Nazenn

I've been using this in my game for a long while and I say it definitely does enhance the vanilla UI. It doesn't really stand out of place, and it aids in the selection and understanding of items and removes a lot of the tedium from looting things, especially for people who play things like book collectors. The configuration is a nice aspect as well, although I always just play on the defaults which work fine for me. I've never run into any bugs with usage of it either.

Shurah let me know in this thread what was wrong with the cities, but support for the towns is still in the air as I'm not doing towns compatibility for a while yet, but when I do it will depend on how much has to be changed around etc. I won't sacrifice the style of the mod and also the quality it brings to the towns for the sake of compatibility with one other file, but I will always do my best to work around it where I can :)

Just two small points you may not have been aware of in regards your above statement: - Arthmoor asked for the navmesh bug fixes to be submitted to the USKP tracker so they could include them and Shurah refused. - A lot of the documentation that is there now never use to be there, and it also use to a lot more subjective rather then informational, which is why there is so much confusion on exactly what Shurah is trying to say, especially as far as technical implementation, because a lot of claims have been made but never clarified, or any clarification or discussion on it was removed from the comments. That being said I am very glad that we are making progress as far as getting down to the core of it, and also very glad for the documentation that does exist as far as the user side of things go and that does help a lot and I know I've seen a lot of comments on steam particularly that have been very thankful for the documentation on what exactly the mod is changing as far as which towns and things like that.

Sorry for the slow reply, been taking a bit of a break from skyrim and modding lately Yeah this is what I'm confused on as well. Shurah seems to be implying that navmeshes are not subject to the rule of one conflict, and by that I mean the actual navmesh record itself, not the NAVI or related records that get merged at run time. Once single patch that incorporates any fixes by Shurah and any expansion edits by ETaC for example should work fine, with no need for patching that patch. As hishutup said, how navmeshing is technically implemented and functional often differs dramatically on a per engine basis. In unity for example, you can set up a navmesh like in skyrim but you can set it up so its just thin lines that the NPC can follow rather then having to mesh out the entire space, or you can do it via raycasting which works like an eyeline for the enemies and allows them to dynamically track objects that way although its a little inconsistant. I've even coded my own Ai system in unity that tracks the transform value of an actor and dynamically reposition's them around objects if they stop moving which is more intensive but it can be done. In some of the older engines it was purely done by height mapping where enemies had a certain level of geometry they could traverse per movement and anything above that stopped them, in UDK you can set areas of an existing mesh to be a navmesh as well instead of creating a new one. The one thing that all of these systems have in common is that as long as the AI has the space in the navmesh to get to where they need to go, they figure out the rest. Doesn't matter if the navmesh is a different shape or it has triangles in a different orientation or composition, as long as they have enough space and the navmesh is big enough that they can get there, it works out fine. Of course neater navmeshing allows for the algorithm for pathfinding to work a bit smoother, but even a messy navmesh, which I know JKs and Jennas are certainly not, will still function as long as its got the correct cell connections etc. Are you saying this is different for gambryo, as you seem to suggest that any mod that makes a new navmesh is automatically incompatible, even if the navmesh still allows them to get to all your new triggers? You state a lot that you don't really have the time for discussions and explanations, but you spend far more time being defensive and dealing with peoples confusion and questions then you would if you simply explained all this info in the first place so that everyone could benefit from you and stop asking you to explain these things.

Coc-ing, to the best of my knowledge, bypasses all start up scripts and sequences and literally just dumps you right into the middle of the active worldspace, with a few things broken like Helgen and Whiterun gates etc. It shouldn't really be too much different to using Alternate Start which also dumps you in the worldspace, but also allows all the normal start up sequence scripts to run and active properly to make the game functional etc. The reason the first load, even with LAL or using COC takes so long is because its populating all the NPCs with the aliases etc which is a lot of data to process.

Time your loading screen and let us know what it is. It may not be infinite, it may just be extremely long. If its longer then say fifteen minutes then yes id say infinite, but a lot of people have ten minute plus loading screens with the mod, especially the very first time they run that save/character with it installed.

