Help!

[Valkyr81]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I'm trying to set up a chest that will only open with a specific key, but no matter what I do, when I test it out in game, it opens without me needing to have the key in my inventory.

Can somebody help me get the thing set up, it's driving me nuts!!

[DarkRider]

Just double click on the chest in the render window once it's placed and on the Lock tab check the "locked" tab, For "Level" select "Needs a Key" and then for "Key" tell it which key.

[Valkyr81]

I did that to start with, which is why I'm puzzled as to why it won't work in-game. Mind you, when I made the key, I edited the "TestKey" key, and made a new one with a different ID. Don't know if that makes any difference.

[DarkRider]

It doesn't make a difference. But if you are using a dirty save that can make a difference. Save games save data from the mod, so if you save has that chest as unlocked, it doesn't matter if you locked it in the CS it will still be unlocked in that save. Make sure you are testing with a save game from BEFORE your mod was ever loaded. Post back if that doesn't help. Also, double check that the right key is assigned to the lock.

[Valkyr81]

The save I'm using is a clean save just after the tutorial with only Shivering Isles loaded., so that shouldn't be causing any problems. I double checked the key, and it's the right one. I even deleted the reference and the base Chest object, saved and reloaded the mod in the CS and created and placed a replacement, but it still opens without needing a key, it's not even locked in-game. The only other thing i've got running is OBSE, OSR and Fast Exit.

[DarkRider]

Sounds like you probably have everything set up right, so that leaves room for a conflict of some kind somewhere. I've moved this to the Study Hall so others can assist. I am unfamiliar with those loaded mods and what all they change so not sure how to further guide you from here. Good Luck!

[WillieSea]

Is there an 'owner' to the cell the chest is in? That can sometimes mess up locked chests.

Also, when you hover over the chest, does it say its locked or not?

You may want to upload your ESP for us to take a look at it.

[Valkyr81]

The Ownership of the cell is set to "PlayerFaction". When you hover over the chest in-game, it doesn't seem to be locked, but everything is set up right in the CS. I was planning to make this my release entry for the CS basics final exam, and this one point is stalling its construction.

[Khettienna]

Containers owned by the player (or a faction the player is in, and of the rank set in the Ownership tab of the object) won't show up as locked! And as Willie said, this holds true if the container itself has no ownership set, but the cell the container is in has ownership set to include the player.

For testing purposes, set the ownership of the chest itself to someone else. The ownership of the container overrides the ownership of the cell. See if it is locked, then. If yes, it will still be locked when you set it back to being owned by the player - the game just won't prompt the player for the key. If you really want it to prompt the player for a key, you'll need to add an OnActivate script to the container so that it doesn't open unless the player has the key in his/her inventory, and otherwise prints a message or messagebox to let the player know they need the key. Since it's your CS final, I don't know how much help we're allowed to give you with that, but if DR says it's okay, I can post a template that I've used before for this purpose.

And DR makes a good point, too - make sure you are testing with a clean save!

[Valkyr81]

Thanks for the advice guys. What I think I'll do is leave the chest unlocked for the first release, then update it later. Khettienna, your suggestion about the OnActivate script sounds the most useful, so maybe I'll go down that route. As I said though, it was the only thing holding construction up, and it wasn't of vital importance anyway. I'll just leave it as is, and finish the rest.

Thanks again for the support.