I have a persistent caliper bug issue. Resetting the loot list in the fran menu and waiting for X+1 days, making sure there are no NPCs in the player owned house with me (starting over if a follower from enhanced daedric invasion caught up with me while waiting) has not worked.

So, I installed wrye bash, hoping the mythical bashed patch would do the trick. I learned a little about it and tried making one. It fixed my googly eye issues! The people of Elsweyr: Deserts of Anaquina can now see straight. Its a miracle


I still have a caliper bug. I really miss bandits with weapons and armor. I'd settle for vanilla equipment if I had to, I just want them to have something besides calipers, arrows and potions. and leather pants

I've played with my load order a ton, I've tried starting new characters, Waited X+16 days, I even installed MMM for Frans, just to see what would happen. Calipers, Calipers, Calipers.

Is there a mod that lets you use calipers to gouge out your own eyes?


Here's my latest load order, but I've tried many, many combinations, especially involving Tamrielic Ingredients for Frans, which doesn't show up in Wrye Bash in the bashed patch menu as a leveled list contributor, which makes me suspicious. (I've tried removing it, but always there are calipers)

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Fran_Lvl30tem_Maltz causes this. I had the same problem. Remove and this should fix. Luck Based Loot may also mess with Fran list I have never tried.

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I'm having the same issue, but as I'm new to all of this, I'm not exactly sure how to change this. Do I look in the construction set? If so, how--i cannot get Fran's mod to load in the CS.

If not, what do I do to remove that entry?

I have never seen the bug before, I do use luck based loot for frans and never had an issue. However I have cracked open the mod and looked at it, there seems to be a lot of I guess "dummy" leveled lists full of these calipers for some reason. The mod has like 20+ of these misc items named calipers defined for these dummy lists too. My best guess is this is some funky way that fran used to get around an engine limitation of some sort and that some mods made for frans mess with it.

Odd for sure

See, I really don't know too terribly much about things like this-I just began modding a few eks ago--however, upon opening Fran's in the CS, I see nothing Fran's related in any of the item lists I checks (wepons, armors, several items, etc., until I looked in metal working, in search of the file the abpve poster mentioned-- Frans_Lvl30tem_Maltz. I couldn't find it, but curiously enough, the metal working section did have a vast array of items with the Frans prefix, all named Caliper and accessing the Calipers mesh.

I imagine that this ism in fact, the problem, however, I have no earthly idea how to find (or wehre to look for) the file mentioned...

This is a known issue with Francesco's mod. Googling "caliper bug Oblivion" brings up an old post with this advice:

"nvde or topless NPCs (this can happen with any of them, actually) and loot chests filled to bursting with calipers are a sign that the loot tables need to be reset. Lucky for you this can and should be done in game. First try this method: Go to a location with no NPCs (a player owned house is perfect). Open the console (its that handy '~' key again) and type in startquest fransmenu. Under Manage Settings select "reset to defaults". Then wait for the cells to reset for the number of days you have selected as your respawn time (If you haven't selected any then the game's default is 3 days) plus one day. This process should reset the cells with the bandits (Or other NPCs) and loot. If this doesn't work then you can roll back to an older save and try the reset again. Usually though this solves the issue."

That has always had me wondering why so many lists in Frans are stuffed with calipers to begin with. Does anyone happen to know?

I wonder as well. Am I right in thinking that it only happens because of the scripts that enable in game customization of the leveled lists (never heard something similar happening in a different leveling mod like OOO that has no such scripts)? If so, is there any fix that gets rid of those scripts? I can say that I have never ever used any of the in game menus and to be honest I don't really think there is a need for them. It's more some kind of funky gadget that unfortunately causes bugs that won't happen without it.

Hi. Just gonna add my input to this thread for anybody else having the same problems.

I've had this bug ever since I got Frans, which really svcks because I love the mod and everything it adds to the game. So I've been testing and testing and that old advice on resetting the loot tables doesn't work consistently (actually, it only ever worked once). It might work sometimes but even with its default settings, waiting for all cells that I'm not currently in to "respawn", and, just to be safe, fast traveling to a very distant bandit location I've never been to (like the locations added by the Bandit Hideouts mod), I still find all the bandits with calipers. Surprisingly I have never seen this problem on any other NPC aside from generic "Bandit", "Bandit Archer" and "Bandit Hedge Wizard" (they have robes but everything else is calipers). All Bandit Ringleaders, bandit "bosses" (the ones with names), Marauders, Vampires, etc., are always equipped properly, though it's claimed that it can happen to any NPC.

