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Name: Unnecessary Violence (UV)
Author: HeX
Version: RC1 (Public Beta)
Date: 6/6/2009
Category: Gameplay Effects and Changes
Requirements: Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.416, Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) v17 or better, Nifscript , Pluggy 1.25b (HUD Version)* , Unofficial Oblivion Patch**, Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch** (if Shivering Isles is installed).
* Pluggy is only required for the FFP Crosshair (see below). If you are unable or unwilling to to use pluggy then you can either disable the FFP crosshair or disable FFP mode altogether in the INI.
** UOP/USIP are only required for FFP mode. If you are unable or unwilling to use them because you are insane, then disabling FFP in the INI will negate the need for them.
Recommended: Oblivion Mod Manager and/or Wrye Bash
Note: It is very important that you read all of this readme. There is something you have to do before playing (not just installing obse, pluggy and nifscript). If you don't do it UV will kill your character. I will not respond to queries by people too lazy to read the instructions. Ask me a question that's answered in here and risk being insta-blocked.
Description
Welcome to Unnecessary Violence. This mod sets a new bar for oblivion's combat system. It offers true dual wielding with any weapon from vanilla or any mod, throwing objects (literally any object) and throwing people (judo style), the ability to change your grip on a weapon, the ability to kick in combat, melee with bows and staffs, hand to hand attacks with your weapon sheathed, exploding potions, soul gems that show and can release the spirits of what you trapped, the ability to manufacture weapon duplicates, taunting, the ability to sheath OH weapons on your back, fumbling, location damage, unique locational injuries and effects, the ability to knock opponents unconscious and tons more.
At any given time you can now perform twenty four different melee attacks instead of the vanilla six, each with a different animation and different possible effects. But beware, you're not the only one with new abilities. NPCs have access to all the moves you do as well as the ability to dodge, counter and block your attacks. You will have to think strategically, as different moves do different things and have different associated risks. Hit location is as important to you as it is to your opponent.
All this is done without in any way touching the vanilla combat system, because UV provides its own combat engine - meaning you can use it alongside any other one of the great combat mods out there. This is a very different kind of mod, with a strong emphasis on compatibility and general applicability.
Combat in oblivion will never be the same again.
A note/request
The development of this mod has been a huge undertaking for me. It contains thousands of lines of new scripts and everything had to be very carefully designed to maintain a negligible FPS hit and maximum compatibility. I would ask that if you are rating the mod you take into account its BETA status, and remember that it's likely to have some teething issues - so please be gentle and report bugs to me so I can fix them rather than using them as a reason to bash my work. Finally, remember that if there's a feature you don't like it's probably configurable in the INI file. Check there first before complaining.
Please do also post any good screenshots you make on the Tesnexus page. Getting good screenshots from what is essentially a motion based mod is very difficult, and any you can produce will be appreciated.
Also remember when rating that this - is - still a beta.
Features
Combat Styles:
- True dual wielding with any weapons including mod added ones
- No need for special off hand weapons, toggle ANY weapon (except bows and staffs) to off hand mode.
- For the first time ever in oblivion, fight independently with either hand
- Enchant or poison both of your weapons when dual wielding. If you've toggled a 1 handed weapon to off hand mode it will carry its enchantment over. The name is changed to reflect the charges, since they won't show up in the normal fashion.
- Bow and staff melee
- Staffs will apply their enchantments in Melee (though bows will not)
- Kicking in combat based on you hand to hand skill. How strong you are determines the possibility of kicking opponents right off their feet.
- UV attacks can damage multiple targets
- Change how you hold weapons: 1 handed or 2 handed
- Mix blade, blunt and hand to hand attacks (use and train all three skills at once)
- Same damage equations as vanilla, plus location multipliers to maintain balance
- Unlock new attack types and effects as your skills increase Each time you get a skill perk in blade, blunt or hand to hand your range of potential attack types increases.
- Throw your opponents with new combat throws!
Potential Melee Attack Types:
- 18 One handed weapon attacks (increased to 36 by changing grip) - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six for each grip type
- 18 Two handed weapon attacks (increased to 36 by changing grip) - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six for each grip type
- 18 Dual wield attacks - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six
- 18 Weapon and shield attacks - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six
- 18 hand to hand attacks - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six
- 12 staff melee attacks - meaning 12 different animations
- 30 bow melee attacks (increased to 30 by changing grip) - meaning 24 different animations
- 6 Kicks available with any combination of weapons equipped - meaning 6 different animations
- New combat throwing system (just one throw so far) - perform an uke goshi on your target.
- Special animation for spear/polearm users (auto detected).
- Perform hand to hand attacks and throws while your weapon is sheathed, allowing easy access to the combat throws
Throwing Weapons
- Throw any object including those added by other mods:
- Weapons, ammo, armour, clothing, soulgems, books, scrolls and a vast array of misc objects are all throwable. Basically if you can pick it up you can throw it.
- Vary how hard you throw - more strength gives you more potential distance, but weapon weight is a factor too. Holding the throw button down determines the force of the throw dynamically (affected by the weight of the weapon).
- Weapons stick in scenery - if you throw them hard enough, though other objects bounce
- Special effects for potions/poisons and soul gems (see below)
- Dynamically improving Eagle eye mode to zoom in on victims. Better than the default vanilla perk.
- Pick up any object and throw it immediately (no menus needed)
- Different types of throwing for different classes of object (weapons, shields, misc and spears/bows/staffs)
- Train your marksman skill
- Stagger your opponent with quick throws, or smash them off their feet
- Enchanted/poisoned weapons have their normal effects applied (including offhand weapons)
- Configurable style of throwing (to sneak or not to sneak)
- Easily recover lost weapons
- New lesser power 'detect thrown objects'
- Thrown weapons maintain their health and charges
- Unless blocked or dodged, thrown weapons appear in the NPCs inventory, to be careful what you throw at them!
Soul Gems
- Now when you soul trap creatures soul gems are named with the creature type that you trapped
- When you throw the gem a ghostly (and vigorously angry) spirit of the creature will appear and attack the nearest actor
- The spirit creature will have no items and have a ghostly immunity to normal weapons (Note that using certain body mods and black soul gems will result in nude ghosts of NPCs)
- If your conjuration skill is high enough the creature may not attack you
- Prefilled soul gems will release an appropriately leveled and evil spirit.
- Now you can collect trophies (trapped or released into a pen) of your best kills.
- Throwing an empty soul gem will break it with no great effect.
Potions
- When you throw a potion or poison it'll splatter spraying shards of glass and affecting everybody in the area. You can use this to create both positive and negative effects.
- The splatter area is dynamically determined based on how hard you throw
- If you have an alchemy skill > 50 you can create exploding potions from any potion or poison with delayed fuses
- Fuses can be between 1 and 9 seconds.
- You can purchase fuses and fuse cutters from Jensine in the IC market district.
- Exploding potions (fused) will knock everybody in range (including you) off their feet and cause some minor damage, but with a chance of a critical location hit.
- How vigorously the fused potion explodes, and thus both the splatter range and how far people are sent flying is determined by how hard you throw it (i like to think of it as shaking the bottle...)
- NPCs don't like it when you blow them up...
Location Damage
- All UV attacks are location aware
- Equipment damage is applied to the specific piece of armour/shield/weapon that you target allowing you to make a concerted effort to damage specific equipment.
- Different locations mean different amounts of damage - headshots matter
- Each location (except legs for now) has a unique debilitating injury animation which may be triggered from a successful hit
- Location relevant stats may be damaged
- Helmets may be knocked off
- Head hits may silence spellcasters
- Some critical hits may cause opponents to bleed to death
- You as the player are susceptible to all these effects (see below)
NPC Behaviour
- NPCs will duck, dodge and block your UV melee attacks depending on their individual skills.
- Likewise they will duck, dodge or block your throws at the last second.
- NPC's have 9 different dodges they can use depending on their acrobatics skill level
- When you injure NPCs with UV moves they will react appropriately, cowering from face hits, clutching injured ribs, swaying drunkenly from head hits etc.
- NPCs may be knocked unconscious rather than killed by kits to the back of the head
- Head hits may knock NPC's helmets off
- NPC attributes may be damaged depending where you hit them
- Chance of a critical hit which will cause them to visibly bleed to death over the next few (up to ten) seconds. They'll get progressively weaker during this process and may collapse before they die. They may also continue to bleed after death.
- NPCs also have access to all the same moves as you, based on their skills - including combat throws
- NPCs using UV moves can apply the same location damage multipliers and effects to you as you can apply to them, so that means injuries, knockouts, criticals, stat damage, helmet loss etc are all dangers to the player.
- Hostile reactions - NPCs don't much like being hit and having things thrown at them...
- Note that NPCs are - much - harder to defeat with UV than vanilla, to balance some of the benefits. You'll need to think about combat geometry etc. Hitting their shield a lot isn't going to help you much.
Fumbling
Both you and the NPCs have a chance of one of these things happening:
- drop your weapon (as long as its not a quest item)
- drop your shield/oh weapon (ditto)
- drop both of them (ditto for each)
- pull a muscle (you can still move around, but you'll be clutching your torso and unable to attack for a few seconds)
- Trip over
- Hit yourself - slightly reduced damage, but all the weapon magic effects/poisons will be applied
As to the actual chance of it happening - it's a little bit complicated to explain:
The formula is:
if (getrandompercent > luck && getrandompercent < fumblepercentage && getrandompercent > success)
Where:
- luck is capped (controllable in the INI) by a multiplier of 0.98
- fumble percentage is an INI settable variable ranging from 0-100 where 0 means no fumbles at all, though 100 does not mean fumbles every time.
