusing me of having that house mod pulled has already lost its amusement.

I keep forgetting how horrifically boring scripting is.

Still, I had a couple good ideas today that I felt bore inclusion into the test package.

1) I came up with a way to get the companions' hardcore mode to maintain compatibility with any overhaul mods you might be running. That is, if you run a mod that changes for example the dehydration rate; your companions will use the same rate you do, rather than the one from the vanilla game. This should at least help keep everything straight and even between your and your companions' needs.

2) I couldn't find any way to in-line increase the consumables' effects for NPCs in a way similar to how it works for the player. So, I copped out a bit and expanded to three sets of food/drink dialogue. One for Survival below 50; one for 50 to 75; one for 75+. That's the companion's Survival skill, not the player's. Item effectiveness will be determined on a per-companion basis; so companions with Survival tagged will get more benefit than ones without.

I also added almost-complete effects to the consumables -- I say almost complete, because there's little point in adding rads to an NPC since it isn't tracked for NPCs, and can't affect them anyway -- for example, Barrel Cactus fruit will reduce both hunger and thirst; but on the flip side, Pork 'n Beans will reduce hunger but increase thirst. The effects are again, the same for the player; so they won't be massive, but it will be something to keep in mind -- you won't want to be loading up on Pork 'n Beans and Potato Crisps if you and your companions are low of water and far from home.

The only exception is going to be Sunset Sarsaparilla and Nuka Cola -- they'll be coded to reduce companions' thirst similarly (but not as effectively) to water. It's pretty silly that neither drink in the base game quenches thirst; but I'm not out to overhaul the base HC system here, so we'll have to settle for companions acting right.

I also remembered to have the companion save the cap when you give them either soft drink.

I have to say, while certainly not my most advanced or impressive work, I am fairly pleased with how this is coming together.

Now, if I can just fight down the urge to add stripper-dancing to the sandbox packages for all female companions...

Hardcore!

So, first off I've got to mention a milestone. My current FNV game has exceeded 100 hours now, and is still fully playable. I'm pretty sure that's a first for me in any Gamebryo title.

Anyway, with my interest in Skyrim rapidly winding down, I fired up FNV again the other morning.

Before Skyrim hit, I had finished the initial draft of the 'hardcore' code for one of my personal companions; but not tested it.

Since it's set to advance at the same scale as the player's needs (one point of hunger every 25 seconds, one point of thirst every ten) there was really no way to test but to play and wait and see if it fired. Unlike the player's needs, the companion needs are scripted; they only advance when the script is running in the Gamemode block -- not during fast travel, sleep, or wait.

This game is nearly done. All the DLC is done except Lonesome Road, and the main quest was left at the point where I had entered the Lucky 38 and spoken to Mr. House; but not gone after Benny yet. Otherwise, the only quest left active is gathering eggs for the Thorn.

I played through confronting Benny; splattering his head across the presidential suite, and taking the chip back to House. We got down into the basement, where House's droning is promptly interrupted when my companion grabs my attention and tells me she's thirsty. I give her a bottle of water, she thanks me; boring ass exposition scripted display continues.

Completed the rest of the chat with House without her interrupting; so it would appear that the 'thirst' counter reset correctly.

So, yeah... apparently hardcore mode for NCCS is going to work, after all.

I think I'm going to rework the values a bit, though. The more I think about it, the more I don't like one food or drink item completely resetting the counter. I'm going to reset it so that it only decreases the counter by the same amount the item would for the player; albeit at 100 survival skill.

I could script it to change based on the companion's survival skill... but we're talking about a lot of extra scripting, and I seriously doubt anyone other than me would ever even notice in the first place.

Currently, the code has the companion check their own inventory; and eat or drink something they have rather than bugging you to give them something. If they have nothing appropriate, then they ask the player. I'm planning to add a third possibility -- a new dialogue option where when they ask you for something, you can tell them to just grab something from the survival container -- this will be a randomly chosen item, ideally lending a bit of an idea that the companion looks through the container and picks what they're in the mood for at the moment.

