Apologies for taking so long to update this mod. It's not abandoned... I just kind of forgot about it. Vorians - who as you may or may not have noticed - has been busy voicing various mods lately. He wanted to do this one, but he noticed the large number of bug reports and contacted me about it. Since I happened to be nearing completion of a huge project and was planning to get back to Oblivion anyway, I moved this to the top of my to-do list.
I'm 97% certain I've squashed all the bugs this time (yes, that includes the Sinweaver bug). I played through this twice - once with only my essential mods to test and squash bugs, and a second time with my full load order to double-check everything and find potential conflicts. As you might notice from the changelog, there was a lot of stuff to fix, and I also made various improvements along the way. Some of the later quests have a lot of variables; since it's nearly impossible for one person to check them all, there might still be a few issues here and there.
Now, for a couple things mentioned in the changelog:
Spoiler:
Show
Deleted cells When Ling made this mod, potential conflicts were more of an issue than they are nowadays. This mod uses several dungeons for various quests, so to avoid conflicts, Ling duplicated the cells and had the doors to them appear when appropriate, then disappear later (so you could go back to the original dungeon). This was a valid concern back in the day, but not so much now, so I've removed several dungeons that didn't need to be duplicated: namely, Bloodrun Cave, Fort Black Boot, and Fieldhouse Cave, which only had one new NPC in them.
OOO patch I had to remake this from scratch because it wouldn't load in the CS for some reason. This fixes the "Azani doesn't show up in Arpenia" bug (the patch was calling an invalid reference). Steel Fang was removed because he was hostile for some reason and kept attacking me before I joined the Company; he isn't placed in the base game anyway, so no great loss. I didn't mess with NPCs' inventories or stats, because dragging records around in Edit means it won't open in the CS. Ri'Zakar's wearing most of a set of custom armor from OOO anyway, and it seemed a shame to make him wear Blackwood armor instead of that. As for Geel wearing shadowmail, well... he's special.
The Spoils of War quest Originally called Blackwood Armour, this quest was intended to be a way for you to obtain a set of superior or enchanted Blackwood Armor, but it wasn't fully implemented - you're given an enchanted cuirass after completing Cover-Up, and that was it. Some of the dialogue was there, along with some other elements - enough that I could see how it was supposed to work - but I still took a little creative license with it.
I thought it was rather odd that, right after you get a full set of normal armor, you'd get the option to acquire better armor, so now that part of it starts after you complete the main quest, IF you become Pakseech (this is because Ri'Zakar is the only one who wears Ebony Blackwood Armor, so it made more sense). Yes, I said "that part", because I also came up with the idea of improving your Blackwood weapons (credits to dianaharuno, who complained about them not scaling).
The quest now works like this: After Cover-Up, you can go to Gin-Wulm and have him upgrade your weapons, provided you have the proper materials AND are high enough level for each upgrade (all the details are in the walkthrough). If you become Pakseech, he'll also make you a set of armor - in this case, you can mix and match pieces between Superior and Enchanted, but you can still only make one of each armor piece. Again, you'll have to get the materials, but Gin-Wulm will give you a handy guide with all the requirements in it.
The Sinweaver bug It took me awhile to track this one down. The script on the sword checks for two different stages, depending on which path you take during the Second Deal quest - bring Ja'Fazir along, or leave him behind. If you leave him behind, he'll die along with Azani, and that's what crashes the game. I had to come up with a workaround - instead of him dying, he's disabled instead. Not the best solution, but it works, and it serves the same purpose - he's gone.
Hist Sap Originally, the basic hist sap had three sets of effects, determine randomly by script when you drank it, and the modified and powerful versions had one each. I expanded all of them to have four sets of effects (weak and powerful are simply modified versions of basic), along with four "wild card" effects - things that are only bad, because that's what you get when you do drugs. Each time you drink hist sap, you get one or the other, not both. The effects are listed in the walkthrough.
The main effects were balanced around their total cost: for basic, it's ~1000 gold, modified is ~700, and powerful is ~1500. Cost increases logarithmically, not linearly, so while it may seem that the powerful sap is a bit "underwhelming", I'm not going to change it. main effects have a 24% chance each of occurring; wild cards are 1% each.
If you have an issue, do the following before filing a bug report: * Make the quest active in your journal. * Open the console and type "get sqt" (without the quotes). This will give you EditorID of the current quest. * In the console, type "getstage xxx" (again, without the quotes) where xxx is the EditorID you just got. (For example: If you're doing Bandits and Marauders, the quest ID is LingBC02Rockmilk.) That will help me determine where to look so I can figure things out more easily.
A few people have asked about porting this to ORE. I don't currently have it, though I do intend to get it at some point. Hopefully by then we'll have figured out how to add new cells. But yes, if I can, will try to port this.
I'm not sure if mod conflicts cause this, but the quest A Deal with Blackheart, or "LingBC09Azani," is very buggy. I got stuck in the cutscene after Azani refused your deal at "stage 20.00." I had to use the console to go to stage 50.00, where I needed to give Ja'Fazir the Sinweaver, but there was no dialogue option for it. So the only way to complete the quest is to set the stage to 100.
Will this be safe to install mid game as I haven't joined the fighters guild yet.
Also maybe answered before, but is there rp moments to be a good guy in this faction or is it meant to play as a evil character? Thanks for the all the work 😁
During the Cover-Up quest,Previa doesn't hand over the papers despite a high personality and speech skill, the guards never appear at Canulus Village, and the inn at Canulus Village crashes immediately on entry. I had to use the console to advance the quest.
During A Deal With Blackheart, Ja'Fazir doesn't take the sword, and I had to use the console to advance the quest.