Ah yes, it has now, that was made after our original posts

Great to see an update on this, I recently swapped to this and ELE instead of ELFX for my main usage as STEP recommends it and am really enjoying its style, and the following update looks fantastic.

The red mountain flower currently is broken and doesn't swap texture when you pick it, although he said he would be releasing a fix for it. The new texture also doesn't show in the inventory, which I offered to look into patching when I have the time as the author doesn't. Great idea, but right now it has a few issues, and even then, not sure it would match STEPs goals very well. I plan on doing further edits to my copy to reduce the amount of purple flowers and make the blue flowers smaller as right now they stick out from vanilla a little too much.

Yeah, I generally tend to stay away from the automatic navmeshing tools as I find them very unreliable and usually they generate some really bad island issues etc as well. However you still haven't answered the main question Shurah: Do navmeshes have a bigger impact on AI other then just allowing them to get places? Does it actually directly affect their behavior? Answering that one question will help a lot with understanding what you seem to be implying about the compatibility issues with your mod and will clear up a lot of confusion. Also I addressed the cylindrical patches issue you seem to be suggesting would occur with ETaC and I still don't understand why a single patch cant be made that includes all fixes for the mod and its patches which is what a lot of people do, rather then having to patch the patches?

I actually had this in my game and ended up removing it. The bow has a really high and also very even spectacularity on the texture which makes it look very plastically rather then metallic and the wood looks out of place as it looks very overly glossy, and the additional texture detail in the metal parts doesn't come across well during normal gameplay (my term for what you notice with textures when actually playing, rather then when you're looking for issues) as it looks out of place and doesn't make it read very much like its actually metal any more. Due to the fact that the gem parts on the inside of the bow are also only a texture, they come across more as a sticker or decal rather then an actual gem and that looked really out of place to me. The blade texture I found much better and higher quality, but I personally would not recommend the bow for STEP at least.

I get that its hard to explain, but right now the small amount of info you have provided just doesn't line up in any way with what everyone else's experience and knowledge had been for the entire length the CK has been out. At least make an attempt and go from there? Right now a lot of the issue is that you never try to explain which leaves people with nothing. Theres a lot of people here who have a lot of experience filling in gaps and figuring out the meanings behind posts from people who write English as a second language so we can try and fill in any gaps and help out with that. Also I don't see Arthmoor laughing at you in that thread at all? Not every criticism or critique someone has of your work or you explanations is a personal attack on you, and it shouldn't be taken as such. Every bit of info I've seen from Arthmoor on this topic has been very objective and polite. Do you not have any reply or further info on the rest of the points I identified in my above post?

So just while I have it all set up is there any other comparison pictures or set up pictures with soul gems in certain places or situations that people would like to see on this front? If not, is this enough people for mod approval? Never been involved with mod testing before so happy to see how it all works on the STEP site.

Well, in short, just to sum up the info I posted above for those that don't have time to read my huge wall (which I completely understand although I did raise these points in more detail) is mainly just a question on wanting some more actual technical proof to be provided about the claims Shurah has about how navmesh and AI interact, and other things he claims the community has wrong but hasn't provided technical details about. A lot of claims have been thrown around from both sides and a lot of contradictions have been stated over the course of ICAIO development as far as the compatibility and sometimes just the quality of other mods that I could point out, and I'd love for that to stop and for actual fact to take its place if Shurah would be so kind. I also would support moving it from Core to Extended. The mod is good quality, that's certain and I have no issue with it being involved in STEP in some way, its just these claims and misunderstanding that need to be fixed, and the compatibility issue that while it doesn't even need to be 'addressed' as such, but needs to be accounted for as far as people who build on and extend off of STEP. Indeed thats very easy to automate in xEdit. Even if the Automation Tools struggled with it, a new script could easily be written to apply the relevent information and I'd be happy to consult with mator on getting that set up as well if Shurah wanted to do it. Edit: Also I wanted to post this, which is the actual conversation thread where Arthmoor was discussing the memory so you guys have the full context: https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/4215-immersive-citizens-ai-overhaul-by-shurah/ I was going to post it in my original post and forgot, so I'll just toss it in now I would also want to encourage Shurah to if possible show a complete set of screenshots of conversations rather then just sections in future, or post to the full link, especially when making statements about peoples reliability.

