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Luck Based Loot For Frans
(requires Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod 4.0 or newer)

a mod for a mod for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
created by Simbacca
version 1.0

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Table of Contents
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{1} - Description
{2} - Installation
{3} - Setup & Configuration
{4} - Known Issues, Bugs, & Conflicts
{5} - Version History
{6} - Credits & Usage
{7} - Contact Me

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{1} - Description
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An unofficial optional plug-in module for Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod 4.0 or newer, Luck Based Loot For Frans utilizes the customizable nature of Francesco's Mod's loot tables to allow the player character's base Luck to affect the chance of quality drops in-game.

The typing of base Luck is no mistake, Luck Based Loot For Frans will only take the player character's base Luck into account. What this means is that Fortify Luck spells, Fortify Luck potions, and Fortify Luck enchanted equipment will continue to have no effect on loot. This was kept this way intentionally to ensure that this mod would not have a negative impact on FPS as well as the fact that it would be far to easy to abuse.

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{2} - Installation
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This mod will have no effect unless you have Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod version 4.0 or newer installed (the acutal configuration of the install does not matter). You can download Francesco's Mod here and you can read the online ReadMe here.

Installing Luck Based Loot For Frans is as simple as extracting the contents of the zip file into your Oblivion/Data directory and activating the LuckBasedLootForFrans.esp. This can be placed anywhere in your mod load order.

You can disable Luck Based Loot For Frans on a per character basis via the in-game configuration menu. If you wish to uninstalled Luck Based Loot For Frans completely, simply delete the LuckBasedLootForFrans.esp in your Oblivion/Data directory.

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{3} - Setup & Configuration
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Note: I should probably warn you now that for this rest of this section I will, for the most part, be assuming you already understand how Francesco's Mod's in-game basic custom loot setting works. If you don't, you will need to do the following; read Francesco's ReadMe's "In-Game Mod Customizability Loot" section, read the spreadsheet file "Francesco's 4.x Loot System.xls" which was included in both the Francesco's Mod's install as well as the Luck Based Loot For Frans install (for convenience), and finally bring up the Francesco's Mod's Customization Menu in-game to see the basic custom loot section in action. If you do not, you will most likely not properly understand how Luck Based Loot For Frans works nor how to configure it.

Now you have the LuckBasedLootForFrans.esp installed as well as, at the very least, the Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items base Mod version 4.0 or newer. By default, Luck Based Loot For Frans is disabled. To enable the mod, you will have to load up a character and then run the Configuration Menu.

After you get your character loaded and are in-game, press the ~ key to bring up the console, type "startquest LBLFFMenu", press the Enter key, and then press the ~ key again to close the console. A messagebox will pop-up welcoming you to the Activation Menu and prompting you to make a selection. The last two choices are pretty self-explanatory so I will focus on the first four right now.

These first four are the variation choices I have included in this mod. The choices are "1. 50-0", "2. 99-0", "3. 75-25 (d)", and "4. 99-49". These number ranges represent Francesco's Mod's basic custom loot setting while the "(d)" shows which one is the default setting. The first number in each of these ranges is what the Frans basic custom loot setting will be set to by Luck Based Loot For Frans when your character's base Luck is 50 or less. The second number in each of the ranges is what the Frans basic custom loot setting will be set to by Luck Based Loot For Frans when your character's base Luck is 100 or more. As you can see, these ranges are basically the span of settings Luck Based Loot For Frans will set the Frans basic custom loot setting to as your character's base Luck progress from 50 towards 100. Below is a chart to help you more clearly understand your options.

BaseLuck---->50....60....70....80....90...100
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(1.50-00)....50....40....30....20....10....00
(2.99-00)....99....80....60....40....20....00
(3.75-25)....75....65....55....45....35....25
(4.99-49)....99....89....79....69....59....49

Another thing to note about these variations; three of them progress at a 1:1 ratio while one of them progress at a 1:2 ratio. When using variation 1, 3, or 4, every single +1 increase to your character's base Luck will result in a single -1 decrease to the Frans basic custom loot setting. The exception is variation 2, where every single +1 increase to your character's base Luck (beyond 51 base Luck) results in a -2 decrease to the Frans basic custom loot setting.

