How To: Cobl Your Mod

[Khettienna]

How To: Cobl Your Mod

-or-

The Clutterer's Guide to Cobl-ization

Introduction

============================

Cobl offers a large helping of ready-to-go modders' resources for homes, guild halls, shops - you name it, and there's a Cobl thing you can add to it to make it just a little bit cooler.

Not only is it always nice to have extra variety when cluttering, but all of the Cobl goodies add function and practicality, too - and mostly with no fiddling! You don't need to know any scripting to use Cobl goodies. Most of the time, you can just kerplunk them right into your workspace, and presto! Toys!

To mod with Cobl, just tick the box next to Cobl Main.esm in the list when you open your plugin!

The Toys!

============================

1. The Luggage

The Luggage is a container that "follows" the player. Okay, so it doesn't really move with the player... there are just many references to a singular container, so the contents are always the same, and thus it appears to stealthily arrive wherever the player has a place to rest. By default, there are Luggage chests in every stock player home, guild hall, inn, and camp.

You can add The Luggage to your player home very easily. Under Containers, find the object cobLugBasic, and drag it where you want The Luggage to appear in the house.

If you want to customize your Luggage, duplicate this Luggage with a new object ID. Then you can choose a new mesh, rename it, whatever you want. As long as you leave the script the same (cobLugBasicOS), it will still be The Luggage.

Note that placed references of The Luggage will not appear to characters who have not found and adopted The Luggage through its dialogue yet.

2. Survival Mod Support

Cobl offers built-in handling for survival mods. You can add food and water sources to your home so that players using such mods gain a little bit of extra immersion.

Start with a Dinner Plate. These are found under Activators. Objects cobEatHomePlateMC and cobEatHomePlateUC are middle-class and upper-class Dinner Plates, respectively. When activated, they will pull ingredients from the player's inventory and process them for the hunger mods. You can make any plate into a Dinner Plate by adding it as an activator and attaching the script cobEatHomePlateOS.

You might want to add a Food Larder. This is a food container that the Dinner Plate will pull ingredients from instead of using what is in the player's inventory. You can use any container. Just make it persistent, and then set it as the parent object of the Dinner Plate. You don't have to call it Food Larder, of course, but sticking to that convention will make it easier for players to recognize.

Then add a water source. If you have a well outside, consider replacing it with a Cobl well. They are found under Activators, and start with cobWaterWell*. There's one to match each stock well, so you can just search --> replace without having to do any additional work. If your well is a new object, re-add it to the CS as an activator and attach the script cobWaterWellOS. If you're setting up a camp or other outdoor abode, you might also choose to use an outdoor barrel (these have "camp" in the object ID).

If your mod doesn't have a well, you can use a keg (cobWaterBarrel01) or open barrel (cobWaterBarrel02) instead. Or you can do both! The chances are lower for the player to contract diseases from indoor water sources. If you use the open barrel model, consider adding one of the water statics also provided by Cobl to make it look more realistic. Those can be found under Statics --> Water Statics. Of course, you can always use your own activator object, and just attach script cobWaterHomeOS.

3. Mage Altars

One of the most highly-demanded features in a house are enchanting and spellmaking altars. Cobl provides 2-in-1 altars that, when activated, offer the choice to enchant something or make a spell. These altars are also already set up to only work if the player has completed the requisite stages in the Mages Guild quest line to be able to use the altars in the Arcane University, so you won't have to worry about game balance. Under activators, look for cobAltarLightMC or cobAltarLightUC (middle-class and upper-class, respectively). Or use your own object, and assign script cobAltarLightOS.

There are also "Dark" versions (cobAltarDark*) that use a different variable to become functional, presumably leaving room for a modder to create another set of conditions under which it would be fair for players to get enchanting and spellmaking access. As far as I know at the time of this writing, there are no mods that do this. Maybe yours will be the one?

