Need help manipulating menus

[Asterai]

Hey all,

To make a long story short, I'm trying to make something like a modified repair hammer, which opens something that looks like the repair menu but does something different (full description below, in spoiler tags). I've figured out script commands that should do almost everything except the stuff the menu should do, namely give the player a choice between certain items in their inventory (preferably a choice amongst equippable items and keys, but equippable items only would suit me fine), and inform the script of which item the player chose.

Are there any tutorials that cover things like this? I've glanced at most of the tutorials here and at the CS Wiki but none seem to touch on relevant topics. Similarly I've at least read the names most of the functions belonging to the vanilla CS, and read descriptions if they seemed promising, but either the information isn't there or it isn't obvious. If there are no tutorials, could someone please point me in the right direction, or name the relevant CS functions?

One additional constraint: If possible, I'd like to stick to vanilla CS commands, and avoid OBSE. This is because I want to hand this script to someone else for incorporation in their mod, and by policy they do not require third party plugins like OBSE.

Original proposed mod description:

Hey Veritas,

I have an idea that's been knocking around in my head for a while. It can be done (I think) with vanilla resources plus some scripting, it adds some realism and roleplaying value, and it is relevant to one's thieving experiences - so I thought I'd drop it here and see if you wanted it, since it would make a cool TIE feature if you liked it.

So: Why is that guards can ALWAYS spot stolen goods? It doesn't in general make a lot of sense - unless, I suppose, the stolen items have distinguishing marks. Perhaps that dagger I picked up has a name carved into the handle. Perhaps that ring had a house symbol engraved on it. That magical scroll might have the creator's signature, that book might have a bookplate.

In real life, such marks of ownership can often (not always) be erased, scratched out, modified beyond recognition. Serial numbers can be filed down, old bookplates can be steamed off and new ones glued on. So, it would be nice if the player had a way to do that too. In particular, it's always annoyed me that it's essentially impossible to steal adventuring equipment for yourself; sooner or later, the guards catch up to you, take your stolen gear, and turn you out of the prison without pants on (embarrassing). If it was made sufficiently expensive/difficult to do this, it would not be unbalanced; the player would then only attempt to claim ownership of items that they really cared about, rare items that they wanted to wear, use, and carry. I think I've come up with a reasonably balanced (balanceable?) way to implement this, too.

The fences of the game (and possibly the smiths as well) could sell "jeweler's hammers". These hammers can have a legitimate use, which justifies their sale by smiths: They can be used to reduce jewelery to gold/silver + jewels (easy to do; chance of success based on armorer + luck; failure means either that the hammer breaks or that the gems are ruined) or to turn raw materials into jewelery (considerably harder, again based on armorer + luck; failure breaks the hammer). Their real use, however, is that they can be used to remove the "stolen" status from any equippable item, and perhaps (maybe with more stringent success conditions) from keys as well: one uses them to obliterate any identifying marks on the object in question. The player's ability to do this is without breaking the hammer is based on a roll against armorer + security + luck. These jeweler's hammers can look exactly like repair hammers, but scaled down.

For books, "fine parchment" may be sold. A possible legitimate use of fine parchment is to allow the player to enchant his own scrolls, or to keep a diary; I don't know whether either of these would be easy to implement, but either would justify sale at magic shops, if desired. However, if you have fine parchment, a quill and an inkwell, then you may be able to remove the stolen status from a book, by providing it with a new, generic bookplate. The chance of success could be based on intelligence + security + luck, and any attempt destroys the parchment itself. Alternatively, fences could sell pre-made "forged bookplates", which cost more but always successfully remove the stolen status. These can look like either the vanilla parchment or the vanilla scrolls.

Of course, in both cases, these may be classified as thieving tools, just like gas arrows and lockpicks, in which case they would be sold only by fences and confiscated if you had a run-in with the law; they do not need to have additional "legitimate" functionality. Between the legality status of these tools, their cost, and the chance of successfully using them, they could be balanced to almost any game difficulty or expected cost. Additional constraints could be imposed by causing a brief but powerful stealth debuff on use, or a prohibition on use while trespassing, to prevent the player from abusing these tools while in the act of thieving; also, of course, use on quest items would be prohibited. I also think that this is a feature that would be appropriate to include in an overhaul, since it does affect the global balance of the game where thieving is concerned.

I hope you like (and maybe implement?) my idea! If you like the idea but don't want to script it , I think I can figure out enough to provide at least the very basic functionality as thieving tools that I've suggested here.

P.S. I originally had myself convinced I could do this (or at least get a big head start) by modifying the script on vanilla repair hammers. However, to my deep, deep shock, the CS says that there is no script on repair hammers! What is up with that, and how do repair hammers work if they are not "scripted"?

Edited October 5, 2010 by Asterai

[DaMage]

They are some of the hardcoded itesm in the game....like lockpicks, welkyand stones etc.

I know nothing about menu mantiplation...But ive seen people do some crazy things with it. This will not be easy and you'll have to edit (i think) xml files to change menus.

[HeyYou]

Might be easier to have NPC's in various location that can provide this as a 'service', for a fee..... however, I am not sure there is a vanilla command for making something 'un-stolen'.

[the-manta]

I would second HeyYou's proposal- I think services would save a lot of hassle. As far as a script command goes, couldn't you use setownership to make it legitimately belon to the player sorry I cant be of more help, sounds like an awesome idea.

[Asterai]

Yes, you can use SetOwnership (or ClearOwnership, w/ CS 1.2) to mark it un-stolen - and IsOwner to identify whether you already own the item, and ShowQuestItems to keep the player from altering (seeing) their quest items, etc. Like I said, I think I have the rest of it figured out, it's just getting a menu worked up to show the player that troubles me.

Hardcoded, you say? Unfortunate. And unfortunately I don't know what an xml is, other than a file extension. ...Peruses Wikipedia article... A markup language? That doesn't sound so bad by itself. I'll have a look at that, then, probably a few days from now. But I will assuredly be back with more questions when I do. One that can be answered right now, I think, is this: So if I get a new menu, uh, formatted in xml, then would I be able to tell the game to open this new type of menu with a command 'Begin MenuMode NNNN', NNNN some numeric identifier outside the already used range 1001-1051 that I assigned to my new menu? And also, is it possible to assign the repair hammer menu "backdrop", the "skin" that forms the metal frame and parchment background, to another menu, or is there a naming convention that prevents two menus from sharing the same backdrop resource?

[WillieSea]

I dont think you can make a 'new' menu. You can only edit existing menus. It sounds easy, but it is not. Only ONE person has ever been sucessful at it in all the people who have ever looked, and that would be the 'Darn UI' mods.

[InsanitySorrow]

With the new updates in OBSE and plugins such as MenuQue, you can edit XML files, so it should be possible to create new menus, not sure how complex they can be though.

[vometia]

I remember trying to edit some of those XML files by hand. I don't want to do that again. Ever.