I have to say, the last couple of projects I've tried have gone almost... unnervingly smoothly. I keep expecting something to blow up in my face. Must be getting a bit gun-shy after a year of modding FNV.

Anyhow, I'm not sure when exactly I'll have this ready for upload (it's a lot of dialogue to create and script) but it's working and in the pipeline, now.

Still trying to decide whether I want to add personalities for dialogue responses or not.

The Other Hardcore Mode

Reading around the Lovers Lab forum tonight... because I'm, well, severely bored. Normally just keep track of Oblivion stuffs, but I happened to pop into the FO3/NV section. Looking over a thread on a mod called "Sexout" which is a general perverse addon for NV; apparently based on some half-finished Japanese mod for FO3. The thread was about "what do you want to see in the mod?"

Glancing down the lists; usual fare -- raping, drugs, slavery, animal sex; all the stuff you normally see on wish lists for these sorts of mods.

Then I saw it.

"Support for NCCS companions somehow"

So many conflicting thoughts. I mean, there's the "ew" of course -- I'm not against dirty mods in any way, but that whole drugging and raping and slavery thing... it's not me -- but there's also "hey, I guess some people do use the mod!" followed by "I bet I could run out a compatibility plugin..." to "...do I want an official compatibility plugin for that sort of thing...?"

I wonder: am I wasting my time on the wrong kind of "hardcore mode" for NCCS? Popularity for the mod does seem to lie down the wet-spot-stained road...

Hardcore Companions

Okay, so it's serious question time, Kiddies.

I'm in the process of writing in the prototype hunger/thirst code for companions.

What I want to know is what everyone thinks. I know I don't have enough of a readership to build much of a consensus; but I'm also not taking this question onto the Nexii forums.

So, here's what I want to know:

How "hardcore" should it be? Same numbers/rate of increase as the player? More? Less?

Rate of decrease when they do eat/drink; should it be a simple one item resets the counter, or go by points just like the player? If #2, should it tie to their (the individual companion's) survival skill? This could open a new avenue of companion creation -- one that has survival as a tag skill to survive in the wastes longer on less supplies at the expense of a combat skill; but it could also be a colossal pain in the butt to track numbers.

Items valid for bringing down their levels: all foods/drinks? Most commonly encountered? Only a select few?

How many times should you be able to refuse to give a companion supplies before they lose faith in your leadership and walk for greener pastures?

Just how pissed should a companion be when they walk? Just returning to town and be re-hireable after a speech check? Or maybe disabled; and thus gone completely from the game world without cleaning and re-enabling their plugin (thereby taking whatever equipment they had with them into the aether)?

Before anyone asks: sleep will not be making an appearance as a requirement. I'm sorry, it's just too hard to get an NPC to sleep in a specific bed on command; not to mention getting them to sleep a set period of time.

NCCS v0.8, Live!

NCCS v0.8 has been uploaded.

Although next to no one still reads this blog, so you're probably more likely to find out from the Nexus updated file listing than here.

*V0.8: Note: The companions' backpacks have been removed in this version! Please remove all items from the backpacks before upgrading to v0.8.

Replacing the backpacks is a set of communal containers: one each for armor, general, reloading, survival, and weapons. Containers may be accessed from any companion in your party.

Sorters also added, for general, reloading, and survival. Use the appropriate dialogue commands to initiate sorting. Sorted items go into the aforementioned communal containers. A message will pop up to let you know when sorting is complete.

Added a campfire for crafting, and sleeping if you have the Home on the Range perk. Campfire will remain in its place until you leave the cell, at which point it will return to its holding location. Campfires can only be set up outdoors for safety reasons.

New containers, sorters, and portable campfire can all be accessed from the equipment menu.

Companion scripts updated again; this time to add code to spawn casings and/or spent power cells in their inventory when combat ends, to simulate recovering ammunition components similarly to how the player does. The code only functions for vanilla game weapons at the present time. A sorting option has also been added to collect the reloading components from the companions' inventories and deposit them directly into the reloading container. Companions will auto-sort their collected components periodically.

Companionscript has also been altered to keep NCCS companions from getting shelled by artillery on approach to Nellis even after the Player has made it in and made friends.