4. Ingredient Sorters

Now we come to the famous Cobl sorters. These containers store potions, poisions, ingredients, and scrolls automatically (and lighting fast, I might add). They also allow you to retrieve said item types by effect. Cobl Glue has already added them to all of the stock houses. These objects are found under Containers and are prefixed with cobAlsShelf*.

You can, of course, make ANY container into a Cobl sorter. Duplicate an existing container with a new Object ID, or make a brand new one, and attach script cobAlsTriggerFAS. That's all there is to it!

5. Static Apparati

This is one of my favorite Cobl toys. It takes a little work to set up, but it's incredibly handy to have in a house. Basically, anytime the player activates any of the apparati placeholders, the best one of each type of apparati in the player's inventory is taken from them and set up for use in place of the placeholders. Then the alchemy menu opens. When the player is done, the lab keeps the apparati and displays it. If the player uses the lab again later with better equipment in their inventory, the lab will automatically update and give the player back the old equipment. Finally, there is a separate activator (a "Returner" object) the player can use to simply take back all their equipment, and then the player will see just the placeholders again.

It sounds more complicated than it is - as a player, I found it very intuitive. It provides a lot of convenience without any consequences to game balance, because the player has to provide the actual equipment.

Anyway, here we go! I recommend you start by setting up your alchemy lab however you would without Cobl. Place one of each apparatus down on a shelf or table as you like, and test it in-game to make sure your arrangement doesn't asplode when havok is applied. You'll also need to figure out what you want to use as your "Returner" - maybe a button, or a cutting board, or the shelf or table itself.

Once you've got it arranged how you like, use the Search and Replace function from the Edit menu to switch out your apparati for the Cobl placeholders. The object names are: cobStaticAppAlemObj (Alembic), cobStaticAppCalcObj (Calcinator), cobStaticAppMortPestObj (Mortar and Pestle), cobStaticAppRetortObj (Retort). It doesn't matter what "rank" of apparati you were using. These pieces are just placeholders for the player's own equipment, and will take the shape of whatever apparati the player puts in them in-game.

Now to set up the Returner. Cobl already has MiddleTable04 set up as a Returner (cobStaticAppReturnerObj, under Activators), but as I said - you can use anything you want. Whatever it is, make it an activator, and attach the script cobStaticAppOS.

Aaand here's the tricksy part. For all five objects - the four apparati, and the Returner, you need to set the ownership to specific factions. Alembic - cobStaticAppIDAlem, Calcinator - cobStaticAppIDCalc, Mortar and Pestle - cobStaticAppIDMortPest, Retort - cobStaticAppIDRet, and the Returner object - cobStaticAppIDReturner. It's the owning faction that tells the scripts which piece is which and how to display and use it, so don't skip this step! And since this is more complicated than the rest to set up, make sure you playtest!

An important note is that the static apparati cannot really be disabled, because their enable state is already handled elsewhere. This is important to keep in mind if you are "phasing" your interior design as part of quest progression or furniture packages. You will need to make each one a persistent reference in this case, and place them out of sight (under the floor, for example), and use a MoveTo or PositionCell type script to get them where you want them at the appropriate time.

Oh, and one last thing: The static apparati are not actually static, because they take on the model of the equipment provided by the player, havok and all. So really do make sure you playtest and be sure your stuff doesn't explode or fall through the table!

6. Grinders

Cobl unites many of the various ingredient-adding mods into one. Many of these ingredients come from grinding other things - gems, bones, etc... and so you might want to provide a Grinder for your inhabitants. By default, these are only available in Mages Guild halls, and it is only not stealing to use them if the player has joined the Mages Guild; so if you are a stickler for game balance, treat Grinders as a luxury.

The only Grinder that comes with Cobl, object cobGrinder01 under Containers, is shaped like a small Ayleid chest. You can make any container into a Grinder by attaching script cobGrinderOS. Whatever you choose, you probably want to place it near the alchemy area, if there is one.