(I am SO sorry about the wall of text guys, I simply wanted to cover everything I could think of at once so I didn't forget things or make a mess of it, and didn't realize how much I typed) Just to start with, if nothing else I please ask you to accept that fact that our comments came from frustration and confusion, rather then maliciousness as you seem to currently believe. A lot of the people involved in the main comments on the reddit thread I have had other private discussions with on the matter, and on other matters, and we all have the utmost respect for other mod authors and other people in general, and nothing was said out of hatred or in an attempt to purposefully malign you as a person. I would ask that you please do the same and instead of being dismissive and abrasive at any perceived incorrect info, you treat the person with respect and the mistake as what it is, a mistake. Edit: I'll also note that if we do manage to get a lot of this confusion and stuff cleaned up here, I will be posting it over to reddit as well because despite appearances, the community over there has proven before that they really appreciate misconceptions being cleared up and do appreciate being given accurate information once its discovered I have made no accusations against you, and I'm sorry that you feel that way, I have only stated information that you have provided in our previous conversations on your comments and information provided to me on the functions of the engine by extremely knowledgeable people in the community. If you do feel I have wronged you, please post out a post, in private message if you wish, and I will attempt to explain my actions or wording so that you can understand what I meant there if it was unclear. The issue here is that we did ask. We asked multiple times. I asked about exactly what was wrong with the ETaC patch and never got a reply nor did the other dozen or so people who also asked at the time, I asked about what was wrong with my patch (which I can't link to as you deleted the comment), Thallassa asked specifically for information about how navmeshes interact with your mod because it DOES go against the widely accepted knowledge of how the navmeshes work with AI (which I cant link to because you deleted it and banned them from the page), Rusey asked very nicely as they always do for more information about JKs Lite specifically because they wanted to help with patching (which you deleted). Every time we asked we only got generalized statements ("Don't ask me to what extend, as I only tested 10 minutes, but it was enough to find several bugs") and also statements about the knowledge level required to do the patching ("The knowledge to create this kind of mod is not publicly available (I acquired it through several hundred hours of experimentation), therefore, I'm probably the only one having the skills to judge if a mod is compatible with my mod."). Both quotes were taken directly from you before you deleted those comments. Whenever we asked, the info wasn't provided, so the only info we did have was the information that the community has already accepted as accurate due to other peoples explorations in the CK. You can't claim we did this without consulting you when thats not true at all. At the time of the reddit thread and our previous conversations I don't believe that paragraph was actually in the incompatibility article as I know that you overhauled it quite recently, and it was a lot more bare before hand so that's something to take into account as well. I do like the way that article is evolving though so thanks for continuing to work on it. My statement about you threatening to ban people was horribly worded and I apologize for that, the word 'threaten' was the wrong word for that statement and was not used maliciously at all. I was purely referring to the fact that you had not given permission for anyone else to make edits to your esp when asked and anyone who did try you said they were exposing themselves to a ban, but that's certainly not a threat so my sincere apologies for that. The wiki is not always correct, it has a lot of errors, and a lot of poorly written pages. For example, the page that shows how to apply a cloaking script uses a permanent effect as an example, however that effect, when used with a cloaking script to apply to NPCs, will never be removed from those NPCs even after death unless the author adds in additional code to make it unload which can cause save bloat due to endlessly adding references to the save game. I have found other such incorrect information in the past as well, and had it linked to me by others knowledgeable in the subject so I know its not just a one off occurrence. Annoyingly, I don't know how easy this information is to edit, or if anyone even can edit it any more at all, which makes it hard on new people coming into the modding scene and also even on older authors who may not have found this out themselves. When people point out this stuff its not an attack against you or a slight against your mod in any way, its attempting to share and correct a lot of the misinformation and incorrect data that's out there about certain CK and engine functions and make sure that everyone's mods are better for it. And I know it sucks to be told there's something happening with your mod that's wrong, or something was implemented bad or you've misunderstood something, I regularly get corrected on things and have to correct others, but isn't it better to have an open and intelligent discussion on that now rather then have it become a real issue later down the line when it may be too late to change it? In regards to this image you linked and the info provided in it: https://postimg.org/image/4oi6rgknd/full/ I don't see how that's a cylindrical process. For the patches, you don't have to patch patches together, all you would have to do is make one patch that solves the conflicts for CRF for example with both ETaC and ICAIO in one plugin. Theres no reason to then patch the patch. Similar with navmeshes, as long as the navmesh allows the NPCs to get where they need to go and interact with all the right markers and objects that ICAIO adds to their AI, there shouldn't be an issue with a navmesh that has additional parts or a slightly different shape so that should be easy to patch or have you uncovered new info in the CK to contradict this info, and can you provide a detailed technical explanation of that info if you have? If so I'd love to see/hear it because that would be fantastic for the modding community across the board to be able to work with each others mods better. TechAngel also asked if a navmesh that isn't yours but is very similar in shape and design would be fine to use with ICAIO, and as far as I understand yes that would work with no issues, but I'd love your input. With this image and the information provided in it: https://postimg.org/image/czruazf9x/full/ Again, if you have information that this is incorrect, please share it rather then just dismissing the information and knowledge that others have. The more information you share, the better for everyone because it not only shows the quality of your mod, but it can help correct any misconceptions or misunderstandings in the communities knowledge. If you aren't willing to share your knowledge and you only say others are wrong without saying why, how can we take your word over their detailed technical explanations and PROVEN expertise in these areas? You can't expect every single person to spent 4k hours in the CK to discover everything themselves with no idea what they are looking for, that's unreasonable. Please do not throw around words like 'hoaxes' if you aren't willing to say what is wrong, it comes across as extremely rude when you refuse to offer any proof as to these claims. We have offered you a 'deal' as such, in the form of taking all the patch requests and questions etc off your hands so that you don't have to deal with it because all of us fully accept the fact that you don't have time and you have enough other work to do with the main plugin :) Again, expecting everyone to be able to spent 4k hours in the CK to rediscover all this info you already know appears to be unreasonable. Wouldn't it be better to spend a few hours sharing what you know and let someone else spend 4k hours discovering new info about a DIFFERENT part of the game and then engine, that then if they share you could potentially use to benefit your own mod as well. That's the sort of thing I love to see in the modding community, sharing knowledge for everyones benefit. On the installer, I think Thallassa's point, and one I agree with, is that for a lot of the people that use MO as their mod management tool, we often have multiple profiles set up with various different mods installed for different reasons. Having a mod that locks out patch options simply because they aren't currently installed make it very hard on those people to accurately update their mod because they have to go to a profile and get it to load before installing the update when they might be in the middle of other stuff, and often that's not a thing that's immediately present and will start up the installer forgetting they have to fiddle around in MO first. If you wanted to do an auto detect option, a better way to do it would be to have it as an option on the main menu and just have a warning under the 'custom' option that people have to be careful as installing a patch for a mod they don't have will result in a CTD. Then you accommodate both styles of modding. Hope that makes it more clear. If you would like, I would be more then happy to implement that for you in the installer, its an easy fix as far as I know depending on how the auto detection was set up. :) The quest alias stuff that Thallassa posted was incorrect, and corrected by Arthmoor, which Thallassa accepted, so you can also ignore that part. One mistake doesn't discount any other information that they provided though, we all make mistakes from time to time and as long as people are learning from it that's all that matters. Thank you, this is the sort of information that I needed and that I asked for on your page, that everyone was asking for, and I am sincerely grateful that you have provided it. This is hugely more helpful then just posting how theres 'a lot of bugs' without any extra info.. Now I can set out on fixing it and making sure that it all works properly and these sort of things are fixed. This is the sort of thing that lends credibility and reliability to you :) While I knew about the ini tweak, you stated you found them 'in game' so I was looking specifically for issues with stuff that can only be found by running the game, like AI and the actual NPC movement, rather then CK stuff like markers. I actually spent four hours in game in whiterun specifically looking for things, and another hour in the CK, however like I said, I'll fully admit that I was looking for the wrong stuff based on your comment. I so ask that if these issues were so easy to spot though, why you'd claimed that only you had the knowledge to spot them? Id also wish to say thank you to TechAngel. I know this sort of discussion is a bit out of sorts for STEP, but I really do hope that we can get to the bottom of a lot of this and hopefully any knowledge shared will be able to benefit the entire community as a whole rather then just this mod alone.