Companionscript has also been altered to allow NCCS companions to repair their own weaponry. The level to which they'll repair a weapon is limited by the companion's repair skill. Companions' repair abilities are automatic, but limited. Most companions will still benefit from your repairing their weapons periodically; but this will keep their weapons from going zero condition and breaking. Most companions' weapons will stay below 60% when they're left to repair them on their own. Companions using the new repairer class will be able to keep their weapons between 70% and 100% when their repair skill tops out.

"Operator" class and combat style added. This is a renamed copy of the combat style I use for one of my personal companions. It is not designed to "grow" with the player, but to be essentially a killing machine. Has been scaled back so as not to be overpowered, but is still extremely skilled. Because of the way the companions' scripts handle applying the "learn and grow" combat style, be sure to use the operator class and combat style together.

Repairer package added. Simply add the NCCS Repair faction to your companion, and they will gain a new dialogue option that initiates the repair menu. This new option can be found on the first dialogue level; above the system options. For the option to appear, the companion must be recruited (have had the 'join me' command used on them), but need not be in your party -- they will offer their services even when sandboxing or otherwise removed from your party; provided they have not been fired. For best results, they should also be set to the NCCS Repairer class, or another class with Repair set as a tag skill. Note also that at the moment, the repairer class does not work correctly; and for some reason is not turning in repair skill values as high as it should. Investigations as to why this occurs are ongoing. Repairer package also includes a portable workbench interface; identical to the one used by the static workbenches -- the command for which should sit just below the repair menu entry in the companion's dialogue.

Reloader package added. Add the NCCS Reloader faction to your companion, and they will gain a new dialogue option that brings up the reloading interface just like at a static press. This new option can be found on the first dialogue level; above the system options. This package operates independently of class, and can function with any class. For the option to appear, the companion must be recruited (have had the 'join me' command used on them), but need not be in your party -- they will offer their services even when sandboxing or otherwise removed from your party; provided they have not been fired.

Medic package added. Add the NCCS Medic faction to your companion, and they will gain a new dialogue option that allows for medical treatment of the player. This new option can be found on the first dialogue level; above the system options. This package operates independently of class, and can function with any class. For the option to appear, the companion must be recruited (have had the 'join me' command used on them), but need not be in your party -- they will offer their services even when sandboxing or otherwise removed from your party; provided they have not been fired. The medic companion can treat your health, limbs, radiation, and cure addictions.

Some dialogue resultscripts were repaired.

Legion and NCR companion placeholders were removed so as not to give people the impression that the factions did anything. After some recent issues with players misunderstanding the different between companion system and opposing army maker, the Legion and NCR companion options aren't likely to ever be implemented.

Also updated my premade companions pack, so that the equipment menu functions correctly with the new options, and to make use of the new packages. Artemis uses the medic package; Samantha uses the repairer and reloader packages; and Ted uses the reloader package. Rin was switched to the Sniper class and combat style.

Added much new dialogue. New dialogue responses will appear based on companion's alignment, gender, special skill packages, and more. Setting the alignment of your companions will now actually do something.

Finishing Touches

So, the yearly Day of No Nos Modding starts in a bit over four hours. I'm throwing the final touches onto NCCS v0.8 to go ahead and get it uploaded (since the whole "release an early alpha and get testing data" thing seems to have been a massive bust) before I go dark.

No new code, I'm just throwing in some new dialogue. Greetings at the moment. Specialist "packaged" companions will get special greetings (they won't appear every time, but will be chosen randomly from the list that the companion meets the requirements for from a list of things like gender, alignment, and skill package). Right now I'm writing in some alignment-specific dialogue, and wondering if people will consider the evil/very evil dialogue a bit much. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to do it anyway... I just wonder.

The offending dialogue? Things like:

"I'm not selling Ultrajet to orphans! Who said I was? I'll sue the hell out of them..."

"Hey, uh... no reason to go into more detail about this, but if someone should happen to come along and mention I had something to do with beating a sack of dead puppies; I was with you the entire time, okay? "

"Is violence impending? No? Then why are you bothering me...?"

