This is my first public mod.

You can find it at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29523 or http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=6100.

This mod adds one road North of Skingrad to Chorrol and another between Anvil and Kvatch to Chorrol. I was careful not to step on any Unique Landscapes project published at the present. I tested it with many mods I already use and I see no problem except maybe some grass crawling on my paths. I didn't mess around with road records either. I always felt roads were missing in these parts, so I added them. Enjoy!

Update 1.3
- Addon road for "One of the Gang"
- Better compatibility for UL-River Ethe
- Fixed land tearing

Simply overwrite previous version, and/or make a clean save.


ReadMe:
Name: West Roads
Version: 1.3
Date: 04/11/2010
Author: mariedanj
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Description
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Adds two roads and sign posts from Skingrad (-16,3) to Chorrol (-14,19) and halfway between Anvil and Kvatch (-42,-4) to Chorrol (-21,21).
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Requirement
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Oblivion 1.2.0.416
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Installation
============
Overwrite previous version.
omod
----
omod-ready.

Manual
------
Put "West Roads.esp" in your data folder.
If you have "Villages1.1" by martinb, put "WR Villages Addon.esp" in your data folder, after "Villages1.1.esp" and "West Roads.esp". This will link West Roads to Fort Turjak. If you have "One of the Gang" by The Real Neraverine, put the addon "WR OotG Addon.esp" after "TRN One of the Gang.esp" and "West Roads". This will add a road and act as a patch.
==>>If you use both addons, put "WR OotG addon.esp" before "WR Villages Addon.esp".
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Uninstallation
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Deactivate or delete the espz.
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Compatibility
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- Compatible with Unique Landscapes, specifically "UL-Chorrol Hinterland", "UL-Ancient Redwood" "UL-Skingrad Outskirt" and "UL-River Ethe".
- Compatible with "New Roads and Bridges".
- Compatible with "Integration - Stranded Light"
- Compatible with "OOO"
- Compatible with "Kvatch Rebuilt"
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Known Issues
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Mods that add flora or statics may cause things to appear on the roads.
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Recommendation
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Using this mod with NRB4 by Ukrr & Arthmoor is even better.
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Credits
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Bethesda Softworks for TES4 Oblivion and Construction Set.
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Licensing and Legal
===================
Free use, just give me credit when applies.
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Version History
===============
v.1.3
- Addon/patch for "One of the Gang" by The Real Nerevarine
- Fixed compatibility with UL - River Ethe
- Land tearing
v.1.2
- Rerouted for better compatibility with "OOO", "Kvatch Rebuilt" and "UL-SO" (no patch needed).
- Fixed Floaters, again
- Included optional world maps
v.1.1
- Addon for Villages by martinb with Dragon Captions
- Fixed "Integration" compatibility
- Removed Spawn Points for a safer trip
- Polishing landscape
- Fixed floaters
v.1.0
-Initial release.

Thank you!

Looks good and I like that it is compatible with UL.

I figured, what was the point otherwise? :shrug: UL is so popular, can't ignore it.

UL compatible? I LOVE IT ALREADY!

I wonder if this is compatible with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4890 fort Turjak?

Only one way to find out ...

Also was there any suppression of spawn points?

It would be cool if it was passing right through http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/4890-1190305908.jpg. There's part of the road already but it doesn't lead anywhere.

Does this include a updated road record so that npc will follow the road and use it..?

edit: nope no modifed road record,

talk to arthmoor he may be able to assit you in making a updated road record so that npc will use it..

I think Arthmoor is eying this for inclusion in NRB (I hope so anyway).

I just took a tour of both roads and I have to say that I'm impressed by how much apparent consideration was given to existing mods. The roads darted around Saurok's Forgotten Tower, Houses placed by Hoarfrost Castle and VHB Bloodlines, not to mention the ULs and since the west most road took a mountain pass no worries over village Turjak.

I liked the mountain pass it seemd appropriate that a nature reserve is kept reserved from infrastructure (not that many other mods haven't placed their stuff there). No spawn points supressed so OOO/FCOM users beware there is some serious encounters along these roads - giants at level one type thing. Perhaps a consideration for MMM safer destination/roads variant.

Critically - the gradients were extreme in certain parts (but vanilla has plenty of that). And the the road changes from paved (or cobbled) to trail would make sense more with a destination at the end of the paved part.
I'd keep the road through the forest (up from Skingrad) more trail testiured than road though - and then why not a trail to Hackdirt a mere 30' feet of the trail as it is.
Also certain areas of the forest trail diverted for no reason - making it seem more trail like. If they were going to pave (or cobble depending upon texture pack) then they would not go around a tree - hence making it seem more trail oriented.
Certain areas of both roads could do with more of the flatten vertices tool.

Pretty darn cool.

I wouldn't mind including this into NRB4, it wasn't exactly planned for that, but it could be done assuming nobody objects and folks actually want that. Probably with adjustments to the trail/paving issues.

