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Fixing Things


Vince
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As some of you know, I have a house mod, the Abandoned Mountain Shack, that's all about fixing things. It's in bad shape when you first see it. There are old bones, logs, and other debris everywhere, things are becoming overgrown with vines, inside there are spider webs everywhere and a big hole in the floor, etc. The good news is everything can be fixed by the user. Fixing things, cleaning things, and throwing away the debris, etc. gives the user a real sense of ownership.

Now, I'm working on what I expect may be the last revision to the shack. I had planned to revise the way things are fixed, but have run into a logical problem. I would like your input.

At present, things to be fixed are initially containers. You fix them by putting the necessary items in them. For example, you "fix" the hanging oil lamp by putting lamp oil in it. Some things require items to fix them plus one or more tools. For example, to fix the hole in the floor, you put floor boards, nails, and a carpenter's hammer in it. I want to change that. so that you put the items in the object to be fixed, but only need to have the tools in your inventory. So, to fix the hole in the floor, you would need to put floor boards and nails in it, while having the carpenter's hammer in your inventory.

Although this revised scheme seems logical, there's a catch! Let's say the user finds the nails and floor boards, but hasn't found the carpenter's hammer yet. So, he puts the nails and floor boards in the hole, but the hole isn't fixed because the user didn't have the carpenter's hammer in his inventory. Later, somewhere else near the shack, the user finds the carpenter's hammer and puts it in his inventory. Now, all the requirements to fix the hole have been met. Should be hole be fixed, even though the user may now be near it at the time? If not, should it be fixed as soon as the user is near the hole? If not, when should it be fixed?

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As some of you know, I have a house mod, the Abandoned Mountain Shack, that's all about fixing things. It's in bad shape when you first see it. There are old bones, logs, and other debris everywhere, things are becoming overgrown with vines, inside there are spider webs everywhere and a big hole in the floor, etc. The good news is everything can be fixed by the user. Fixing things, cleaning things, and throwing away the debris, etc. gives the user a real sense of ownership.

Now, I'm working on what I expect may be the last revision to the shack. I had planned to revise the way things are fixed, but have run into a logical problem. I would like your input.

At present, things to be fixed are initially containers. You fix them by putting the necessary items in them. For example, you "fix" the hanging oil lamp by putting lamp oil in it. Some things require items to fix them plus one or more tools. For example, to fix the hole in the floor, you put floor boards, nails, and a carpenter's hammer in it. I want to change that. so that you put the items in the object to be fixed, but only need to have the tools in your inventory. So, to fix the hole in the floor, you would need to put floor boards and nails in it, while having the carpenter's hammer in your inventory.

Although this revised scheme seems logical, there's a catch! Let's say the user finds the nails and floor boards, but hasn't found the carpenter's hammer yet. So, he puts the nails and floor boards in the hole, but the hole isn't fixed because the user didn't have the carpenter's hammer in his inventory. Later, somewhere else near the shack, the user finds the carpenter's hammer and puts it in his inventory. Now, all the requirements to fix the hole have been met. Should be hole be fixed, even though the user may now be near it at the time? If not, should it be fixed as soon as the user is near the hole? If not, when should it be fixed?

Why don't you use activators? I'm not very experienced in scripting nor in the capabilities of the vanilla scripting language; you might need OBSE for what I am about to propose but again, I'm not sure. With some imagination, you can do some pretty neat stuff with vanilla Oblivion, unlike many people think.

You could use an activator that, once activated (:P), would check your inventory for the necessary items for, say, repair the hole on the ground (let's use this example from now on). If you had all the items needed, it would be repaired and a message would pop-up to attest to that; or it could happen in phases but that would require more than two meshes (one mesh for the hole, one mesh for the repaired floor, more meshes if you want the intermediate steps).

If the player didn't have the necessary items (none or just missing a few), a message could show up (not a message box; on one of those that shows on the top left corner) saying the player needs the materials and/or the tools for the job (depending on what the player has).

This would serve the same purpose as the container but without the dialogue box that comes with it. Think of it like the ritual to rebuild the Gatekeeper in Shivering Isles: once you have all the items, you step into the pool and the game removes the items you collected and that will serve to rebuild the Gatekeeper.

As for the last point, I think the player should need to activate the hole again once he acquires the rest of the tools/materials. That's what makes the most sense in my head.

I hope I helped.

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I like the idea of Activators, also. Checking the player's inventory on activation rather than the container's inventory would save the player an extra arbitrary step. That said, the requirement of interacting with the broken object to finally fix it once all the tools are collected is important to the RP value of the process - and that's what your shack is all about, so I wouldn't skip that. :)

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Vince ...to simply address the question you asked I`d say that the player...once he has the hammer would approach the hole in the floor (which already has the materials in it) and activate it again...this time with the hammer in his inventory. Or what if the hammer were to be equipped...as in real life...to complete the repairs?

What a terrific idea Vince. Sort of like how Benarius Manor becomes all fixed up when the ghosts are driven away except more...hands on..?

This reminds me...I was working on a tool box with usable screwdrivers, whenches, plier5s, hammers, and the like...I should gho back to it.

Edited by donnato
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Thank you all for your input. I agree with elParedon and donnato that the best approach for tools in the inventory is to have the player activate the object to be fixed again when he has the appropriate tool(s). I was hoping there was an even better solution that I hadn't thought of. I'm thinking that the best overall solution may be to leave it as it is now, where you put the tools in with the other objects. It's simple, straightforward, and no one has complained about it.

I'm a little confused by the suggestion about using activators. The current scripts work well and are quite straightforward. Khett, you mention using activators to "save the player an extra arbitrary step". I don't think there are any extra steps, but maybe I'm missing something. Maybe you could explain a bit more.

Again, thanks for your thoughts on this.

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Well, from a player's perspective, going with the container method, here are the steps to fix a thing:

1) Find the required objects.

2) Activate the broken object.

3) Place the required object into the broken object's container

4) Close the container/exit the menu

5) Object is now fixed.

But with the activator method, the steps would be:

1) Find the required objects.

2) Activate the broken object.

3) Object is now fixed.

It would simply skip the step of putting objects into a container - which isn't a huge step, but isn't necessary for the logic or RP value of the process.

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Khett, thanks for clarifying. That would mean all the objects and tools would be in the inventory. At present, if you put any correct item in the object to be fixed, you get a message telling you how many of each item or tool is required. To me, that seems way too easy, but the consensus over the past year or two is most users like and want it. I couldn't do that with the activator approach. However, I do use the activator approach, just as you describe, for some things. As a beta tester, you may remember the big log at the end of the porch. I use the activator approach for that (so, if you have the wood axe in your inventory and click on the log, it gets chopped up).

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