I've been working on a Morrowind mod that's so far been focused on clockwork(I'm a big Dwemer fan but I don't like to follow lore in my mods). I wanted to add aliens to this mod as I'm a sci-fi fan. I've had a lot of ideas going around in my head about how to incorporate them into the main story, but nothing really seems to work. After a while, I decided it would be easiest if the player was able to play as an alien from the start rather than trying to make them fit in the storyline.

This brought up new problems for me. Having an "Orion" in the list of races with no further mention of the species doesn't seem quite deep enough, but if they were to appear later on, playing as one would be too much of a spoiler for the player. My best (albeit the most difficult) idea so far has been to change the beginning: The player would choose whether to be Orion or Tamrielic as soon as the starting cinematic was over. If the he/she chose Tamrielic, the game would begin where it normally did, with Jiub asking your name. If he/she chose Orion, the game would begin in a custom environment: the alien city, District of Heaven.

My question is, is this even possible to accomplish without hex editing? I know that the start postion is determined by the morrowind.ini file, but I figure one can work around this via scripting (coc after choosing race). Thanks in advance for any help.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but...

Maybe you could make a new cell with two objects in it, and each one which will teleport you to either area, where the chargen scripts will hopefully fall into effect like dominoes.

OR you could make a blank cell (totally black) where as soon as you spawn a message box asks you which to start as, with each choice teleporting you to the respective area where the chargen scripts will hopefully fall into effect like dominoes.

Then edit the morrowind.ini file to point to the new cell. Both assume that the chargen scripts will do that, as I'm not familiar with them.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=5793 starts you in a small room, where a popup box gives you different choices; once you make your choices, if you select some of the options you go to the standard prison ship opening, but if you make another, you start in a location of your choosing. I have no idea HOW the modder does it, but it sounds similar enough to what you want to do that it might be worth downloading the mod and opening it up to see if you can use the ideas.

It doesn't use any external programs, btw; so whatever he does, he does it without scripting any more complex than what the CS can handle. It doesn't require any .ini changes on the part of the person using it, either, if that helps at all.

Could you delete the starter cell and make one with the same ID ?

Hm...I don't want to edit the .ini files. I'm trying to make the mod rely ONLY on the data files folder, but it's starting to look like that might not work out.

Is it possible to make a startup script? Maybe the player starts in the prison ship (techincally) but is instantly teleported to a blank cell where the options pop up? If that wouldn't work, how about scripting a container near the starting position to teleport the player to the options cell?

The best alternative I can think of is to simply have the player be moved to the District of Heaven immediately after leaving the Census and Excise Offices. The DOH (<----ha) is meant to be more than just the intro; it'll have shops, a temple, prison, and all that nice stuff, but I just think it would be a lot cooler if it featured an entire intro for alien players.

If tou didn't want to change the .ini file, I suppose you could move all the objects in the prison ship over a few metres and put a little room where juib used to be. That way you could put a popup box asking wheter you want to be Nirnian (is that the adjective?) or alien. If you choose Nirnian (it doesn't sound right, maybe Nirninite?) it would transport you to another part of the same cell where juib is, and if you choose alien it would send you to the mothership.

It?s no problem to change the starting cell, just look up the "chargen" script, there is set that you get "teleported" to the beginning ship. You can chose any other place, I did it for a mod of mine and completely changed the beginning. So it is indeed possible, you just have to rewrite the chargen scripts.

There's a script that puts in the starting cell? VICTORY POKE! :poke: And if I can't figure that out, I'll just do what you said, Tricksy Hobbits.

Tamrielic, by the way....or did you mean Narnian? <_<