What can and can't be done in the Creation Kit / FO4Edit ?

[floatingdeadrobot]

Been thinking of making my own mods, mostly for personal use as I'll probably end up using assets from other mods (and just using other mods in general).

Before I start making notes on things in the game I want to change (and there is a lot I want to change, FO4 is a big game and it's so underdeveloped in some key things), is there anything that is simply off limits for changing. Some key values that are ingrained in the core of the game and can't be changed, I mean, the CK is not the source code, right?

I already know about not messing with precombines (which I need to do more research on).

For example, I don't see many mods that add in weapon conditions, like in FO3/NV. You would think that would be one of the first to be added but maybe the current kits just cant do it properly.

Also the survival mode seems to have locked ammo and healing item weights (normally weightless outside of survival), there doesn't seem to be an easy way to change those like you'd think you would.

[Xenon The Noble]

I'm new to modding too. I changed the Tardis mod to have a workshop, connected work benches, and a medium sized build area. Its a sort of mobile base because some places in the game are just too far from a settlement and walking back and forth is boring. The first two times you might encounter mobs, like Reggie Blattodea, but once they're all gone, BORING.
Still got to figure out how to do routing, so that vistors will go into the build area.
Also want to make the Tardis "discovererable", so that I can connect it to other workshops, lower the volume of the "TARDIS" travel sound (not really a fan of Dr. Who) and it is so loud I have to take my headphones off, and add more slots to the TARDIS saved locations.
I can't share it because it's a mod to someone else's mod.
I also want to make a "Stop the Children of Atom" quest, quests to more settlements quest for 5, 10, 15 etc), quests to get more settlers, quests to get more raider and supermutants body counts
My goal is to stay away from the Main story lines because I just don't see a man like Nate (I can't play Nora, some mod took away her hands removing that mod didn't put her hands back) putting up with Garvey's, Rhys', Ayo's and what's his name of the RR abuse.
I want to make happy settlers not insult SS.

[Xenon The Noble]

You know some of the mods out there... you can do just about anything with the creation kit. This whole "Fallout London" is a very ambitious project and shows how much you can change the game by making new factions, new locations, everything.
They may even have it done before Fallout 5 is released. Then they can start working on "Fallout 5 New Deli".

[Ozzey_Lee]

I've messed with it a pretty large amount and from what I understand new damage types can't be defined the same as already existing damage types. Rad damage is an example of this as I wanted to add in a different type of radiation but there is no way to add an additional type but you can most definitely work around it and give the illusion of a new radiation type.

There are gameplay settings that you can tweak but these are global and are generally best if untouched.

Attempting to apply scripts by weather only works if "constant" is selected, however most weather uses fire and forget spells which do not apply a spell. Can be worked around again in this instance.

For the most part due to being able to write your own scripts there aren't many limitations that can't be worked around in some way. I took a break from the CK because copying and setting up aliases is slow and they have to be setup one by one and I needed around 100 of them. I can copy them, but I have to open each of them and it takes around 15-20 seconds to open. Think you made a mistake and want to check? Another 15-20 seconds. Want to edit multiple at a time, nope. Even if you could there's too much data in them to see more than 1 or two. Then I have to go in game and test each of them in batches.

There are multiple quests that keep track of survival mode, because you can't change these quests without significant issues you instead have to keep track of their values at stages where you want to modify them and convert them with your own quest as often as necessary. Make sure to set them back to whatever default value may have been there survival or otherwise. I got many headaches trying to figure out why companions got sent away after I had them revived by unconventional methods and moved more than 10000 meters away.

As long as whatever you want to modify isn't currently being modified by a default quest or you don't need tens-to-hundreds of something personalized there isn't much of an issue usually.

[Mathius]

I'm not sure how it is with FO4, but with Skyrim (also a Bethesda game) doing anything to mess with the main quest had pretty bad effects. In a lot of cases good programmers have gotten around this by bypassing the main quest in certain ways, but editing stuff that's core to the game had some bad results.

[floatingdeadrobot]

The whole kit looks like it was made by Martians. All I want to do is reduce ap regen rate and maybe add some weight to some ammo types and it seems completely closed off to do that to my novice eyes. Then I look at what some other modders have done like airstrikes and overhauls and think it must be possible somehow.

