Total newb here

[DANEDANGER]

So, i have been trying the CK and am getting no where. I am able to open up SF.esm and take a stroll trough the menu's but then as i have no clue wtf i am actually looking at and what it all does i basically scare out too afraid to get into a state i can not fix in any way but a full reinstal.

I figure i gotta start somewhere, would it be hard to lets say... change up that Eon on vectera we find when we enter the game? Or do you guys have any suggestions for something easy that would stil allow me to learn a little about the kit mechanics?

[510deshawn]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3275131318

[xPEDx]

Starty with a Weapon of youre own. Copy and rename an existing weap, E.G= Weapon_Beowulf To = DANDANGER_Weapon_Beowulf, AND EDIT THIS ONE. oops caps :)
Then find "Constructable Object in menu list (under items i think) and edit one of them from the outpost-construction/crafting bench, put youre own id =Dandeanger_recipeWeaponBeowulf and add your gun to this, craft in-game at work bench
Edit..
You also need to either remove or change the listed ingredients on the recipe to youre own preferred or none . for free craft.

[xPEDx]

Hint, Just looking inside something will Bind it to you're mod, regardless of Edits or not, This also applies to cells.

[b0b]

Easy mod you can make is to edit weight and money values of items to confirm that your mod is even working (yes, this is easy despite the number of steps and the amount of explanation):

Load creation kit program.
-If you are on a 4k or higher resolution monitor, the font is going to be abysmally tiny; change your resolution to 1080p while working with this program as the only workaround I've seen anyone find is by using a 3rd party program and I haven't tried that myself to know whether it's worthwhile or not. Even changing windows settings didn't work for me (but if you can find a different windows setting that works, please let us know)

Then go to File > "Data...", which will pop up a dialog box. Double click Starfield.esm and hit Okay.
-(as far as I can tell you can't overwrite it as it makes you save a new plugin file, so no worries here). Starfield.esm contains all of item data, and it could take a few minutes to load (it takes almost exactly 2 minutes on my machine).

There will likely be a mess of windows. Find the "Object Window 0" window among the group (move or close the rest as they won't matter here).

Object Window 0 should have a list of stuff like Actors, Audio, etc. Find "Items" and expand it.

Then go down to MiscItem and expand it, then click on Items. Items is also expandable, but let's stay here for now.
-(clicking on the main category for Items will show all items in all subcategories, but if we just want the items under MiscItems > Items then we click that). I suggest this set of items because it contains a bunch of useless garbage items that don't matter even if they get messed up, so we can change their values without worry.

The first column is the game engine item name, but one of the other columns shows the display name, which will help you find items more easily.

The 6th item in the list should be Digipick (if it's not the 6th then just go find it). Double click it in order to bring up a dialog box.

Weight and value are at the top. Change weight to 0.11 and value to 99 as those are fairly unique values and will quickly prove whether your mod is working. If you're not sure whether you have a digipick in your possession, go find an item you probably do have and modify that.

You could also change the Name (not ID) to something like "Digipick [Altered]" to make it stand out more, or "[Tool] Digipick" to keep it in line with other mods that change names, or even "[Tool] Digipick [DaneDanger]" to explicitly verify that it is your mod.

Click Okay to go back to the items list. Then go up to File > Save Plugin. That will prompt you to give a file name to your mod; name it something simple because it shouldn't matter.

THEN YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO File > Convert Active File To... > Small Master. <--- THIS IS IMPORTANT. The plugin file is the .esp, while the master file is the .esm. Starfield devs confirmed that .esp files are for testing purposes only because they will likely begin screwing up save files if you use them for too long. We want to use the .esm. For an understanding of the difference between small, medium, and large master files, you'll need to google that. But also keep your .esp files; do not delete them unless you don't care about the mod anymore.

Now that you have a .esm in your Starfield > Data folder, you can start the Starfield game, then when the menu pops us, go to Creations. Then check the bottom of the screen for which button to press regarding "Load Order" as you'll then find your .esp and .esm files, and ensure that only the .esm is selected. Also change the load order so your own .esm mod is at the very bottom so that it overwrites all other mods that might modify the same values, so you can confirm whether your mod is working or not.

Then back out to the main menu and load into your save game and check the name/weight/value of the item you modified to confirm whether it worked.

Congratulations on creating your first mod.

This next part is important too: keep the .esp files around. If you want to modify your mod, DO NOT load the .esm file as it somehow creates a self-reference problem the prevents it from loading again in the future. Load the .esp file and modify that, then convert to a master each time.