[REL] Fearabbit's Transportation Network : IV

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:16 am

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31547

This has been lying around on my computer for almost a year now. I have stopped working on it when I discovered a strange bug that caused strange CTDs... however, I was able to fix that, because it turned out to be a much smaller problem than I had thought back then.
Also, I dropped my idea of making this compatible with Better Cities from the start. There's just no easy way to do that. Instead, it will be a good mod on its own, and hopefully a few patches will make it compatible with BC too.

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/8386/travelroutes.jpg
(This is actually a little bit outdated, but the main layout hasn't changed.)

FEARABBIT'S TRANSPORTATION NETWORK
==================================

by Fearabbit!

1. INSTALLATION:

Extract the archive to the Oblivion\Data folder, either manually or with a little help from your mod installation friends (BAIN, OBMM).

2. DESCRIPTION

It's yet another transportation network for Cyrodiil. Personally, I never liked the other transportation network mods, because none of them really created a network similar to that of Morrowind. All you could do was travel from one big city to another. That was not enough for me - I wanted a network that provided services to the several villages and inns as well. And I wanted it to be a little more difficult to reach destinations that are far away.

I've checked out all of the villages and inns to see which are located at spots that would make them important in a more sophisticated network. I've also considered that some villages/towns are currently being worked on or there are already great mods for them. For example, Pell's Gate is being worked on by Shezrie, and will (hopefully soon) be a big, dirty town. There are several mods for Weye, some mods take you to Blankenmarch or Border Watch, there is the Faregyl mod by Arthmoor. So these villages all were included with that in mind.

Features:
- 39 new NPCs that will offer travel services (usually to around 4 locations next to their own location)
- 4 different types of transportation: Ship, Carriage, Boat, and "Rikshas" in the IC
- Getting from A to B more often than not requires you to get to C first
- However, making a stop at location D is usually not required

- Mages Guild teleportation is NOT included, since there are many mods out there that add this already (Integration for example, from what I've read), and there's really no need for any "sophisticated network" kind of thing there.
- The amount of gold you have to pay is roughly 10 times the time it takes to get to the place. Note that south of Bravil both of this is increased, because the people who offer services there are more careful, and they charge more because it's more dangerous down there ("It's safe to get to Leyawiin - if you're a mage and walk on water")

Locations where travel services are offered:
Aleswell - Cart
Anvil - Cart, Ship
Blankenmarch - Cart
Bleaker's Way - Cart
Border Watch - Cart (for Boat, go down to Water's Edge)
Bravil - Cart, Boat, Ship
Brindle Home - Cart
Bruma - Cart
Cheydinhal - Cart
Chorrol - Cart
Cropsford - Cart (after the misc quest)
Drunken Dragon Inn - Cart
Faregyl Inn - Cart
Gottshaw Inn - Cart
Imperial City - Riksha (not from Prison District and Arboretum)
Imperial Bridge Inn - Cart, Boat
Leyawiin - Cart, Boat, Ship
Pell's Gate - Cart, Boat
Roxey Inn - Cart, Boat
Skingrad - Cart
IC Waterfront - Cart, Boat, Ship
Weye - Cart, Boat, Riksha
Water's Edge - Boat (for Cart, go up to Border Watch)

3. PLAYING THE MOD

In the game, you will find several new NPCs in the mentioned locations. They'll just stand around, most of them close to a cart or a boat, or a ship (all major cities have one of them right next to the stables, so start looking there and you'll find him for certain).
If you talk to them, they'll have the dialogue option "Travel" right at the top. If they like you enough (their disposition must be higher than 40), they'll offer to take you to one of 4 destinations. These will usually be the 4 closest destinations, but not always.

Once you've selected a destination, you'll be transported there. Time will pass and magic effects will wear off.

4. KNOWN COMPATIBILITY ISSUES

Currently, Better Cities is not compatible with this mod, because this mod adds docks where there are docks already if you're using BC. It should be possible to make a patch for this, and I really hope there will be one.

5. CREDITS

- Arthmoor for providing me with useful information about making a transportation network. Thank you very much.

- mr_siika for the donkeys, oxes, fisherboats and donkey carts. Thank you for making all these great resources!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:39 am

This looks great... I'll have to wait for a BC patch, though.

I have one comment though after looking at the screenshots on Nexus: it doesn't seem to take much time to get from A to B. How did you come up with the trip durations, and is it based on the player's timescale at all? I play with a variable timescale mod (my own, shameless plug!

