Fallout 4

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doswillrule

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doswillrule

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About this mod

You can't stop the press! POE brings Diamond City's newspaper to life with 16,000 words of new articles for 26 quests, multiple outcomes, improved textures and support for magazine racks.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Mirrors
Changelogs
Donations
What kind of newspaper only prints five articles? What does Piper do in her spare time? How can Nat afford to eat? 

Publick Occurrences Expanded is a simple immersion mod that adds extra news articles from the pen of Piper Wright. Simply check in with Nat (at Publick Occurrences in Diamond City) to find new, lore-friendly coverage of your adventures in the Commonwealth.

To start receiving the articles, you will need to complete 'Story of the Century' and gain the option of Piper as a companion. This mod is best enjoyed from the start of a new save, so you don't get all of the articles at once.

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Features

  • Over 16,000 words covering 26 major quests
  • Different articles for certain 'good' and 'bad' outcomes
  • Improved fonts and paper textures (thanks to Better Notes)
  • Display your collected articles on magazine racks
  • Lost your articles? Read them on Piper's terminal (with a few extras...)
  • DLC and non-DLC versions
  • New content for Sim Settlements 2
  • 100% lore-friendly Piperian prose

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Quests covered

Spoiler:  
Show

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Changelog


Spoiler:  
Show


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Recommended mods


Publick Occurrences Expanded - UFO4P Patch by Iqbalev

Publick Occurrences Expanded - DLC-SS2-UFO4P Patch by Exoclyps

Implements the note fixes from UFO4P. Not required, but recommended until I integrate them!


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Plans

  • Update VIS and No Fonts for V3.1 Done!
  • Add ability to display newspapers on racks Done!
  • More vanilla quests Done!
  • DLC quests Done!
  • Player-specific gender pronouns
  • Reports on random encounters
  • Integrate physical copies into world (deliveries?)
  • Pre-War newspapers (Boston Bugle?)
  • Add new letters & notes to Piper's terminal Done!
  • Inform the player whenever there's a new article

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Install instructions:

Mod manager (Vortex, MO2 etc)

  1. Install Better Notes (skip if using POE No Fonts)
  2. Install POE in your mod manager of choice
  3. Enable both .esp files in your load order 
  4. Place both mods as low as possible in your load order, with Better Notes above POE
  5. Optional: if using Simple Sorter, disable your patch and create a new one. Do not click amend - this will break the new behaviours.
  6. You're good to go! Check in with Nat after you've completed some quests. You should get an article on your exploits.

Manual installation

  1. Install Better Notes (skip if using POE No Fonts)
  2. Extract the archive
  3. Open the folder that corresponds to your mod list
  4. Extract the .esp file and the folders 'Scripts' and 'Sounds' into your data folder (usually Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Fallout4/data)
  5. Enable both mods in your in-game mod menu, ensuring POE is below Better Notes and other master files (SS2 etc.)
  6. Check that loose files are enabled (this is usually handled by mod managers) 
  7. You're good to go! Check in with Nat after you've completed some quests. You should get an article on your exploits.

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Compatibility

VIS-G

As I understand it, VIS-G uses a different sorting structure to VIS. I can take a look at patching it if there's high demand, but I have no interest in using it in my own playthroughs, so I won't be able to test it. I personally use Simple Sorter, which is 100% compatible with this mod as long as it's set up correctly (see below!).

Simple Sorter

Simple Sorter is still fully compatible with POE as of V3.2. However, if you were already using Simple Sorter before updating this mod, you will have to delete and rebuild your patch. Amending your existing patch will not work and will break the new behaviours I've added to the articles (perk mag and magazine racks).

Note Racks

As Note Racks overwrites all existing note formatting and behaviours, it will break the new paper and fonts on the base game's issues of Publick Occurrences, as well as the other notes improved by Better Notes. Mine should still display correctly, but the inconsistency between the two may bother you. POE V2.2 added this feature for all of my articles - I can patch all other notes if there's demand for it.

UI mods (various)

I've been informed that certain UI mods (possibly including Bhaal's Better Sorting) may clash with the fonts from Better Notes, causing an issue where black boxes appear instead of text. I'm looking into patching this, and have provided a No Fonts version of the mod in the meantime. See below for a more detailed explanation & fix!