- success is determined by the difficulty of the move - i.e. a move might have a skill level of 50. if your blade skill is 75, you have 25% chance of successfully avoiding the fumble.
That last bit makes it sound like at blade 75 you'd fumble 1/4 times when trying to perform a skill 50 move, but it's mitigated first by your luck - lets imagine that's 50 - that would further reduce the fumble rate to 1/8 times then by the fumblepercentage. if that is 1 you'd fumble 1/800 times at that skill level and move difficulty. Set to 2 it's be 1/400 times. Even set to 100 it would still remain 1/8 times.
The basic 'tap' moves will never trigger a fumble, and basic power attacks will never fumble - if - your requisite skill is 100. All other moves however are prone to fumbles. As you can see though - they're pretty rare, and shouldn't hurt your game much. They just mean you're taking a - slight - risk using the more powerful UV moves - which balances nicely the extra effects that you get from them.
INI toggleable messages (as well as the character saying the 'flee' topic) will let you know that you've fumbled - just so you don't go losing your favourite sword or shield and not noticing.
Taunting
- Goad NPCs into starting fights with you - then how is it your fault. Do it near the guards and let them do the hard work. Note that taunting is much improved if you use it with trademark's power attack voice mod see below for specifics.
- Taunting has its own animation and uses the power attack vocals for your character.
- Taunting will lessen an NPCs disposition towards you a little bit at a time. If somebody really likes you you'll need to taint them quite a lot to annoy them into attacking you.
Item Forging
- Need to replicate your favourite sword because there's only one of them in the game? No problem. This can be done from you repair screen (just click on a hammer), by pressing the UV modifier key (see below)
- Duplication costs the value of the weapon
- Armorer skill level required for duplication is dynamically determined based on the value of the weapon (this can be increased with spells, potions etc).
- If you don't have the skills, any NPC who repairs weapons can do it for you, but at twice the cost. Simply open their repair menu (from dialogue) and press the UV modifer key (see below).
Autodraw
- When you toggle your equipped weapon to off-hand mode you'll automatically draw your best one handed weapon to use with it
- When you throw your weapon if you have a duplicate of that weapon you'll draw that, otherwise you'll draw your best one handed weapon
Weapon on back
- If you've toggled a weapon to off hand it will appear on your back, complete with scabbard when you sheath it.
- The scabbard will persist even when the weapon is drawn.
- Double tapping your draw/sheath weapon button allows you to leave the OH weapon sheathed, which gives you access to some different moves.
- Shields and downloaded OH weapons will disappear while your main weapon is sheathed.
Sneaky Tricks
- Designed specifically for stealth characters.
- If you hit an opponent in the back of the head with a UV move while sneaking and undetected there's a high chance he'll be knocked unconscious rather than killed. They will remain unconscious for 3 minutes, but won't be happy when they wake up. This non-lethal attack method is designed primarily for thieves.
- If you kick an opponent while in sneak mode and undetected they'll almost always be knocked off their feet giving you vital time to do whatever naughty things you might have planned.
- Any UV move performed with a weapon on a sleeping NPC is considered a coup de grace and will kill them instantly.
Archery Camera
- If using a bow in third person mode you'll automatically be switched to first person mode when you press the attack button, and back to third when the arrow is released. This makes playing in third person more seamless as archery is near impossible in third person mode.
Fake First Person Mode (FFP Mode)
- First FFP mode exists because many of the UV animations don't (and really can't have) first person equivalents. I simply haven't the skills to make them, and even if I did, I don't think they'd map well to your actions. Kind of like the way the left and right power attacks are spinning in third person and just look like normal attacks in first person. The UV animations have a lot of spinning and flipping etc. Plus there's also the issue of the kicks. Most armour doesn't have legs in first person mode. FFP neatly solves all these problems at once.
- What FFP mode actually is is third person, with your whole character, except for your hands and weapons nulled, and the camera locked as close as the engine will allow behind your head. Fighting in FFP mode feels much more like real first person than third person though, and you'll see your hands and weapons moving as they should when you perform attacks, walk around etc.
- When you sheath your weapon you'll automatically be returned to normal first person mode (this is to ensure you have a crosshair and also because having the weapon at your side/on your back leads to some rather strange looking effects. The viewport change between FFP and real first person in minimal, so the change if fairly unobtrusive.
- The next exception is when using a bow. Targeting is a little strange in third person - anybody who's tried will know it's next to impossible to effectively hit targets. This FFP (which after all is actually third person) will drop you into real first person as soon as you pull back on your bow string, and take you back into FFP as soon as you release. One reason behind this switch is quivers. There's no way to effectively make the quiver mesh disappear and still be usable. What FFP mode does is actually unequip your arrows, but remember which ones they were and reequip them as it dumps you into first person mode. When you return they're unequipped again. The only slightly adverse effect of this is that you can't see how many arrows you have left under normal circumstances, until you actually draw back on the bow, or switch to first or third person mode.
- For throwing the same effect is applied. When you press the throw button you'll be dumped into first person mode and returned to FFP around 20 frames after you let go of the object.
- The default FFP setting is enabled such that when making a UV attack in first person you'll be switched to FFP for the duration of the attack the switched back to 'real' first person as soon as it concludes.
- When activating objects in FFP mode you'll be temporarily switched back to 'real' first person mode (as the hud reticle is more descriptive). Activation won't occur until you release the activate key so you can avoid accidentally stealing things by simply moving your crosshair away from them before letting go of the activate key.
- Note that if you leave the INI settings for FFP alone you should never have to enter it yourself and it should blend seamlessly into your game, only activating when absolutely necessary and only for the duration of a UV attack
Weapon Script Removal - WARNING. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
- By default UV will not allow you to toggle or gripshift a scripted weapon (there are just too many ways this could break quests)
- However, a new lesser power will allow you to permanently remove the script on your current weapon .
- This allows weapons from some older mods (such as those by Adonnay) which have utility scripts for swapping to off hand etc to be 'cleaned' and handled by UV.
- Alternatively some quest weapons (such as umbra) have scripts which can be safely removed once the quest is complete.
- Removes the 'object script' not any scripted enchantments which will still work as normal.
- Using this feature without knowing what the script does is likely to break quests so please be careful. I take no responsibility if you break your game with this feature.
Controls
- Intuitive control system based on just three new keys:
--- UV Attack,
--- Throw
--- A special multi-purpose UV modifier key.
- You'll be required to choose them the first time the mod loads. These keys can be configured at any time by clicking on the UV settings option in your misc items.
Melee Controls
--- To perform a left handed quick attack tap your UV Attack Key
--- To perform a left handed power attack press and hold the UV Attack key
--- To perform a dual wield (both weapons) quick attack tap the UV attack and normal attack keys together.
--- To perform a Dual wield power attack pres and hold the UV attack and normal attack keys together.
--- Note that when pressing UV and normal attack keys together it's generally preferable to press the UV attack key ever so slightly before the normal attack key.
--- To perform a directional left handed power attack (assuming you've reached the relevant skill level - 50 for left and right 75 for back and 100 for forward) press and hold the relevant direction key and press and hold the UV Attack Key
--- To perform a directional dual wield power attack (assuming you've reached the relevant skill level - 50 for left and right 75 for back and 100 for forward) press and hold the relevant direction key and press and hold the UV Attack Key and the Normal Attack Key at the same time
--- The skill type required depends on what weapon type you're holding. If you have a sword in your left hand and perform a left handed attack, it's your blade skill that's examined to choose your range of attacks. If it's a blunt then it's your blunt skill. If you're performing a dual wield attack then it's the type of weapon in your right hand that determines the relevant skill - though damage is applied for the offhand weapon based on your skill with that weapon. The weapon type of shields is determined by their armour rating - heavy armour is classed as blunt, light armour as blade.
--- If you're holding a two handed weapon, no weapon, or don't have an offhand weapon or shield equipped then Left handed/dual wield attacks correspond to a different set of potential attack animations.
--- If using a staff or bow only attacks using the UV attack button or both buttons will cause a melee attack - The normal attack button will perform a bow shot or staff spell as normal. The weapon skill for attacking with bows and staffs is always blunt.
--- To perform a quick kick press and hold block then tap the UV Attack key.
--- To perform a power kick press and hold block press and hold the UV attack key.
--- To perform a directional power kick attack (assuming you've reached the relevant hand to hand skill level - 50 for left and right 75 for back and 100 for forward) hold the block button, hold the relevant direction button and press and hold the UV attack key.
--- To perform an uke goshi on an opponent you must be face to face with them and very close. Ensure that either your weapon is sheathed or you have no weapon equipped then press and hold the UV attack button with no direction keys pressed (exactly the same as performing a basic power attack).
Throwing Controls
--- To throw your current weapon press and hold the thow key then press your normal attack key (not the UV one).
--- To throw your current shield or off hand weapon press and hold the throw button then press the block button.
--- To throw any other object in your inventory (it must first be prepared for throwing - see below) Press and hold your throw button then release it.
--- The length of time you hold the throw button (up to a point) determines how hard you throw the object.
--- To enable a special spear throw style (which makes an object fly without spinning) tap your UV modifier key while the throw button is held down.
--- Note that for objects with the word spear, javelin or arrow in the name spear throw mode is automatically engaged.
--- To prepare an object for throwing it must either be the last object you picked up (if the relevant INI setting is enabled you may have to hold the UV modifier when picking the object up), or you must assign it to a UV hotkey (see below for instructions how to assign objects to UV hotkeys). Once assigned (in game mode) simply Hold the UV modifier and tap the relevant hotkey to prepare the object (you'll see a message in the top corner telling you that the object is ready to throw).