) so that time passes faster when out in the wilderness. I like it to take a day or two (in game) to travel from town to town - the idea of leaving Anvil at dawn and arriving in the Imperial City in time for lunch makes the world seem awfully small. A mod that lets you get from A to B in an hour or two - with no chance of encounters, to boot! - would exacerbate the problem I think.

I suppose there are folks who like it that way, of course. The beauty of the .ini file!

I say make carts/boats/etc take a fair amount of time, the trade off being that it's safer and mor convenient than walking/riding by yourself.

edit) Oh, and had a thought about BC compatibility: can you make a script that checks for GetModLoaded (or whatever the OBSE call is) to look for BC esps and disable your statics as applicable? I know that mods like the Clocks of Cyrodiil multi-purpose esp and Ayleid Steps use that sort of method. It probably revolves around making a single object in a holding cell for each city, and parenting all your edits for that city to it. If you want them to show up, enable the parent; if you wan't them gone, disable it. That way you can even move things to make them appropriate for the BC version of a city... if this esp is loaded, enable this static at this location; if the esp isn't loaded, enable this one that's over here instead. You get the idea.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:56 pm

It takes you 15 hours to get from Anvil to the Imperial City.

So you might be there for dinner if you start in Anvil real early, at best.

About compatibility... yeah, we'll see. I wanted to release this version first.
(Actually, it's very simple to make them compatible. The only problem is that the "customer-friendly" menus that are a necessary part of that are way above my head. I really, really hate scripting customization menus.)

edit: Just wanted to add that all that compatibility stuff actually only concerns three places in the game: The Bravil docks, the Leyawiin docks and the smaller Bravil docks beneath the bridge that leads to Bravil's main entrance. Everything else is already fully compatible.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:13 am

This looks interesting, i have always wondered why not someone has done this before.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:12 am

Looks very nice Fearabbit! Perhaps in the future you can add new locations added by the Tamriel Worldspace Modding Project (previously the Tamriel Heightmaps and Landscapes mods).

Quintus

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:38 am

ahh a thread for your mod

you said (on tesnexus) there are some 'overlapping statics' conflicting between this and BC. does this mean that i could 'disable' some of these things myself in order to make it look right?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:54 am

Looks very nice Fearabbit! Perhaps in the future you can add new locations added by the Tamriel Worldspace Modding Project (previously the Tamriel Heightmaps and Landscapes mods).

Nope, definitely not. These destinations would have to make their own travel services (which they usually also do, by the way). Everything else would be way too much work for too little effect (I still vividly remember the month where I was writing all the dialogue and result scripts and all that for the NPCs of this mod, and I don't want to go back there ever again).

MrSoprano - Exactly. That's all there is to this incompatibility business. It is like this: My NPCs are standing in places where Better Cities adds docks and ships and everything. The places were chosen in a way so that if you disable all the statics I put there, they will be standing in a perfect spot on Better Cities' docks, right in front of one of BC's ships for example.
However, since I realized that I couldn't release a mod where my NPCs would fall into the water unless you're using Better Cities (which was actually my original plan), I made some "docks" for them myself. These are very basic - the most complex one consists of 11 objects, if I remember correctly.
So it would be no problem to just go to those three locations - the Bravil docks, the smaller Bravil docks in front of the main entrance, and the Leyawiin docks - and disable everything that looks out of place. The only problem is that in case of Bravil and Leyawiin docks, that includes a whole ship, which is a little bit annoying to remove.

Anyway, I'm trying out some stuff right now, I think a Better Cities compatible version will be ready soon.

Would it be agreeable if I made a menu that can be opened from the console? All you'd have to do would be to type "StartQuest FTNMenu", and a menu would appear, allowing you to enable/disable the docks I added separately.
Edit: Well whether it's agreeable or not, I did it that way.

New version is up.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:44 pm

Looks great, Fearrabbit.

Little question, though; are your travel NPCs voice-acted? I don't mean brand-new voice-acting, but did you give them vanilla dialogue to use in conversation? I like M.O.E.'s Travel Services plugin over Cyrodiil Transportation Network because of it.

Looks great, though. The dock on the Waterfront is probably not compatible with Redbag's IC Pack (which I use in my combined Redbag/BC/ImpeREAL IC mod), but a patch could easily fix this.

Keep up the good work!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:52 am

:facepalm:
I totally forgot about the Waterfront dock! Arrrrgh.
Will fix this right now.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:41 am

i just downloaded and disabled the out-of-place stuff manually (in bravil anyway), but now i see you have a new version up!!!

il download again now.

Great work though! the prices and how long it takes to get to destinations are really good and realistic!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:56 am

Thank you, the prices and the time a journey takes were calculated in a pretty pedantic way, so I'm glad you like them.