Just a few notes on my points specifically above as that info is near a month old and a lot changes in a month mod wise: REGS is the only pack I know of that's dropped support partly because of ICAIO. Originally I thought there was multiple because I wasn't as familiar with STEP packs and who was maintaining what, so I thought it was more because I thought REGS and Explorers Guide were different and I also thought it was an issue with SRLE as well because I was in contact with an author for that who was also expressing concerns over ICAIOs inclusion. In the end, its just REGS and it prompted me to learn a lot more about STEP and its packs, so just put that down to my confusion :) The memory issue is mostly negated if you run ENBoost, which is apart of STEP:Core as I was informed, so its a non issue as far as this is concerned, it was mainly for people running other set ups, people who can't run ENBoost for whatever reason, and also for people running a lot of NPC addition mods (which causes extra strain on the scripting system as well, so thats not entirely an ICAIO exclusive issue either) The permissions thing I lay almost entirely at nexus' feet as they really need to sort out what you do or don't need permissions for and what constitutes a patch or an update etc, because its confusing a lot of authors as far as what is ban worthy or not, and every time they try and get it sorted on the mod author forums it just goes around in endless circles. It would be nice if Shurah would allow patches to be made as long as they include a big neon banner saying its not an official patch and not official supported, but I also know how many users blame the core mod when a patch breaks and how annoying that can be. JKs Lite has now been added to the partial incompatibility listing of ICAIO, but with no further info, which is both good and bad because while its annoying to still not have any info, I'm very grateful that its now listed in at least some way as it really helps the users know where they stand with this sort of stuff. I also have dropped ICAIO support for JKs Lite now, especially now I'm working on the towns, as its just too hard, and its mainly for the users benefit as I don't want to publish patches etc that I'm not certain are okay, and I also don't want to create confusion about the compatibility status, maybe down the line, but not right now. The cities as they are work fine right now as far as I know with the exception of the archery targets in JKs Whiterun, but the towns will potentially be a different matter. I also wish to state that I have no resentment or issues towards Shurah as a person at all. All of my frustration comes from my own lack of knowledge and lack of ability to help and confusion over whats happening, but I still have a lot of respect for Shurah as a fellow mod author and all of the stuff that they are doing and dealing with both on the mod front and what I know of their personal situation :)