--- If you have an archery skill of 50 or more then you can zoom in on your targets while throwing (eagle eye mode). To do this, hold the throw key, then spin the mouse wheel (up to zoom in, down to zoom out). The amount you can zoom is dynamically determined based on your marksman skill 75 is roughly equivalent to the vanilla zoom perk at skill 100 you can hit a fly at 100 paces
Misc Controls
- The UV modifier key gives you access to 8 new hotkeys (1-8 as normal). These UV hotkeys will store an item type rather than a specific inventory item, meaning that even if you remove the item from your inventory, buy for example throwing it, as soon as you pick it up again you can tap the hotkey (with the UV modifier) to use it.
--- To prepare an object for throwing, open your inventory, mouseover the object you want to assign, hold the UV modifier key and tap the hotkey (1-8) that you want to assign it to. This does not affect your normal hotkey choices.
--- Note that UV hotkeys only work for Items - not spells, and that unless it's a weapon or a shield pressing theUV modifier and hotkey in game mode will simply ready that item for throwing (weapons and shields will be equipped on you)
--- To see what's currently in your UV hotkeys, hold the UV modifier key and press '9'
--- You can recover lost items by holding the UV modifier key and pressing '0' this will bring up a menu allowing you to recover either your last thrown item, or any of the items in your UV hotkeys (except potions and soul gems).
--- Note that you can only recover things you have thrown recently, and you may only recover a given item once per throw (no cheeky duplication).
--- The item recovery system is exploitable for munchkinery, but given the fact that sometimes the collision detection just fails, it's worth having.
--- Note that with thrown weapons if the collision detection has failed the object is usually just on the other side of the wall/floor/ceiling. Using the console command 'tcl' is an alternative to the recovery menu.
- Taunting is performed by targeting an NPC and pressing the UV modifier key.
- To duplicate your current weapon open the repair menu and press the UV modifier key, or to have an NPC do it open the repair service menu and press the UV modifier key (this is more expensive but doesn't require you to have any armorer skills).
- To poison your current offhand weapon open your inventory, mouse over the potion/poison you wish to apply and press the UV attack key (not the UV modifier).
- To toggle a weapon to/from offhand mode, in game mode, press and hold block, press and hold the UV modifier key and tap the UV attack key.
- To change your grip on a weapon (including changing bows to a staff style grip) in game mode press and hold the UV modifier key and tap the UV attack key.
- To enter or exit FFP mode, press and hold the UV modifier then tap your vanity camera key .
- To set a fuse on a potion you must first buy fuses and a fuse cutter each second of fuse uses up a fuse object. These things aren't cheap in an attempt to maintain balance. Click on the fuse cutter object (which exists so you can hotkey fuses) and a menu will pop up offering you different fuse lengths. Pick one and your next thrown potion/poison will have the delay/bomb effects attached to it. You can disable a fuse by opening that menu again and selecting don't set a fuse but you'll have wasted the fuses.
All the controls are available in an in game book which you get when the mod loads. If you lose your copy you can simply run the setup menus again by clicking the UV settings item in your inventory and you'll get a new copy. Incidentally, this book is worth glancing at, as it has a little side benefit...
Install
First you MUST install OBSE, Pluggy and Nifscript - read their individual readmes for instructions.
This archive is distributed in what LHammonds calls OMOD-Ready format. It allows you to manually extract and install like most other mods but it also allows you to use Oblivion Mod Manager and import this archive with all the settings pre-configured for an OMOD file. Pick which method you are going to use for installation:
Manual Install
1. Extract this archive to any folder and then copy the contents to Oblivion's Data folder. You can ignore or delete the "omod conversion data" folder.
2. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, and enable the .esp file(s).
OBMM Install
Create the OMOD (Do this section only once):
1. Copy archive to (install folder)Oblivionobmmomod
2. Start Oblivion Mod Manager.
3. Click the Create button.
4. Click the Add Archive button, find and select the archive, then click Yes.
5. Click the Create omod button, then click OK when it finishes.
Install the mod using OBMM
1. Start Oblivion Mod Manager.
2. Double-click the name of the mod in the right-hand side of the OBMM screen. (icon should turn blue)
Configuration
- An INI file will allow you to configure many of the features of UV. Look in the Unnecessary Violence.ini file for details. Each setting is preceded by a description and a type - boolean (an on off set by 1 or 0), integer (a whole positive number including 0) or float (a decimal value, typically in the range 0-1 but there are some exceptions).
Enabling the Mod in the INI (Not being called a fool)
- At the end of the INI file is a special value 'iHaveReadTheInstructions' By default this is set to 0. You need to set it to 1 before loading the game. If you don't do this UV will kill your character as soon as you load your game. This is the 'thing you have to do' that I alluded to at the start of this readme.
Leg Mesh Packs
Pacific Morrowind has created a series of support packages containing special leg meshes for many well known mod armours. These are required for all-in-one type armours such as robes or the dark brotherhood shadowset in order for FFP to be able to correctly render your legs when kicking.
If you don't have the appropriate leg mesh pack installed, or you're using a custom armour not covered by his packs, then you'll be given a set of 'emergency legs' though these may not bear any resemblance to the armour you are wearing.
He has provided comprehensive instructions for creating and installing your own special leg meshes in these cases.
Uninstall
Pick which method you are going to use for uninstall based on how you installed it:
Manual Uninstall
1. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck the .esp file(s).
2. Delete the files/folders associated with the mod (look in the original archive to find them - there are too many to list here).
OBMM Uninstall
1. Start Oblivion Mod Manager.
2. Double-click the name of the mod in the right-hand side of the OBMM screen, click Yes. (icon should turn green)
Recommended Additional Mods
--- Deadly Reflex by skycaptain
UV and DR play together very nicely indeed, since UV adds a lot of additional attack types but in no way touches the vanilla combat system, UV nicely fills that gap.
--- Power Attack Voice Mod by Trademark
Without this mod, UV's taunt system is a little banal. Using this mod it becomes much more vibrant: "you move like a pregnant cow!"
--- Bloody Spray by Vanilla Beans
Makes combat that little bit more visceral
A Note on Compatibility
UV has been designed very carefully to maintain compatibility with other combat overhaul mods such as Deadly Reflex, Adrenaline fuelled combat and Duke Patricks various mods, amongst others. UV does not in any way affect the vanilla attack system. Nor does it modify NPC behaviour, except for when UV attacks and throws are being performed - and this is done on the fly with tokens. No NPCs were changed in the production of this mod. It is further designed to be compatible with any objects/weapons added by other mods. The only compatibility issues are with animation replacers and camera mods.
Note that UV has to null many of the item equip sounds, since to achieve many of the effects items must be silently equipped and unequipped. This is a necessary sacrifice.
UV's esm provides several tools for other mod makers to make use of. Most important of these is an animation lock. OB's engine will cause a CTD if more than one animation is played on a given actor at any given time. Every time a UV animation is played on the player, a variable is set in the esm, and unset again. Any mod that plans on running side by side with UV and applies animations to the player must check this variable is not set before applying them. The same goes for NPCs with a separate variable. UV will only ever apply an animation to one NPC at a time, and that NPC will be referenced in the esm for the duration of the animation.
The esm also provides a monitor variable for FFP mode, and a trigger to set or unset it externally.
The esm provides a number of variables showing the state of UV at any given time, including lots of data about damage application. Other mods may use this to track damage applied by UV effects.
Incompatibility
- Do NOT use any attack animation replacers with UV, as you'll lose all the additional benefits - at least don't use any of the ones mentioned here: The animations from the incredibly popular seph's dual wield, sephs hand to hand animation replacer and DMC stylish are already included here, as well as dodge animations for NPCs with very high acrobatics from seph's true acrobatics. You may however want to use the idle animations from one of these mods.
- UV is not compatible with my earlier mods Throw any Weapon and Dynamic Throwing Knives. The functionality of those mods is already delivered with UV so there is no need for them.
- UV is (sadly) not compatible with Loup Sombre's excellent Immersive first person view as it conflicts with UV's fake first person feature. This issue only applies to opening menus when in FFP mode, because of the idles added by that mod. That means the 99% of the time you'll be fine with the default settings, and if you disable FFP in the INI you'll have no problems.
- The same goes for Auto 1st-3rd person view by kuertee, though a compatibility esp may be in the works.
- UV has compatibility issues with some 'backpack' mods when using FFP mode. In general ffp should be disabled in the INI if you wish to use these mods.
- In general, there may be issues with any mods which directly mess with the camera. Note that if you play without entering fake first person mode, there will be no issues with these mods - but that's not that easy to do.
- If you plan to use a separate 'shield on back' mod then you - must - disable the weapon on back feature of UV in the INI.
- UV is not compatible with versions of NifScript up to and including 0.75 - it will crash your game.
- Also not compatible with the old Nifscript proof of concept esp.
- Will not work with direct2drive or NO-CD patched versions of oblivion.
Technical Note
UV uses placeatme in order to achieve its throwing effects. While this has been traditionally regarded as a 'bad' thing, OBSE17 allows these dynamically created references to be cleaned up (which UV does) so there should be no save-game bloat effects.
Known Issues or Bugs
- By default FFP causes an issue in the arena, as it causes you to unequip/equip your current armour in order to make the mesh refresh. To make up for this, the arena raiment script has been removed from the arena raiments, and a ring will be placed in your inventory containing the script. Simply wear this ring in arena fights. As a side effect, you'll be able to wear any armour you like in the arena - but of course it's recommended that you wear the appropriate raiment.