"You know, I could be at home watching my Soaps right now."

Of course, there are others. Medic-greetings based on player health and rad levels; repairer and reloading greetings; some for recruited companions only, some only for non-recruited; a couple for female companions only that may get me attacked by feminists.

Also:

"Ugh. That gecko isn't sitting well. We may want to sleep outside tonight... s'all I'm saying..."

BECAUSE FART JOKES ARE ALWAYS FUNNY, DAMN IT!


Edit, and from the "Behavior" menu:

"Oh Gods yes; I love it when you micromanage me! Do it more!"

Must resist urge to have the companion refer to the player as Mein Fuhrer...

NCCS v0.8, The Slow March Forward

NCCS has taken a major step forward this morning; further eclipsing its would-be "competition".

Firstly, the Nellis artillery issue has been fixed -- and without touching a single base game reference or script. How I did it would be boring technical minutiae, so I'll spare you all; except to say that in-party companions now exist in a perpetual state of being considered the player's teammate -- save when you talk to them, or during combat if you have XP sharing off. This teammate change will also allow some compatibility with follower-centric perks; but this is mostly untested so I don't know offhand which work without further scripting. The new "teammate" condition has been tested and verified to not affect companions' ability to enter the Lucky 38, or keep their weapons on entering other casinos.

Second, during the companionscript overhaul, I re-wrote the case-spawning code. It is now driven by form lists rather than specific item names. This will allow for plugin-patching of the weapon lists, to allow it to work with mod-added weapons without changing individual scripts or forcing your custom companion to require a weapon mod. It will also allow similar patches to include the DLC weapons in the case-spawning code -- though obviously new ammunition types will require modifying the scripts.

Third... companions will now repair their own weapons. Yeah, you read that right. Companions' weapons will no longer reach 0% condition, break, and be dropped only for you to have to go look for where they dropped the damned thing. NVSE is not required for this feature. Companions' repair ability is linked to their repair skill; and companions who are not using the new repairer class will only be able to maintain their weapons at about 60%. Once a Repairer companion's repair skill tops out, they'll be able to maintain nearer 100%, with their weapons never dropping below 70%. I think this strikes a good balance; since it'll keep their weapons from breaking, but not negate the need for the player to perform periodic repairs if they want companions to do maximum damage.

Fourth: this is mostly a back-end issue and not something you players will ever see, but I managed to shave 65 lines off the companionscripts in the course of the rewrite. This is important because the scripts were getting up near the character limit; and by cutting so many lines off I've preserved the ability to continue expanding the scripts for a moderate part of the future.

Lastly, not a new mod development so much as a testing result: I know a couple players and myself have run into an issue where the companions hesitate before engaging an enemy; reloading their weapon one or more times before entering combat. I got some more testing in, and this seems to be directly related to non-standard ammunition types. When I removed the special ammo from the companions, and added default ammo, the issue went away. It doesn't seem to be a sure-fire issue or fix; but that does seem to be the most common way to fix it. I can't even begin to surmise what's causing it (but I have the nagging suspicion it's an engine issue) so I doubt there'll be an NCCS-specific fix in the foreseeable future.

And of course, here's the new alpha; for those three of you who give half a fuck.

Yep, That's What I Thought

Get the bright idea this afternoon (since the cleaning is done, I have a bit of time to mod for the first time this week) to run NCCS through FNVEdit and see if it maybe detects some error the GECK doesn't mention that would explain why an apparently completely valid script is refusing to run. The result?




...Well, it's nice to see FNVEdit isn't jeopardizing its standing record of being nigh completely fucking worthless...

Looks like I have to do this the hard way...


Edit:

Well, I purged the new "Nellis fix" from the companion scripts, and all seems to function correctly again.

It's at this point that I'm more or less baffled. There's nothing wrong with the code; save that possibly the range I need the script to cover is larger than the engine can handle using the GetDistance function. Unfortunately, that -- like nearly every one of my scripting questions -- comes up complete craps on the forums. Either no one has posted about it, or the search function is being a bitch and not turning the threads in. I give it even odds on which.

