SKYRIMLE Atlas Map Markers with Dragonborn Dawnguard and Blackreach Addons (by Kronixx)

[statmonster]

Great krypto - an MCM for thus would be nice. A STEP config even better. I used to find enabling the books tediou and frankly a bit confusing as it was hard to tell what had activated. I like Keith's suggestion to enable everything but only once it is discovered. (I don't care about the Flagon door, but if it could break quests best to leave it out of the default.). I also hated that I had to go to Riverwood to activate them.

[kryptopyr]

I believe that as of the last update, all of the markers are activated by default (but like vanilla they aren't visible until discovered).  If that's the preference, then there's really no need for a special preset.

[Kelmych]

When I looked that seems to be the case.

[Neovalen]

Agreed no need for a preset and that is the case from my experience. Getting rid of the shortcut door by default would be nice tho.

[keithinhanoi]

I believe that as of the last update, all of the markers are activated by default (but like vanilla they aren't visible until discovered).  If that's the preference, then there's really no need for a special preset.

Well... almost all, as mentioned in the list of notes on the v1.7 update. Highlights:

 

Skyrim

• "474 new map markers added"
• "Everything is enabled except Faction Camps and Treasure Map Loot" (= 17 markers not activated)

Blackreach

• "26 new map markers added"
• "All locations are ready to discover, there is no setup guide"

Dawnguard

• "134 new map markers added"
• "Includes Forgotten Vale and Soul Cairn world maps with fast travel" (apparently activated by default)
• "Everything is enabled except Wilderness Caches" (= 9 markers not activated)
• The 14 "Primary locations are always enabled and can not be changed"

Dragonborn

• "85 new map markers added"
• "Everything is enabled except Gem Geodes and Hidden Peaks" (= 11 markers not activated)

So that's a total of 682 new map markers added and activated by the mod by default which the STEP admins / users would want to agree should be added if you don't want to make a special preset.

[Vulgar1]

They are not automatically added (I mean they don't show up until you run into them). They are all configed by the books found in the Riverwood Trader. Most of the newly added markers are for the individual shops, inns , taverns, and some other buildings. To me the best parts about it are the Blackreach and Soul Cairn Markers.

 

An MCM Menu would be perfect for this mod. I think an MCM menu with all the options the book offers would be preferred, but a simple one that either auto adds the books to the inventory, or opens the books upon exiting the menus  would be adequate. You'd want to just have three smple buttons, one for each book, and a note that says only open one at a time.

 

"With the books, I always set almost all of the markers up in groups, as enabled but undiscovered, which makes all of the added secondary" That's what I do as well.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Vulgar1

[kryptopyr]

Here's the MCM for Atlas Map Markers 

This is the Atlas Legendary version so you will need the DLCs.  You MUST download the original file first, then overwrite with this new esp.

 

I'm looking for people interested in testing this and providing feedback. 

 

The Thieves Guild shortcut has been disabled by default but can be reactivated through the MCM.  The MCM does work a bit different from the book menus.  You can't configure markers individually, but the markers are now divided into more groups, which will hopefully help preserve (or even add) to the flexibility of the original mod.  USKP compatibility is handled automatically.  I've also included options to tweak the compass settings (values are set to vanilla by default).

 

I'm still waiting to hear back from kronixx before I finalize the changes.  In the meantime, I thought I'd share it with you guys and perhaps get some feedback.   I haven't tested it extensively yet so if anyone finds any bugs or oddities, please let me know.  I'm open to suggestions for further tweaks or improvements.

[keithinhanoi]

Great news, krypropyr - thanks for sharing this.

 

I'll give it a try during a break between the piles of work I had to bring home!

[Kelmych]

Thanks krypropyr. I've used Atlas Map Markers since it was initially added in SR:LE. I'll try to test your addition soon.

[GrantSP]

I'll give this a testing also, have used Atlas Map Markers for some time now.

 

D/ld and added it to MO and curiously MO wants to place this immediately after Traps Make Noise - More Dangerous Traps. Weird, no reason I can see that these two mods share scripts or conflict over anything, still, as soon as I move it from immediately after Atlas Map Markers, where it logically should go, MO removes the Potential Mod order Problem.

 

I'll put this down to another instance of MO's beta code for that function getting things wrong.

 

It also asked for a number of other mods to be moved, but I'm well on top of MO's quirky wants now and know it is only necessary to move the newer mod and the code somehow gets tricked to not show the conflict anymore. Well it is a non-conflict anyway.

[keithinhanoi]

Back again, with some initial feedback.

 

First off, I LOVE the MCM menu (  ), and especially the addition of the compass settings.

