"The time has come!"
- The Walrus, Alice in Wonderland

Indeed, the time has come to revisit Oblivion. It's been a while, and better hardware has had time to proliferate while, sadly, better software has been slow to follow suit.

Fortunately we still have a gorgeous game such as this! I figured what better for a journey back to Tamriel than an explorer's companion mod, something useful, and which provides the immersion and functionality of some of the other portable campsite mods, with a bit of a twist.

One example would be no more dragging placement stuff around to position where your tent will be. Just cast the spell and it will appear directly in front of you with the door facing forward every time. Also, exiting the tent will return you to exactly where you were when you entered.

So, this mod adds one camping pack to the game, located out in the open in the Market District, just across from Edgar's Discount Spells behind the statue (it looks like a large sack; see included "location.jpg" for clear directions.)

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1101285-relz-phinix-portable-ashlander-tent/page__view__findpost__p__16114113 Version 1.2 implements a rudimentary weather tracking system. Essentially what it does is make a note of the current weather when you enter the tent, and forces that weather when you exit, to avoid the annoying MoveTo "feature" of otherwise having a random weather anytime you left the tent.


TES Nexus:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32652

Planet Eldre Scrolls:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=6337


Installation:

Just copy the included files to your Oblivion\Data folder. Feel safe in saying "yes" when warned the folders already exist. I have tucked all my custom meshes and sounds away in "phinix" sub folders. Nothing from the vanilla game was changed, apart from placing the pack in the Market District storage as mentioned above.

Click the pack and it will be added to your spell list as a Lesser Power called "Make Camp." Simply cast this spell anytime to assemble your tent. Casting the spell while the tent is out will pack it away (you can also do this by activating it while sneaking.)

Inside you will find modest accommodations, a (reasonably) comfy bedroll, and some storage, just what you would need to weather a storm. (Incidentally, if it is currently raining when you enter the tent, you can listen to the splash of rain on the canvas roof.)

I have done my best to provide for this rudimentary functionality without being totally over the top. Basically think of it as everything you could carry via pack Guar.

Update: Removed the check on interior cells, so now the only place you can't use this is inside the tent itself.


Details for the Mod Conscious:

Verified clean with TES4Edit.

All containers are unique and set to never respawn, so you will never lose your stored items.

None of the weather checks use the "override" flag, so there is no fear of getting locked on a particular weather style.

This mod does all of its placements using MoveTo rather than PlaceAtMe and therefore will not cause issues with save game bloating, since the placements are all done on a single set of persistent references instead of constantly creating new ones.

A note on remodeling:

Anyone can freely remodel anything about the interior of the tent without breaking the scripts. Just make sure you leave the door and tent itself alone. Anything else can be moved, added, deleted, etc. To do so just open the mod in the editor, and from the Cell View window select Interiors, then double-click "phinixPortableTent."

Feel free to message me if you wish to use this in anything public.

Enjoy!

Just a minor update: Removed the check on interior cells, so now the only place you can't use this is inside the tent itself.

Very nice! Just a simple tent, not a mansion, love it! Oh and I saw the comment on Nexus about the icon for the spell. There's a new mod called Custom Icons, it requires OBSE but you can assign any icon to a spell. Thanks again and Welcome back!

:foodndrink:

Welcome back to Tamriel! :wave:

Now this is more like it! I've always liked the Ashlander-style tents... have been using separate bedroll/campsite items, but always have the problem of placement--at least half the time when I activate the bedroll, it disappears into the landscape, never to be seen again. :facepalm: And most of my guys are common folk who will never see the inside of a mansion, let alone carry one on their backs. :laugh: Thank you for keeping its furnishings simple!
I'll give it a run with companions and with See You Sleep...

ETA: Works a charm--although it makes me almost feel guilty, because setting up camp is almost too easy in comparison. But I did say almost ... I think it's a fair enough trade--sure beats having to restore back to reclaim my bedroll (or suffer the consequences of going too long without sleep). Thank you! :trophy:

This was just what i needed in my new game. I am to broke to buy any houses or house upgrades, but i really need a place to store my stuff. So a simple tent like this just makes sense for a bum like me. One day ill move up in the world and get a house but for now this is all i need.

Thanks all for the positive comments!

Just a quick but significant update: Version 1.2 implements a rudimentary weather tracking system. Essentially what it does is make a note of the current weather when you enter the tent, and forces that weather when you exit, to avoid the annoying MoveTo "feature" of otherwise having a random weather anytime you left the tent.

All standard Oblivion and Shivering Isles weather types are supported. Additionally, if you are using mods that add new types such as Enhanced Weather, it is able to do some basic checks like "is it raining, snowing, cloudy, pleasant?", and will set the weather to an appropriate match on exit to blend as seamlessly as possible for the sake of immersion.

