There were some requests that I "properly" release some of the smaller mods I made, like the magic AddEnVar standalone. Most of my smaller mods are really small, I don't think they all need an extra topic - so I just put them together here .

___________________________________
___________________________________

Cats and Rats 2.5b
Hi there,

do you remember http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=581430? It's a really cute mod from Martigen, which adds cats and rats to cities. They don't sit around the whole day, but cats are chasing rats, or seeking shelter from the rain, or do other cat things. Really cute.

Cats and Rats has to edit every guard, so that they ignore the cats and rats and don't go on a killing rampage. Now whenever a plugin adds a new guard, or changes existing ones, they'll cause havoc. So the poor little mod has many possible compatibility issues. Martigen had provided different esps for many big overhaul mods like OOO or Fran's, but this was nearly a year ago, and the files are long since outdated.

Martigen's workaround was the best solution overall - most reliable, least perfomance hungry. Although it needed to be done for each guard changing mod out there. I would be glad if someone would do it. Unfortunately I don't have time for this, and I don't know how many mods actually require a compatibility version.
The good news is there's another possible solution, and this is where I came in. A less reliable, a bit more perfomance hungry, but much more compatible approach. That way I had to do only one version, and it will be compatible with nearly everything. ReadMe see download.

http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=255

Picture: http://theelderscrolls.info/images/artikel/oblivion/krempel/news/catsandratsnews.jpg
___________________________________
___________________________________

Body Seam Reducer: High Elf Fix
0. What's this about?
1. Installation
2. Requirements
3. Incompatibilities
4. Last words
5. License

0. What's this about: Luchaire's Seam Reducer finally fixes the ugly body seams seen on various body mods. Unfortunately High Elves ended up with a yellow head and a pink body. To solve this I changed their textures to the Golden Saint ones, then tweaked their race texture settings so the skin tone is very similar to the old High Elven skin tone using the Imperial texture - but this time without color dissonances between head and body.

1. Installation: Put into Oblivion\Data and activate.
2. Requirements: Oblivion version 1.2, Shivering Isles, very likely Wrye Bash.
3. Incompatibilities: Everything else touching the High Elf race. You absolutely will need Bash to make it work with any other mod affecting races (like new hairs or eyes). I will include an adjusted file for my Race Balancing Mod in it's download. For everything else I offer absolutely no support whatsoever, because that's what Wrye Bash is for. A bit of work will be necessary to get it to work together with other race affecting mods.
4. I couldn't image playing without the Body Seam Reducer anymore, therefore I made this workaround. Great mod, and thanks again Luchaire! Oh and before I forget: If you have similar trouble with Redguards, install "Better Redguards".
5. This is just a small race tweak. Go crazy with it, do whatever you wish. Credits would be nice, though .

http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=346
___________________________________
___________________________________

Magic AddEnVar
Installation: Use either the English (EV) or German (DV) version, put it into your Data folder, check it and rebuild your bashed patch with "leveled lists" checked. It's not appearing because it doesn't need to appear, that's correct! It will be integrated automatically.

Content: Stand alone version of Less Annoying Magic Experience's "AddEnVar" module for people not using LAME. Adds many new spell combinations used by enemies to make fighting mages more diverse.

Compatibility: When installed correctly compatible with everything. Shouldn't be used together with LAME's AddEnVar for obvious reasons. Also mod interaction possible when used together with Mighty Magick or similar mods (AddEnVar's spells would be too weak).

