Guys and girls, I have a question. Does this mod compatible with Windstad Mine and/or Windstad Manor Fortification? The easternmost part of the bridgesblook very close to Fishing pier of Windstad Mine to me.
It's been awhile since I made those screenshots for this mod, at the time I think I was running Climates of Tamriel for a weather mod and ELFX for a lighting mod. Usual texture replacers as well, 2K textures I believe, SMIM and so on. Pretty standard stuff at the time.
Great mod! I never used to bother building Windstad Manor before, as it was always so tedious to get to. But with this mod, together with Solitude Skyway, it is great!
But one suggestion that you might consider is using HearthFires.esm as a master file to your mod, and use Hearthfire navmeshes as a base for your changes, to avoid additional Navmesh problems that Hearthfire users may have. To summarize the problem: Hearthfire makes changes to cells (-7,24) and (-7,25). The way navmeshes work means it also changes the external cell connections of cells (-8,24) and (-8,25) Northern Marsh Bridges makes changes to cell (-8,24). Which also means it makes changes to the external cell connections of cells (-8,25) and (-7,24)
Putting these 2 together, and the result it that if a user has Hearthfire loaded, then Northern Marsh Bridges will be directly overwriting the changes that HearthFires.esm makes to cell (-7,24) -- the western edge of Windstad Manor. Cells (-8,24) and (-8,25) may also be affected as some external connections may be overwritten.
This would most affect NPCs approaching Windstad Manor from the west, or northwest. In cell (-7,24) NPCs may try to walk on some clearly unwalkable areas -- as the navmesh shows sparse, flat land, instead of a massive rock formation with added trees that HearthFires adds/moves. And in cells (-8,24) and (-8,25) NPCs may not be able to traverse the boundary between cells in all areas, particularly external connections added by HearthFires will be gone.
I realize that adding a DLC as a master is not always ideal, as not all users may have it. But without Hearthfire, your mod is basically a bridge to nowhere. Or maybe make an additional, HearthFires version of it. It is also a fairly easy change to make if anyone wants to just do it themselves -- as I have been using the past couple months to make navmesh corrections and patches for about 40 of my 'essential' mods.
To make a Hearthfire compatible version of Northern Marsh Bridges, load both mods in TES5Edit, find navmesh record 00105A6F -- this is the navmesh from cell (-7,24). Delete this record from Northern Marsh Bridges.esp, and then copy the same record from HearthFires.esm as an override back into Northern Marsh Bridges.esp, and save. Then load the newly saved version of Northern Marsh Bridges.esp into the Creation Kit, and re-finalize the navmesh of cell (-8,24), and save -- and that should do it.
You obviously know your navmesh stuff and on a technical level you're correct (the best kind to have of course). This mod was made to bridge the marshes and wasn't intending to directly impact the Hearthfires DLC location of Winstad Manor despite being very useful for players making it their home but the latest version I've uploaded does make some necessary changes to cell (-7,24) as the sub-level water navmeshes at the western edge of the cell when used in the presence of the bridges were causing problems for NPCs exiting the bridge due to some overlapping triangles and vertexes. I've just loaded things up in the CK with Hearthfires active and can see where there are connection issues along some of the cell boundries as you've mentioned. Thing is that the main problem area is along a cliff edge where NPCs are unlikely to be traveling across in any event. There are some stone outcropping that could cause issues but players sticking to the normal pathways would have NPCs following those same paths most likely. Any serious issues could be fixed with some navcuts quite easily as well without modfiying the underlying navmesh. The only real area that bothers me is the small part of the western balcony of the manor that will have it's connections to the adjoining cell severed which could lead to NPCs taking detours there when they shouldn't.
Concerning the DLC itself, I have to say that adding it as a requirement for this mod is a lot more of an issue than you're thinking. Not only will it cut down on user interest given that Hearthfires is the least popular DLC and many players chose not to purchase it but it introduces a whole myriad of additional compatibility concerns when it comes to mods for the manor location as any such mods will almost certainly require patch work where as they do not at this time. I've been thru the patch/compatibility wars for some of my other mods and I was trying to avoid adding yet another mod where I end up having to do 5-10 patches to deal with other mods. That is currently avoided in how things stand with the mod, I make the changes you propose and now I end up needed patches for all the mods that modify Winstad Manor.