Lore-wise, Hackdirt is an isolationist village full of hostile people. The empire burnt the place down once and the villagers rebuilt it. I seriously doubt there would be any consideration by road builders to connect it since the folks there don't want to be bothered.

By the time the road gets to hackdirt (it really is just like 30 feet away anway) the road has been reduced to what looks like a well used dirt trail. That part of the road is spooky and looks abandoned. But then no pathing yet.

Any chance you would consider adding a trail to Bleaker's Way from the silver road to Bruma as well if you update NRB? They're not isolationists are they?

I wouldn't mind if you did include it in NRB4, I made it for myself as an expansion anyway.

As for Hackdirt, I specifically ignored it for that reason. Although, I didn't think I would be that close to the village.

I agree that the cobblestone is quite bizarre between Skingrad and Chorrol, but it's worst with UL or other mods installed since grass pop up everywhere. With only Oblivion, the road is quite clear... but who plays with only OB nowadays?

I have to test this mod! Sounds great Thank you.

I walk both roads and they look really good. In particular the road from Chorrol to Anvil/Kvatch looks great. I think the road between Skingrad and Chorrol seems to need a bit polishing. I agree with Psymon path/trail texture probably suits there better than paved one.
I noticed there is a hut added by Integration in the way.
http://yfrog.com/b6screenshot30ij

and also a floating rock
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/3894/screenshot29d.jpg

Ok, I've installed Integration and I'm working around the problem, thank you for your feedback.

As for the rock, the culprit is Unofficial Oblivion Patch. I'll see what I can do.

Console, "disable", Enter and everybody happy without you having to worry about.

Been out wandering and walked the western road. The general path is pretty good, but I tend to think the use of pavement is inconsistent. I'd either use it for the whole length, or switch to using dirt paths instead.

Also, the actual roadway could use some leveling out. There's an awful lot of it that's slanted to one side or the other. I don't mean the inclines. There's parts of it that feel like the Empire paved sideways on a hill.

Over all, a great addition.

As far as the UOP and that rock, just move it in your own plugin and the UOP edit will be canceled out. Easy.

That rock doesn't show in my plugin, but I moved the landscape instead so it's not floating anymore.

The rock was probably buried underground then and got moved to the surface by the UOP. A lot of that sort of thing is what the UOP does

Good idea. I've checked this out and it would be easily done. Well, maybe not passing through but at least connecting to it.


I've corrected a few things with "Integration" and polished the landscape. I will suppress a few spawn points to make it safer. Are there any other incompatibilities I should know about before I update?

Update!!!

I released version 1.1 which fixes floaters and compatibilities (see first post for details). I followed Washinton's idea to add a road to Fort Turjak for those who have Villages1.1 installed. It is optionnal.

I will eventually work on road records, though I technically know how to do that, I don't know what details I should know about before I venture there. That is, do I have to make patches for other mods, like NRB4 and the like? Should it be included or should it be another plugin? When that is done, eventually, I will add patrol guards.

Question: I wanted to edit the original OB map to include my roads but I messed it up. I'm using PaintShop Pro 7 (getting old, I know) with the dds plugin. I keep losing quality: http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/mariedanj/Oblivion/?action=view¤t=map2.jpg map, my http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/mariedanj/Oblivion/?action=view¤t=map1.jpg map. What are the proper saving charateristics?

Thank you for you comments and ideas!

thanx for the update

The road record is winner take all for the entire Tamriel worldspace. Patching it is not possible, you would basically need to to have several different combinations of mods set up to handle it with each combo generating its own record.

Doing this is pretty tricky though. You can't just jump in and tell the CS to generate because it will give you a really big mess for a result. What I end up doing for the UOP, OC, or NRB4 (and combos) is use an ESP where I've stripped the ENTIRE worldspace of path grids. Yes, it took a long time to pull that off. The reason being is that you can only use two blue path nodes per cell to get proper connections. Anything above that and the CS starts making shortcut connections through things you may not want it to. This is the reason the UOP even needed to do this, because Bethesda's own record is a giant mess with some paths leading NPCs to jump from bridges.

As far as your issue with .dds file editing, you should check into Paint.NET which handles .dds files natively. No crazy plugins needed unless you have to generate normal maps for things.

I've got heaps of village and manor mods and I don't even know where they all lie. I'm afraid of those ugly big cracks in the terrain that I often see and fight in my game :/ otherwise I'd download right away.

Oh my! This is harder than I thought! :wacko:

Can I still place patrol guards that will follow the road or should I place dozens of marker for them to follow?
...what did I get myself into... :facepalm:

And thanks for Paint.Net, I didn't know that.


I've tested it with Villages1.1, Expanded Villages, Integration, Lost Spires, Unique Landscapes, all Official Plugins... so far so good.