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. Would you consider adding AI generated voice lines? A. No, sorry. I've messed around with ElevenLabs, and it's an incredible tool, but I can't justify stealing someone's voice, much less someone whose performance I love (and who is openly against AI voice replication). If anyone wants to start crowdfunding for some OG Courtney Ford and deal with Bethesda's lawyers, be my guest - I'll happily write the script.
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.
V3.4 is finally here! This is a less momentous update than I would have liked, but it's a good place to leave things prior to the next gen update, and a good point to jump off from afterwards.
First off: anyone coming here from a Wabbajack modlist SHOULD be able to update from 3.3.1 with no issues. Nothing has fundamentally changed - if anything the mod is better optimised - so you should just be able to overwrite it. Backup the plugin just in case, as those modlists are delicate. Please bother me and not the modlist authors if you update it and it breaks.
I've written two new articles for quests from the base game that were obvious oversights, both of which I really enjoyed doing. You may notice a reference to a previous, as-yet unwritten article in one of them - I may add that to the terminal in future, I just know nobody reads those!
I've also written five new articles covering three quests in Sim Settlements 2 Chapter 2: two side quests and the main quest ending. This does now mean that you need Chapter 2 for the SS2 version. I'm not planning a Vanilla + SS2 version as I imagine this will be a very niche case now. I'm sure there's more to be written about Chapter 3, I just haven't played it yet.
All versions of the mod now have the correct item pickup sound that was fixed in UFO4P. The mod doesn't require UFO4P, but I would highly recommend it. The mod is also now flagged as an ESL, which should help reduce compatibility issues, and means it won't count towards the maximum number of ESPs. Many thanks to Exoclyps for talking me through that and a few other things and providing some example files to work from.
One of those other things was another restructure of the mod, recreating all of the versions. As part of that I've finally got a sensible workflow, with properly updated and formatted master files and documents to work from. So while that hasn't impacted hugely on this version (beyond some more spelling and grammar fixes), it should make future updates less of a chore.
The VR version is now in the main installer, hence why I've removed it from the optional files. I still need to rewrite the new content for SMU Redux, and make sure all of the fixes from this version are applied to that version, so that patch may be a little way off. V3.3.1 is still available to download for SMU users.
I'll be across the next gen update in case it breaks anything, although I wouldn't expect it to. Otherwise, the next update will likely be focused on covering more of the faction quests. I had originally ruled this out, as I thought it would lead to an excessive number of articles, and just get a bit annoying. But a few people have asked for it, and I think we crossed that line a while ago! I'll consider making a stripped-back version of the mod if it starts to feel too cluttered.
Compatibility for Cabot House Enhanced Quests has been mentioned to me, and I'm sure it's feasible, but it will require some rewrites and likely some new content. I may add this as a patch, although I'll have to play through it first to figure out how to approach it.
I may also add some more SS2 content if I get around to finishing it, and possibly an easter egg or two from the TV show. I've ploughed an inordinate amount of time into trying to implement player pronouns over the years, and gotten nowhere, so unless anyone knows how to do it for a player.additem command in a script fragment, that's probably off the list. I am still open to any ideas about ways I could tie Publick Occurrences and the Boston Bugle together, or content I could add to their terminals.
I'm pretty confident that everything is working, but please let me know if you find any issues. Otherwise, enjoy the mod!
Hey, just an idea. I noticed reading through your mod description on your "to-do" list you mentioned "Inform the player when new article" There is a mod The Courier Framework that I haven't seen any mod authors take advantage of yet. It seems like a pretty neat mod to replicate the Courier system from Skyrim. I'd love to see some mod authors actually use this.
Hi all! Just a quick update - V3.4 of the DLC and DLC + SS2 versions of the mod is complete. This will include new content for all versions along with various fixes, and integrating the UFO4P note sound patches. UFO4P will be mandatory for all versions, plus SS2 Chapter 2 for the SS2 version.
However, I'm waiting to release all versions together in a combined installer to reduce confusion. This has been delayed slightly as I've had to remake the Vanilla version from scratch again due to Creation Kit shenanigans. Sorry for the wait and thank you for your continued support!
I'm very happy to be able to read the SS2 newspaper. You mentioned that version 3.3.1 can be overwritten with the latest version, but is it okay to update during a playthrough? （I'm pretty sure there's no problem, but I asked because I thought it compressed the FormID and flagged it as ESL.）
I will check this evening, but the records should all be the same as version 3.3.1. The plugin was already small, so didn't need to be compacted to flag it as an ESL. Only the VR version requires a clean install, as this changes the form IDs for VR compatibility.
Sorry for taking your time to confirm. I'm currently running version 3.3.1, which includes SS2 and DLC content. Some newspapers had FormIDs that were outside the ESL range, so I expected the FormIDs to be compressed in version 3.4 to flag them as ESL. And, if you update to version 3.4 in the middle of the game, I don't know if it will have a negative effect on your save data, but I expected that at least the newspaper you had already acquired would be lost.