Now if you've read through this comment to this point you're probably thinking I'm not going to do anything about this issue... well you'd be wrong. This does bother me as I don't like when mods have issues that can be (relatively) easily fixed and when the mod in question is mine, well I don't like players thinking there is an issue to be fixed and I'm unwilling to do it. And while I clearly think this is a minor thing overall, in my view it is something I think should be fixed. So what to do...
I'm honestly not sure how to handle this because as I've said adding Hearthfires as a hard requirement to use the mod in the first place is more of an issue than you think it will be for many players. What I may do is as you've suggested and make a separate version that addresses these navmesh concerns, perhaps make that as the main file going forward and leave the current version frozen as a legacy version for players that don't have or want to buy Hearthfires. Although I'm not sure how much there is to add to this mod, as a concept it's pretty much "done" as is.
Thanks for the comment, I'll see what other players think and go from there.
Regarding this thread..first - Thank You so much for this. I love using the bridges.
So I'm a player with Hearthfires but never ever build Windstad. So will I have any issues with followers navigating the area if the house is never built?
I've downloaded this for my game, but I'm not comfortable using it if it overwrites Hearthfire. I'd personally rather have a copy with Hearthfire as a requirement. I don't build Windstad Manor every playthrough, but I'm planning on it in my current playthrough and I'd rather not run into problems if I use this mod.
That said, I'd really love to to use this mod and I hope you'll make a version for Hearthfire users. Honestly, at this late date, I don't see any reason for accommodating people who refuse to buy Hearthfire.
To see the problem I was referring to in more detail, load Northern Marsh Bridges.esp and HearthFires.esm both into the Creation Kit, and then re-save (a copy of?) Northern Marsh Bridges. You will then get a bunch of PATHFINDING errors displayed, and if you load cell (-8,24) you will see all connections between cells (-8,24) and (-7,24) are now gone. I don't know the details of how the game engine handles that, sometimes in the same when it can't find a path for an NPC between endpoints, the NPC will just stand there, and if you leave the area and come back they will end up teleporting to their destination. Or it may be able to path through a few extra cells and go around the missing edge.
I think the cell with overlapping triangles you were referring to is (-8,24). I remember when I did a manual cleaning a while back there were several identical navmeshes all stacked on top of each other.
But, I have been reviewing this several different ways, and it looks like Heathfire is actually NOT required, because the affected cell (-7,24) can just be deleted from your mod entirely, as it is Identical to Master.
Many...many details: For the past couple months I have been going through Tamriel, cell by cell, for my whole mod list and looking at all navmesh records that TES5Edit has identified as being a conflict -- reviewing PNGs of each cell in the Creation Kit for each mod, to see if anything has changed, and deciding which navmesh records from each mod get forwarded to my navmesh patch, and a few cells are too messed up and need to be fixed manually. I remember reading an article a few years back, written by Shurah (of Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul) where he wrote that just about every mod out there has Identical to Master navmesh records that are not caught by TES5Edit when it does a mod cleaning. And after reviewing all these conflicts myself...now I know what he meant by that!
When you finalize a cell in the CK, it saves the navmesh record(s) for that cell, but it also writes out the 4 adjacent cells, as they might all reference the finalized cell via the external cell connections. The bridge in your Northern Marsh Bridges mod occupies 3 cells -- (-10,24), (-9,24), and (-8,24). But when you finalized these 3 cells, it also saved the 8 surrounding cells -- (-11,24), (-10,23), (-10, 25), (-9,23 & 25), (-8,23 and 25) and (-7,24). Sometimes some, or all of the changes to these surrounding cells are all needed, if cells on the border get renumbered, or changed outright. But sometimes the navmesh records that it writes are byte for byte, identical to the same record in Skyrim.esm (or whichever master file the record is originally from) -- these are the records that TES5Edit can identify as 'Identical to Master' when it cleans your mod. But sometimes it writes a navmesh record that is not byte by byte identical to the master record, but it still contains identical information. These records can be safely deleted in TES5Edit manually when doing a mod cleaning.