- Occasionally you might get a CTD when you pick up a thrown weapon. I am working on solving this asap.
- You'll get a certain amount of clipping on some animations with larger weapons. There is nothing I can do about this, so live with it.
- Sometimes the OB engine just flat refuses to play an animation. It's rare, but it does happen. This more likely for the NPCs than for the player, on whom the animations always seem to play fine, but it can lead to 'ghost hit' effects. As far as I know there's no way to resolve this. UV makes the engine do a lot of things it wasn't really supposed to, so some issues are inevitable.
- Until the new version of nifscript is complete scabbards still show up in FFP mode. This is simply unavoidable for now.
- Off hand scabbards seem to have an issue where they get lighter in hue the more you use them. Why this should be is a mystery to me.
- FFP mode still shows scabbards. For now this is unavoidable, but with the forthcoming update to nifscript the issue will be resolved.
- When sheathing OH weapons on your back your quiver will disappear. This is unfortunate but insoluble as the quiver slot is used for the weapon. UV will remember and put back your arrows as soon as you draw your weapon again though.
- UV's use of nifscript means every time you toggle a new weapon to off hand style, or change your grip on a weapon a new nif (mesh) has to be created. These meshes take up space in your data folder. They can however be safely cleaned with the nifscript cleanup batch file that comes with the nifscript download, as UV will recreate any that it needs when you load the game.
- Some of the animations are a little sketchy or inappropriate (especially some of the left handed attacks). I have a very talented animator (OdysseusB) working to create new animations specifically for this mod, so all those issues should be fixed soon.
- Please note that this is a first release version of a hugely complex mod - some bugs and incompatibilities are inevitable, so please report them (politely) to me via PM on the Beth forums, or on the official forum threads and I should be able to fix them.
Contact
- You can contact me by PM on the Official Bethesda forums or the TES Nexus forums as HeX_0ff.
- Or for bug reports NOT covered here or in the FAQ below: unnecessaryviolence@googlemail.com
Credits
- Thanks to OWASephirot, Amsterdam2019, OdysseusB and Frantic for the animations. This mod could not have appeared without you.
- Thanks to DragoonWraith for not just making nifscripts, but putting his own other projects on hold to get a compatible version out for this mod. You my friend are a legend.
- Thanks to Pacific Morrowind for the leg meshes and all the work he's put into the add-on packs.
- Thanks to Scruggs and the whole OBSE team for OBSE. You have made the impossible possible, and brightened Cyrodiil for everyone.
- Thanks to Nexxon for the throwing knife weapon mesh/texture, from his altair's gear mod.
- Thanks to Ronyn, Shadow_Dragyn and Defender1 for the blood textures
- Thanks to Guidobot for his original throwing stars mod. Without poring over his scripts, I'd have really struggled to make the throwing feature.
- Thanks to Skycaptain for his advice, both direct and indirect, on many diverse things.
- Thanks to everyone at the TES CS Wiki. This would not have been possible without them.
- Thanks to Bethesda for creating Oblivion.
- Thanks to TESNexus.com for the one-stop-shop resource for authors and players.
- Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.
- Thanks to all my beta testers and screenshot artists (Charles Crowe, WhoGuru, Khajiit Overlord Rainer, Phoshi, 2ColdScorpio-RG1, Sidvelu, Pacific Morrowind)
- Thanks to everyone at the beth forums, who has made comments and suggestions while this mod has been in WIP form.
- Thanks to everyone who's downloaded, played rated or voted for this mod.
- Thanks to Jennifer for being a most extraordinarily understanding girlfriend and putting up with my strange obsession with building this monster.
- If I have missed anybody, I apologise unreservedly - contact me via PM and I'll add you to the credits list.
Tools Used
- Blender
- NIFSkope
- Oblivion Mod Manager
- Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)
- TES Construction Set
- Texture Replacer
- Readme Generator
- Wrye Bash
- Nifscript
- Pluggy
- Unofficial Oblivion Patch
- Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch
Licensing/Legal
You must contact me and obtain my permission before re-packaging any part of this mod. The animations, meshes and textures used in UV are the product of other authors and their permission must be obtained separately if you wish to use them. The scripts are my own work. Please do not use them without my permission.
And Finally
Remember that this is a beta. It may have bugs. Please report them in this thread and try to be clear about exactly the circumstances in which the big occurred. The clearer the description, the easier it is for me to reproduce and subsequently fix.
HeX - 6th June 2009
Important Addendum:
UV Beta First Impressions FAQ
Okay I've compiled this FAQ as an addendum to the readme covering as many of the bugs reported so far as I can remember, as well as answers to some common questions. Where workarounds are possible (true in most cases) it will be described.
This will likely be my last post here till at least the 10th of July (I may check in occasionally, but don't expect every question to be answered quickly or even at all). I have some RL issues to deal with for the next month and my modding addiction has to be shut out till that's done. Worry not though. I'll be back and the beta *will* be updated and fixed then.
---
Q: I can�t work out how to dual wield.
A: I missed a subtitle in the Readme which makes this a little hard to find. That�s now fixed in the OP on the official Bethesda forums thread and on the Nexus project page, but not in the main readme. For reference here is the offending line:
- To toggle a weapon to/from offhand mode, in game mode, press and hold block, press and hold the UV modifier key and tap the UV attack key.
Q: The mod crashes when I try to dual wield a weapon.
A: you're suffering the same problem with Nifscript that a small percentage of users seem to - namely it crashes when using vanilla meshes (packed in BSAs) that have scabbards. Mod added weapons should work just fine, as should vanilla axes, maces etc.
I recommend grabbing the excellent:
Classic Sword Replacers
which will replace most of the vanilla swords with new (better looking anyway) ones and solve your problem for about 60% of the weapons. Its unfortunate, but for now there's nothing I can do about this bug. The current version of nifscript is as much in beta as UV and in this case the issue is on that side. It's not unexpected that there would be some problems, though we've yet to figure out what the common factor is for people suffering this problem. Some users have reported that simply unpacking the weapons from the BSA fixes the issue - though that may not be true for all users.
If you have suffered from a crash when toggling/switching at all - please run the Nifscript cleanup batch file distributed with nifscript as it will remove any 'bad' meshes created during the crash.
Q: Where should I put UV in my load order?
A: As late as possible. It shouldn't conflict with anything (except arena clothing mods and the conflict isn't critical so they can be loaded after it if necessary, or preferably bash graphics can be used). UV needs to be as close as possible to last to give the scripts sufficiently high priority to function correctly (Same reason Duke Patrick's mods need to be so late). By default BOSS puts it a bit too early. With the exception stated above it shouldn't cause any of the types of conflicts that LO is typically used to fix so it can safely go last (even after the bashed patch).
Q: Why can't I see my arms in FFP mode?
A: FFP is not the same as 'real' first person mode. It's still actually third person and the camera isn't attached to your skeleton. The animations you see are actually the third person animations, so in many cases the arms would be in the wrong place and flailing wildly. Also, even if this were not the case, it's impossible to selectively null part of a mesh. I have to null the *whole* upper body or nothing. The engine can do it for 'real' first person, but that functionality is not exposed for scripting.
Q: When I exit FFP mode my helmet/wig/hood is unequipped.
A: Disable FFP in the INI.
Q: When I enter FFP I see a headless body and all my armour breaks.
A: Disable FFP in the INI
Q: When I enter FFP mode my amulet/tail is still showing floating about.
A: Issue with some amulets/tail pieces that have specific female versions. Disable FFP in the INI
Q: I can't duplicate my very expensive weapon even though I have an armourer skill of 100.
A : Known bug. Already fixed and will be included in the update.
Q: Hitting some OOO opponents makes them unequip their armour.
A: No known fix for now. It will be repaired for the update.
Q: My hotkeys are going crazy and hammering when I press them / hotkey mod xxx is broken now.
A: Known bug. Will be fixed for the next release. For now, disable FFP in the INI, Disable weapon on back in the INI, Disable Bow Autoswitch in the INI, open the console and type 'StopQuest ptFakeFirstPersonQuest'
Q: When I throw azura's star I don't get it back. OR Azura's star is completely not working
A: Known bug. Will be fixed in the next release. Don't throw azura's star OR disable soul gem effects in the INI
Q: Something strange happens when I load a game with a gripshifted weapon or my shield on my back.
A: Switch your grip back before saving, or wait five seconds after reload and everything *should* revert to normal.
Q: Suddenly I can't perform any UV attacks and/or NPCs have stopped ducking/dodging/countering.
A: The animation locks have not been cleanly released. Wait ten seconds before pressing the UV attack key again and they'll revert (unless you're using the hotkey fix described above). Alternatively (if you're using the hotkey fix), open the console and type:
set uvVariables.uvPlayerLock to 0
set uvVariables.uvAnimationPlayingOn to 0
The first of these is for unlocking the player, the second for NPCs
Q: OOO hottkey torches don't work.
A: See the hotkey bug above.
Q: I see weapon called ptDummyTwoHander.
A: Gripshift the weapon, it should go back to what it's meant to be. Otherwise, just throw it away.
Q: Unlimited rings doesn't work with UV
A: That's true - it doesn't. Solution currently unknown.
Q: Camera mod xxx doesn't work with UV
A: Also true. Choose which you prefer and go with it.
Q: I see a lot of debug text in the console.
A: I left some console spam in my accident, so did DW in nifscript. This will be gone in the next release.
Q: The console says "error in script xxxxxxxx" over and over again.
