Version 1.3 is posted. Adds dandelion wine and distributes more gumdrops for making food paste/adhesive. Takahashi sells regular and Brahmin Noodles now (which was the original plan, but I got caught up in other details). Should be the last update until I learn how to make custom nifs or the CK comes out, whichever happens first.
Please download the latest version and take a moment to endorse if you haven't done so. Thanks.
Would you mind adding items by script to vendor container by script so it doesn't conflict?
This should works: Scn yourQuestAddItemsScr
Begin gameMode vendorChestReferenceID.additem itemEditorID count stopquest yourQuest End
You will also need to have a quest associated with it (ref: http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php?title=Adding_items_to_vendors "Creating a quest/script to add the items to the NPC's existing vendor container" section)
Thanks (or can I get your permission to do so in another mod?)
Stock by script has been my first priority in CK, and we've been discussing issues heavily in forums and Discord chat. The problem with AddItem is that the vendor chests respawn and the items are lost. Not only that, but there is weird behavior a few of us have been tracking when placing the AddItem code inside OnInit or OnReset.
Using Sheng (Diamond City waterboy) as a test case: I created a quest that starts game enabled, a quest alias that references Sheng's vendor chest, and a script attached to the reference that puts gumdrops in the chest. Nothing.
Then I made a version (with ShatteredSteel's help in Discord chat) that adds a gumdrop every 5 seconds and the chest tells me on screen how many gumdrops are in it every time one is added. Long story short, the chest (and gumdrop count) reset when I entered Diamond City (coc DiamondCityEntrance) and it reset AGAIN when I told Sheng "sure, I'll take a look" and barter menu opened.
Despite the AddItem being inside of OnInit, it was not added until the second time I looked, and that was from the OnTimer code supplying gumdrops.
It's frustrating... Choice Chopped CK version has been stuck in dev hell and it's delaying my other projects.
If you want to take a crack at it, I have no problem with it being absorbed into another mod. It's better than being sentenced to the cutting room floor.
Edit: If you want, I can even send you the incomplete CK version that has all of the items and recipes rebuilt. The only thing not working is the distribution script.
I'm in love with the variety of this mod, but would it be possible to reduce the sheer amount of consumables you get across the board? I'm getting like five or six items in every lunchbox I find and it's a little extreme for things like survival mode.
Nice to hear that someone from my era is into Fallout 4 as well. Started gaming on an orange monochrome IBM AT, Colossal Cave Adventure. Then on to Infocom titles. Ahhh the good old days. Invisiclues!
This is going to sound stupid, but with the introductions of chickens in Far Harbor, I've been wanting to create fried chicken/chicken & dumplings... would it be possible to add those recipes?
This looks aweswome. Do each of the new foods have new models though? Ive been looking for a mod that adds hotdogs,and burgers(and other lore friendly prewar American food) but so far most of the new food mods just use models already ingame.
Thanks. This mod doesn't have any custom models, but the mod is open source for anyone who wants to take it. I have the Creation Kit version started if anyone developing prefers to have that.
I'm neck-deep into a smart NPC project now (Scavver, should be released at the end of June). I would like to update my pre-CK mods eventually, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. Probably at least a month or two away from updating this if nobody else takes it first.
Heya, I looked into why you couldn't make Cooking oils with items that contain oil. The reason for this is that the Constructible Object for Cooking Oil requires the component:
c_Oil_scrap "Oil" [MISC:001BF732]
Which is a Misc_item (referring to the actual Oil received from scrapping things that have oil) When in reality you should be using the Component Item Oil:
c_Oil "Oil" [CMPO:0001FAB4]
Similarly, I looked into your second bug. I'm not sure what Food Paste is supposed to do. Are you trying to make a Food Paste item that breaks down into Adhesive automatically? I notice the current workaround is to manually create Adhesives at the cooking station. If what you're after is to turn Food Paste into an automatic component, you'd have to add a CVPA - Components info into the Food Paste item (see items under Misc, such as Vegetable Starch). Food Paste as you mention is an Ingestible, as it's an item that exists in the game for...something? It's listed as a Quest item under Valdacil's Item Sorting. I don't know if it's possible to do so to an item labelled as an ingestible (or ALCH), but that's what you'd have to do. However, that'd just mean editing a vanilla item, and I don't know how it'd affect other things in the game. That being said, you might want to consider making a different item for use into an Adhesive that uses the recipe, that's under Misc, that breaks down into c_Adhesive "Adhesive" [CMPO:0001FAA5].