For info on the NAVM record structure that you see in TES5Edit, refer to: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:Mod_File_Format/NAVM http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:Mod_File_Format/NVNM_Field
The most common thing that you will see in TES5Edit in these Identical to Master navmesh records, is the list of vertices from the 2 records will be identical, but the list of triangles will not be - some triangles will be listed as 'override' (if there is 2 mods modifying the same record) or 'conflict' (if there are 3 or more mods) and the corresponding row will be coloured yellow (for override) or red (for conflict). As well the section on external connections will also have some (or all) entries listed as 'override' (or 'conflict' if 3 mods)
You can (usually!!) identify these Identical to Master records that TES5Edit misses by checking if: (a) all of the entries on the Vertices list in your mod and Skyrim.esm (or whichever master file the record is originally from) are green -- indicating that each x,y,z coordinate of every triangle is the same (b) the number of entries on the Triangles list listed as 'override' (in yellow) in your mod equals the number of entries on the External Connections list listed as 'override' in Skyrim.esm AND (c) the Mesh/Triangle entries on the External Connections section of your mod is simply a reordering of the Mesh/Triangle entries on the External Connections section of the same record from Skyrim.esm. If (a) and (b) and (c) are ALL true, then even though TES5Edit shows the navmesh record as an override (or a conflict), it is really an Identical to Master record, and can safely be deleted.
This can most easily be seen in Northern Marsh Bridges.esp in TES5Edit by looking at record 00105A97, which has 4 vertices, making 2 triangles, with 2 external connections to other navmeshes. Comparing the record in Northern Marsh Bridges and Skyrim.esm a) vertex 0 through vertex 3 are all green in both, so all 4 vertices are in the same x,y,z positions b) there are 2 triangles in yellow (override) and there are 2 external connections also in yellow (override) c) the external connection list in Northern Marsh Bridges: {NAVM 00105A98/Triangle 57, NAVM 00105A67/Triangle 10} is the same as the External Connections list in Skyrim.esm {NAVM 00105A67/Triangle 10, NAVM 00105A98/Triangle 57}, just written in a different order.
All in all, there are 5 navmesh records in Northern Marsh Bridges.esp that are listed as overrides in TES5Edit, but are really Identical to Master:
These 5 records are ALL safe to delete. After deleting 001050DF, it was the only entry listed under cell 000092B4, so cell 000092B4 can also be deleted. And cell 000092B4 was the only entry under Sub-Block -1,2, so Sub-Block -1,2 can be deleted also. And after deleting 00105A6F, it was the only entry listed under cell 00009292, so cell 00009292 can be safely deleted too. That will take the mod down from 112 records to 100 records.
Lastly, the Navmesh Info Map -- FormID 00012FB4 -- is some kind of database relating all the navmeshes in the mod and how they are connected into a list of preferred paths, it appears in any mod with Navmesh entries. But, because navmeshes were deleted from the mod, this database entry is no longer accurate. So 001050DF, as well as the 'Navigation Mesh Info Map' Group header can be deleted too. This takes the mod down to 98 records after saving. Now, after deleting the Navmesh InfoMap, it needs to be regenerated. To do that simply load the mod as the active file back into the Creation Kit, validating that there are no PATHFINDING error messages -- either displayed, or in the EditorWarnings.txt file in the Skyrim program directory -- and just re-save the file again and quit. Loading back into TES5Edit and the Navmesh Info Map should be back again, and the file will be back to 151KB and 100 records.
After this, Northern Marsh Bridges should be able to load -- with or without Hearthfire -- and there should be no problems pathing problems in any of the cells I mentioned above.
kiwifruitxx - just having Hearthfire installed has the potential to cause an issue irregardless of if the house is built or not, as I said above I consider this to be a minor thing that will be addressed in any case
akparkison - a version that is more aligned to the Hearthfire changes is coming
tanzplagen - I'll try to keep this brief...
Some of the things you're claiming about ITMs are just incorrect, there have been edits in this mod to cells as I've stated already despite what xEdit is saying and you thinking nothing has changed so the record showing up as edited is a mistake. Your understanding of how this would be handled by NPCs is also not exactly correct - NPCs will not stand still when trying to path across a broken boundry, they'll path across valid mesh and pathfind a way to a valid cell boundry, meaning they could act confused due to an overlapping mesh or statics crossing the formally valid mesh but will find their way across the issue once they find a valid cell boundry on the mesh. That doesn't mean this isn't something to generally be avoided as it can look messy with NPCs stopping at an artificial and unseen to the player barrier and then moving in a non-intuitive direction. Clearly this is something that should be fixed but it also isn't going to break the game.