A: Either 1) You're still using one of the OBSE17 beta versions, so update, OR switch off soul gem effects in the INI
Q: I keep seeing big green clouds and hearing bangs when I throw weapons.
A: If you are experiencing green clouds when you throw weapons, it's most likely an issue with supreme magicka, which adds magic effects to hitherto silent ones. All you have to do to fix this is apply supreme magicka's 'SM_NoPoisonLevitationEffects.esp' and you'll be just fine.
Q: My companion hates me after I hit him with a UV move.
A: Known bug. Will be fixed in the next update. In the mean time you can use the targeted console command "setav aggression XX" combined with a charm spell to make them friendly again.
Q: When I load the game it says I haven't installed OBSE and kills me.
A: Install OBSE17 (Read the instructions - OBSE is not installed the same way as normal mods)
Q: When I load the game it says I haven't installed nifscript and kills me.
A: Install Nifscript (Read the Instructions - Nifscript is an OBSE plugin thus not installed to the same location as normal mods).
[color=#FF8C00]Q: When I load the game the mod calls me a 'fool' and kills my character. What gives?
A: RTFM. Pay special attention to the 'configuration' section. Note that this isn't just gratuitous - there's a technical reason too as some of the scripts can be permanently broken if you don't install the mod correctly the first time (which you'll have done if you've read the manual).
Q: Throwing weapons are really slow/fast.
A: Known bug. They're tied to frame rate instead of real time. This will be fixed for the next release. No workaround for now.
Q: FFP breaks mod xxx because it makes you unequip your armour.
A: disable FFP in the INI
Q: FFP breaks the arena because it makes you disable your armour:
A: Wear the UV Arena compatibility ring and EITHER ensure UV is later in your load order than anything that affects the arena armour OR don't wear the arena armour at all (you don't need to if you're wearing the ring). OR Disable FFP in the INI
Q: Is this mod compatible with combat mod XXX?
A: Yes. Probably.
Q: Is this mod compatible with random mod XXX?
A: I don't know - I don't know what every mod does. 99.99% of them should present no problems.
Q: Please make a mesh compatibility pack for armour mod XXX
A: Ask Pacific Morrowind. If you're nice to him he might acquiesce to your request.
Q: Why are some of the animations so 'manga' looking? Why didn't you make more realistic ones?
A: I would have preferred to use more realistic animations, but as I'm not an animator myself I've had to work with the resources available. As more realistic animations are made available some of the current ones will probably be swapped out - however the first priority is to replace the few truly 'ropey' ones.
Q: How come your mod has so many bugs when mod XXX doesn't?
A: UV is probably more complicated (at least from a scripting point of view) than mod XXX. It has literally thousands of lines of code, which creates the potential for far more types of bugs than you get from most other types of mods. Most of those scripts are used intensely and stress tested in a way that few game scripts are. UV also uses some new experimental scripting methodologies. Many many bugs were squashed in the pre-alpha, alpha and closed beta stages but many don't appear until it gets used in the 'real' world. That's the purpose of a public beta. When the mod is referred to as V1 you may expect it to be fairly bug-free. While it remains in beta, bugs are to be expected. It has only been generally available for a few days as I write this and I haven't had a chance to address the bugs with an update yet. Mod XXX has probably been around for a while and had a chance to iron out any problems (for example Deadly Reflex, which has been evolving for three years now). Unlike many projects, UV was released with a huge range of functionality from the word go. This is a recipe for problems hence the public beta. Most of the bugs are related to FFP mode which was rewritten from scratch at the last minute and not sufficiently tested. I was rushing to make the release before I knew I had to leave, so I apologise for the many oversights. FFP mode is gut-wrenchingly complicated because of the number of situations it must be disabled/enabled as well as the complexity of the actual code itself. It was always going to be the worst offender for bug generation.
Please report bugs found that are not covered in this list by emailing clear descriptions of them to:
unnecessaryviolence@googlemail.com
Please do not expect a response - this will be a repository for bugs which I will access and work through when I return to modding next month. Also please *only* use this address for reporting bugs.
Thanks to everyone who's offered support over this project, reported bugs, offered constructive criticism and those who've just posted to say thank you. It's all appreciated.
HeX - 9th June 2009
Author: HeX
Version: RC1 (Public Beta)
Date: 6/6/2009
Category: Gameplay Effects and Changes
Requirements: Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.416, Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) v17 or better, Nifscript , Pluggy 1.25b (HUD Version)* , Unofficial Oblivion Patch**, Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch** (if Shivering Isles is installed).
* Pluggy is only required for the FFP Crosshair (see below). If you are unable or unwilling to to use pluggy then you can either disable the FFP crosshair or disable FFP mode altogether in the INI.
** UOP/USIP are only required for FFP mode. If you are unable or unwilling to use them because you are insane, then disabling FFP in the INI will negate the need for them.
Recommended: Oblivion Mod Manager and/or Wrye Bash
Note: It is very important that you read all of this readme. There is something you have to do before playing (not just installing obse, pluggy and nifscript). If you don't do it UV will kill your character. I will not respond to queries by people too lazy to read the instructions. Ask me a question that's answered in here and risk being insta-blocked.
Description
Welcome to Unnecessary Violence. This mod sets a new bar for oblivion's combat system. It offers true dual wielding with any weapon from vanilla or any mod, throwing objects (literally any object) and throwing people (judo style), the ability to change your grip on a weapon, the ability to kick in combat, melee with bows and staffs, hand to hand attacks with your weapon sheathed, exploding potions, soul gems that show and can release the spirits of what you trapped, the ability to manufacture weapon duplicates, taunting, the ability to sheath OH weapons on your back, fumbling, location damage, unique locational injuries and effects, the ability to knock opponents unconscious and tons more.
At any given time you can now perform twenty four different melee attacks instead of the vanilla six, each with a different animation and different possible effects. But beware, you're not the only one with new abilities. NPCs have access to all the moves you do as well as the ability to dodge, counter and block your attacks. You will have to think strategically, as different moves do different things and have different associated risks. Hit location is as important to you as it is to your opponent.
All this is done without in any way touching the vanilla combat system, because UV provides its own combat engine - meaning you can use it alongside any other one of the great combat mods out there. This is a very different kind of mod, with a strong emphasis on compatibility and general applicability.
Combat in oblivion will never be the same again.
A note/request
The development of this mod has been a huge undertaking for me. It contains thousands of lines of new scripts and everything had to be very carefully designed to maintain a negligible FPS hit and maximum compatibility. I would ask that if you are rating the mod you take into account its BETA status, and remember that it's likely to have some teething issues - so please be gentle and report bugs to me so I can fix them rather than using them as a reason to bash my work. Finally, remember that if there's a feature you don't like it's probably configurable in the INI file. Check there first before complaining.
Please do also post any good screenshots you make on the Tesnexus page. Getting good screenshots from what is essentially a motion based mod is very difficult, and any you can produce will be appreciated.
Also remember when rating that this - is - still a beta.
Features
Combat Styles:
- True dual wielding with any weapons including mod added ones
- No need for special off hand weapons, toggle ANY weapon (except bows and staffs) to off hand mode.
- For the first time ever in oblivion, fight independently with either hand
- Enchant or poison both of your weapons when dual wielding. If you've toggled a 1 handed weapon to off hand mode it will carry its enchantment over. The name is changed to reflect the charges, since they won't show up in the normal fashion.
- Bow and staff melee
- Staffs will apply their enchantments in Melee (though bows will not)
- Kicking in combat based on you hand to hand skill. How strong you are determines the possibility of kicking opponents right off their feet.
- UV attacks can damage multiple targets
- Change how you hold weapons: 1 handed or 2 handed
- Mix blade, blunt and hand to hand attacks (use and train all three skills at once)
- Same damage equations as vanilla, plus location multipliers to maintain balance
- Unlock new attack types and effects as your skills increase Each time you get a skill perk in blade, blunt or hand to hand your range of potential attack types increases.
- Throw your opponents with new combat throws!
Potential Melee Attack Types:
- 18 One handed weapon attacks (increased to 36 by changing grip) - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six for each grip type
- 18 Two handed weapon attacks (increased to 36 by changing grip) - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six for each grip type
- 18 Dual wield attacks - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six
- 18 Weapon and shield attacks - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six
- 18 hand to hand attacks - meaning 12 different animations plus the vanilla six
- 12 staff melee attacks - meaning 12 different animations
- 30 bow melee attacks (increased to 30 by changing grip) - meaning 24 different animations
- 6 Kicks available with any combination of weapons equipped - meaning 6 different animations
- New combat throwing system (just one throw so far) - perform an uke goshi on your target.
- Special animation for spear/polearm users (auto detected).
- Perform hand to hand attacks and throws while your weapon is sheathed, allowing easy access to the combat throws
Throwing Weapons
- Throw any object including those added by other mods:
- Weapons, ammo, armour, clothing, soulgems, books, scrolls and a vast array of misc objects are all throwable. Basically if you can pick it up you can throw it.
- Vary how hard you throw - more strength gives you more potential distance, but weapon weight is a factor too. Holding the throw button down determines the force of the throw dynamically (affected by the weight of the weapon).
- Weapons stick in scenery - if you throw them hard enough, though other objects bounce
- Special effects for potions/poisons and soul gems (see below)
- Dynamically improving Eagle eye mode to zoom in on victims. Better than the default vanilla perk.