Okay, the latest version takes care of the Waterfront dock as well. All you have to do, if you're a Better Cities user, is to type "StartQuest FTNMenu" into the console and wait for the menu to appear, and then toggle the docks on or off to your liking. (The menu only says "Toggle", but once you've selected one of the choices, a message will appear telling you if you just disabled or enabled the docks.)

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:00 am

Thanks for this. I was just thinking about trying a transportation mod, but the ones I found looked pretty bad. This one, along with a Mages Guild port mod should be great. It sounds like the prices are too high (150g from Anvil to IC?) but I'll see.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:36 am

Thanks. For a Mages Guild teleportation network, I heard that Integration features one after you've done a couple of quests (I'm not far enough into the mod yet, so I can't tell). But I'm pretty sure there are more mods that do this.

I think the prices are rather balanced and realistic. You must not forget, any feeling of distance you previously had in the game is probably completely messed up because the actual game world is so small. If you start using transportation networks instead of fast travel, the world will hopefully start to feel much bigger, in which case the prices will seem more reasonable. After all, Anvil is supposed to be quite far away from the Imperial City (heck, that distance is roughly one third of the whole continent's width!).

Also, there has been a lot of demand for money sinks in the game, and this type is probably the best you can get.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:29 pm

I think the prices are rather balanced and realistic. You must not forget, any feeling of distance you previously had in the game is probably completely messed up because the actual game world is so small. If you start using transportation networks instead of fast travel, the world will hopefully start to feel much bigger, in which case the prices will seem more reasonable. After all, Anvil is supposed to be quite far away from the Imperial City (heck, that distance is roughly one third of the whole continent's width!).

Also, there has been a lot of demand for money sinks in the game, and this type is probably the best you can get.

Not only that, but the travel mods are supposed to offer a viable option to the player, in the sense that the player may choose to spend some money to be transported to some place (convenience) or may choose to walk/ride to the intended destination, saving the money but running the risk of encounters with bandits and predators.

In the vanilla game, fast travel offers convenience and doesn't offer any drawbacks, so it is clearly not a matter of choice.

Good work, Fearabbit. I'm a svcker for travel mods and I'm always experimenting with new ones. Yours is definitely going into my list. :thumbsup:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:42 am

Readme should have some info on the various methods of disabling fast travel.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:39 pm

Megathanks, Fearabbit, for making a realism mod. I can't play without it!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:03 am

I think the prices are rather balanced and realistic. You must not forget, any feeling of distance you previously had in the game is probably completely messed up because the actual game world is so small. If you start using transportation networks instead of fast travel, the world will hopefully start to feel much bigger, in which case the prices will seem more reasonable. After all, Anvil is supposed to be quite far away from the Imperial City (heck, that distance is roughly one third of the whole continent's width!).

Also, there has been a lot of demand for money sinks in the game, and this type is probably the best you can get.

Maybe I get a lot less gold with my setup than you do. I use the feature of Enhanced Economy that lowers magic item pricing back to vanilla values, in order to fix the way magic mods inflate prices. I consider that to be a mandatory balance fix and I couldn't play without it. 150g is more than a lot of early random loot is worth, just to add immersion to a walk that would take me ten minutes on autorun. If you look at it in terms of the game world and what it's supposed to represent, that's a peasant paying value of a magic item, 150 heads of lettuce, etc. for 10-15 hours in bumpy cart.

Anyway, any INI file or easy console variable would make this moot.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:19 am

Maybe I get a lot less gold with my setup than you do. I use the feature of Enhanced Economy that lowers magic item pricing back to vanilla values, in order to fix the way magic mods inflate prices. I consider that to be a mandatory balance fix and I couldn't play without it. 150g is more than a lot of early random loot is worth, just to add immersion to a walk that would take me ten minutes on autorun. If you look at it in terms of the game world and what it's supposed to represent, that's a peasant paying value of a magic item, 150 heads of lettuce, etc. for 10-15 hours in bumpy cart.

Anyway, any INI file or easy console variable would make this moot.

Just accepting it as what it is would make this moot, too.

I mean, 150 lettuces? That's what I pay for a train from Berlin to Munich too. Of course, this is a lot for a peasant, but then a peasant usually doesn't travel to the other end of the world on a daily basis. I'm using Enhanced Economy as well, by the way, and I also almost never go into dungeons without a quest that pushes me to do that, so I'd say my characters probably have much less gold than yours.
If you just played with the mod a little while, maybe you'd grow accustomed to the prices. I know it's a big step from not paying any money at all to paying at least 10 gold per 1 hour of travel, but it's also very nice if you just earned some cash and then think to yourself "Cool, now I have enough to go to Leyawiin!"