I'm not going to go into my thoughts on your Navmesh thesis overly much, I'll just say that I think you're way over thinking this issue. Navmesh conflicts, ITMs, and overrides are obviously a real issue but the game is fairly robust when it comes to NPC pathing. As long as there is some form of valid mesh NPCs generally will find their way around the game. Going through the entire gameworld cell by cell and checking the navmesh is something it seems pretty clear that Bethesda itself never did so I'm not sure why you're bothering. Conflicts between mods can be patched on a per mod basis, doing a type of deep dive overview of the entire world navmesh with a custom load order and then creating a custom master navmesh patch as you seem to be doing is both something I've never heard anyone else attempt as well as being more than a little of a waste of time as any such patch would no longer be valid the moment you add or remove a mod that adds or deletes or modifies in any way one or more navmesh records and would therefore need to be accounted for by this master navmesh mapping patch.
I'll be releasing a Hearthfire required version of the mod that addresses the above concerns at some point while leaving up the older version as still available for legacy users that don't have the Hearthfire DLC, so thanks for the feedback everyone.
And now with all your lovely bridgework on the north side..will you be visiting the swamps across from the docks?
Elianora's Halamshiral - Mage Tower http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63552 is tucked away in there as well as a standing stone (Apprentice I think) and a large bandit camp that must be raided every play through - I use More Bandit Camps by skillest
Not getting wet and cold would be amazing!
Thank you again...your bridges and settlements expanded are the BEST!
It says on the download page which one to use - if you have Hearthfires use the latest version, if you don't have it you'll have to use the older version that doesn't require it.
I don't plan on doing any expansion in the direction you mention, doesn't really fit into what this mod is meant to do.
I've posted a new version that makes changes in several of the cells that are also modified by or near to the Hearthfires DLC location of Windstad Manor. This change and new version means that the Hearthfires DLC is now required to use this mod from version 1.2 and onward to any future versions. If you do not have Hearthfires and still would like to use this mod, you can use the version 1.1 that is still available in the files section. This will be a legacy version going forward, I'll leave it up and available for anyone who has a problem with the Hearthfires DLC but I won't be doing any further changes or improvements to that version any more.
To anyone unhappy with this change, all I will say is this - it's been 5 years now, it's time.
Thanks for the update IMHO the people who don't have all the DLC's should not have their specific requirements met, because not buying the DLC IMO is having an unfinished copy of the game in which assets are thus ignored for compatibility sake. Think again that the game has come out in 2011 and there should be no excuse not to have them even the authors of Unofficial skyrim patches realized this and decided to move on to legendary.
Also having used your mod for so long I almost forgot I had it if that makes any sense xD It just seems like the bridges have always been there in the base game lol
I love all of your pathway mods! I was very excited to see Windhelm Docks & Solitude Skyway on SSE.
...So, to be that guy... Any chance of getting SSE ports for Marsh Bridges & Riften Docks? If not I can probably just convert them myself for personal use.
This mod is probably next on my list to convert is it is a sort of companion/complimentary mod for the Solitude Skyway mod that I recently converted so it would seem to be a natural fit to go next. The Riften Docks Pathways mod would follow after that as I've had a few requests for that one as well and I do intend to convert them all eventually.
43 comments
This version has better navmesh cleaning with the latest version of TES5Edit, nothing else has changed.
i love it...
All I can remember, hope it helps you out.
Great mod! I never used to bother building Windstad Manor before, as it was always so tedious to get to. But with this mod, together with Solitude Skyway, it is great!
But one suggestion that you might consider is using HearthFires.esm as a master file to your mod, and use Hearthfire navmeshes as a base for your changes, to avoid additional Navmesh problems that Hearthfire users may have. To summarize the problem:
Hearthfire makes changes to cells (-7,24) and (-7,25). The way navmeshes work means it also changes the external cell connections of cells (-8,24) and (-8,25)
Northern Marsh Bridges makes changes to cell (-8,24). Which also means it makes changes to the external cell connections of cells (-8,25) and (-7,24)
Putting these 2 together, and the result it that if a user has Hearthfire loaded, then Northern Marsh Bridges will be directly overwriting the changes that HearthFires.esm makes to cell (-7,24) -- the western edge of Windstad Manor. Cells (-8,24) and (-8,25) may also be affected as some external connections may be overwritten.
