Nice, thanks for this, like some others I have never understood why the library was locked down; seems to me that at some point in the college questline you should gain access to at least read the books if not actually take them. That said...
I had to do some troubleshooting as this didn't 100% work for me where LOOT placed it; it unlocked the bookshelves but left the books as owned so taking them would be theft. After a bit of mucking about with my load order manually I discovered the culprit to be "Enhanced Lighting for ENB (ELE) - Special Edition" (www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1377)... When I loaded it and this mod up in xEdit and applied a filter to compare conflicts I found that mod re-institutes Urag gro-Shub as the owner of the bookcases so even though this mod unlocked the bookshelves the actual books where still owned...
To resolve I simply deleted the reference to Urag gro-Shub as owner of items in the Arcanaeum in "ELE_SSE.esp". For those not comfortable with editing files in xEdit you could alternatively set a metatag in LOOT to always load this mod after ELE.
Ah yeah right enough, the "Owner" value in the .esp is a top level change on the CELL record so it'll overwrite or be overwritten by things like lighting mods. Good catch, easy to fix locally, thankfully!
This mod should fix that as well, and let you take the books instead of stealing them.
Check if there isn't another mod in your load order that overwrites the "Owner" value of the .esp, like ELE_SSE.esp, or any other lighting mod. The easiest way to fix this is with LOOT. You can set a metatag in LOOT to always load this mod after ELE, or any other mod that you think will mess with this one. If you are not sure, you can use xEdit to compare conflicts.
Don't know if it'd be possible, but anyway you could set this up so this only triggers once you've earned Marag's favor? Say after you've found enough books? Hmm
Alright I have an idea... How about instead of "unlocking them" You unlock them via mod, then RELOCK THEM. And add a KEY to the quest giving items that Urag gives you! Simple enough no??? That would be a way to get around this? (also maybe a key hidden in his desk chest)
What Hamletsdead said, flag as an ESL and you'll be good to go.
If, like me, you have a "master esp" file with loads of compiled small changes to the vanilla game then you can "deep copy as override" in xEdit into another .ESP as well. Nothing is added (i.e no new FORMIDs) just old ones changed.
I always found it ridiculous at how we can't access these bookshelves. Even after becoming arch mage. Thank you Aurora, downloading now before I forget
13 comments
I had to do some troubleshooting as this didn't 100% work for me where LOOT placed it; it unlocked the bookshelves but left the books as owned so taking them would be theft. After a bit of mucking about with my load order manually I discovered the culprit to be "Enhanced Lighting for ENB (ELE) - Special Edition" (www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1377)... When I loaded it and this mod up in xEdit and applied a filter to compare conflicts I found that mod re-institutes Urag gro-Shub as the owner of the bookcases so even though this mod unlocked the bookshelves the actual books where still owned...
To resolve I simply deleted the reference to Urag gro-Shub as owner of items in the Arcanaeum in "ELE_SSE.esp". For those not comfortable with editing files in xEdit you could alternatively set a metatag in LOOT to always load this mod after ELE.
However, isn't this in the wrong category? This isn't an environmental mod, surely?
Also, is there a way to make it so it doesn't count as stealing to take the books? Kinda silly that borrowing from a library counts as stealing
This mod should fix that as well, and let you take the books instead of stealing them.
Check if there isn't another mod in your load order that overwrites the "Owner" value of the .esp, like ELE_SSE.esp, or any other lighting mod. The easiest way to fix this is with LOOT. You can set a metatag in LOOT to always load this mod after ELE, or any other mod that you think will mess with this one. If you are not sure, you can use xEdit to compare conflicts.
It's a really good idea though!
If, like me, you have a "master esp" file with loads of compiled small changes to the vanilla game then you can "deep copy as override" in xEdit into another .ESP as well. Nothing is added (i.e no new FORMIDs) just old ones changed.