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FAQs

Q. Does Piper need to be in my party to receive the articles?
A: No - you will still receive all of the articles from Nat regardless of where Piper is. I've tried to write them in a way that makes sense whether she's with you or not. The only thing I haven't accounted for is if she hates you, and will no longer join your party (you monster).

You'll have to figure out your own headcanon as to how she learns the news, or how she manages to write articles and send them back while travelling. Caravans and settlements can pass on messages, though, so I don't think it's too outlandish.

Q. Nat isn't giving me any articles! What gives?
A. The most likely answer is that you haven't completed the quest 'Story of the Century' yet, where Piper interviews you for the newspaper. As some players were completing quests before ever reaching Diamond City, they would speak to Nat for the first time and receive articles that referenced an existing relationship with Piper. This was the easiest way to avoid breaking immersion - sorry for the inconvenience!

Q. Why hasn't the No Fonts version of the mod been updated?
A. I've stopped updating this version as very few people seem to have issues with Better Notes, and most issues I've seen have been resolved either by changing load order or applying the fonts file fix below. Let me know if it still isn't working for you and I can reconsider updating it.

Q. I lost my copy of an article. Can I get another one?
A. While there aren't any spare copies, you can find all of the articles backed up on Piper's terminal inside Publick Occurrences. One of them even contains an Easter egg that you won't find in the regular article, so look out for that!

If you want though, you can use In Game ESP Explorer to view all the articles, and manually add them to your inventory. Spoiler warning, obviously!

Q. I can't get the Jamaica Plains note to trigger!
A. You'll only get this one if you sell the World Series bat to Moe Cronin, and not when the quest actually finishes. Sorry not sorry ;)

Q. I updated from a version prior to V2.2 and now I can't find the articles. Where are they?
A. Depending on the sorting mod you use, the articles will likely have moved to wherever your perk magazines (e.g. Guns and Bullets, Grognak) are sorted in the Misc tab. This is one of the side effects of copying the perk magazine behaviours, and means you don't have to dig through hundreds of regular notes to find the articles.

Q. I can't see the articles in Piper's terminal! What's up?
A. Only one person has reported this issue, which makes me think it's a compatibility problem rather than a bug. Try putting POE at the bottom of your load order. If that doesn't work, leave a bug report with your mod list and I'll see what I can do.

Q. I'm seeing black boxes instead of text when I open the articles!

A. This appears to be an issue with other mods overwriting the interface/FontConfig.txt file from Better Notes. Let me know which mod is overwriting it if you find it (double click -> 'Conflicts' in MO), and I can work on a patch.

The easiest way to fix this is to put POE and Better Notes as far down in your load order as possible, to ensure that the FontConfig file from Better Notes is given priority. However, this may break fonts added by your other mods.

You can fix this by manually amending the FontConfig file in Better Notes. Open both files (from Better Notes and the other mod) and copy-paste any differences (i.e. the fonts that the other mod adds) into the BN FontConfig file, then save. If BN and POE are below that mod, this should retain the fonts from the other mod and fix the issue with BN/POE.

If this is too much hassle, I've now added a standalone version without Better Notes, which adds the paper texture from BN but doesn't modify the fonts. As of writing, this still needs updating to V3.0 - I'm working on this at the moment.

Q. The articles are triggering, but Nat doesn't talk / Nat is talking, but the articles don't trigger / Nat says one voice line when receiving an article, but the subtitles/lip sync are different!
A. Please let me know which of the four versions of the mod you're using, and the quest that isn't working, and I'll look into it ASAP.


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Acknowledgements

Primary thanks to moTechPlz for their mod Better Notes, which this mod relies on. Thanks to SkiesOfJadedLight for their invaluable help with the SMU Redux patch, dandiersphinx for making the original mod FOMOD compatible, Taulurium for the VIS patch and FritzTCoyote for the original Better Notes conversion, which formed the basis of the first big update. Find and kudos them!


This is my first mod for anything - as such there's a chance I've screwed something up. I also have a number of ideas that are way beyond me - stocking the reports at settlement shops, maybe even franchised news stands.

If anyone has any ideas/can improve on this concept, or wants to use the content for another project, get in touch!