Are crashing scripts necessarily bad?

[Lanceor]

Let's say I'm building an ingredient sorter and I want to include the ingredients from Shivering Isles and Vile Lair without creating a dependency on them.

Ref Ingredient

-----

Begin OnLoad


set Ingredient to LairVileSalts

My understanding is that if there is no such EditorID as LairVileSalts, the script will simply crash as soon as it's encountered. Assuming that I don't want the script to run if Vile Lair is not installed, are there any negative consequences in doing this? I'm not intending to use any Gamemode blocks in this way.

[WillieSea]

Its possible that it 'could' CTD. But since its a script, I am guessing not. It should just not run and be ignored the rest of the game play time.

[AndalayBay]

I can't answer your question directly - I'm not sure. I know that scripts that run into errors like this won't recover until the mod is uninstalled. However, you don't need to make your mod dependent on Vile Lair or SI if you don't mind using OBSE.

We had something similar with DBC and were able to accommodate players running Vile Lair with code like the following:

		if (Player.GetEquipped DBBlackHandHood) || (Player.GetEquipped DBBlackHandRobe) || (Player.GetEquipped DBLeatherCuirass) || (Player.GetEquipped DBLeatherHelmet) || (Player.GetEquipped DBCListenersHood) || (Player.GetEquipped DBCListenersRobe)

			let wearingDB := 1

		elseif (IsModLoaded "DLCVileLair.esp")

			let crimsonArmour01 := getFormFromMod "DLCVileLair.esp" "00BE65"

			let crimsonArmour02 := getFormFromMod "DLCVileLair.esp" "00BE66"

			let crimsonArmour03 := getFormFromMod "DLCVileLair.esp" "00BE67"

			let crimsonArmour04 := getFormFromMod "DLCVileLair.esp" "00BE68"

			let crimsonArmour05 := getFormFromMod "DLCVileLair.esp" "00BE6A"

			let crimsonArmour06 := getFormFromMod "DLCVileLair.esp" "00C35E"

			if (Player.GetEquipped crimsonArmour01) || (Player.GetEquipped crimsonArmour02) || (Player.GetEquipped crimsonArmour03) || (Player.GetEquipped crimsonArmour04) || (Player.GetEquipped crimsonArmour05) || (Player.GetEquipped crimsonArmour06)

				let wearingDB := 1

			elseif wearingDB == 1

				let wearingDB := 0	;reset to 0 if player was previously wearing armour

			endif

		elseif wearingDB == 1

			let wearingDB := 0	;reset to 0 if player was previously wearing armour

		endif

IsModLoaded is an OBSE function, as is getFormFromMod.

In terms of SI, I thought there was a vanilla function to test if it existed or not. Although as I look at how SirFrederik handled that for Oblivion XP, it appears he still used an OBSE function to prevent the script from halting.

[Arthmoor]

Let's say I'm building an ingredient sorter and I want to include the ingredients from Shivering Isles and Vile Lair without creating a dependency on them.

Ref Ingredient

-----

Begin OnLoad


set Ingredient to LairVileSalts

Unless something has changed, you won't be able to get this to compile unless LairVileSalts is a valid ID. Using a fake won't work either because the fake would point to a different form ID.