 

I've got a few suggestions about layout and functionality:

 

The first thing I noticed is that the Compass Settings and Map Marker Options sections are trying to horizontally, while everything else is in vertical groups.

 

So I suggest changing it to look something like this (excuse my GIMP hack cut-and-paste work):

 

 

Organizing these sections like this seems more logical to me to keep groups of options in only one of the two columns (as divided by the grey center line). 

 

Another advantage is that organizing it this way opens up some space in the left column to re-work the Map Marker Options section. For that section, my suggestion is to change how those three global options are set. Either make it:

1. a toggle button with the text "Global Marker Behavior" and the button text to the right cycles through "REVEAL ALL", "NO MARKERS", and "DEFAULT", or
2. three tick box options, with select only one logic applied:
   1. Reveal all markers on map     <>
   2. No markers                         <>
   3. Discover markers (default)    <>

In both cases, what is displayed or shown as ticked should match the current setting.

 

In addition to changing the options GUI for Map Marker Options, I think there would still be room to add some explanatory text. In the least there should be text explaining the change will only take effect after the MCM menu is closed. It would also help to have text warning the user that the "Revealing all markers on map" option is irreversible ( - that's still true, isn't it?)

 

Then down in the toggle settings for the specific groups of different kinds of markers, I noticed strange MCM GUI behavior.

 

With most of the mods I use with MCM menus, if there's a toggle text option, you can click the text to switch the option again immediately, without moving the cursor. With your Atlas Map Markers menu, after I click to change the option for any of the marker groups, the focus halo for that line disappears, and I have to move the cursor away and then back to the line to toggle it again. It comes off as being confusing / unresponsive.

 

Also - I wonder if it's possible to add "REVEAL" as a third option for the groups of markers? Or maybe that functionality is not built into the mod, and it's a reveal all or nothing situation?

 

In the least, if the global setting of "No markers" or "Default" is currently selected, then the setting of all the specific groups of markers should change to display the same as well. This would be nice if the user just wants to set a few groups to the default - they could select the global "No Markers" setting to toggle all of the groups, and then change individual ones back to "Default".

 

That's about as far as I got with it.

 

I don't know if this test version is intended to work if dropped in as a replacement for the current (books-based) version in an already started save game, but I'll give it a try, in addition to starting a new game with it.

 

I hope that all helps - this is great work, really appreciated!

Edited December 14, 2014 by keithinhanoi

[kryptopyr]

Thank you for the wonderful, very helpful, feedback.

 

I think your suggestion for altering the layout makes sense.  I've also been considering moving the Compass Tweaks and additional options to a second menu page.

 

The current "Reveal Markers on Map" does not actually reveal any of the markers.  Instead, what it does is to allow for the option (within individual groups) to reveal those markers.  If you click that box, then you'll see two more options when you toggle the group options: "Undiscoverd" and "Discovered".  I'll try to improve the way I have this option set up so it is much more clear what this option does when selected.  And, yeah, Undiscovered and Discovered are both irreversible, which is why I made those options unavailable by default.

 

There is currently no way to globally change the map marker options, you have to do so by group.  It wouldn't be too much trouble to add a global toggle option, though, so that's something I could do.  

 

I'm also considering adding an option that would include control over vanilla markers along with the Atlas markers.  If selected, then any changes to group settings would change both the vanilla and Atlas markers within that group.  So, for example, "Farms" would toggle all Farm markers, not just the extra farm markers added by Atlas.  Unfortunately, it will take a bit of extra work to do this, so I haven't yet decided if it's worth it.  On one hand, I think I would find it more useful to be able to control ALL markers in a group, not just some...but then, I'll probably be primarily using the new MCM as a modding tool to allow me to jump around to various locations for testing purposes.  Outside of mod testing, I'm not sure if others would consider this feature useful or desireable?

 

The delay with the MCM, where you have to move your cursor, is something I've definitely noticed before with other MCM menus.  I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to adjust it.  It's something that I see happening sometimes and not others, so I don't know if it relates to how many other scripts are also running in the background or what. 

 

This should work find as a replacement in an existing game.  The map markers themselves haven't changed, so all your data concerning which ones you've discovered should be preserved.

[keithinhanoi]

Thank you for the wonderful, very helpful, feedback.

 

I think your suggestion for altering the layout makes sense.  I've also been considering moving the Compass Tweaks and additional options to a second menu page.

 

Oh, you're welcome - that's just a few minutes of poking around, nothing compared to what you've come up with for the MCM menu.