Explanation: Someone asked me what I'm exactly meaning with more diverse offensive spells. Well, let's assume your expert destruction wizard can cast a 130 fire damage on touch spell (in OOO it would be more like 150, but let's stick to the lame values here). You can transform that spell a bit:
- fire damage 55 + frost damage 50 + shock damage 50 costs about as much as the above spell.
- fire damage 40 for 2 seconds + frost damage 30 for 2 seconds + shock damage 30 for 2 seconds costs about the same again
So with a little transformation the enemy can cast a spell which deals 70 damage more (200 instead of 130). Of course this spell has it's downsides, it requires some time to be effective (time for the player to drink a healing potion), and it's less effective against enemies resistant to shock or frost than the pure fire spell.
Another possibility therefore:
- fire damage 65 for 2 seconds + Weakness to Magic 50 for 10 seconds. Now this is evil, because the first spell will also deal 130 damage, but the second 195, the third 228, and rising... of course this has also it's weaknesses, because it's only effective if the enemy is hit more than once in a short period of time.
There are even other possibilities, like combinations with Dispel, Drain Strength, Disintegrate - all stuff you can get "for free" into the spell by turning it from instant to a short duration spell, and these side effects bring in more variety. And nasty surprises. There are tons of possible combinations. Nothing fancy like new script effects, only more efficient or nasty combinations of existing spells. The stuff magic players put together at the spellmaking altar .

http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=316

___________________________________
___________________________________

Enchantment and Hit Shaders
(Standalone of LAME's shader module)

Adds new shader to enchantments and magic hit effects. Stand alone of LAME's shader module. Will conflict heavily with all magic mods. Therefore load earlier, use Bash's import graphics function.

Except for bugs there will be NO support.
http://theelderscrolls.info/images/artikel/oblivion/krempel/news/lameshaderalphakl.jpg
http://theelderscrolls.info/images/artikel/oblivion/krempel/news/lameshaderalpha2kl.jpg
http://theelderscrolls.info/images/artikel/oblivion/krempel/news/lameshaderalpha3kl.jpg

http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=336

___________________________________
___________________________________

Enchantment Orb

Fulfilled request (Thraxonas): An item allowing to enchant stuff with all magic effects in game.

Buyable at Thoronir.

Legal: You can do whatever you wish with this mod, as long as credits are given. If you don't like the item's price or weight, adjust it in tes4edit.

http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=326
___________________________________
___________________________________

Protect Mortal Quest NPCs
Installation: The usual - put into Oblivion\Data and activate it.

Description: I hate babysitting suicidal quest NPCs, so this mod enhances their health and resistances so they don't die whenever they're trying to attack a Daedroth with a rusty dagger. But please be aware they're not immortal and can still die, it's just much more unlikely that this happens.

Known issues: Changes are done with a script, so no incompatibility problems. But Baurus, for some reasons, will always be shown as having halved health. Oh and if you want to sometimes kill these NPCs for whatever reason, you'll in for an epic fight.

http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=314

___________________________________
___________________________________

Combat Indicator

Installation: Put into your Oblivion\Data folder and activate it.

Description: Gives you a message "Combat" in the upper left screen whenever you're in combat. A fulfilled request for people playing without music or being deaf, wanting to be warned like usually the music does.

Known issues: None.

http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=315

As soon as I have a more powerful rig, I'll unleash the cats and rats in the better cities! :hehe:

Greetz and thanks! Darina

Excellent! My non-LAME paladin looks forward to suffering the same devastating magical attacks that my LAME'd-out rogue has to deal with! Er, if that makes sense...

I saw in the L.A.M.E. thread that AddEnVar II is released. Much appreciated. I'll update immediately.

EDIT: BTW, the earlier version - bgStandAloneSpellAddEnVar.esp - had {{BASH:Merge,Relev}} tags. I notice that the new one doesn't. Perhaps it doesn't matter?

Thanks

Thanks BG for fixing Cats and Rats. I didnt like it when guards killed them

Oh, I like the combat indicator. I don't play with music, and sometimes that would come in handy!

i was under the impression that cats and rats was unfinished and on hold?
so it really does work now with major guard changing mods?

Thanks for all comments ! (I'm really surprised that the combat indicator thingy has as much downloads as AddEnVar - it was a fulfilled request from ages ago and I didn't think anyone else would want to use it :blink:.)
Well, if you like LAME, I would suggest sticking with LAME's AddEnVar - that has a few features (new spells) the stand alone doesn't have (like new weapon summons and all that) .


