Ranger Tent - Carry-able Home

Released and ready for download at My Mod Site!

This is a carry-able tent home. Buy one from Ra'Virr the Trader. Drop it into the world to pitch your tent. Click on it to pick it up, or enter. This started out as a part of the Circle of Rangers mod, but Stormy and I have decided to release it ahead-of-time as a stand-alone mod.

First the new meshes:
Ranger Tent - Exterior
Interior

Tent itself is a set of brand new meshes and textures by me. Since the beta I've changed the mesh slightly. Raised it up a bit, and finally got my vertex shaders working. Exterior has a companion pulsing light, making it glow gently at night, giving the impression of a fire within. Click on the exterior to get a choice of entering the tent, or picking it up.

Interior has some new container hanging sack meshes (modified TES ones) These are scripted to swing gently back-and-forth. Two baskets, a small chest, and a pot in the fire provide further storage. Hammock and fire-pit add a homey feel.

Some more shots:
Camp by Day
Camp at Night
Really looks sweet at night lit up. Hard to tell from the shots.

Some cool spots to camp:
Mountaintop Camp
Mushroomtop Camp

Technical Details

A solid activator gets spawned for the tent exterior when the inventory dummy gets dropped. This is so it has collision. It goes in front of the player by 512 units. A light gets spawned into the player's inventory, then dropped and moved to the tent pos. This is so it lights the world correctly from the go-get. Both get permanently deleted and the dummy added back to the player when it's picked up. I did not notice any weirdness with non-deleted lights.

Interior is, of course, a standard cell. So the player's items are safe when left in there. To exit we go first to a known exterior cell (16, 16) then to the stored float var. This does not use any Mark spots, so recall/multi-mark/other "pocket home" mods will not be harmed.

I've prevented pitching the tent; while in an interior cell. This is to prevent clipping issues, it's a pretty big mesh. Also the scripting gets much easier if you only have to send the player back to the exterior. I've also prevented dropping one while underwater, and while levitating. I had tents disappear in both those cases, prolly to 0, 0, 0. Sometimes the game decides 512 units in front of the player is not a "safe" spot, so it moves the tent someplace odd. I check to make sure it didn't go too close, or too far, and if so give it back to the player. I now check to see if the tent is pitched in the game-world or not, and if the player recalls, or CoCs, to the interior I send them back to where they made camp last.

Weight is 150, cost 1,275. I want it to be fairly heavy to carry, to offset the convenience the player gains. At 150 even a player with the lowest possible strength, 30, can carry it provided they drop everything else. This is so they don't get stuck after buying one, because you can't drop it indoors.

Companions set to AI follow will not teleport into the tent with you, don't think that's possible. It's fairly cramped and you prolly wouldn't want them in there anyway. They will wait outside the tent for you.

Requires both the expansions, or GotY. This is because of the updated scripting functions. Can't be helped.

Thank you to the folks who beta tested for me; Mechafox, Shadow_user,
Redds, Korana, and Coleen. And also to Nigedo for the exit-tent script (on the old board)

Released and ready for download at My Mod Site!

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I have a serious problem. I stored a bunch of stuff in the containers and did a trial load/unload to check if everything was being stored - no problem. Two days later, I reloaded the save and found many items missing! The basket on the floor was OK but the hanging bags were empty. I clicked on the bags a few times in disbelief and one item appeared, clicked again it's gone... same for both bags. What happened?

I had the same exact problem, along with doubling. I had a save (thank goodness) from earlier, but from now on I am avoiding storing stuff in the tent- my strategy is to put the bottle home in the tent and drop stuff there

Hrm, not sure what would cause that. They are really just normal containers, in a normal interior cell. I double-checked just now, and they are not set to respawn, which is the only way I know to reset containers. Plus, none of my testers noticed this.

Are you -sure- you're clicking on the -same- sack each time? They move, and if you stand in the right spot you can click on one or the other, as they swing closer and further from you.

Did you open the mod in the Construction Set, or any other utility, and save? That could cause the containers to empty.

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never had that problem. I don't store things in active objects (swinging bags) baaaad mojo! they tend to eat their contents..

Nope, didn't open/save it- I did take a peek at it but I don't remember saving, and even if I had that was before I put anything in the sacks. I am pretty sure I was clicking the right sack, I stored everything in the lower sack and activated it from the front, so I don't think I could have selected the wrong one. I also got doubled sacks.

Honesty, the only way I know for that to happen is if you open the mod in the CS and futz with it. I know for a fact the file date stamp can change, even if you don't hit save. And that's how doubling happens.

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Ah, ok. Well, if this happens again I will certainly tell you.

Dongle, love the tent mod but I have a question for you. Your Galleon mod is frikkin awesome. Do you plan on updating it to include an interior? I was impressed with the lovin you gave the exterior but was a little disappointed that I couldn't go tromping inside.

Your lighthouse, galleon, windmill, and balloon are permanent fixtures in my game.

quick question: do the scripts lead to any sort of degradation in performance whatsoever?

No, I never opened the CS. I clicked on both without question - on both hanging bags one item appeared and disappeared on alternate checks. Unfortunatlely, I removed the items so I can't check it again. I really like this mod but now I'm afraid to use it anymore.

I don't actually know but I don't see why they would... they don't run all the time.

k, just had to be sure. looks great. going to try it now.

fragonard -

I just spent the better part of an hour checking sacks, entering, exiting, saving loading, resting, quitting, restarting. The two rings I left in the sacks are still there, no matter what I do. And only two sacks are there.

Not saying you didn't have it happen, just that I can't do anything to fix it if I can't make it happen. I don't know what I'd change in any case, it's just a normal container. I'm truly sorry about that.