I didn't actually realize that Food Paste was an actual item in the game, but if you are in the Institute, it is supposed to be something you can get from the cafeteria (Or at least something they /say/ that they are serving). Though all the synth there actually sells is Institute bottle water and their packaged MRE foods. It would be pretty cool if this could be added to his shop as well.
It'd be outside the scope of this mod, but yeah, I often have 0 idea on what's used or unused in the game (as I haven't even FINISHED the game yet) but I do notice tons of food items when I made my mod where there's so many duplicate items with different names...or similar stuff anyway. They probably can be implemented in some shape or fashion, would be nice to.
I work backward through Build Reference Info. Open Fallout4.esm in FO4Edit > right click Fallout4.esm > Other > Build Reference Info. The build process takes ~3 minutes on my craptop (ymmv). Once complete, you can select a record ("Ingestible > Blamco Mac & Chz" ), and the Referenced By tab shows 134 placements of Blamco in the game. Then you can click or Ctrl-click your way through the references. (See screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/QGfncAL.png ). It's the most handy way I know to learn how things work (besides decompiling scripts with BAE and Champollion).
*Deep sigh* I took a look at all the other issues mentioned. Adding the cafeteria paste was actually the easiest. The cooking oil fix was easy too, but can lead to strange behavior if pushed by the player. Note the recipe change in the changelog.
You are right about the food paste needing the functionality of vegetable starch. I don't know how to add that field to an ingestible. Maybe I'm clueless about a keypress to add fields, or maybe it's a wait-for-the-CK thing.
Also, I had to undo my Yao Guai override but kept the Corned Beef Hash fix. Discussion on this is welcome (just keep in mind compatibility is still a key goal). But I'd love to hear thoughts on how to handle this. WCB leaves the vanilla magnitude bug intact and adds several other effects to Yao Guai Roast.
It's been a long day of work, errands, quick code changes and playtesting. I'm just going to paste the changelog for now and check in tomorrow. Thank you both for being so interested in the mod. Validates all the work and I'm learning more with every discussion.
---------------------------------- "Version 1.2 Yao Guai Roast has vanilla Fortify Melee Damage magnitude of 10 (should be 0.100000). Changed in version 1.1, but then I discovered that Wastelander's Cookbook makes significant changes to YGR, so I removed the override in version 1.2 to remain compatible. My mod item that uses Fortify Melee Damage (Corned Beef Hash) has a magnitude of 0.100000.
When making cooking oil in cooking station, the recipe will now (version 1.2+) scrap oil-containing items (soap, blowtorch, paint, etc). However, when your only oil-containing item left is cooking oil, it will scrap one to make another. This is why I had to change the cooking oil recipe to match the vanilla 3 oil and 1 plastic. Any other recipe had the potential to exponentially increase scrap components.
Version 1.2 also adds food paste to a cafeteria as requested."
I didn't know about Build Reference Info! That's pretty handy.
In any case, don't fret about removing the Yao Guai fix; let another mod take care of that that can encompass it in its scope. Other mods that balances/fixes vanilla food/general issues with vanilla will probably take care of it. If WCB won't fix it, then another mod probably will - I think in many cases people don't even realize that Yao Guai Roast is even bugged until they make a melee character and try to min-max before a fight. Or maybe that particular effect got fixed in a patch and I don't even know - so I might just have to make a melee character and test the numbers myself if google doesn't turn up anything new about it. In addition, I have 0 clue how to add that component field to an Ingestible, so I probably would have gone with what you did if I was in your shoes. Might be a wait-for-CK thing.
Learning is good! I'm more than happy to contribute wherever.
There seems to be a growing amount of food/item based mods coming out! Just yesterday I just released my first FO4 mod to balance food items (and soon, balancing chems and the like) to help slow down healing rates...and now there's this mod that adds to a growing cookbook of food crafts! I love it.