So... I'm really not sure how else I can run this without modifying the base game scripts. There's really no way to tell whether they're within range other than by checking distance to an object -- the artillery is triggered by trigger boxes, but there's no way I know of to check whether an actor is inside a trigger except from the script linked to said trigger. If I'm gonna modify a base game object anyway, I may as well just edit the targeting script and throw in an NCCSFaction exemption from the bombardment.

I've still got one non-editing trick I can think of; but I don't hold out high hopes. Stupid Obsidian and their damned gimmicks...

I mean, really; how hard would it have been to just disable the artillery barrages altogether once the player had made it through? I know the fluff says it's how they defend Nellis; but it's not like the game has roving bands of raiders who continually assault the base.

Edit again:

Damn my easily distractedness!

...Instead of adding a new Nellis fix, I just spent the better part of an hour rewriting the main quest script to streamline how each companion is maintained as you play. Only shaved about thirty lines off the script, but it reads much easier now -- to me, at least.


Edit, yet again:

Just tried my last resort option. It doesn't lock the script... but nor does it stop the bombardments.

Yet another total failure notch to add to the 'ol belt. I need to ponder a bit on what to do.

Wait, I've got it this time...

I decided to try to fix the issue with the NCCS companions getting shelled at Nellis even when the player has done made friendly like.

Nailed it on the first try, and without touching a single base game object or script. Damn, I'm good sometimes.

However, the game continues to perplex me in ways no other game ever has. It's just so... badly made.

After the test at Nellis, we were walking back out across the bomb range, when the companions crashed. Nose dive into the fucking pavement from thirty thousand feet crash.

Now, I'd chalk this up to some unreported error in my new companion script... except that Veronica was in my party at the time, and she crashed too.

Wouldn't follow, couldn't be talked to... they just stood there.

To the apparent credit of my scripting skills, two of my three NCCS companions recovered on their own after a couple minutes, and began functioning properly again. The third and Veronica never did.

I haven't seen this sort of NPC behavior in a couple patches now. I guess Obsidian really isn't capable of taking a step forward without two back.

Tried waiting, tried fast travel, tried combat; nothing snapped the two statues out of it. Finally, I just closed the game in disgust. Without saving.

I remember in one of the first versions of NCCS, back before FNV had been patched at all, I used to run into similar issues. When it happened, it would infect any subsequent saves; requiring a clean save to fix. Of course, one can not clean save Veronica... so I'm not sure what the fix would be there; short of breaking out the feathered headdress and going looking for a virgin to sacrifice to the Old Ones from beyond the stars.

My game is up over 75 hours now, so all bets are probably off on this sort of thing... but it's still immensely frustrating -- not being able to cleanly separate what's a mod issue that I need to fix, and what's just shitty coding on the part of the slack bastards who got paid to turn out this half-finished game. Fuck, I've played Alpha builds less unstable than this...

About all I can do is fire the game up again, and see if the issue manifests again. If it does, I get to try the new game approach.

Y'know, one of these days I'm going to go apply for an EOD job. At least then there'd be something to look forward to in life.

NCCS v0.8, More Improved! Or Not...

So, a player noted in the Nexus comments that Nellis' arty continues to target NCCS companions even after the player makes nice.

I had noted the issue myself when playing through that section of the Mojave this game, but had forgotten about it whilst pursuing other improvements (sorters, improved combat styles, et cetera).

When it was reported, I remembered; and decided to take a closer look at the issue. Sadly, it will not be an easy fix. The targeting script for the shells makes three exceptions: Boomers, the Player (once he's made nice), and the Player's teammates.

Well, the wheel ain't bein' implemented, so we can forget option three. Since it names the player specifically, and not members of the Playerfaction (slackers!) #2 is pretty useless for our purposes as well.

My current way of thinking is that adding the companions (temporarily) to the Boomer faction when they're within a certain radius of the gate will be the best option; and tossing in a condition about the Boomers not hating the player should preserve the ability to engage in hostilities with the Boomers without the companions refusing to engage.