I'm now going to try using luck-based loot, because it might help. I never wanted to use that feature because I prefer thinking that the bandits have their own ideas on what they wear rather than basing it on my stats. But it's better that way, if it'll fix the bug. Will edit this post and update when I find it working.

In the meantime, I kinda wish somebody would explain why there are caliper loot records in the first place... Was it some kind of error/debug catch or something that Fransisco forgot to take out? Why does it only affect bandits? Would replacing them with other items fix the bug? Like, can we make a patch for it? I don't care if it's just vanilla stuff like Fur Boots or whatnot. I just don't wanna see naked bandits in my game.

Frans has a tonne of scripted items, all named "calipers". Each script reads some info from the "container" sets some quest variables and the quests generate semi-random, but suitable, loot for the "container".

FCOM achieves much the same thing, but with massively nested Levelled lists. Fran's pre-dates most Bashed patch functions, so the scripting was probably necessary.

This could be solved if someone wanted to create a plugin with the nested levelled list system that FCOM uses, and then that was used to overwrite the Frans inventory and levelled lists with the bashed patch.

One method would be to use FCOM, but then of course the game would no longer be a Frans overhaul, but primarily an OOO overhaul, with bits of Frans.

Yeah FCOM is too much functionality and kinda a pain to install for something I don't really need. Frans is fine with me, but the caliper bug is really bothering me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it only happens to bandits because the bandits are the only ones using the messed up loot tables with the faulty scripted calipers. So theoretically, if another NPC uses the same leveled list, it would also spawn with calipers, correct? Why are the lists for Marauders and Vampires not broken, I wonder? And why aren't the scripts working? And why is it only "sometimes", because for sure, during a new game, all bandits are clothed with a variety of similarly-powered equipment. I'm not sure if level matters because when I first installed Fran with my old save file of level 30-something, all bandits were fine and spawning with the new items, which got me excited to go looking for more bandits and their interesting loot. When I got to another bandit cave, suddenly they were all naked.

What do you mean by "nested" leveled lists? Does that mean the leveled lists are filled the traditional way instead of scripting? I feel like I should edit the mod and just fill those lists with generic items, just so I don't see those friggen naked bandits anymore, but I probably won't know what I'm doing and might just break the whole thing completely.

I'm using UFF and it doesn't have an underwear version, and it's kinda nasty and freaks me out when you see an ugly female bandit go around topless. o_O Not to mention how sad it is that the main abundant source of loot, the common bandit, is not performing its function in my game.

Maybe just make a small patch where the Bandits' levele loot is removed or swapped with something else that is working? I don't know enough about Frans to make that myself, though. And the Frans caretaker (Dewshine, I think) is not currently active.

If I recall correctly, the various creatures and NPCs have their normal inventory replaced with levelled lists. Those levelled lists contain these "calipers" with specific "calipers" having specific scripts. The "calipers" then gather information about the "container" (NPC or creature) and pass that information to a quest script and then start that quest. That quest script then does some calculation, passes data to another quest script and starts that quest while stopping itself. It continues through a series of quest scripts that get more specific in the type of items that are placed based on the type of NPC and skills that NPC has. In the final quest script the items are placed back on the NPC. Sometimes you can actually catch that happening with nvde NPCs suddenly gaining armor and weapons.

If any of those quest scripts fail for any reason, the NPC doesn't get that item and the "calipers" remain.

Nested levelled lists means that the levelled lists are pre-defined, not scripted, but each levelled list refers to other levelled lists which refer to other levelled lists. It's a long process to build, but its used to both randomize the items that appear, and to have some control over how often rare items appear.

Thanks for all the info. I have some better understanding of how it works now. Yeah I've noticed sometimes especially when fast traveling to some bandit locations that they start off nvde, but in a fraction of a second gain some armor. I didn't know that's how it worked.

However, I'd like to know why it happens to only some folks (I assume, as there aren't really a lot of topics about this), and why has it never affected other NPCs like Marauders in my game (at least, not in any of the numerous Marauder dungeons I've visited)? What's wrong with my game and what can I do to make sure those scripted calipers do their job and give the bandits their equipment?

I took a look at Frans ESM file and... as expected I don't understand anything. I found the calipers in Misc Items, and the quests and scripts they lead to, but none of it makes any sense to me. I was hoping I'd just find NPCs named Bandit with leveled lists that lead straight to calipers, and replace said lists and calipers with sets of armor or something, but it's such an tedious task following all the lists just to find something I'm not sure of in the first place.