I don't know why I didn't just make a gif of Rustic Soulgems instead of posting a series of images. How silly of me. Heres a gif showing what they are like more accurately. Not the best gif, it was just me taking screenshots and sewing them together rather then a properly done one, but it gets the idea across I also put this in the comparisons I posted before instead of the other pics so hopefully now you can compare them properly :)

If its okay, here's some screenshots I took comparing vanilla HD DLC > STEP > Rustic Soulgems (the last picture is now a gif to show off the special effects. Ignore the choppiness of it, thats just how I put the gif together, its very smooth in game) (Edit: Just noticed apparently I forgot to save after positioning the fragments, so sorry they are slightly out of place for the non vanilla pictures) And the gif from the main page showing them better: My personal opinion on the matter is that I like the better cohesiveness that Rustic Soulgems has over Soul Gems Differ. I think they look more natural together as a group and in Soul Gems Differ, I personally find the space texture on the Grand Soul Gem really obvious and really quite off putting. The soul gem fragments also look very plastically with Soul gems Differ, as does the black soul gem in Soul Gems Differ, while in Rustic Soulgems they look a lot more like an actual broken part of one of the above gems, although I prefer the red glow on that compared to Rustic Soulgems, but that is also rather subjective because I like the idea of them being evil. I personally would pick Rustic Soulgems over the existing STEP mod.

Oh, I apologize if I implied there was a direct performance hit to FPS or anything as there certainly isn't, its purely just an increase in background memory usage.