This would most affect NPCs approaching Windstad Manor from the west, or northwest. In cell (-7,24) NPCs may try to walk on some clearly unwalkable areas --
as the navmesh shows sparse, flat land, instead of a massive rock formation with added trees that HearthFires adds/moves. And in cells (-8,24) and (-8,25) NPCs may not be able to traverse the boundary between cells in all areas, particularly external connections added by HearthFires will be gone.
I realize that adding a DLC as a master is not always ideal, as not all users may have it. But without Hearthfire, your mod is basically a bridge to nowhere. Or maybe make an additional, HearthFires version of it. It is also a fairly easy change to make if anyone wants to just do it themselves -- as I have been using the past couple months to make navmesh corrections and patches for about 40 of my 'essential' mods.
To make a Hearthfire compatible version of Northern Marsh Bridges, load both mods in TES5Edit, find navmesh record 00105A6F -- this is the navmesh from cell (-7,24). Delete this record from Northern Marsh Bridges.esp, and then copy the same record from HearthFires.esm as an override back into Northern Marsh Bridges.esp, and save. Then load the newly saved version of Northern Marsh Bridges.esp into the Creation Kit, and re-finalize the navmesh of cell (-8,24), and save -- and that should do it.
Thanks,
Dan.
Concerning the DLC itself, I have to say that adding it as a requirement for this mod is a lot more of an issue than you're thinking. Not only will it cut down on user interest given that Hearthfires is the least popular DLC and many players chose not to purchase it but it introduces a whole myriad of additional compatibility concerns when it comes to mods for the manor location as any such mods will almost certainly require patch work where as they do not at this time. I've been thru the patch/compatibility wars for some of my other mods and I was trying to avoid adding yet another mod where I end up having to do 5-10 patches to deal with other mods. That is currently avoided in how things stand with the mod, I make the changes you propose and now I end up needed patches for all the mods that modify Winstad Manor.
Now if you've read through this comment to this point you're probably thinking I'm not going to do anything about this issue... well you'd be wrong. This does bother me as I don't like when mods have issues that can be (relatively) easily fixed and when the mod in question is mine, well I don't like players thinking there is an issue to be fixed and I'm unwilling to do it. And while I clearly think this is a minor thing overall, in my view it is something I think should be fixed. So what to do...
I'm honestly not sure how to handle this because as I've said adding Hearthfires as a hard requirement to use the mod in the first place is more of an issue than you think it will be for many players. What I may do is as you've suggested and make a separate version that addresses these navmesh concerns, perhaps make that as the main file going forward and leave the current version frozen as a legacy version for players that don't have or want to buy Hearthfires. Although I'm not sure how much there is to add to this mod, as a concept it's pretty much "done" as is.
Thanks for the comment, I'll see what other players think and go from there.
So I'm a player with Hearthfires but never ever build Windstad. So will I have any issues with followers navigating the area if the house is never built?
Thanks again
That said, I'd really love to to use this mod and I hope you'll make a version for Hearthfire users. Honestly, at this late date, I don't see any reason for accommodating people who refuse to buy Hearthfire.
To see the problem I was referring to in more detail, load Northern Marsh Bridges.esp and HearthFires.esm both into the Creation Kit, and then re-save (a copy of?) Northern Marsh Bridges. You will then get a bunch of PATHFINDING errors displayed, and if you load cell (-8,24) you will see all connections between cells (-8,24) and (-7,24) are now gone. I don't know the details of how the game engine handles that, sometimes in the same when it can't find a path for an NPC between endpoints, the NPC will just stand there, and if you leave the area and come back they will end up teleporting to their destination. Or it may be able to path through a few extra cells and go around the missing edge.
I think the cell with overlapping triangles you were referring to is (-8,24). I remember when I did a manual cleaning a while back there were several identical navmeshes all stacked on top of each other.
But, I have been reviewing this several different ways, and it looks like Heathfire is actually NOT required, because the affected cell (-7,24) can just be deleted from your mod entirely, as it is Identical to Master.
Many...many details:
For the past couple months I have been going through Tamriel, cell by cell, for my whole mod list and looking at all navmesh records that TES5Edit has identified as being a conflict -- reviewing PNGs of each cell in the Creation Kit for each mod, to see if anything has changed, and deciding which navmesh records from each mod get forwarded to my navmesh patch, and a few cells are too messed up and need to be fixed manually. I remember reading an article a few years back, written by Shurah (of Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul) where he wrote that just about every mod out there has Identical to Master navmesh records that are not caught by TES5Edit when it does a mod cleaning. And after reviewing all these conflicts myself...now I know what he meant by that!