Sometimes mod that alter the same leveledlist has Frans leveledlist wil make it happen so post your load order and I will look it over and see if I spot anything that could be making the problem worse for bandits.

Here's my load order. This is mostly re-ordered by BOSS, with minor edits by me (such as an unrelated bug concerning Adrenaline-Fueled Combat, which is why it's lower in the load order than BOSS suggested, among others), and of course the unknown mods that I ordered in the most sensible way I could. I've also omitted all the clothing and weapon mods because they make the list longer, and it's pretty certain that they don't affect anything. Also, for further information, installing Armamentarium for Fran didn't affect the caliper bug at all (got Armamentarium hoping that I'd get more items that might possibly replace some if not all of the calipers).

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I hope we discover something here. D: Also, it may be useful information that I have Wrye Bash but I haven't needed it for anything so far. I omitted my empty bashed patch as well. Aside from the Caliper bug and my Adrenaline Fueled Combat bug (and they are unrelated), I have no other known problems in my Oblivion right now.

You soon will notice you need this for All Natural. The indoor weather synchronization will not work properly without it.

I don't mean to switch topics, but would using Wrye Bash on it improve its performance? Because I'm actually thinking of turning All Natural off for a bit. Some interiors became really slow on my PC, which isn't really a gaming machine to begin with. I already disabled the Real Lights option, and while it's faster than the old buggy Real Lights mod by about 5 FPS, it's still not a viable option for me, and combat and even just walking around is kinda insane indoors unless I use TLB, which naturally makes everything hideous. I get 8-15 FPS in many (not all) interiors, with the new Real Lights version turned on (when it's off, I get 15-22 FPS or so in the same interiors), which really is as bad as it sounds. Prior to All Natural, I was getting 12-20 FPS, and using the old Real Lights I was getting less than 10 FPS, still talking about the same interior cells, which are mostly shops in Market District and certain dungeons.

Anyway, back to the original topic: I did some tests regarding the caliper bug using luck-based loot settings and waiting for all the cells to reset by sleeping in the mage guild for more than enough time according to my respawn settings, all bandits have been spawning with proper equipment (fast travel to known bandit dungeons). I was using hardcoe Loot by default, which I set via the installation, and I haven't messed with the options until now where I changed it to luck-based loot, following the instructions for loading ini settings added by the OBSE config add-on thing. I wonder if it's finally "fixed" or if it's one of those things that will probably pop up again after a while. o_o

The slow part is likely from the lights, not the weather. Removing the Real Lights part would improve things as far as performance. Wrye Bash won't change that one way or the other, and it has no use for the RL module anyway. Wrye Bash *IS* necessary to get the interior climate settings to work, which are what synch the weather up and provide the natural lighting and weather sounds.

I'll figure that out later then. So far my game has been fair weather or cloudy, practically the entire time. Running on a very slow timescale and I intentionally set fair and cloudy to be pretty long in the ini, because I like that kind of weather. ;D

Okay so back to the topic at hand, luck-based loot seems to be working fine from all my initial testing, which is in no way thorough btw. All I did was pop in on the bandits that I've known to spawn with calipers before, such as those added by the Bandit Hideouts mod, and bandits on roadsides (that clump together thanks to Smarter Bandits), all of which are just generic Bandits and use Fran's leveled lists. Sure enough, they're actually equipped properly with Fran stuff (and not a single caliper in the inventory, yay!). I checked a bunch of other bandit locations and so far so good.

I was going to ask you to check to see if some quests were running when you see this effect. I think quests not being stopped properly could cause this.

The other suggestion I dreamed up overnight was to replace the "caliper" scripted items with scripted armor pieces, so that at worst you'd get some bandits in lousy armor.

I don't mind lousy armor haha. I have all these bandits in my game because they're kinda like cannon fodder to me. A source of loot (even if it's not really expensive loot, but sometimes I get lucky with some magic stuff that sells well) and for training combat stats, and it's just fun to clear a room of bandits.

So, luck-based seems to be working out well for me now. At first my settings were kinda annoying because the loot was too good, as in there was magical items in each bandit (one bandit archer had all magical items), so I changed it in the ini and it's pretty nice now. Mostly cheap stuff you'd expect to find on a bandit, like fur and leather (and the cool-looking crude wooden bow). I'll see if it stays "fixed" like this as I level up and open up the new leveled lists.

Just wondering, how does one activate luck based loot? I'd love to use this, but I need to know how to turn it on before I can get mad lewt from my foes(yay massive luck).