- Pick up any object and throw it immediately (no menus needed)
- Different types of throwing for different classes of object (weapons, shields, misc and spears/bows/staffs)
- Train your marksman skill
- Stagger your opponent with quick throws, or smash them off their feet
- Enchanted/poisoned weapons have their normal effects applied (including offhand weapons)
- Configurable style of throwing (to sneak or not to sneak)
- Easily recover lost weapons
- New lesser power 'detect thrown objects'
- Thrown weapons maintain their health and charges
- Unless blocked or dodged, thrown weapons appear in the NPCs inventory, to be careful what you throw at them!
Soul Gems
- Now when you soul trap creatures soul gems are named with the creature type that you trapped
- When you throw the gem a ghostly (and vigorously angry) spirit of the creature will appear and attack the nearest actor
- The spirit creature will have no items and have a ghostly immunity to normal weapons (Note that using certain body mods and black soul gems will result in nude ghosts of NPCs)
- If your conjuration skill is high enough the creature may not attack you
- Prefilled soul gems will release an appropriately leveled and evil spirit.
- Now you can collect trophies (trapped or released into a pen) of your best kills.
- Throwing an empty soul gem will break it with no great effect.
Potions
- When you throw a potion or poison it'll splatter spraying shards of glass and affecting everybody in the area. You can use this to create both positive and negative effects.
- The splatter area is dynamically determined based on how hard you throw
- If you have an alchemy skill > 50 you can create exploding potions from any potion or poison with delayed fuses
- Fuses can be between 1 and 9 seconds.
- You can purchase fuses and fuse cutters from Jensine in the IC market district.
- Exploding potions (fused) will knock everybody in range (including you) off their feet and cause some minor damage, but with a chance of a critical location hit.
- How vigorously the fused potion explodes, and thus both the splatter range and how far people are sent flying is determined by how hard you throw it (i like to think of it as shaking the bottle...)
- NPCs don't like it when you blow them up...
Location Damage
- All UV attacks are location aware
- Equipment damage is applied to the specific piece of armour/shield/weapon that you target allowing you to make a concerted effort to damage specific equipment.
- Different locations mean different amounts of damage - headshots matter
- Each location (except legs for now) has a unique debilitating injury animation which may be triggered from a successful hit
- Location relevant stats may be damaged
- Helmets may be knocked off
- Head hits may silence spellcasters
- Some critical hits may cause opponents to bleed to death
- You as the player are susceptible to all these effects (see below)
NPC Behaviour
- NPCs will duck, dodge and block your UV melee attacks depending on their individual skills.
- Likewise they will duck, dodge or block your throws at the last second.
- NPC's have 9 different dodges they can use depending on their acrobatics skill level
- When you injure NPCs with UV moves they will react appropriately, cowering from face hits, clutching injured ribs, swaying drunkenly from head hits etc.
- NPCs may be knocked unconscious rather than killed by kits to the back of the head
- Head hits may knock NPC's helmets off
- NPC attributes may be damaged depending where you hit them
- Chance of a critical hit which will cause them to visibly bleed to death over the next few (up to ten) seconds. They'll get progressively weaker during this process and may collapse before they die. They may also continue to bleed after death.
- NPCs also have access to all the same moves as you, based on their skills - including combat throws
- NPCs using UV moves can apply the same location damage multipliers and effects to you as you can apply to them, so that means injuries, knockouts, criticals, stat damage, helmet loss etc are all dangers to the player.
- Hostile reactions - NPCs don't much like being hit and having things thrown at them...
- Note that NPCs are - much - harder to defeat with UV than vanilla, to balance some of the benefits. You'll need to think about combat geometry etc. Hitting their shield a lot isn't going to help you much.
Fumbling
Both you and the NPCs have a chance of one of these things happening:
- drop your weapon (as long as its not a quest item)
- drop your shield/oh weapon (ditto)
- drop both of them (ditto for each)
- pull a muscle (you can still move around, but you'll be clutching your torso and unable to attack for a few seconds)
- Trip over
- Hit yourself - slightly reduced damage, but all the weapon magic effects/poisons will be applied
As to the actual chance of it happening - it's a little bit complicated to explain:
The formula is:
if (getrandompercent > luck && getrandompercent < fumblepercentage && getrandompercent > success)
Where:
- luck is capped (controllable in the INI) by a multiplier of 0.98
- fumble percentage is an INI settable variable ranging from 0-100 where 0 means no fumbles at all, though 100 does not mean fumbles every time.
- success is determined by the difficulty of the move - i.e. a move might have a skill level of 50. if your blade skill is 75, you have 25% chance of successfully avoiding the fumble.
That last bit makes it sound like at blade 75 you'd fumble 1/4 times when trying to perform a skill 50 move, but it's mitigated first by your luck - lets imagine that's 50 - that would further reduce the fumble rate to 1/8 times then by the fumblepercentage. if that is 1 you'd fumble 1/800 times at that skill level and move difficulty. Set to 2 it's be 1/400 times. Even set to 100 it would still remain 1/8 times.
The basic 'tap' moves will never trigger a fumble, and basic power attacks will never fumble - if - your requisite skill is 100. All other moves however are prone to fumbles. As you can see though - they're pretty rare, and shouldn't hurt your game much. They just mean you're taking a - slight - risk using the more powerful UV moves - which balances nicely the extra effects that you get from them.
INI toggleable messages (as well as the character saying the 'flee' topic) will let you know that you've fumbled - just so you don't go losing your favourite sword or shield and not noticing.
Taunting
- Goad NPCs into starting fights with you - then how is it your fault. Do it near the guards and let them do the hard work. Note that taunting is much improved if you use it with trademark's power attack voice mod see below for specifics.
- Taunting has its own animation and uses the power attack vocals for your character.
- Taunting will lessen an NPCs disposition towards you a little bit at a time. If somebody really likes you you'll need to taint them quite a lot to annoy them into attacking you.
Item Forging
- Need to replicate your favourite sword because there's only one of them in the game? No problem. This can be done from you repair screen (just click on a hammer), by pressing the UV modifier key (see below)
- Duplication costs the value of the weapon
- Armorer skill level required for duplication is dynamically determined based on the value of the weapon (this can be increased with spells, potions etc).
- If you don't have the skills, any NPC who repairs weapons can do it for you, but at twice the cost. Simply open their repair menu (from dialogue) and press the UV modifer key (see below).
Autodraw
- When you toggle your equipped weapon to off-hand mode you'll automatically draw your best one handed weapon to use with it
- When you throw your weapon if you have a duplicate of that weapon you'll draw that, otherwise you'll draw your best one handed weapon
Weapon on back
- If you've toggled a weapon to off hand it will appear on your back, complete with scabbard when you sheath it.
- The scabbard will persist even when the weapon is drawn.
- Double tapping your draw/sheath weapon button allows you to leave the OH weapon sheathed, which gives you access to some different moves.
- Shields and downloaded OH weapons will disappear while your main weapon is sheathed.
Sneaky Tricks
- Designed specifically for stealth characters.
- If you hit an opponent in the back of the head with a UV move while sneaking and undetected there's a high chance he'll be knocked unconscious rather than killed. They will remain unconscious for 3 minutes, but won't be happy when they wake up. This non-lethal attack method is designed primarily for thieves.
- If you kick an opponent while in sneak mode and undetected they'll almost always be knocked off their feet giving you vital time to do whatever naughty things you might have planned.
- Any UV move performed with a weapon on a sleeping NPC is considered a coup de grace and will kill them instantly.
Archery Camera
- If using a bow in third person mode you'll automatically be switched to first person mode when you press the attack button, and back to third when the arrow is released. This makes playing in third person more seamless as archery is near impossible in third person mode.
Fake First Person Mode (FFP Mode)
- First FFP mode exists because many of the UV animations don't (and really can't have) first person equivalents. I simply haven't the skills to make them, and even if I did, I don't think they'd map well to your actions. Kind of like the way the left and right power attacks are spinning in third person and just look like normal attacks in first person. The UV animations have a lot of spinning and flipping etc. Plus there's also the issue of the kicks. Most armour doesn't have legs in first person mode. FFP neatly solves all these problems at once.
- What FFP mode actually is is third person, with your whole character, except for your hands and weapons nulled, and the camera locked as close as the engine will allow behind your head. Fighting in FFP mode feels much more like real first person than third person though, and you'll see your hands and weapons moving as they should when you perform attacks, walk around etc.
- When you sheath your weapon you'll automatically be returned to normal first person mode (this is to ensure you have a crosshair and also because having the weapon at your side/on your back leads to some rather strange looking effects. The viewport change between FFP and real first person in minimal, so the change if fairly unobtrusive.
- The next exception is when using a bow. Targeting is a little strange in third person - anybody who's tried will know it's next to impossible to effectively hit targets. This FFP (which after all is actually third person) will drop you into real first person as soon as you pull back on your bow string, and take you back into FFP as soon as you release. One reason behind this switch is quivers. There's no way to effectively make the quiver mesh disappear and still be usable. What FFP mode does is actually unequip your arrows, but remember which ones they were and reequip them as it dumps you into first person mode. When you return they're unequipped again. The only slightly adverse effect of this is that you can't see how many arrows you have left under normal circumstances, until you actually draw back on the bow, or switch to first or third person mode.
- For throwing the same effect is applied. When you press the throw button you'll be dumped into first person mode and returned to FFP around 20 frames after you let go of the object.
- The default FFP setting is enabled such that when making a UV attack in first person you'll be switched to FFP for the duration of the attack the switched back to 'real' first person as soon as it concludes.
- When activating objects in FFP mode you'll be temporarily switched back to 'real' first person mode (as the hud reticle is more descriptive). Activation won't occur until you release the activate key so you can avoid accidentally stealing things by simply moving your crosshair away from them before letting go of the activate key.