During Recruitment Drive, upon gathering all the recruits, Ri'Zikar tells you to speak to Ja'Fazir for advancement, but he never gives the new rank. I had to use the console to get the next rank (Captain of Warriors) and initiate the next quest. The dialogue option to ask locals about potential recruits remains available.
Upon finishing the final quest, the Imperial guards who should have appeared at Canulus Village show up, the Lakeview Inn becomes accessible, the Argonian witness who was meant to be assassinated appears, and the villagers who were present before have now vanished.
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I'm 97% certain I've squashed all the bugs this time (yes, that includes the Sinweaver bug). I played through this twice - once with only my essential mods to test and squash bugs, and a second time with my full load order to double-check everything and find potential conflicts. As you might notice from the changelog, there was a lot of stuff to fix, and I also made various improvements along the way. Some of the later quests have a lot of variables; since it's nearly impossible for one person to check them all, there might still be a few issues here and there.
Now, for a couple things mentioned in the changelog:
Deleted cells
When Ling made this mod, potential conflicts were more of an issue than they are nowadays. This mod uses several dungeons for various quests, so to avoid conflicts, Ling duplicated the cells and had the doors to them appear when appropriate, then disappear later (so you could go back to the original dungeon). This was a valid concern back in the day, but not so much now, so I've removed several dungeons that didn't need to be duplicated: namely, Bloodrun Cave, Fort Black Boot, and Fieldhouse Cave, which only had one new NPC in them.
OOO patch
I had to remake this from scratch because it wouldn't load in the CS for some reason. This fixes the "Azani doesn't show up in Arpenia" bug (the patch was calling an invalid reference). Steel Fang was removed because he was hostile for some reason and kept attacking me before I joined the Company; he isn't placed in the base game anyway, so no great loss. I didn't mess with NPCs' inventories or stats, because dragging records around in Edit means it won't open in the CS. Ri'Zakar's wearing most of a set of custom armor from OOO anyway, and it seemed a shame to make him wear Blackwood armor instead of that. As for Geel wearing shadowmail, well... he's special.
The Spoils of War quest
Originally called Blackwood Armour, this quest was intended to be a way for you to obtain a set of superior or enchanted Blackwood Armor, but it wasn't fully implemented - you're given an enchanted cuirass after completing Cover-Up, and that was it. Some of the dialogue was there, along with some other elements - enough that I could see how it was supposed to work - but I still took a little creative license with it.
I thought it was rather odd that, right after you get a full set of normal armor, you'd get the option to acquire better armor, so now that part of it starts after you complete the main quest, IF you become Pakseech (this is because Ri'Zakar is the only one who wears Ebony Blackwood Armor, so it made more sense). Yes, I said "that part", because I also came up with the idea of improving your Blackwood weapons (credits to dianaharuno, who complained about them not scaling).
The quest now works like this: After Cover-Up, you can go to Gin-Wulm and have him upgrade your weapons, provided you have the proper materials AND are high enough level for each upgrade (all the details are in the walkthrough). If you become Pakseech, he'll also make you a set of armor - in this case, you can mix and match pieces between Superior and Enchanted, but you can still only make one of each armor piece. Again, you'll have to get the materials, but Gin-Wulm will give you a handy guide with all the requirements in it.
The Sinweaver bug
It took me awhile to track this one down. The script on the sword checks for two different stages, depending on which path you take during the Second Deal quest - bring Ja'Fazir along, or leave him behind. If you leave him behind, he'll die along with Azani, and that's what crashes the game. I had to come up with a workaround - instead of him dying, he's disabled instead. Not the best solution, but it works, and it serves the same purpose - he's gone.
Hist Sap
Originally, the basic hist sap had three sets of effects, determine randomly by script when you drank it, and the modified and powerful versions had one each. I expanded all of them to have four sets of effects (weak and powerful are simply modified versions of basic), along with four "wild card" effects - things that are only bad, because that's what you get when you do drugs. Each time you drink hist sap, you get one or the other, not both. The effects are listed in the walkthrough.
The main effects were balanced around their total cost: for basic, it's ~1000 gold, modified is ~700, and powerful is ~1500. Cost increases logarithmically, not linearly, so while it may seem that the powerful sap is a bit "underwhelming", I'm not going to change it.
main effects have a 24% chance each of occurring; wild cards are 1% each.
If you have an issue, do the following before filing a bug report:
* Make the quest active in your journal.
* Open the console and type "get sqt" (without the quotes). This will give you EditorID of the current quest.
* In the console, type "getstage xxx" (again, without the quotes) where xxx is the EditorID you just got. (For example: If you're doing Bandits and Marauders, the quest ID is LingBC02Rockmilk.)
That will help me determine where to look so I can figure things out more easily.
Also maybe answered before, but is there rp moments to be a good guy in this faction or is it meant to play as a evil character? Thanks for the all the work 😁
You can play it either way - there's a "good" path and a "bad" path.
During the Cover-Up quest,Previa doesn't hand over the papers despite a high personality and speech skill, the guards never appear at Canulus Village, and the inn at Canulus Village crashes immediately on entry. I had to use the console to advance the quest.
During A Deal With Blackheart, Ja'Fazir doesn't take the sword, and I had to use the console to advance the quest.
During Recruitment Drive, upon gathering all the recruits, Ri'Zikar tells you to speak to Ja'Fazir for advancement, but he never gives the new rank. I had to use the console to get the next rank (Captain of Warriors) and initiate the next quest. The dialogue option to ask locals about potential recruits remains available.
Upon finishing the final quest, the Imperial guards who should have appeared at Canulus Village show up, the Lakeview Inn becomes accessible, the Argonian witness who was meant to be assassinated appears, and the villagers who were present before have now vanished.
That would truly be amazing.
Thanks a lot for the update.