I notice though, that in xEdit (FO4VR mode) that I get the "Record is being overridden" error from the background message log, from your latest 3.4 release of POE. These errors can cause CTD and other serious issues and need to be fixed. I play in VR, so I've just gone through these errors with a few other mods, so I've found the solution for them. You have to load the plugin into xEdit in FO4 mode, not FO4VR mode, then renumber the formIDs from 000800. After that, change header version from 1.0 to 0.95.
I wrote a little article about these errors on a ported mod I've published.
I have the plugin already made and tested, it runs fine in VR without any issues, and no errors reported in xEdit. If you don't want to bother doing this yourself, you can have it from me to upload.
No problem, thank you for flagging that. Exoclyps told me something very similar and I was too dumb to understand it
Had to bulk edit the form IDs twice as the first try caused 75 errors for whatever ungodly reason, but it should be tested and working now. Let me know if you have any issues.
Question, the FAQ is a little unclear. If I already completed some of the quests before meeting Piper or doing her interview, do I miss out on those quest's issues? Or will I get them all at once when I talk to Nat?
You'll never miss out on any articles - Nat will give them to you one at a time once you've completed Story of the Century. She'll give you one automatically when you go near her, so you can just grab one whenever you go through Diamond City, but you can also spam interact with her to get them all in a row. They'll also be unlocked for you to read on Piper's terminal.
Hi, I was thinking of adding this to my VR load order soon since you included a VR version. I have the DLC and Sim Settlements 2 installed as well and noticed there's not an option for SS2 with VR. Is it already included, or will you possibly include in a future release? Thank you, I'm always excited adding new immersive mods like this to my game!
There isn't currently a VR + SS2 version unfortunately, I will try to add that in a future release. Until then, you can still use the VR + DLC version - you just won't get the extra articles for SS2. Sorry about that!
No problem at all. It still always makes me happy when mod authors even consider supporting VR. We are a minority, so I greatly appreciate what you have already contributed. Thank you!
The Mod is incorporated nicely into the game and a lot of the articles are really quite well written (feels like Piper herself wrote them). I was also wondering if you remembered the title of the article you are given if you end the main story with the Minutemen? I don't think I have received that one from Nat.
Thank you, I appreciate it. There isn't currently an article for the end of the Minutemen story, I've only covered the first quest. Further main quest articles will be the basis for future updates.
I can’t seem to get better notes and this mod to run correctly. Cant fix the black boxes instead of text. (Using the text from synthetic truth as a test case) The fix in you FAQ shows no conflicts in mo2, xedit shows only conflicts with ufo4p, which the patch is there for. All 3 mods (better notes, POE, and POE ss2 ufo4p patch) are at the bottom of my load order. Still getting black boxes on synthetic truth. Texture of the paper changes though.
Sorry to hear that, that's the first time this problem has come up in a while. There are some formatting issues in that version where the text isn't correctly aligned in that note, but that shouldn't stop it from displaying.
Immediate things that come to mind:
Check there's no FontConfig in your overwrite directory, or any other overwrites on the note itself.
Are you playing the game in English? IIRC the fonts in BN don't support other languages.
If you've merged fonts from another mod, there may be a small typo that's preventing the game from loading those fonts. Which mod if any previously conflicted with BN? Could you reply with the contents of the merged FontConfig file, if relevant?
Otherwise, it's possible that the next version of the mod (where I've gone through every article reformatting and making corrections) could help.
Should be easy enough to create a non-ss2 version using the ss2 version as base. Just delete the "ss2" entries in xEdit. Also there is a way to drastically reduce the amount of voice files you include. Just write the ID of the voice file you wanna use (gotta be from the same mod, so have to have at least one copy) in the "File Override" part.
Thanks for the heads-up, the override will save a lot of time. I've tried doing everything in xEdit before, but always had issues removing the 'unused' masters; there's always a record somewhere that I can't find that stops the auto clean.
Creation Kit loves breaking references and slowing me down though, so I'll take a more concerted look at it. I had issues creating archives in CK too but I fixed that, so the filesize and load will come down in future.
No trouble at all. I'll consider it, although I would probably make it for the DLC version rather than all versions. I try to limit the number of patches I offer, as creating them for each version of the mod adds so much time and bloat that I can never put actual updates out. I'm sat on five new articles and a bunch of fixes right now, it's just creating the different versions that's the issue!
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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. Would you consider adding AI generated voice lines?
A. No, sorry. I've messed around with ElevenLabs, and it's an incredible tool, but I can't justify stealing someone's voice, much less someone whose performance I love (and who is openly against AI voice replication). If anyone wants to start crowdfunding for some OG Courtney Ford and deal with Bethesda's lawyers, be my guest - I'll happily write the script.
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.
V3.4 is finally here! This is a less momentous update than I would have liked, but it's a good place to leave things prior to the next gen update, and a good point to jump off from afterwards.