- Note that if you leave the INI settings for FFP alone you should never have to enter it yourself and it should blend seamlessly into your game, only activating when absolutely necessary and only for the duration of a UV attack
Weapon Script Removal - WARNING. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
- By default UV will not allow you to toggle or gripshift a scripted weapon (there are just too many ways this could break quests)
- However, a new lesser power will allow you to permanently remove the script on your current weapon .
- This allows weapons from some older mods (such as those by Adonnay) which have utility scripts for swapping to off hand etc to be 'cleaned' and handled by UV.
- Alternatively some quest weapons (such as umbra) have scripts which can be safely removed once the quest is complete.
- Removes the 'object script' not any scripted enchantments which will still work as normal.
- Using this feature without knowing what the script does is likely to break quests so please be careful. I take no responsibility if you break your game with this feature.
Controls
- Intuitive control system based on just three new keys:
--- UV Attack,
--- Throw
--- A special multi-purpose UV modifier key.
- You'll be required to choose them the first time the mod loads. These keys can be configured at any time by clicking on the UV settings option in your misc items.
Melee Controls
--- To perform a left handed quick attack tap your UV Attack Key
--- To perform a left handed power attack press and hold the UV Attack key
--- To perform a dual wield (both weapons) quick attack tap the UV attack and normal attack keys together.
--- To perform a Dual wield power attack pres and hold the UV attack and normal attack keys together.
--- Note that when pressing UV and normal attack keys together it's generally preferable to press the UV attack key ever so slightly before the normal attack key.
--- To perform a directional left handed power attack (assuming you've reached the relevant skill level - 50 for left and right 75 for back and 100 for forward) press and hold the relevant direction key and press and hold the UV Attack Key
--- To perform a directional dual wield power attack (assuming you've reached the relevant skill level - 50 for left and right 75 for back and 100 for forward) press and hold the relevant direction key and press and hold the UV Attack Key and the Normal Attack Key at the same time
--- The skill type required depends on what weapon type you're holding. If you have a sword in your left hand and perform a left handed attack, it's your blade skill that's examined to choose your range of attacks. If it's a blunt then it's your blunt skill. If you're performing a dual wield attack then it's the type of weapon in your right hand that determines the relevant skill - though damage is applied for the offhand weapon based on your skill with that weapon. The weapon type of shields is determined by their armour rating - heavy armour is classed as blunt, light armour as blade.
--- If you're holding a two handed weapon, no weapon, or don't have an offhand weapon or shield equipped then Left handed/dual wield attacks correspond to a different set of potential attack animations.
--- If using a staff or bow only attacks using the UV attack button or both buttons will cause a melee attack - The normal attack button will perform a bow shot or staff spell as normal. The weapon skill for attacking with bows and staffs is always blunt.
--- To perform a quick kick press and hold block then tap the UV Attack key.
--- To perform a power kick press and hold block press and hold the UV attack key.
--- To perform a directional power kick attack (assuming you've reached the relevant hand to hand skill level - 50 for left and right 75 for back and 100 for forward) hold the block button, hold the relevant direction button and press and hold the UV attack key.
--- To perform an uke goshi on an opponent you must be face to face with them and very close. Ensure that either your weapon is sheathed or you have no weapon equipped then press and hold the UV attack button with no direction keys pressed (exactly the same as performing a basic power attack).
Throwing Controls
--- To throw your current weapon press and hold the thow key then press your normal attack key (not the UV one).
--- To throw your current shield or off hand weapon press and hold the throw button then press the block button.
--- To throw any other object in your inventory (it must first be prepared for throwing - see below) Press and hold your throw button then release it.
--- The length of time you hold the throw button (up to a point) determines how hard you throw the object.
--- To enable a special spear throw style (which makes an object fly without spinning) tap your UV modifier key while the throw button is held down.
--- Note that for objects with the word spear, javelin or arrow in the name spear throw mode is automatically engaged.
--- To prepare an object for throwing it must either be the last object you picked up (if the relevant INI setting is enabled you may have to hold the UV modifier when picking the object up), or you must assign it to a UV hotkey (see below for instructions how to assign objects to UV hotkeys). Once assigned (in game mode) simply Hold the UV modifier and tap the relevant hotkey to prepare the object (you'll see a message in the top corner telling you that the object is ready to throw).
--- If you have an archery skill of 50 or more then you can zoom in on your targets while throwing (eagle eye mode). To do this, hold the throw key, then spin the mouse wheel (up to zoom in, down to zoom out). The amount you can zoom is dynamically determined based on your marksman skill 75 is roughly equivalent to the vanilla zoom perk at skill 100 you can hit a fly at 100 paces
Misc Controls
- The UV modifier key gives you access to 8 new hotkeys (1-8 as normal). These UV hotkeys will store an item type rather than a specific inventory item, meaning that even if you remove the item from your inventory, buy for example throwing it, as soon as you pick it up again you can tap the hotkey (with the UV modifier) to use it.
--- To prepare an object for throwing, open your inventory, mouseover the object you want to assign, hold the UV modifier key and tap the hotkey (1-8) that you want to assign it to. This does not affect your normal hotkey choices.
--- Note that UV hotkeys only work for Items - not spells, and that unless it's a weapon or a shield pressing theUV modifier and hotkey in game mode will simply ready that item for throwing (weapons and shields will be equipped on you)
--- To see what's currently in your UV hotkeys, hold the UV modifier key and press '9'
--- You can recover lost items by holding the UV modifier key and pressing '0' this will bring up a menu allowing you to recover either your last thrown item, or any of the items in your UV hotkeys (except potions and soul gems).
--- Note that you can only recover things you have thrown recently, and you may only recover a given item once per throw (no cheeky duplication).
--- The item recovery system is exploitable for munchkinery, but given the fact that sometimes the collision detection just fails, it's worth having.
--- Note that with thrown weapons if the collision detection has failed the object is usually just on the other side of the wall/floor/ceiling. Using the console command 'tcl' is an alternative to the recovery menu.
- Taunting is performed by targeting an NPC and pressing the UV modifier key.
- To duplicate your current weapon open the repair menu and press the UV modifier key, or to have an NPC do it open the repair service menu and press the UV modifier key (this is more expensive but doesn't require you to have any armorer skills).
- To poison your current offhand weapon open your inventory, mouse over the potion/poison you wish to apply and press the UV attack key (not the UV modifier).
- To toggle a weapon to/from offhand mode, in game mode, press and hold block, press and hold the UV modifier key and tap the UV attack key.
- To change your grip on a weapon (including changing bows to a staff style grip) in game mode press and hold the UV modifier key and tap the UV attack key.
- To enter or exit FFP mode, press and hold the UV modifier then tap your vanity camera key .
- To set a fuse on a potion you must first buy fuses and a fuse cutter each second of fuse uses up a fuse object. These things aren't cheap in an attempt to maintain balance. Click on the fuse cutter object (which exists so you can hotkey fuses) and a menu will pop up offering you different fuse lengths. Pick one and your next thrown potion/poison will have the delay/bomb effects attached to it. You can disable a fuse by opening that menu again and selecting don't set a fuse but you'll have wasted the fuses.
All the controls are available in an in game book which you get when the mod loads. If you lose your copy you can simply run the setup menus again by clicking the UV settings item in your inventory and you'll get a new copy. Incidentally, this book is worth glancing at, as it has a little side benefit...
Install
First you MUST install OBSE, Pluggy and Nifscript - read their individual readmes for instructions.
This archive is distributed in what LHammonds calls OMOD-Ready format. It allows you to manually extract and install like most other mods but it also allows you to use Oblivion Mod Manager and import this archive with all the settings pre-configured for an OMOD file. Pick which method you are going to use for installation:
Manual Install
1. Extract this archive to any folder and then copy the contents to Oblivion's Data folder. You can ignore or delete the "omod conversion data" folder.
2. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, and enable the .esp file(s).
OBMM Install
Create the OMOD (Do this section only once):
1. Copy archive to (install folder)Oblivionobmmomod
2. Start Oblivion Mod Manager.
3. Click the Create button.
4. Click the Add Archive button, find and select the archive, then click Yes.
5. Click the Create omod button, then click OK when it finishes.
Install the mod using OBMM
1. Start Oblivion Mod Manager.
2. Double-click the name of the mod in the right-hand side of the OBMM screen. (icon should turn blue)
Configuration
- An INI file will allow you to configure many of the features of UV. Look in the Unnecessary Violence.ini file for details. Each setting is preceded by a description and a type - boolean (an on off set by 1 or 0), integer (a whole positive number including 0) or float (a decimal value, typically in the range 0-1 but there are some exceptions).
Enabling the Mod in the INI (Not being called a fool)
- At the end of the INI file is a special value 'iHaveReadTheInstructions' By default this is set to 0. You need to set it to 1 before loading the game. If you don't do this UV will kill your character as soon as you load your game. This is the 'thing you have to do' that I alluded to at the start of this readme.
Leg Mesh Packs
Pacific Morrowind has created a series of support packages containing special leg meshes for many well known mod armours. These are required for all-in-one type armours such as robes or the dark brotherhood shadowset in order for FFP to be able to correctly render your legs when kicking.
If you don't have the appropriate leg mesh pack installed, or you're using a custom armour not covered by his packs, then you'll be given a set of 'emergency legs' though these may not bear any resemblance to the armour you are wearing.
He has provided comprehensive instructions for creating and installing your own special leg meshes in these cases.
Uninstall
Pick which method you are going to use for uninstall based on how you installed it:
Manual Uninstall
1. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck the .esp file(s).
2. Delete the files/folders associated with the mod (look in the original archive to find them - there are too many to list here).
