How many times can you safely reference the same person or object in one script? I would like to make a script so that it checks for and removes 34 different factions (or just deletes all factions the actor is in), but I'm not sure if the game would just stop processing that after doing the first few. Also, it needs to only affect the reference, not the base actor. I would like to know if this is possible, or if I will just have to let unwanted factions act as a wild card in my mod.

Asfar as I know, there is NO limit to how many times you can reference the same object-- I've had scripts which reference the Player a couple of hundred times, and there's not been any problem at all

I believe "This" is the command you need to get just the Reference, as "GetSelf" will also call the Base Reference-- but I am not completely sure on this, so hopefully someone else will confirm/correct that

Mind explaining why you need to remove ALL factions? Usually only a single faction affects anything in the game (ownership, reactions etc). There aren't any script functions that allow a test with a wildcard, (or your request would have been trivial, too!), so I don't understand why you need to remove any more than one or two that directly relate to the quest.

The main concern is that you may be making a mod that is automatically incompatible with any other mod that uses factions - ones that yours can't possibly know about. Most quests mods will add several new ones, if only to make a character sleep in his own bed.

(Edit:) Nevermind, just found your other thread. You'll need OBSE. That has a pair of functions to get a list of the NPC's factions, and let you retrieve each one in turn (GetNumFactions and GetNthFaction) so you can set the rank to -1 in each.

However, I'd still expect potential problems here. There are a few cases where an NPC is placed into a faction to prevent them from attacking the player or another NPC and breaking a quest. You're removing those safety nets, and could have problems.

Only base actors belong to factions. It's not possible to add or remove select actor references from factions without affecting the base object.

"this" and "getself" are two names for exactly the same function returning the calling reference.

There is no limit to how many times you can refer to a particular object in a script, or for that matter how many unique objects a script can refer to.

I second ghastley's comments about mod compatibility.

I'm not sure about this... I recall a thread recently, where it was mentioned that "GetSelf" returns the base Reference on NPCS (hence why Spells get Added to all future versions, for example), and "This" returns the actual instance... But I've not messed with it too much, and can't recall the thread, so I may just be misunderstanding it... The CS Wiki doesn't say anything about this, and does confirm what you're saying that they're the same, so... :shrug:

Edit:
Found it


From this Thread : http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1080073-unholy-darkness-complete-vampire-overhaul/page__hl__GetSelf__st__60

Looking at it, yes, it sounds like I just misinterpeted the meaning (I.e., "GetSelf == BaseRef", This==InstanceRef").

They have the same opcode and do the same thing.
The quote you posted is a couple of months old so there's probably no point in correcting it in the original thread, but it shouldn't be taken as fact.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1080785-does-getself-work-in-dialogue-result-scripts/ where a difference between this and getSelf is reported - so what happens finally :confused:

Scruggsy and the OBSE team have done more work on Oblivion's functions than anyone-- if he says they're the same, they probably are So GetSelf and This should be the same

Yes I know - I just wanted him to explain what happens in http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1080785-does-getself-work-in-dialogue-result-scripts/, which I forgot to link to
Curiosity

News to me.

Both getSelf and this produce compiler errors if used in expressions like

this.disablemoveto this

The editor appears to do a direct string comparison of script text against "getself" when loading scripts on carryable objects. This should have no effect on runtime behavior.

In case it's not clear: every command can have two different names. Both names refer to the same opcode, parse routine, runtime handler, etc.

Thanks