It consumes the engines memory to be able to assign the alias' to the NPCs that hold the new AI packages. Where the problem comes in is that they are applying to every NPC in the world, and the packages use up a lot of memory comparatively to other features, and if you are running other NPC mods that can stack quite quickly. On top of that, if an NPC dies, even though its AI stops being processed, the memory used by the alias' never gets freed which means you don't get that back for use with things that are still affecting your game. Considering Skyrim's engine has a 3.1 GB memory cap, if using it with a lot of other mods you can find your memory running out a lot quicker then you'd expect, which is greatly amplified if using mods that add NPCs around. If you run a lighter game, or aren't having any memory issues otherwise, or don't add a lot of NPCs, it shouldn't be too much of an issue though.

I personally must say I prefer it over the other, while it may be technically less vanilla, but I personally feel that it makes the gems more distinct then Soul Gems Differ does and also has more cohesive textures then the other offers (the space textures in soul gems differ I personally feel look out of place), but whether or not its fit for STEP would probably require a more direct comparison.

Was curious on if any further comparisons or tests of this for STEP were done as it was quite a while ago?

I'm aware of that article yes, I have it saved in my modding references folder because I'm a big fan of all that IceCreamAssassin was able to achieve with Legacy and I quite enjoy the mod as well, so I try and stay up to date on the things that he discovered. Either way, thanks for linking it, its appreciated.

Thank you for the info. That indeed could be the cause, if so the new script that I have been talking about with someone should fix that issue because they will be changing the way the physics are applied to the objects on the shelf. Its certainly not a major issue though, its been reported by.... three people I know of and like I said, I never had a save file to play with to prove this was a problem.

Hello everyone! Just to add onto what TechAngel said: The mod is indeed now and esm and should load directly after your last USKP/USLEEP. The edits to weapons, armor etc are required so that they can display correctly on shelves, but it should no longer be an incompatibility problem if you place it correctly because all your other mods will simply overwrite it. The object bounds will be removed by anything being overwritten, which is a shame but better broken displays then broken stats, but anything that isn't edited by the rest of the object bounds will have it set normally. I've recently been in contact with someone who is, once they get done with Fallout 4 script they are making, going to come in and update the scripts to add better functionality and systems. I'm also looking into making a Tes5Edit script, or automation tool settings, that people can use to run on your load order to carry over the object bound settings to a new esp along with the rest of your edits, just waiting on mator to fix a couple of bugs and publish my other tes5edit script first. This would insure maximum compatibility with everything if people wanted it. I'm also in the process of adding in the rest of the object bound data to enchanted items etc so they will all display properly as well. The few bugs that have been reported with Unlimited Bookshelves, and investigations into them, are as follows, however please note that NONE of these have been confirmed as issues in the mod itself. I can't find a cause in the esp or the (uncommented) scripts, and no one who has ever reported these issues has ever come forward with more information, such as a load order or a save file. As such all of these bugs are bugs that manifest themselves inside of the bookshelf system, but very likely aren't actually caused by it: - Ingots don't stack. I have no idea whats going on with this one. As far as I can tell, it may be happening to people who have the actual ingot model of object bounds being edited by something and don't realize it. - Scrolls clip. Known issue, however again, to do with a lack of object bounds. Have had some reports of it happening even with vanilla scrolls, never been able to get it to happen myself, can't find a reason why that would be the case - Causes crashing on entering the cell. This is a big one. I've never found any evidence that this mod can cause crashes in any way, and trust me I looked hard before publishing the 2.0 update. As far as I can tell, people reporting this were being cause out by the previous UDRs which I have since removed so it shouldn't be a problem. The only real major bug with the mod, as mentioned in the description, is right now objects with two states, such as soul gems (empty or filled) and armors (normal or enchanted) will not display properly in their second state, they display as empty/non enchanted etc, which means you have to use the actual menu to pick it up rather then directly off the shelf. This can be a cheat-y way to reset armors and soul gems if you want, but I'm hoping that the person who volunteered to take over scripting can find a solution for it. It should only affect soul gems as it is right now anyway, as until I publish the next update, enchanted armors won't have object bounds and therefore can't display properly anyway. There's a few minor once, as mentioned in the description, such as some odd object rotation and clipping, but those can't be avoided anyway due to how skyrim implemented the original markers. I will talk to the new scripter about this, but its a minor thing you won't come across very often. Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns :) I also just updated the description, thanks for that reminder Nebulous