Boring but short explanation : It was a leftover from the original LAME AddEnVar, but there weren't any relev and delev parts in the stand alone, therefore I (finally!) removed the now unnecessary tags .

Me neither!

I'm not really sure where this impression comes from, to be honest :huh:. Cats and Rats 2.5b was released http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=764521&hl=, and it works - with the limitations mentioned in the ReadMe .

As soon as someone sees the word limitation or incompatibility they assume that the mod is unfinished and will not work.

I'm going to try out your Cat's and Rats version to see if the performance change is noticeable.

Thanks for sharing and the linkys, will all these to the list ! ! ! !

The links for Cats and Rats are not working :shrug:

True. Although I ask myself: Which mod doesn't have limitations or incompatibilities ?

:)



None do at the moment. Server decided to eat it's own CPU or something. Should be back up tomorrow. I hope. Sorry for the downtime!

Hehe. No problemo. (Still doesn't work though bliviongate: )

Added two new mods. The Enchantment Orb done for Thraxonas and a standalone version of LAME's shader module - for those people who don't want to use LAME.

*falls asleep*

Heh, don't want LAME? Their loss! Just ordered 2 more GB RAM, when it is 4GB will definitely add Cats'N Rats, been drooling for it since you released the update...

And thank you for all!

One thing about the cats&rats mod, is there some way of removing rats from spawning in a certain location? They are swarming Frostcrag, to the point its almost unplayable due to the FPS drop, and also they sometimes swarm some dungeons with similar results.
I poked into the scripts and saw some that seem to control spawn chance for cities, interiors and dungeons. Perhaps if I lower these last two to 0 the problem will solve? I prefer to have them only at cities, where cats can control them!

True. I was quite... surprised reading the "please shaders but not LAME!" post in LAME's release thread :blink:. C&R is not RAM hungry. It's more a question of processor power. Let me put it like this: An old AMD Athlon may be overwhelmed...



To be honest I'm not happy about the rat spawn in general. Months ago I've asked if I should revamp it (to prevent these and similar issues), but all people were against it . Anyway, setting both to 0 could solve this problem, but I'm not exactly sure - you'd need to test it, I fear ._.

Rise again, thread!

*necromantic pvssyr*

New mod added:

I think Cats and Rats is a good idea, but to be honest I find this mod rather unimmersive, since most cats sleep (but with one ear open in case the refrigirator door opens) 16 hours a day and are mostly active at dusk and dawn. All the cats I've seen (only tried it in Leyawiin) was walking around in the middle of the day. Also, I htink there was too many of them.
I don't know if a sleeping animation actually exists, but if it does it would be great if the AI package could be changed to sleeping most of the day.
Also, fewer, but named cats that sleep inside their owners' building, would be great.

For the record, it exists :blink: :



PetrusOctavianus: Main problem for a more realistic cat behaviour is that there's no sleep animation for them. And knocking them down by fatigue drain to simulate sleeping may be a bit too much .

Not so sure about the "fewer", but named kitties in houses, guilds et cetera would be cool.

If bg2408 would like I could put together a patch that does that and if he likes it enough he could even include it in his cats and rats mod?
Can't help with the sleeping bit though.

Vac

I wonder if one of the farm animals sleep animation (MMM feature and NpcwithJobs feature only) will not work for them..have to look into this idle animation and see..



I would like to see a total rebuild of Cats and Rats but include Slof Dogs also. I have been thinking about this for a very long time..we rebuild using esm / esp to control things. Since we now have better tools and better understanding of how to build things now...1) main esm contains all records 2) Placement.esp - the direct modifications to cities itself / etc..3) esp's for faction settings (MMM, OOO, FCOM)

But I have been talking about doing this for a while, why don't I just do it..Get the base structure built first and then work on the ai, scripts, etc..

Corepc

Agreed. A combo Cats&Rats + Dogs would be a great thing IMHO.

I'd love to see it, as well.

Yes I agree as well, it'd be nice to see them in the game in not too large numbers.