When you finalize a cell in the CK, it saves the navmesh record(s) for that cell, but it also writes out the 4 adjacent cells, as they might all reference the finalized cell via the external cell connections. The bridge in your Northern Marsh Bridges mod occupies 3 cells -- (-10,24), (-9,24), and (-8,24). But when you finalized these 3 cells, it also saved the 8 surrounding cells -- (-11,24), (-10,23), (-10, 25), (-9,23 & 25), (-8,23 and 25) and (-7,24). Sometimes some, or all of the changes to these surrounding cells are all needed, if cells on the border get renumbered, or changed outright. But sometimes the navmesh records that it writes are byte for byte, identical to the same record in Skyrim.esm (or whichever master file the record is originally from) -- these are the records that TES5Edit can identify as 'Identical to Master' when it cleans your mod. But sometimes it writes a navmesh record that is not byte by byte identical to the master record, but it still contains identical information. These records can be safely deleted in TES5Edit manually when doing a mod cleaning.
For info on the NAVM record structure that you see in TES5Edit, refer to:
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:Mod_File_Format/NAVM
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:Mod_File_Format/NVNM_Field
The most common thing that you will see in TES5Edit in these Identical to Master navmesh records, is the list of vertices from the 2 records will be identical, but the list of triangles will not be - some triangles will be listed as 'override' (if there is 2 mods modifying the same record) or 'conflict' (if there are 3 or more mods) and the corresponding row will be coloured yellow (for override) or red (for conflict). As well the section on external connections will also have some (or all) entries listed as 'override' (or 'conflict' if 3 mods)
You can (usually!!) identify these Identical to Master records that TES5Edit misses by checking if:
(a) all of the entries on the Vertices list in your mod and Skyrim.esm (or whichever master file the record is originally from) are green -- indicating that each x,y,z coordinate of every triangle is the same
(b) the number of entries on the Triangles list listed as 'override' (in yellow) in your mod equals the number of entries on the External Connections list listed as 'override' in Skyrim.esm
AND
(c) the Mesh/Triangle entries on the External Connections section of your mod is simply a reordering of the Mesh/Triangle entries on the External Connections section of the same record from Skyrim.esm.
If (a) and (b) and (c) are ALL true, then even though TES5Edit shows the navmesh record as an override (or a conflict), it is really an Identical to Master record, and can safely be deleted.
This can most easily be seen in Northern Marsh Bridges.esp in TES5Edit by looking at record 00105A97, which has 4 vertices, making 2 triangles, with 2 external connections to other navmeshes. Comparing the record in Northern Marsh Bridges and Skyrim.esm
a) vertex 0 through vertex 3 are all green in both, so all 4 vertices are in the same x,y,z positions
b) there are 2 triangles in yellow (override) and there are 2 external connections also in yellow (override)
c) the external connection list in Northern Marsh Bridges: {NAVM 00105A98/Triangle 57, NAVM 00105A67/Triangle 10} is the same as the External Connections list in Skyrim.esm {NAVM 00105A67/Triangle 10, NAVM 00105A98/Triangle 57}, just written in a different order.
All in all, there are 5 navmesh records in Northern Marsh Bridges.esp that are listed as overrides in TES5Edit, but are really Identical to Master:
00105A97 cell (-10,25)
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ Block -1, 0 \ Sub-Block -2, 3 \ 00009274 \ Temporary \ 00105A97
001050DE cell (-9,23)
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ Block -1, 0 \ Sub-Block -2, 2 \ 000092B5 \ Temporary \ 001050DE
00105A6B cell (-9,24)
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ Block -1, 0 \ Sub-Block -2, 3 \ 00009294 \ Temporary \ 00105A6B
001050DF cell (-8,23)
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ Block -1, 0 \ Sub-Block -1, 2 \ 000092B4 \ Temporary \ 001050DF
00105A6F cell (-7,24)
Worldspace \ 0000003C <Tamriel> \ Block -1, 0 \ Sub-Block -1, 3 \ 00009292 \ Temporary \ 00105A6F
These 5 records are ALL safe to delete. After deleting 001050DF, it was the only entry listed under cell 000092B4, so cell 000092B4 can also be deleted. And cell 000092B4 was the only entry under Sub-Block -1,2, so Sub-Block -1,2 can be deleted also. And after deleting 00105A6F, it was the only entry listed under cell 00009292, so cell 00009292 can be safely deleted too. That will take the mod down from 112 records to 100 records.