First off: anyone coming here from a Wabbajack modlist SHOULD be able to update from 3.3.1 with no issues. Nothing has fundamentally changed - if anything the mod is better optimised - so you should just be able to overwrite it. Backup the plugin just in case, as those modlists are delicate. Please bother me and not the modlist authors if you update it and it breaks.
I've written two new articles for quests from the base game that were obvious oversights, both of which I really enjoyed doing. You may notice a reference to a previous, as-yet unwritten article in one of them - I may add that to the terminal in future, I just know nobody reads those!
I've also written five new articles covering three quests in Sim Settlements 2 Chapter 2: two side quests and the main quest ending. This does now mean that you need Chapter 2 for the SS2 version. I'm not planning a Vanilla + SS2 version as I imagine this will be a very niche case now. I'm sure there's more to be written about Chapter 3, I just haven't played it yet.
All versions of the mod now have the correct item pickup sound that was fixed in UFO4P. The mod doesn't require UFO4P, but I would highly recommend it. The mod is also now flagged as an ESL, which should help reduce compatibility issues, and means it won't count towards the maximum number of ESPs. Many thanks to Exoclyps for talking me through that and a few other things and providing some example files to work from.
One of those other things was another restructure of the mod, recreating all of the versions. As part of that I've finally got a sensible workflow, with properly updated and formatted master files and documents to work from. So while that hasn't impacted hugely on this version (beyond some more spelling and grammar fixes), it should make future updates less of a chore.
The VR version is now in the main installer, hence why I've removed it from the optional files. I still need to rewrite the new content for SMU Redux, and make sure all of the fixes from this version are applied to that version, so that patch may be a little way off. V3.3.1 is still available to download for SMU users.
I'll be across the next gen update in case it breaks anything, although I wouldn't expect it to. Otherwise, the next update will likely be focused on covering more of the faction quests. I had originally ruled this out, as I thought it would lead to an excessive number of articles, and just get a bit annoying. But a few people have asked for it, and I think we crossed that line a while ago! I'll consider making a stripped-back version of the mod if it starts to feel too cluttered.
Compatibility for Cabot House Enhanced Quests has been mentioned to me, and I'm sure it's feasible, but it will require some rewrites and likely some new content. I may add this as a patch, although I'll have to play through it first to figure out how to approach it.
I may also add some more SS2 content if I get around to finishing it, and possibly an easter egg or two from the TV show. I've ploughed an inordinate amount of time into trying to implement player pronouns over the years, and gotten nowhere, so unless anyone knows how to do it for a player.additem command in a script fragment, that's probably off the list. I am still open to any ideas about ways I could tie Publick Occurrences and the Boston Bugle together, or content I could add to their terminals.
I'm pretty confident that everything is working, but please let me know if you find any issues. Otherwise, enjoy the mod!
Can't download it or even look at it anymore the game will crash.
However, I'm waiting to release all versions together in a combined installer to reduce confusion. This has been delayed slightly as I've had to remake the Vanilla version from scratch again due to Creation Kit shenanigans. Sorry for the wait and thank you for your continued support!
You mentioned that version 3.3.1 can be overwritten with the latest version, but is it okay to update during a playthrough?
（I'm pretty sure there's no problem, but I asked because I thought it compressed the FormID and flagged it as ESL.）
Some newspapers had FormIDs that were outside the ESL range, so I expected the FormIDs to be compressed in version 3.4 to flag them as ESL.
And, if you update to version 3.4 in the middle of the game, I don't know if it will have a negative effect on your save data, but I expected that at least the newspaper you had already acquired would be lost.
I notice though, that in xEdit (FO4VR mode) that I get the "Record is being overridden" error from the background message log, from your latest 3.4 release of POE. These errors can cause CTD and other serious issues and need to be fixed.
I play in VR, so I've just gone through these errors with a few other mods, so I've found the solution for them. You have to load the plugin into xEdit in FO4 mode, not FO4VR mode, then renumber the formIDs from 000800. After that, change header version from 1.0 to 0.95.
I wrote a little article about these errors on a ported mod I've published.
I have the plugin already made and tested, it runs fine in VR without any issues, and no errors reported in xEdit. If you don't want to bother doing this yourself, you can have it from me to upload.
Had to bulk edit the form IDs twice as the first try caused 75 errors for whatever ungodly reason, but it should be tested and working now. Let me know if you have any issues.
Immediate things that come to mind:
Otherwise, it's possible that the next version of the mod (where I've gone through every article reformatting and making corrections) could help.
Also there is a way to drastically reduce the amount of voice files you include. Just write the ID of the voice file you wanna use (gotta be from the same mod, so have to have at least one copy) in the "File Override" part.
Creation Kit loves breaking references and slowing me down though, so I'll take a more concerted look at it. I had issues creating archives in CK too but I fixed that, so the filesize and load will come down in future.
do you think it could be possible to eventually make this compatible with "Xoren Games - Cabot House Enhanced Quests"?