I'm just wondering how the Survival Mode changes in the future are going to affect food items overall. In any case, downloaded. Anything to help with bringing more food diversity to Fallout is wonderful. <3
Also, would you mind if I modified this mod for personal use, or make it compatible with my mod? All I would do is extend the healing rate, so that it'd play nicer with the general aim of my mod (smaller heal over time, longer duration, same-ish total health healed).
Ikr?! I've been working on my mod for a month, and eyeballing the Nexus as I worked, just waiting for something to pull the rug out from it. Lol. Feel free to rehash the mod however you need it. You're probably way better at balancing the numbers than I am.
Fun fact: I started with everything at 50 value until I realized the shop charged 150+ for resale. So I reset the values based on existing items like mutt chops. Still learning.
that's listed and used by Yao Guai Roast (and Corned Beef Hash) isn't a flat increase to melee damage; it's an addative multiplier in decimal form, rather. A current bug for Yao Guai Roast at its current magnitude listed in FO4Edit (Which is 10) means that Melee Damage is increased by ten-fold, or thereabouts (unless it got patched and fixed already). Otherwise, I'm pretty sure it would affect Corned Beef Hash as well, so what some mods have done is to bring it down to a magnitude of 0.1 (so it does +10% more melee damage). I haven't gone around to testing it yet.
In any case, I've made a new ESP that brings your numbers closer to how food items worked in my mod. I made Raw or Pre-War food basically act as faster-HP but low duration with rad hazards, while cooked stuff gives health slower over a long duration with buffs. Since all of your recipes rely on raw/Pre-War stuff I've went the 'restore health moderately fast, long-ish duration'...kind of a blend to both. They'll be neat for when I put in the effort to hunt the ingredients down.
I currently have the ESPs for private use, but I just wanted to be sure if you minded if I released as an optional file to my mod. All it does is change the Ingestibles, so others would still need to get your mod to make sure the food is craftable and/or found in vendors.
Thanks for the catch. I'll update when I get home from work tonight. I'm fine with you posting the patch. I'll add a link to your mods from this page too when I update.
I might pick your brain when survival mode comes out. I'm sure there will be some rebalancing and surprises. Btw, I think there are ~150 raider coolers and ~100 lunch pails. But they have random chances of being stocked.
I would love to brainstorm ideas on stuff when Survival releases.
I was thinking of adding some sort of chem-rarity to my mod but there's so many containers once you laid out that number there. Whew! Wonder how hard it'd be to work on that.
Add-ons for Choice Chopped have been added to my file, too. Thanks a lot. It's a small mod right now, but I have big plans (ish?) for it and would love to get other food/aid modders compatible with it.
Here's what I know about distribution vs rarity... (I was thinking about this after you mentioned balancing.)
The pros of editing leveled lists: - In general (broad sweep of hand here), one list affects one resource (one list handles 150 raider coolers, another handles 100 lunch pails). - Leveled lists that exist in the vanilla game are often pulled/permeated throughout multiple variants (types of raiders, types of containers...) - The vanilla leveled lists are the easiest, fastest way to saturate the game with your item (in pockets, on counters, in containers, everywhere) - Vanilla leveled lists "feel" like the "right thing to do" when it comes to programming style. It's probably the "preferred method".
Unless...
(Here are the cons of editing vanilla leveled lists):
- If you want to RESTRICT distribution, too bad. Your item is everywhere. Sure... leveled lists can specify a minimum level player has to be before your item appears in game, but what if you just want raiders in a SPECIFIC area to have your item? Then you would have to edit just those raiders.
- Because vanilla leveled lists are so permeated throughout various NPC and container files, you run a high risk of spending the rest of your life (hyperbole alert) making patches for a zillion billion mods, rinse and repeat every time those mods update in case something in their updates breaks compatibility.
Caveats:
I use the phrase "vanilla leveled lists" with an emphasis on "vanilla". I (and others) have created my own custom leveled lists that do not override any leveled lists already in the game. The way I achieved compatibility is to *** override the NPC files instead of the leveled lists ***. I'm sure that may be heresy in purist programming circles that pride themselves on maintaining style standards. In addition, if everyone edits the NPCs as overrides, then we recreate the original incompatibility issue, this time with NPC files instead of leveled list files.