7. Catalogs

Alchemical catalogs will list the ingredients by effects or effects by ingredients, depending on which of the eight catalogs you're reading. These books have a very high value, so if you favor game balance, treat them as a luxury. Once the player picks them up, they aren't worth anything - but giving them for free means the player won't have to spend on them elsewhere. These catalogs are very cool, however, in that they will get updated with ingredients from other mods if the player ticks the option to do so when building their bashed patch.

8. General Clutter

On the less practical side, Cobl gives you a vast array of ingredients and clutter you can use to decorate. All the pies, cakes, cookies, and cheese from the Salmo the Baker mod, plus all the kitchen clutter, not to mention Texian's Water Statics and Meo's Ayleid Clutter, and the Meteoric Ayleid Weaponry, and all the Ti ingredients, and a couple dozen new brews to quench the thirst of the mightiest adventurer! Want to put water in that trough? Want to put a hot pie cooling in the window, or lay out a fisherman's feast of Slaughterfish Filet and Roasted Corn? Wanna get a little sugared up on Watermelon Wine? Even placing one or two things in a home that's not included in Oblivion stock can make a big difference on the character of the interior, and everything included in Cobl has already been balanced and integrated into the game for Cobl users, making it easy as... yeah, pie! for the modder.

Some Practical Advice

============================

I've been making houses with Cobl goodies for a long time. For me, the most efficient way to do this has been to make the Cobl version FIRST. When I "de-Coblize" to make the non-Cobl version, I then go through and use Search --> Replace to switch Cobl objects out for their stock counterparts. For example, replacing cobWaterBarrel01 with MiddleBarrelKeg01, and replacing The Luggage with a stock middle-class chest. If I've made a custom object and put a Cobl script on it, I can then clear or replace the script. When I'm all done, I'll reload the non-Cobl version in the CS, first highlighting Cobl Main.esm from the master list and pressing "Delete" to clear it. If I get any error messages, I know I missed something, so I go back and do it again. Saving one more time after loading the mod without Cobl will break the dependency for good. Any remaining objects that depended on Cobl Main.esm will be gone.

This has a few advantages:

• I know all the Cobl stuff has a place, and won't have to move anything to make room
  
• The two versions are visually identical, except in the case of ingredients, where I find the closes visual fit
  
• The two versions contain all the same reference IDs, which probably will never matter, but pleases me nonetheless
  
• Since I'm more familiar with stock object ID's, it's faster to look for those than to look for the Cobl ones

The disadvantage, of course, is that it will be way harder to make a Cobl patch instead of having a whole replacement plugin. So if you prefer to go patch-style, definitely make the non-Cobl version of your mod first, and then implement all the Cobl goodies in the patch.

If you make other patches for your mod that need to be dependent on your mod's main plugin, it's also a good idea to use the non-Cobl version for this so that you don't have a dependency mess later.

Oh, and one last thing - be sure not to alter any of Cobl's stock objects or scripts, just as you would be careful not to alter Oblivion's stock objects or scripts, and for the same good reasons. If you need an object to behave differently, you'll need to make your own non-Cobl version of it. Cobl resources can be freely used as modders' resources per the Cobl readme, so don't be afraid to branch out if you need to!

Happy Cobl-ing!

[darkstone]

Thank you,thank you thank you !!! I muddled through placing a Cobl ingredient sorter in Kariba for my own use.This guide will be invaluable in future

[DarkRider]

Thanks for sharing Khett! I have added this to our library:

[Khettienna]

You're welcome! It's not a completely altruistic gesture, though, me being the rabid Cobl fan that I am.

I hope it helps folks save some of the time I spent getting the hang of it all, though!

[Arion]

Thanks Khett. Very helpful and I learned what some of the things I'd seen but never quite figured out.

[WhoGuru]

Thank you so much for this Khett!! Just what I needed to make a COBL version of the cottage in Wellspring.

[Cydonian_Knight]

Very helpful guide Khett, thanks for writing and sharing it.

[InsanitySorrow]

Woot! , I'm sure this'll be used by many modders