I think the next step for Bethesda is to make modding easier, they seem adamant to push paid mods on players anyway, might as well make it more accessible.

[Mathius]

Originally posted by floatingdeadrobot:

The whole kit looks like it was made by Martians. All I want to do is reduce ap regen rate and maybe add some weight to some ammo types and it seems completely closed off to do that to my novice eyes. Then I look at what some other modders have done like airstrikes and overhauls and think it must be possible somehow.

I think the next step for Bethesda is to make modding easier, they seem adamant to push paid mods on players anyway, might as well make it more accessible.

Changing the AP Regen is a core function of the game that would require extensive scripting knowledge to pull off.

Changing ammo weights is so simple could probably do it in FO4Edit or whatever it's called.

In the Creation Kit:

Load the FO4 ESM file. This creates your initial dependency and allows you to use assets from that. If you want to modify ammo from a DLC, you're going to have to load that/those DLC's second. This creates an additional dependency. A dependency means the mod needs those files in order to work, so anyone using your mod needs to own these dependencies.

To load multiple ESM's, you're going to have to edit some .ini files. It's easier just to look this up on Youtube.

Anyways, once you've loaded this up, there are categories on the left. You could just do a search for the ammo type. This will take some time. Or you could go through the different sub-trees and locate them. Double click to open them up. Find the weight field and change it. Then select "Save As" and save your mod. It will save as an .esp.

I'm not super familiar with .esl's if you'd rather make an .esl, but that process is done after making the .esp, I believe. There are pros and cons to making an .esl. If your mod becomes really large with lots of loose assets for graphics, sound, etc. you may want to back them into a .ba2 file, which is done with a separate program.

Any time you edit your mod after that, you should be loading your dependencies first and then your mod.

[Razer]

You can do many things in FOEdit and Creation Kit. Probably anything you want in the CK, but if you're just looking to create simple mods, FOEdit, is probably more userfriendly and easier to use performance wise. If you're looking to interact with the world such as place new items and change the environment then CK is what you need. If you're looking to fiddle with some of the numbers or just create a new item then FOEdit is probably best to use. I mainly use FOEdit myself because the CK is such a performance hog and very user unfriendly if you never used it before.

[s.turner3030]

While you can do level lists in xedit, doing it in ck is much much easier, as it can be done with drag and drop for multiple items into each list in the ck, in xedit you have to either create a new list and a new entry in the list then add that item, rinse and repeat for each item in each level list, or copy an existing level list, rename it, then edit each item in the list to replace it with the items you want adding.

Nav meshing as you are already aware is not something you can do in xedit, being ck only, deleting them in xedit yes, but not redoing them, and even in ck is tedious as hell.

Xedit will also allow you to add esp files as master files, the ck will not, and will delete esp as master file, leaving a ton of error messages where the esp master file was referenced to in the mods esp.

[floatingdeadrobot]

Originally posted by Mathius:

Originally posted by floatingdeadrobot:

The whole kit looks like it was made by Martians. All I want to do is reduce ap regen rate and maybe add some weight to some ammo types and it seems completely closed off to do that to my novice eyes. Then I look at what some other modders have done like airstrikes and overhauls and think it must be possible somehow.

I think the next step for Bethesda is to make modding easier, they seem adamant to push paid mods on players anyway, might as well make it more accessible.

Changing the AP Regen is a core function of the game that would require extensive scripting knowledge to pull off.

Changing ammo weights is so simple could probably do it in FO4Edit or whatever it's called.

In the Creation Kit:

Load the FO4 ESM file. This creates your initial dependency and allows you to use assets from that. If you want to modify ammo from a DLC, you're going to have to load that/those DLC's second. This creates an additional dependency. A dependency means the mod needs those files in order to work, so anyone using your mod needs to own these dependencies.

To load multiple ESM's, you're going to have to edit some .ini files. It's easier just to look this up on Youtube.

Anyways, once you've loaded this up, there are categories on the left. You could just do a search for the ammo type. This will take some time. Or you could go through the different sub-trees and locate them. Double click to open them up. Find the weight field and change it. Then select "Save As" and save your mod. It will save as an .esp.