Ok now we can finally get back to the Luck Based Loot For Frans in-game Activation Menu. After you make your selection, you will be brought to the Luck Based Loot For Frans Configuration Main Menu. Here you have four options; "Variations", "Notification", "Frequency", and "Exit". If you click on "Exit" the Configuration Menu will close and the variation you selected on the Activation Menu will be enabled, with notification (default: Off) and frequency (default: About Every Five Minutes) being left on default settings. However you probably want to know what the other three buttons do so I'll explain now, starting with "Variations", then going slightly out of order to explain "Frequency" next, and then finishing up with "Notification".

Clicking on "Variations" would simply bring you to a sub-menu with all the same options as the Activation Menu we first looked at had (including an option to Disable Luck Based Loot For Frans if you wish in the future).

Clicking on "Frequency" would bring us to a sub-menu with six options. The last two options are self-explanatory so we will discuss the first four; "About Every Single Minute", "About Every Two Minutes", "About Every Five Minutes (d)", and "About Every Ten Minutes". By default, the Luck Based Loot For Frans main script runs just about once every five minutes. This is infrequent enough to ensure that this mod will have no negative impact on your performance. However what this also means is that whenever your character's base Luck changes, it could potentially take up to almost five minutes before the this mod's main script notices the change and adjusts the Frans basic custom loot setting accordingly. Personally I find the benefit of not having yet another script running every second in-game far out-weighs the slight inconvenience of having my Frans basic custom loot setting not being updated for, on the rare occasion, up to almost five minutes. Nevertheless I included this option for those that feel otherwise.

Clicking on "Notification" would bring us to a sub-menu which will ask if you would like a message to appear on the top left corner of your screen every time the Luck Based Loot For Frans main script updates the Frans basic custom loot setting. By default it is off as I find too many mods use this immersion-wrecking messages. However I can not deny the usefulness of these messages for the purposes of testing. Because of this and because I know some people prefer to be notified, I have included the option to turn these messages on. This may also be useful to people using the "Ten Minute" frequency setting, as these messages will notify you exactly when in that timeframe the Luck Based Loot For Frans main script updates the Frans basic custom loot setting after a change in your character's base Luck.

And there you have it. Don't let this long text scare you, Luck Based Loot For Frans really is easy to setup. Once you get it configured to your liking, you will never have to think about it again.

If you ever wish to verify that Luck Based Loot For Frans is updating the Frans basic custom loot setting correctly, just press the ~ key to bring up the console, type "startquest FranMenu", press the Enter key, press the ~ key again to close the console, the Francesco's Customizing Menu will pop-up, click on "Loot", click on "Custom", and click on "Basic". The displayed current basic custom loot setting will be in sync with the guidelines laid out in the above chart.

At anytime during gameplay if you want to bring up the Luck Based Loot For Frans Configuration Menu again, simply do the same as before (press the ~ key to bring up the console, type "startquest LBLFFMenu", press the Enter key, and then press the ~ key again to close the console).

As stated earlier, if you every wish to Disable this mod in-game, you can do so in the "Variations" settings of the Configuration Menu. Doing so will leave your Frans basic custom loot setting to whatever Luck Based Loot For Frans last set it to. If you wish to change it, simply use the Francesco's Customizing Menu.

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{4} - Known Issues, Bugs, & Conflicts
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There are no known bugs, issues, nor conflicts.

This mod was designed to work correctly alongside any player development mod you might use, whether it be S.P.A.M., KCAS, nGCD, Pure Immersion, Realistic Leveling, KseAliLeveling, AF mod, or anything else.

I have not tested this with FCOM at all, but I doubt it would have any effect on it since (from what I understand) FCOM usually uses OOO's loot lists instead of Francesco's. However I have to admit that I know next to nothing about FCOM so feel free to ask those more knowledgable with it than me.

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{5} - Version History
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1.0 - First Released Version

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{6} - Credits & Usage
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Of course this mod would not be if not for the existence of the Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod. A huge thank you to Francesco for not only creating such a fantastic mod that actually makes Oblivion far more playable than default, but also for being so self-less that he put the extra work into the mod to allow for user-end customization of everything in it. This mod is only possible because of the loot customization options he put into Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod starting with version 4.0.

Anyone may release their own variation on this mod as long they include in their mod description that it is a variation on Simbacca's Luck Based Loot For Frans and give the proper credits to me in their ReadMe.
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