Unfortunately, I can't test it at the moment since I'm smack in the middle of Dead Money; which I hate, by the way. This DLC is one experience that requires the use of the word 'cluster' many times.

Anyway, that's not what I'm posting about. When I was reading around the forums to brush up on the limitations of the GetDistance function (or at least try to -- my search was fruitless) I happened across a thread with an interesting theory. In it, a player posted a script for converting salient green into actual vegetables or something -- I never did catch the point of the whole endeavor -- and a respondent I'll refrain from naming noted that the script could be shorted considerably, by using a form list instead of naming individual items. The posted script looked mighty similar to one of my own sorter scripts, so the wheels began to turn.

I ran up a couple form lists, wrote an alternate sorter script, and implemented the change. Great, thinks I, this will shorten it enough to get all the sorters into one single script and quest!

Tested it in game, all items removed correctly. On a second thought, I decided to check the contents of the container and make sure everything got added right.

...It was about this time that I needed Houston's frequency, 'cause we had us a problem.

It seems that the whole formlist-in-lieu-of-items technique has one teensy flaw. Rather than providing a number to the script for each item, it provides an aggregate number.

For those who were too busy trying to get laid to pay attention in school, I'll explain.

Rather than adding to the container 22 Abraxos, a baseball, fifteen weapon repair kits, and so on; it tallied the total number of items I had that were in the form list... and used that number as the item count for each item it added. It added to the container six hundred and twenty one of each item on the list -- which is to say, every non-quest specific miscellaneous item in the game.

What made me giggle is that this would effectively be exponential. That is: I had 621 total items, spread across the hundred and fifty odd entries in the list, so it added 621 of each item.

Had I emptied the container back into my inventory, and sorted it again, the item count would have gone up to more than 93,000 of each (621x150); next time we'd have 13,972,500 of each... not that I expect the game would survive trying to move that many items.

Not that it wouldn't have been an amusing method of mass item collection... but I did not see this as being good for the mod.

So, in the end I reverted to my "inefficient" original scripts. It may not be flashy, it may not be evolved... but damn it, it works; and at the end of the day sometimes that's all you can ask...

On an unrelated note: my new "advanced" sniper companion that I made for DLC testing with v0.8 fucking rapes Ghost People. She takes limbs off of 'em left and right. The standard companion with the shotgun not so much. One of these days...

Hm. Thought occurred. Was going to say I'll create a companion that uses an AMR... but she's already a purpose made sniper... To the GECK!

...Sorry, what was I talking about? I was reading Wikia on FONV to remember the name of the ghost things, and then I had my AMR moment... I've got to start being more focused, huh?

NCCS v0.8, Issue Solved

Sooo... I've been holding off on releasing v0.8 because of the aforementioned issue with a script that refused to run.

Fixed that this morning, finally.

Bigger?

I'm sure someone has wondered, with all the new stuff I've been adding, just how much bigger is v0.8 of NCCS?

Well, I had to restore a backup of v0.7 today to open it in the GECK and disprove a claim that my scripting was faulty, so I took the opportunity to screenshot the overwrite:



About double the size. That, for those of you who have never done it, is a lot of scripting.

NCCS v0.8, Upcoming, Part VI

Played a bit more this morning (once I had dealt with the latest bits of sky falling on the Nexus) and learned a bit more about the "locking" quest scripts.

Clean saved NCCS from my game and re-enabled it, and the main quest was dead on activation. Never functioned at all this time. This tells me that the problem is something fundamental in the game itself -- whatever it is, the game has decided the script does not need to work under any circumstances. There's no fix, except to revert to a save before it happened, or start a new game.

FONV continues to be impressive in its unreliability. I'm at 65 hours or so now, and crashes are frequent; but not quite constant. Most often is a crash on changing cells, whether it be by door or fast travel, it tends to lock on loading the new area.

NCCS v0.8, Upcoming, Part V

So, few more updates that popped into my head today.

Firstly, I've reworked the combat radii on some of the NCCS combat styles. The thought occurred to me after commenting back and forth with Darksong that I had switched the radii in my personal companions plugin to get rid of an issue similar to one he described; but had forgotten to switch all of the NCCS styles to match.