 

I hadn't though of adding a second sub-menu page - that would be good, because it would reduce the amount of scrolling needed.

 

 

The current "Reveal Markers on Map" does not actually reveal any of the markers.  Instead, what it does is to allow for the option (within individual groups) to reveal those markers.  If you click that box, then you'll see two more options when you toggle the group options: "Undiscoverd" and "Discovered".  I'll try to improve the way I have this option set up so it is much more clear what this option does when selected.  And, yeah, Undiscovered and Discovered are both irreversible, which is why I made those options unavailable by default.

 

Ahhhh, I see. I didn't play with it enough to figure that out, and as you could guess from my comments, it wasn't obvious to me how that works. 

 

The thing is if two more options can be added to all the group options with the "Reveal Markers" tick-box, then it will become painful to cycle through the four because of needing to move the cursor away and back each time.

 

 

The delay with the MCM, where you have to move your cursor, is something I've definitely noticed before with other MCM menus.  I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to adjust it.  It's something that I see happening sometimes and not others, so I don't know if it relates to how many other scripts are also running in the background or what. 

 

Maybe take a look at how other mod's MCM menus are set up to get that toggle-cycle feature working more responsively. When I ahve a chance, I'll check in my long list of MCM menus to find out which ones work well in that respect.

 

Oh - I also noticed a typo: "hiddened" should be "hidden".

[Greg]

The current "Reveal Markers on Map" does not actually reveal any of the markers.  Instead, what it does is to allow for the option (within individual groups) to reveal those markers.  If you click that box, then you'll see two more options when you toggle the group options: "Undiscoverd" and "Discovered".  I'll try to improve the way I have this option set up so it is much more clear what this option does when selected.  And, yeah, Undiscovered and Discovered are both irreversible, which is why I made those options unavailable by default.

Would it be possible to change this to a combo box or a drop down list with options in the list like "All Locations", "All Location in Selected Groups", and "Discovered Locations (default)"? I've never played with the MCM menus and I don't remember if everything has to be strictly checkboxes or if it allows for options like this.

 

I'll download and see if I can find some time to play with it later tonight. I really like the idea of Atlas Map Markers, but I thought it added a few too many map markers around some of the cities that made it somewhat difficult to get into the city proper, but this may be because I clicked the "show every map maker in the known universe" when experimenting with it to get an idea what it would be like with everything enabled. In other words, my mistake.

[kryptopyr]

Would it be possible to change this to a combo box or a drop down list with options in the list like "All Locations", "All Location in Selected Groups", and "Discovered Locations (default)"? I've never played with the MCM menus and I don't remember if everything has to be strictly checkboxes or if it allows for options like this.

 

I'll download and see if I can find some time to play with it later tonight. I really like the idea of Atlas Map Markers, but I thought it added a few too many map markers around some of the cities that made it somewhat difficult to get into the city proper, but this may be because I clicked the "show every map maker in the known universe" when experimenting with it to get an idea what it would be like with everything enabled. In other words, my mistake.

Yes, it's possible to set this option up as a pop-up menu box.

 

Personally, I disable most of the added map markers, including almost all of the city markers.  Skyrim's cities aren't that big and I think it's generally pretty easy to find your way around without the cluttered, tightly clustered markers everywhere.  I generally turn off many of the town locations too, but I like having the inns, farms and mines available.  And I like having the player houses marked (though if I'm playing without fast travel those really aren't that essential either).

 

What I really love about Atlas are the maps for Blackreach, Soul Cairn, and the Forgotten Vale, though I would definitely consider turning off the POI markers (for all locations not just these three), since these are the ones that really start cluttering up the map, and to me they feel a bit like spoilers.  However, something I've found with the MCM is that I actually don't mind revealing certain markers on the map AFTER I've explored an area.  Turning them on only after I've been through an area lets me glance at the map before leaving to see if there's anything noteworthy that maybe I want to check out prior to leaving.  It's still a bit of a cheat, but some areas I just know I'll never be returning to with that character, so I might as well see what there is to see while I'm there. 

 

I can also keep most of the markers turned off, but if I need to find an inn or a merchant or I can't remember where the ferrymen are located, then I can simply toggle those specific options on, take a look at the map, and then turn them off again once I no longer need that information.  As stated above, though, once the markers have been displayed on the map (using either the 'discovered' or 'undiscovered' options), then the only way to hide them is to set them to "no markers".  You can't set them back to the Default option.

 

Playing around with the compass settings helps a lot too.  I have mine adjusted so that only the closer markers are shown and disappear from the compass much more quickly as I move away from them.  I also use iHUD so I can hide the compass when I don't need it.