I'm not super familiar with .esl's if you'd rather make an .esl, but that process is done after making the .esp, I believe. There are pros and cons to making an .esl. If your mod becomes really large with lots of loose assets for graphics, sound, etc. you may want to back them into a .ba2 file, which is done with a separate program.

Any time you edit your mod after that, you should be loading your dependencies first and then your mod.

Surely it wouldn't require that much knowledge, it can be changed quite easily using console commands. Just seems weird that it's difficult to do as a mod.

Changing the weight in the CK only affects Survival mode afaik, it seems to be more tricky if playing in normal difficulty.

[Mathius]

Originally posted by floatingdeadrobot:

Surely it wouldn't require that much knowledge, it can be changed quite easily using console commands. Just seems weird that it's difficult to do as a mod.

Changing the weight in the CK only affects Survival mode afaik, it seems to be more tricky if playing in normal difficulty.

The console can effect the player directly.

The Creation Kit is primarily setup to effect world assets. It's possible, I'm sure to change settings that effect the player directly, but I have no idea where to look for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was easier to add an item that that lowers your AP regen than it is to just change a player setting.

This thread here suggests that if you want to change something that effects a player, you have to create a new perk: https://www.reddit.com/r/FalloutMods/comments/p9ljig/fo4_creation_kit_how_to_add_a_permanent_effect_on/

[Ozzey_Lee]

Originally posted by Mathius:

Originally posted by floatingdeadrobot:

Surely it wouldn't require that much knowledge, it can be changed quite easily using console commands. Just seems weird that it's difficult to do as a mod.

Changing the weight in the CK only affects Survival mode afaik, it seems to be more tricky if playing in normal difficulty.

The console can effect the player directly.

The Creation Kit is primarily setup to effect world assets. It's possible, I'm sure to change settings that effect the player directly, but I have no idea where to look for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was easier to add an item that that lowers your AP regen than it is to just change a player setting.

This thread here suggests that if you want to change something that effects a player, you have to create a new perk: https://www.reddit.com/r/FalloutMods/comments/p9ljig/fo4_creation_kit_how_to_add_a_permanent_effect_on/

You'd create a quest and then make the player an alias on the quest and apply a spell to that alias that does whatever you want with the ap.

Even better, from there you can modify any of the stats you want on that alias using a script and or apply it through an item added to the alias that would apply to the player. Doing it that way would make the mod compatible with most other mods that also modify the player rather than have them conflict and likely take the mod at the top of the load order instead.

EDIT: Adding a perk also words too. I do prefer script to perks in most instances since they don't apply very well over aliases for me.

[Mathius]

Originally posted by Ozzey_Lee:

You'd create a quest and then make the player an alias on the quest and apply a spell to that alias that does whatever you want with the ap.

Even better, from there you can modify any of the stats you want on that alias using a script and or apply it through an item added to the alias that would apply to the player. Doing it that way would make the mod compatible with most other mods that also modify the player rather than have them conflict and likely take the mod at the top of the load order instead.

EDIT: Adding a perk also words too. I do prefer script to perks in most instances since they don't apply very well over aliases for me.

I'm sure that's all true, but I fail to see how that conflicts with me saying OP would need extensive scripting knowledge to pull it off.

They've already intimated they don't even know how to navigate the CK.

[Ozzey_Lee]

Originally posted by Mathius:

Originally posted by Ozzey_Lee:

You'd create a quest and then make the player an alias on the quest and apply a spell to that alias that does whatever you want with the ap.

Even better, from there you can modify any of the stats you want on that alias using a script and or apply it through an item added to the alias that would apply to the player. Doing it that way would make the mod compatible with most other mods that also modify the player rather than have them conflict and likely take the mod at the top of the load order instead.

EDIT: Adding a perk also words too. I do prefer script to perks in most instances since they don't apply very well over aliases for me.

I'm sure that's all true, but I fail to see how that conflicts with me saying OP would need extensive scripting knowledge to pull it off.

They've already intimated they don't even know how to navigate the CK.

It doesn't conflict, you are correct too. I haven't been reading this as much as I usually read forums but I saw mention of one way to do something in the CK and wanted to list another way.

The OP not knowing how to navigate the CK is going to need to do a lot more to get familiar with it before they can do anything reliably.

Everyone always says start with something simple, hopefully they can get the courage to do the same.