(Making an INI file is not as easy you make it sound, by the way. How would I display the new price, for example? I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that in a dialogue topic anymore.)

Readme should have some info on the various methods of disabling fast travel.

Hm, what ARE the various methods of disabling fast travel? The only one that I can think of right now is the one from M.O.E., but I'm sure there must be thousands of ways. If you could point the most popular ones out to me, I'd appreciate that very much.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:31 pm

Thanks. For a Mages Guild teleportation network, I heard that Integration features one after you've done a couple of quests (I'm not far enough into the mod yet, so I can't tell). But I'm pretty sure there are more mods that do this.

Integration does, but only after you've gotten Martin to accept the succession, and freed Kvatch. So it's a bit out there, not something you'd usually do for quite a few levels (though to be fair, there are several schools of thought on this).

The only other mod I'm aware of that adds mage guild portals is the Cyrodil Transportation Network, but it's buggy. In fact, if you teleport to the Bravil Mage Guild, when you leave the basemant room by the door you end up falling forever below the guild, because the activator wasn't correctly hooked up. Prices are wonky, too: anywhere from 25 gold to 5000, depending on the guild you transport from, with no reason behind the differences.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:21 am

I've been playing with this mod for a few days, but just now tried to actually use it - that is, hire some transport. I've since tried two or three different porters in the Imperial City and they all give me the same possible destinations: none. After raising their disposition and asking for travel, they say "where would you like to go" and the only option is "nevermind".

I'm using Better Cities with the included Better Imperial City, which I'm pretty sure moves the IC into a separate worldspace. Could that be part of the problem?

Also, the porter in the market district can't find his x-marker because it looks like BC puts a post on top of it. He's http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1531/screenshot33i.png.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:14 pm

Hm, what ARE the various methods of disabling fast travel? The only one that I can think of right now is the one from M.O.E., but I'm sure there must be thousands of ways. If you could point the most popular ones out to me, I'd appreciate that very much.

There's a console command which simply disables it. There's at least one mod on Nexus which silently issues that command once per frame, including when the console is open. There's Elys's OBSE plug-in which flips the switch then breaks it off before you even see the main menu (I use this one).

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:34 pm

Hm, what ARE the various methods of disabling fast travel?

Just this:

EnableFastTravel 0/1

0 = off, 1 = on.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:44 am

I've been playing with this mod for a few days, but just now tried to actually use it - that is, hire some transport. I've since tried two or three different porters in the Imperial City and they all give me the same possible destinations: none. After raising their disposition and asking for travel, they say "where would you like to go" and the only option is "nevermind".

I'm using Better Cities with the included Better Imperial City, which I'm pretty sure moves the IC into a separate worldspace. Could that be part of the problem?

Also, the porter in the market district can't find his x-marker because it looks like BC puts a post on top of it. He's http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1531/screenshot33i.png.

1) Sorry but before I worry myself needlessly, I have to ask: The travel options only get displayed when you have enough gold - does your character currently have more than 13 gold?

2) Dammit, forgot about that. Yes, BC adds a lantern there. Hmm, I'll need to move him a little bit, I guess.

Arthmoor, tejon: Thank you! I'll update the readme for the next version.

If anyone encounters any more compatibility issues, please tell me. I already know that MTC Villages puts a stonewall right beneath my horse cart (<_<), but there might be some more conflicts that I'm not aware of. I'll try to fix them all for the next release.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:28 am

1) Sorry but before I worry myself needlessly, I have to ask: The travel options only get displayed when you have enough gold - does your character currently have more than 13 gold?

Ah yes... I use kuertee's Gold is an Inventory Item and I tend to put all my coins into one of my storage sacks. When I have cash in hand the porters are much more accomodating.

If anyone encounters any more compatibility issues, please tell me. I already know that MTC Villages puts a stonewall right beneath my horse cart (<_<), but there might be some more conflicts that I'm not aware of. I'll try to fix them all for the next release.

I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Do you have any plans to expand into Elsweyr?

Edit: http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/6823/screenshot33.png. This is with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22828.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:29 am

Hi Fearabbit. Thanks again for your theory about Et In Arkay Ego... turns out the OP didn't have it!!! Yes, using two of your mods and loving them, maybe I'll add more :foodndrink:
I noticed a small incompatibility with Let the People Drink and your fishing boat near Fort Holmstead/Pell's Gate. It seemed to be caught in one of the pillars of the aqueduct. I was being chased by some big guys so no screenshot... sorry. Let me know if you want one and I'll go back.

Thanks for your work