Also, there seems to be a subtle difference in the ways leveled lists are random: - There is a 100% chance that an item loads, but there is a X chance (specified by modder) that item Y is picked. - (vs There is a X chance that ANY item AT ALL loads, and that item might be Y.)
I tripped myself up a few times learning the differences, but that could be pretty important in distribution/balance issues.
Anyway, just a few thoughts I had. I'm jazzing up the page today and looking into that decimal issue.
Another thought, and this warrants having its own post because I think it's important to find a possible solution.
The way cooking stations handle recipes is FANTASTIC. The process seems to be, "Hey, I'm a cooking station. Let me gather all the recipes in the Constructible Objects column and dump them together in harmonious bliss."
The way NPCs handle inventory is kinda dumb. The process seems to be, "Hey, I'm a raider. I'm going to pull what I'm supposed to have on my pockets/dead body from these lists I inherited in the vanilla hard code, and if multiple people attempt to specify those lists, then only the LAST MOD LOADED WINS."
Grrrrrr. Why can't raiders be more like cooking stations?
When there's a numerous conflict like that (and there's PLENTY of that, unfortunately, given how mod order loading works) the only way is to make a Bashed patch (you'll hear that term thrown around sometimes on the Nexus if you haven't seen it) where a separate program of some sort (the community will get around to making one for their Bethesda game around the time the creation kit comes out) to make a patch that takes those conflicting lists and mash them all together. No overrides or deletions, just mashing it all together. There's advanced settings, of course.
But yeah, because of that, convention and such becomes -very- important. As a developer myself I always remain cognizant over how stupidly rigid some of the ways mods work. Unfortunately, at the moment I just make a personalized FO4 edit patch for most mods that I have (Wastelander's Cookbook does not play well with my balance, and I found that some parts of WCC and Mojave Imports conflict with one another, and there's inconsistencies with their VIS compatibility patch (even conflicts among themselves) so I have to fix that as well!) . After spending many months of doing that in FO3, I just try to avoid as many likely-to-conflict-mods as possible...but that's not always possible, especially now that I have my own mod up - see above.
One of the things that bug me is that I can't just have some parts of my items just 'refer to master'. There HAS to be a value, or a null value. Which means that it'll override whatever the previous mod has. In some cases in FO4 edit you can go Right Click and Remove, but things like Weight HAVE to be defined. As a result, there's no compatibility between my mod and VIS's low-aid weight mod, unless I go out of my way to make a reduced weight version too.
Version 1.1 is up with the bug fix and there's a nicer looking mod desc. Thanks for the numerous insights. Bash sounds pretty useful. Looking forward to doing more with the mod community. (I'd really like to make Friendly Easy City Downs and Scrap Inventory From Pipboy happen, but banging my head on walls without the CK.) So in the meantime, I'm just tinkering and playing when I can :-)
I would definitely kill for a scrap-all-materials-at-any-workbench function more than from-Pip-Boy; it'd help lighten the carry weight burden by deconstructing every fan and item you had to lug around. @.@
I am totally going to give this mod a look-at, especially seeing that it plays nicely with both Mojave Imports and Wasteland Cookbook. Anything that expands cooking is awesome in my book! I am the type of person that used mods in Skyrim, and hell even Minecraft, that meant I had to eat varieties of food to stay nourished and hydrated, so I love this sort of thing.
Definitely going to try this out. Though I know I shouldn't have it editing raider lists, because I'm using MadMax713's awesome Raider Overhaul. Have you taken a look at that one?
Wow... license plate power armor looks awesome! Thanks for the lead on that mod. You should be good to go, the only raider item I edited is the raider cooler. I was tempted to edit the lists (and I totally get why people do), but that would be an instant compatibility killer... and that was my key self-requirement. (Trying to avoid making patches this early in the game.)
Worse case scenario... a mod lower in the load order than mine edits raider coolers, so my stuff would no longer be in those coolers in your game. It's still available elsewhere though, so I'm pretty happy with how robust Bethesda made it under the hood.
Another note about variety: For people who plan to create and populate an area with the CK, this mod has unused lists ready to go. (Vegetarian, Fried, Scrounger, etc...) Everything a GM needs to create a unique local flavor.
Thanks for the download and comment. Helps fight the first mod jitters!