It's a new issue that's only manifested since the last patch (Obsidian can't patch anything without breaking something else, can they? Incompetent fucks...) and seems to have to do with the combat radius -- that is, how wide an area they're allowed to notice enemies and engage in combat at. Default is 10,000. Prior to patch v1.4, I had been running them with good effects at 40,000. Since the last patch, however, anything over 30,000 seems to get them buggy. I know the limit is somewhere between 30 and 35k; but truth be told I'm too lazy to go ten units at a time trying to find the exact limit.

I realized this after seeing the issue again playing this morning -- a new companion I created for v0.8 is running the new "operator" style I copied direct from my personal companions, with the other two using existing NCCS styles. Two bugged, the new one didn't. Went back through, and sure enough I had left the "high" level Sniper combat style's radius set to 40,000. Checked and changed all the styles where necessary, and am hoping that will clear it up. Haven't had a chance to test yet, though.

Also, I've added compatibility to NCCS companions for players who take the "Ferocious Loyalty" perk -- the perk adds something like 50% damage resistance to companions when you fall below 50% health. Seemed kind of a waste to not have my companions able to use it while the vastly inferior vanillas can... so now NCCS can, too.

I'm also considering adding something I've mentioned before: a "hardcore" mode for lack of a better term. In HC, companions will have their essential flags stripped, and you will be limited to one NCCS companion per two points of Charisma (similar to the FO1 method). HC would also forcibly disable and preclude XP sharing. Vanilla companions and those from other systems will not be affected by this to minimize conflicts. May also add a need for companions to eat and drink in HC much as the player does in game-wide hardcore... but I haven't quite worked out how to keep a reliable running tally of food and drink needs. It should be straightforward enough to code... but we all know how far "should" goes in this game.

Also also: with all the bitching I've received about the equipment randomizers, I'm considering coding the companion scripts so that the companions spawn random gear once, and then the leveled lists are removed; not spawning any more items until/unless their plugin is clean saved and reactivated. This could be made a system option (I think), so I may plow ahead with it regardless of what the three people who actually comment on this blog think of the idea.


Edit: oh, and before I forget again, I've also edited my premade companions again. Their pip-boy plugins dialogue option will now appear on the top level of dialogue rather than in the equipment menu, and will disappear once they've given you the plugin -- rather than the option staying there and eating space uselessly in the already over-cluttered menu.


Edit, the second:

Just got through with some playtesting, and have reached a few conclusions.

1) the scripts failing are indeed the quest scripts. In NCCS, the 'sort all' (the command that doesn't work at the moment) is not in its own quest, but rather lodged into the main quest script. I can tell the entire script is locked, as the new campfire isn't being moved when I leave the cell it's in, and companions are not teleporting except at the end of combat (which is controlled by their individual object scripts).

I still have no idea why this is happening, and have found no method of fixing it except to clean save.

2) The issue with companions' weapons equipping/unequipping/reloading/et cetera seems to be a double-whammy. Even with the combat styles' radii reduced to a max of 25k, the issue was still persisting. I had it down to one cycle before initiating combat, but even that was annoying. I swapped out their ammunition for default types, and the issue went completely away through a couple hours of play (at which point the game locked on me while fast traveling, which is why I'm here typing this). So, the solution seems to be default ammo only and no combat radius over 30k.

Again, I have no idea why this is happening; but demonstrable, repeatable fixes trump "should be" every time.

3) this iteration of the game engine is still a piece of shit, even after four patches.

Overheard in NosCo HQ

"Does NCCS only allow you to make human companions?"

Hm.

NCCS does not restrict you in any way -- you're still free to create whatever your modding skills and the GECK will allow while NCCS is active.

...No, that'll get me in trouble, no matter how funny it is...

*deletedeletedelete*

Yes, in v0.7 the only included framework is the one for NPC-type (human and non-feral ghoul) companions.

Yeah, that's innocuous enough.

Wonder if anyone's observant enough to catch that I specified v0.7 only contains the one framework...