Lastly, the Navmesh Info Map -- FormID 00012FB4 -- is some kind of database relating all the navmeshes in the mod and how they are connected into a list of preferred paths, it appears in any mod with Navmesh entries. But, because navmeshes were deleted from the mod, this database entry is no longer accurate. So 001050DF, as well as the 'Navigation Mesh Info Map' Group header can be deleted too. This takes the mod down to 98 records after saving. Now, after deleting the Navmesh InfoMap, it needs to be regenerated. To do that simply load the mod as the active file back into the Creation Kit, validating that there are no PATHFINDING error messages -- either displayed, or in the EditorWarnings.txt file in the Skyrim program directory -- and just re-save the file again and quit. Loading back into TES5Edit and the Navmesh Info Map should be back again, and the file will be back to 151KB and 100 records.
After this, Northern Marsh Bridges should be able to load -- with or without Hearthfire -- and there should be no problems pathing problems in any of the cells I mentioned above.
Thanks,
Dan.
akparkison - a version that is more aligned to the Hearthfire changes is coming
tanzplagen - I'll try to keep this brief...
Some of the things you're claiming about ITMs are just incorrect, there have been edits in this mod to cells as I've stated already despite what xEdit is saying and you thinking nothing has changed so the record showing up as edited is a mistake. Your understanding of how this would be handled by NPCs is also not exactly correct - NPCs will not stand still when trying to path across a broken boundry, they'll path across valid mesh and pathfind a way to a valid cell boundry, meaning they could act confused due to an overlapping mesh or statics crossing the formally valid mesh but will find their way across the issue once they find a valid cell boundry on the mesh. That doesn't mean this isn't something to generally be avoided as it can look messy with NPCs stopping at an artificial and unseen to the player barrier and then moving in a non-intuitive direction. Clearly this is something that should be fixed but it also isn't going to break the game.
I'm not going to go into my thoughts on your Navmesh thesis overly much, I'll just say that I think you're way over thinking this issue. Navmesh conflicts, ITMs, and overrides are obviously a real issue but the game is fairly robust when it comes to NPC pathing. As long as there is some form of valid mesh NPCs generally will find their way around the game. Going through the entire gameworld cell by cell and checking the navmesh is something it seems pretty clear that Bethesda itself never did so I'm not sure why you're bothering. Conflicts between mods can be patched on a per mod basis, doing a type of deep dive overview of the entire world navmesh with a custom load order and then creating a custom master navmesh patch as you seem to be doing is both something I've never heard anyone else attempt as well as being more than a little of a waste of time as any such patch would no longer be valid the moment you add or remove a mod that adds or deletes or modifies in any way one or more navmesh records and would therefore need to be accounted for by this master navmesh mapping patch.
I'll be releasing a Hearthfire required version of the mod that addresses the above concerns at some point while leaving up the older version as still available for legacy users that don't have the Hearthfire DLC, so thanks for the feedback everyone.
I installed HF a long time ago because a couple of mods required it, but I don't build anything with it or use it at all.
So, when you release another version of this mod....Just tell me which one to use.
And now with all your lovely bridgework on the north side..will you be visiting the swamps across from the docks?
Elianora's Halamshiral - Mage Tower http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63552 is tucked away in there as well as a standing stone (Apprentice I think) and a large bandit camp that must be raided every play through
Not getting wet and cold would be amazing!
Thank you again...your bridges and settlements expanded are the BEST!
I don't plan on doing any expansion in the direction you mention, doesn't really fit into what this mod is meant to do.
To anyone unhappy with this change, all I will say is this - it's been 5 years now, it's time.
Also having used your mod for so long I almost forgot I had it if that makes any sense xD It just seems like the bridges have always been there in the base game lol
...So, to be that guy... Any chance of getting SSE ports for Marsh Bridges & Riften Docks? If not I can probably just convert them myself for personal use.
Thanks for the excellent mods! =)
You're welcome for the mod, have fun with it.
Thanks man!