Just spent a few hours playing with Raider Overhaul, Mojave Imports, Wastelander's Cookbook, and Choice Chopped. The raider food items and the mods all work well together.
Give Feedback
40 comments
Please download the latest version and take a moment to endorse if you haven't done so. Thanks.
This should works:
Scn yourQuestAddItemsScr
Begin gameMode
vendorChestReferenceID.additem itemEditorID count
stopquest yourQuest
End
You will also need to have a quest associated with it (ref: http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php?title=Adding_items_to_vendors "Creating a quest/script to add the items to the NPC's existing vendor container" section)
Thanks
Using Sheng (Diamond City waterboy) as a test case: I created a quest that starts game enabled, a quest alias that references Sheng's vendor chest, and a script attached to the reference that puts gumdrops in the chest. Nothing.
Then I made a version (with ShatteredSteel's help in Discord chat) that adds a gumdrop every 5 seconds and the chest tells me on screen how many gumdrops are in it every time one is added. Long story short, the chest (and gumdrop count) reset when I entered Diamond City (coc DiamondCityEntrance) and it reset AGAIN when I told Sheng "sure, I'll take a look" and barter menu opened.
Despite the AddItem being inside of OnInit, it was not added until the second time I looked, and that was from the OnTimer code supplying gumdrops.
It's frustrating... Choice Chopped CK version has been stuck in dev hell and it's delaying my other projects.
If you want to take a crack at it, I have no problem with it being absorbed into another mod. It's better than being sentenced to the cutting room floor.
Edit: If you want, I can even send you the incomplete CK version that has all of the items and recipes rebuilt. The only thing not working is the distribution script.
I'm neck-deep into a smart NPC project now (Scavver, should be released at the end of June). I would like to update my pre-CK mods eventually, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. Probably at least a month or two away from updating this if nobody else takes it first.
Here's a VIS patch for your mod
Huge fan of Armorsmith Extended. I also have Diamond City SWAT as an open source mod if you ever want to test armors or something.
I've been neck-deep in learning ActionScript all day for swf menu files and I really appreciate this bright spot in my day :-)
c_Oil_scrap "Oil" [MISC:001BF732]
Which is a Misc_item (referring to the actual Oil received from scrapping things that have oil) When in reality you should be using the Component Item Oil:
c_Oil "Oil" [CMPO:0001FAB4]
Similarly, I looked into your second bug. I'm not sure what Food Paste is supposed to do. Are you trying to make a Food Paste item that breaks down into Adhesive automatically? I notice the current workaround is to manually create Adhesives at the cooking station. If what you're after is to turn Food Paste into an automatic component, you'd have to add a CVPA - Components info into the Food Paste item (see items under Misc, such as Vegetable Starch). Food Paste as you mention is an Ingestible, as it's an item that exists in the game for...something? It's listed as a Quest item under Valdacil's Item Sorting. I don't know if it's possible to do so to an item labelled as an ingestible (or ALCH), but that's what you'd have to do. However, that'd just mean editing a vanilla item, and I don't know how it'd affect other things in the game. That being said, you might want to consider making a different item for use into an Adhesive that uses the recipe, that's under Misc, that breaks down into c_Adhesive "Adhesive" [CMPO:0001FAA5].
Hope this helps and possibly fixes your issues.
*Deep sigh* I took a look at all the other issues mentioned. Adding the cafeteria paste was actually the easiest. The cooking oil fix was easy too, but can lead to strange behavior if pushed by the player. Note the recipe change in the changelog.
You are right about the food paste needing the functionality of vegetable starch. I don't know how to add that field to an ingestible. Maybe I'm clueless about a keypress to add fields, or maybe it's a wait-for-the-CK thing.
Also, I had to undo my Yao Guai override but kept the Corned Beef Hash fix. Discussion on this is welcome (just keep in mind compatibility is still a key goal). But I'd love to hear thoughts on how to handle this. WCB leaves the vanilla magnitude bug intact and adds several other effects to Yao Guai Roast.
It's been a long day of work, errands, quick code changes and playtesting. I'm just going to paste the changelog for now and check in tomorrow. Thank you both for being so interested in the mod. Validates all the work and I'm learning more with every discussion.