Keep in mind the way these checks work in the game engine is that "current weather" is the weather being transitioned to, so if you enter the tent and it is currently cloudy, there is a chance it will be raining when you exit if that is what it was actually transitioning to.

The weather system begins to process and transition as normal as soon as the exiting type is set to what it was when you entered the tent, and so runs seamlessly as possible.

I'm currently working on an optional OBSE version which will allow for exact matching to any weather type from any mod, but I thought a vanilla version would be nice in the meantime.

Also, I'm contemplating the notion of adding some additional logic to the checks. For example, I may work in a check on how much game time has passed since you entered the tent, and have it randomly select a new weather relevant to what it was when you entered on the timeline of that variable. So, say it was raining when you entered, and you rested for 4 hours. There could be something like a 40% change it would still be raining, 40% change of clouds, 20% chance of thunderstorms, or something like that.

Well i already use All Natural which keeps weather on transition so ill have to stick with this version. Sounds from weather outside also work with your tent, however for some reason the sounds get really loud in your tent compared to other places. If you want compatability with all natural which imo is the only weather mod to use now a days, its probably best to have one version that doesn't mess with stuff like weather at all.

I'll definitely re-upload the 1.01 version without the weather checks when I get home. Thing is, I don't think even a mod such as the one you describe would be able to handle the way Oblivion deals with the MoveTo command that makes the teleport possible. To test it open the console and type player.MoveTo player and observe the result. In all my tests, even with a mod that is also keeping things in transition, it still causes an instant reset of whatever the current weather is doing which is totally random. Could go from sunshine to thunderstorms with no transition at all.

I guess its not that big a deal, like I said I'll re-upload 1.01. But for some reason it was really bugging the crap out of me.

Well i dunno how all natural does it but it does work. When i use the tent the weather always stays the same. I did try your move to command though and it does indeed change weather each time, but yeah it doesn't happen when you actually change zone into the tent with all natural active. I am guessing it is because it doesn't actually prevent the weather from changing but instead it remembers the weather and re sets it as you enter new area. And yeah i just realized thats pretty much what your trying to do lol.

Ha, yeah. "Trying" being the operative word! Actually I know how they do it with OBSE. There's a nice little function that allows you to get the actual ID of whatever the current weather is from any mod and store it as a variable, which you can then reset the same way I am with the stock Oblivion and Shivering Isles weathers.

In theory the only time my mod should touch any weather added by another mod is if it happened to be say raining when you entered the tent, and that rain was a custom rain added by another mod. It would then get reset to the stock Oblivion version of rain when you left the tent.

I have re-uploaded the current version with an alternate .ESP in a sub-folder which you can opt to use if you like. Basically it functions the same, but the checks on any non-vanilla weather have been removed.

Keep in mind that if the weather mod you use isn’t specifically coded to handle cell teleports with the MoveTo command (which it sounds like Natural Weather does just fine), you might still run into a random weather on exit since my mod only resets the weather if it was a stock Oblivion or Shivering Isles style when you entered.

For those who run into that and find it to be a problem, the default .ESP provides a happy medium. It is safe to switch back and forth so long as you do not rename either file, and simply overwrite whichever you were using with the alternate version you wish to test.

My worry is if you have a version that does a check weather at all it might mess up all natural, all natural uses vanilla weather and all other weather mods so having two mods that try and do the same thing is usually a bad idea. I am happy with the version have though just thought i would mention that it would be attractive to have one version with no check whatsoever even vanilla.

Well, I am confident there is no need to worry as the method used will not conflict for what it does, however I have taken your request to heart and uploaded a new version which includes a third .esp with no weather checks at all. This will result in the default Oblivion behavior of generating a random weather every time you leave the tent, even for stock weather not added by a mod, unless you have another mod that specifically handles this (I have seen several that do not.)

I recommend the default version as the most compatible as it maintains the vanilla weather where any other mod would do the same and also picks up the slack for some cases where a weather mod doesn't handle this specific function. Keep in mind this only applies to entering or leaving the tent. It does nothing with the weather any other time.

The “only check for stock weathers” version is good if your weather mod handles maintaining its own styles even with custom MoveTo cell changes, since the code for how my mod keeps track of weather only looks at the stock versions and leaves out the generic weather state checks of the default version. So, if the weather isn’t stock Oblivion rain or stock SI Fog or whatever my mod does nothing, leaving all conditions where an alternate style is loaded to be handled (or not) by the weather mod that added it. Having both doing the same thing for stock weathers however will not conflict, and the weather continues to transition as normal, defined by either Oblivion itself or whatever mod you happen to use.

You’re right though, it’s good to have options.