If you're truly paranoid about it, use the mod, but don't put anything in the sacks.

rotak -

I'm very careful about my scripting and always make sure they shut down after they do what they do. When you are outside the tent there are -no- scripts running constantly, only when you pick up and put down the tent. They last for may two seconds.

The tent itself is 1,400 polys. Not enough to cause an FPS hit, no matter where you leave it.


Eirinjas -

Thanks! The Galleon is meant as a modders resource. For folks to put in their mods and decorate. There are three interior options for modders to use. The mod I include was just what I used to test FPS in Ebonheart, not meant to be the last word in finished ship mods.

I dislike doing version after version of slightly different models and tend to move on. So, likely no more ships from me.

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That's cool. Listen, I got a Athlon XP 1900+ and I saw no slowdown from the galleon. The majority of slowdown I get in game seems to be tied mostly to having too many npc characters in an area. Like, running Kagz Rabbit mod along with some of his other animal mods brings the FPS down for me.

I also had a problem with losing some items in the sacks...there also appears to be a doubling issue with the sacks (sort of like four overlapping sacks that you can just see when they swing and move). I'm guessing it's because I'm a pansy and tried to lower the weight in the CS That's what I get...oh well. I emptied it, and I'm gonna reinstall the tent plugin, and see if that won't help.

Here's a thought for anyone who is encountering the doubling issue: Did any of you add more mods to your game or change any of your existing mods in any way (including loading in the CS and saving to update the timestamp, or cleaning, or anything like that)? Things like that are often the cause of doubling issues.

If either scenario I mentioned above is the case, then it is not a problem with Dongle's mod, but rather YOUR game, and there is nothing Dongle can do to fix it.

** EDIT **

Editing a mod for any reason while that mod is active in your game is a big no-no. That pretty much always causes such issues. In fact, in almost a year and half of modding and playing Morrowind, I have yet to see a single mod where doing that would not cause problems with your game (doubling, mod breaking completely, etc.).

This post has been edited by baratheon79: Oct 10 2004, 03:37 AM

Yep, i never had any of above related pbls with this wonderfull plugin:)

Yeah, essentially what happens is the game gets confused between the data in your save game, and the data in the mod. So it does both.

Fer instance; You load up the tent mod, buy a tent from Ra'Virr and save. Now the save game makes a note of the fact that Ra'Virr no longer has the tent, the player does. Then you make some changes to the mod and it gets updated with a newer file date. Now when the game gets started it thinks this updated mod is a new one, and it adds another tent to Ra'Virr. The save game gets loaded with the data about the tent in the Player's inventory, so it gives you one too. Hence doubling. (this is a simplified example, and prolly not happening to anyone, but you get the picture)

I've seen the editor update a mod's date without "save" being pressed, or even making any real changes to the mod. All you need to do is open it in the editor.

This doubling thing can happen to anything the player interacts with. NPCs, containers, doors, etc - even the banners that flap in the wind.

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Yeah... it's nasty.

Especially when it happens to some mod like Balmora Expanded, and you have two buildings, for every one, but you just can't tell. But you can sure tell your framerate SUCKS.

Actually every time my framerate dips real low, I console and pick some static at random and type disable... if it doesn't disappear, I know it's doubled, and so is EVERYTHING else in the area.

Heh, when I was first starting to script the tent I had a typo in there; Instead of adding one tent 512 units away from the player, I was adding 512 tents to the world in same spot! And there I was wondering why my 1,400 poly tent is slowing the game down so much.

I can just imagine it on my end...

:fade in:

:stretch: Well I'm tired, guess I'll set up camp.

:takes out tent:

:framerate drops to null:

CRAP. :console: :click: disable
....

hmm... DISABLE...

what the,.... DELETED, err I mean DISABLE!!!

reviving this old thread , because one its awsome and two ,,, I cant get it to work right , I have the dreaded yellow blobs of doom!! yes I put all Icons , meshes , textures in the right place, I even removed them and placed a second time , and still ellow blobs of doom... I guess I wasnt ment to have this wonderful mod but thans for it anyways

The only thing that can give you the yellow boxes is if the game can't find the meshes. Sorry, but that means there is a 99% chance you didn't get the meshes in the correct directory, provided you didn't edit the mod in the Construction Set.

They should go in Morrowind\Data Files\Meshes\DGL\
You should have four .nif files in there in all, all starting with "RangerTent".
Check and make double-sure they are there and get back to me. . . .

pics dont work???

Cleaned out the old pics on my server, try here: http://www.deffeyes.com/morrowind/mods.html

i love you dude(in a non gay way) this is awsome i actually got it to work to.

Ok I found the problem,, every time I put the DGl folder into the proper folders (icons, meshes, etc) it got sucked into a sub folder I moved everything and am hoping it works now , as for the cs I rarely open it but am becoming more advanturous
thanks for the quick response btw

Just 2 pics of My home - furnitures and tools created in game tks to Morrowind crafting.
Pic 1
Pic2
Im using this tent since long and the only thing I can sday about is a must have always 1.

It should be a sub-folder under "Meshes" of "DGL", but not a subfolder under "DGL". You should be able to unzip it all to a temp folder. Unless you're using an ancient .zip prog it should preserve the directory structure. Then drag the whole "Data Files" folder over to your "Data Files" folder in one go. You'll be asked if it's OK to overwrite files, say yes, all my names are unique and won't mess up other mods.

Nice pics Gen! glad you're making good use of it.

yeah as I said I think I have it... every time I dropped and dragd the dgl folder dropped into another sub folder (silly me) I have installed over 200 + mods by hand first time I had one drop into another folder as I said ty for this excellent mod and your quick response

I just want to say this mod is simply awesome.