----------------------------------
"Version 1.2
Yao Guai Roast has vanilla Fortify Melee Damage magnitude of 10 (should be 0.100000). Changed in version 1.1, but then I discovered that Wastelander's Cookbook makes significant changes to YGR, so I removed the override in version 1.2 to remain compatible. My mod item that uses Fortify Melee Damage (Corned Beef Hash) has a magnitude of 0.100000.
When making cooking oil in cooking station, the recipe will now (version 1.2+) scrap oil-containing items (soap, blowtorch, paint, etc). However, when your only oil-containing item left is cooking oil, it will scrap one to make another. This is why I had to change the cooking oil recipe to match the vanilla 3 oil and 1 plastic. Any other recipe had the potential to exponentially increase scrap components.
Version 1.2 also adds food paste to a cafeteria as requested."
In any case, don't fret about removing the Yao Guai fix; let another mod take care of that that can encompass it in its scope. Other mods that balances/fixes vanilla food/general issues with vanilla will probably take care of it. If WCB won't fix it, then another mod probably will - I think in many cases people don't even realize that Yao Guai Roast is even bugged until they make a melee character and try to min-max before a fight. Or maybe that particular effect got fixed in a patch and I don't even know - so I might just have to make a melee character and test the numbers myself if google doesn't turn up anything new about it. In addition, I have 0 clue how to add that component field to an Ingestible, so I probably would have gone with what you did if I was in your shoes. Might be a wait-for-CK thing.
Learning is good! I'm more than happy to contribute wherever.
I'm just wondering how the Survival Mode changes in the future are going to affect food items overall. In any case, downloaded. Anything to help with bringing more food diversity to Fallout is wonderful. <3
Also, would you mind if I modified this mod for personal use, or make it compatible with my mod? All I would do is extend the healing rate, so that it'd play nicer with the general aim of my mod (smaller heal over time, longer duration, same-ish total health healed).
Fun fact: I started with everything at 50 value until I realized the shop charged 150+ for resale. So I reset the values based on existing items like mutt chops. Still learning.
I'll be more than happy to add compatibility for Choice Chopped to my mod, so I'll do that!
It uses the same effect as Yao Guai Roast, which is + melee damage; however, the Effect:
"FortifyMeleeDamageFood "Fortify Melee Damage Food" [MGEF:00150730]"
that's listed and used by Yao Guai Roast (and Corned Beef Hash) isn't a flat increase to melee damage; it's an addative multiplier in decimal form, rather. A current bug for Yao Guai Roast at its current magnitude listed in FO4Edit (Which is 10) means that Melee Damage is increased by ten-fold, or thereabouts (unless it got patched and fixed already). Otherwise, I'm pretty sure it would affect Corned Beef Hash as well, so what some mods have done is to bring it down to a magnitude of 0.1 (so it does +10% more melee damage). I haven't gone around to testing it yet.
In any case, I've made a new ESP that brings your numbers closer to how food items worked in my mod. I made Raw or Pre-War food basically act as faster-HP but low duration with rad hazards, while cooked stuff gives health slower over a long duration with buffs. Since all of your recipes rely on raw/Pre-War stuff I've went the 'restore health moderately fast, long-ish duration'...kind of a blend to both. They'll be neat for when I put in the effort to hunt the ingredients down.
I currently have the ESPs for private use, but I just wanted to be sure if you minded if I released as an optional file to my mod. All it does is change the Ingestibles, so others would still need to get your mod to make sure the food is craftable and/or found in vendors.
I might pick your brain when survival mode comes out. I'm sure there will be some rebalancing and surprises. Btw, I think there are ~150 raider coolers and ~100 lunch pails. But they have random chances of being stocked.
I was thinking of adding some sort of chem-rarity to my mod but there's so many containers once you laid out that number there. Whew! Wonder how hard it'd be to work on that.
Add-ons for Choice Chopped have been added to my file, too. Thanks a lot. It's a small mod right now, but I have big plans (ish?) for it and would love to get other food/aid modders compatible with it.
The pros of editing leveled lists:
- In general (broad sweep of hand here), one list affects one resource (one list handles 150 raider coolers, another handles 100 lunch pails).
- Leveled lists that exist in the vanilla game are often pulled/permeated throughout multiple variants (types of raiders, types of containers...)
- The vanilla leveled lists are the easiest, fastest way to saturate the game with your item (in pockets, on counters, in containers, everywhere)
- Vanilla leveled lists "feel" like the "right thing to do" when it comes to programming style. It's probably the "preferred method".
Unless...
(Here are the cons of editing vanilla leveled lists):
- If you want to RESTRICT distribution, too bad. Your item is everywhere. Sure... leveled lists can specify a minimum level player has to be before your item appears in game, but what if you just want raiders in a SPECIFIC area to have your item? Then you would have to edit just those raiders.
- Because vanilla leveled lists are so permeated throughout various NPC and container files, you run a high risk of spending the rest of your life (hyperbole alert) making patches for a zillion billion mods, rinse and repeat every time those mods update in case something in their updates breaks compatibility.
Caveats:
I use the phrase "vanilla leveled lists" with an emphasis on "vanilla". I (and others) have created my own custom leveled lists that do not override any leveled lists already in the game. The way I achieved compatibility is to *** override the NPC files instead of the leveled lists ***. I'm sure that may be heresy in purist programming circles that pride themselves on maintaining style standards. In addition, if everyone edits the NPCs as overrides, then we recreate the original incompatibility issue, this time with NPC files instead of leveled list files.
Also, there seems to be a subtle difference in the ways leveled lists are random:
- There is a 100% chance that an item loads, but there is a X chance (specified by modder) that item Y is picked.
- (vs There is a X chance that ANY item AT ALL loads, and that item might be Y.)
I tripped myself up a few times learning the differences, but that could be pretty important in distribution/balance issues.
Anyway, just a few thoughts I had. I'm jazzing up the page today and looking into that decimal issue.
The way cooking stations handle recipes is FANTASTIC. The process seems to be, "Hey, I'm a cooking station. Let me gather all the recipes in the Constructible Objects column and dump them together in harmonious bliss."
The way NPCs handle inventory is kinda dumb. The process seems to be, "Hey, I'm a raider. I'm going to pull what I'm supposed to have on my pockets/dead body from these lists I inherited in the vanilla hard code, and if multiple people attempt to specify those lists, then only the LAST MOD LOADED WINS."
Grrrrrr. Why can't raiders be more like cooking stations?
But yeah, because of that, convention and such becomes -very- important. As a developer myself I always remain cognizant over how stupidly rigid some of the ways mods work. Unfortunately, at the moment I just make a personalized FO4 edit patch for most mods that I have (Wastelander's Cookbook does not play well with my balance, and I found that some parts of WCC and Mojave Imports conflict with one another, and there's inconsistencies with their VIS compatibility patch (even conflicts among themselves) so I have to fix that as well!) . After spending many months of doing that in FO3, I just try to avoid as many likely-to-conflict-mods as possible...but that's not always possible, especially now that I have my own mod up - see above.
One of the things that bug me is that I can't just have some parts of my items just 'refer to master'. There HAS to be a value, or a null value. Which means that it'll override whatever the previous mod has. In some cases in FO4 edit you can go Right Click and Remove, but things like Weight HAVE to be defined. As a result, there's no compatibility between my mod and VIS's low-aid weight mod, unless I go out of my way to make a reduced weight version too.
I am totally going to give this mod a look-at, especially seeing that it plays nicely with both Mojave Imports and Wasteland Cookbook. Anything that expands cooking is awesome in my book! I am the type of person that used mods in Skyrim, and hell even Minecraft, that meant I had to eat varieties of food to stay nourished and hydrated, so I love this sort of thing.
Definitely going to try this out. Though I know I shouldn't have it editing raider lists, because I'm using MadMax713's awesome Raider Overhaul. Have you taken a look at that one?
Worse case scenario... a mod lower in the load order than mine edits raider coolers, so my stuff would no longer be in those coolers in your game. It's still available elsewhere though, so I'm pretty happy with how robust Bethesda made it under the hood.
Another note about variety: For people who plan to create and populate an area with the CK, this mod has unused lists ready to go. (Vegetarian, Fried, Scrounger, etc...) Everything a GM needs to create a unique local flavor.
Thanks for the download and comment. Helps fight the first mod jitters!