OBMM Uninstall
1. Start Oblivion Mod Manager.
2. Double-click the name of the mod in the right-hand side of the OBMM screen, click Yes. (icon should turn green)
Recommended Additional Mods
--- Deadly Reflex by skycaptain
UV and DR play together very nicely indeed, since UV adds a lot of additional attack types but in no way touches the vanilla combat system, UV nicely fills that gap.
--- Power Attack Voice Mod by Trademark
Without this mod, UV's taunt system is a little banal. Using this mod it becomes much more vibrant: "you move like a pregnant cow!"
--- Bloody Spray by Vanilla Beans
Makes combat that little bit more visceral
A Note on Compatibility
UV has been designed very carefully to maintain compatibility with other combat overhaul mods such as Deadly Reflex, Adrenaline fuelled combat and Duke Patricks various mods, amongst others. UV does not in any way affect the vanilla attack system. Nor does it modify NPC behaviour, except for when UV attacks and throws are being performed - and this is done on the fly with tokens. No NPCs were changed in the production of this mod. It is further designed to be compatible with any objects/weapons added by other mods. The only compatibility issues are with animation replacers and camera mods.
Note that UV has to null many of the item equip sounds, since to achieve many of the effects items must be silently equipped and unequipped. This is a necessary sacrifice.
UV's esm provides several tools for other mod makers to make use of. Most important of these is an animation lock. OB's engine will cause a CTD if more than one animation is played on a given actor at any given time. Every time a UV animation is played on the player, a variable is set in the esm, and unset again. Any mod that plans on running side by side with UV and applies animations to the player must check this variable is not set before applying them. The same goes for NPCs with a separate variable. UV will only ever apply an animation to one NPC at a time, and that NPC will be referenced in the esm for the duration of the animation.
The esm also provides a monitor variable for FFP mode, and a trigger to set or unset it externally.
The esm provides a number of variables showing the state of UV at any given time, including lots of data about damage application. Other mods may use this to track damage applied by UV effects.
Incompatibility
- Do NOT use any attack animation replacers with UV, as you'll lose all the additional benefits - at least don't use any of the ones mentioned here: The animations from the incredibly popular seph's dual wield, sephs hand to hand animation replacer and DMC stylish are already included here, as well as dodge animations for NPCs with very high acrobatics from seph's true acrobatics. You may however want to use the idle animations from one of these mods.
- UV is not compatible with my earlier mods Throw any Weapon and Dynamic Throwing Knives. The functionality of those mods is already delivered with UV so there is no need for them.
- UV is (sadly) not compatible with Loup Sombre's excellent Immersive first person view as it conflicts with UV's fake first person feature. This issue only applies to opening menus when in FFP mode, because of the idles added by that mod. That means the 99% of the time you'll be fine with the default settings, and if you disable FFP in the INI you'll have no problems.
- The same goes for Auto 1st-3rd person view by kuertee, though a compatibility esp may be in the works.
- UV has compatibility issues with some 'backpack' mods when using FFP mode. In general ffp should be disabled in the INI if you wish to use these mods.
- In general, there may be issues with any mods which directly mess with the camera. Note that if you play without entering fake first person mode, there will be no issues with these mods - but that's not that easy to do.
- If you plan to use a separate 'shield on back' mod then you - must - disable the weapon on back feature of UV in the INI.
- UV is not compatible with versions of NifScript up to and including 0.75 - it will crash your game.
- Also not compatible with the old Nifscript proof of concept esp.
- Will not work with direct2drive or NO-CD patched versions of oblivion.
Technical Note
UV uses placeatme in order to achieve its throwing effects. While this has been traditionally regarded as a 'bad' thing, OBSE17 allows these dynamically created references to be cleaned up (which UV does) so there should be no save-game bloat effects.
Known Issues or Bugs
- By default FFP causes an issue in the arena, as it causes you to unequip/equip your current armour in order to make the mesh refresh. To make up for this, the arena raiment script has been removed from the arena raiments, and a ring will be placed in your inventory containing the script. Simply wear this ring in arena fights. As a side effect, you'll be able to wear any armour you like in the arena - but of course it's recommended that you wear the appropriate raiment.
- Occasionally you might get a CTD when you pick up a thrown weapon. I am working on solving this asap.
- You'll get a certain amount of clipping on some animations with larger weapons. There is nothing I can do about this, so live with it.
- Sometimes the OB engine just flat refuses to play an animation. It's rare, but it does happen. This more likely for the NPCs than for the player, on whom the animations always seem to play fine, but it can lead to 'ghost hit' effects. As far as I know there's no way to resolve this. UV makes the engine do a lot of things it wasn't really supposed to, so some issues are inevitable.
- Until the new version of nifscript is complete scabbards still show up in FFP mode. This is simply unavoidable for now.
- Off hand scabbards seem to have an issue where they get lighter in hue the more you use them. Why this should be is a mystery to me.
- FFP mode still shows scabbards. For now this is unavoidable, but with the forthcoming update to nifscript the issue will be resolved.
- When sheathing OH weapons on your back your quiver will disappear. This is unfortunate but insoluble as the quiver slot is used for the weapon. UV will remember and put back your arrows as soon as you draw your weapon again though.
- UV's use of nifscript means every time you toggle a new weapon to off hand style, or change your grip on a weapon a new nif (mesh) has to be created. These meshes take up space in your data folder. They can however be safely cleaned with the nifscript cleanup batch file that comes with the nifscript download, as UV will recreate any that it needs when you load the game.
- Some of the animations are a little sketchy or inappropriate (especially some of the left handed attacks). I have a very talented animator (OdysseusB) working to create new animations specifically for this mod, so all those issues should be fixed soon.
- Please note that this is a first release version of a hugely complex mod - some bugs and incompatibilities are inevitable, so please report them (politely) to me via PM on the Beth forums, or on the official forum threads and I should be able to fix them.
Contact
- You can contact me by PM on the Official Bethesda forums or the TES Nexus forums as HeX_0ff.
- Or for bug reports NOT covered here or in the FAQ below: unnecessaryviolence@googlemail.com
Credits
- Thanks to OWASephirot, Amsterdam2019, OdysseusB and Frantic for the animations. This mod could not have appeared without you.
- Thanks to DragoonWraith for not just making nifscripts, but putting his own other projects on hold to get a compatible version out for this mod. You my friend are a legend.
- Thanks to Pacific Morrowind for the leg meshes and all the work he's put into the add-on packs.
- Thanks to Scruggs and the whole OBSE team for OBSE. You have made the impossible possible, and brightened Cyrodiil for everyone.
- Thanks to Nexxon for the throwing knife weapon mesh/texture, from his altair's gear mod.
- Thanks to Ronyn, Shadow_Dragyn and Defender1 for the blood textures
- Thanks to Guidobot for his original throwing stars mod. Without poring over his scripts, I'd have really struggled to make the throwing feature.
- Thanks to Skycaptain for his advice, both direct and indirect, on many diverse things.
- Thanks to everyone at the TES CS Wiki. This would not have been possible without them.
- Thanks to Bethesda for creating Oblivion.
- Thanks to TESNexus.com for the one-stop-shop resource for authors and players.
- Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.
- Thanks to all my beta testers and screenshot artists (Charles Crowe, WhoGuru, Khajiit Overlord Rainer, Phoshi, 2ColdScorpio-RG1, Sidvelu, Pacific Morrowind)
- Thanks to everyone at the beth forums, who has made comments and suggestions while this mod has been in WIP form.
- Thanks to everyone who's downloaded, played rated or voted for this mod.
- Thanks to Jennifer for being a most extraordinarily understanding girlfriend and putting up with my strange obsession with building this monster.
- If I have missed anybody, I apologise unreservedly - contact me via PM and I'll add you to the credits list.
Tools Used
- Blender
- NIFSkope
- Oblivion Mod Manager
- Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)
- TES Construction Set
- Texture Replacer
- Readme Generator
- Wrye Bash
- Nifscript
- Pluggy
- Unofficial Oblivion Patch
- Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch
Licensing/Legal
You must contact me and obtain my permission before re-packaging any part of this mod. The animations, meshes and textures used in UV are the product of other authors and their permission must be obtained separately if you wish to use them. The scripts are my own work. Please do not use them without my permission.
And Finally
Remember that this is a beta. It may have bugs. Please report them in this thread and try to be clear about exactly the circumstances in which the big occurred. The clearer the description, the easier it is for me to reproduce and subsequently fix.
HeX - 6th June 2009
Important Addendum:
UV Beta First Impressions FAQ
Okay I've compiled this FAQ as an addendum to the readme covering as many of the bugs reported so far as I can remember, as well as answers to some common questions. Where workarounds are possible (true in most cases) it will be described.
This will likely be my last post here till at least the 10th of July (I may check in occasionally, but don't expect every question to be answered quickly or even at all). I have some RL issues to deal with for the next month and my modding addiction has to be shut out till that's done. Worry not though. I'll be back and the beta *will* be updated and fixed then.
---
Q: I can�t work out how to dual wield.
A: I missed a subtitle in the Readme which makes this a little hard to find. That�s now fixed in the OP on the official Bethesda forums thread and on the Nexus project page, but not in the main readme. For reference here is the offending line:
- To toggle a weapon to/from offhand mode, in game mode, press and hold block, press and hold the UV modifier key and tap the UV attack key.
Q: The mod crashes when I try to dual wield a weapon.
A: you're suffering the same problem with Nifscript that a small percentage of users seem to - namely it crashes when using vanilla meshes (packed in BSAs) that have scabbards. Mod added weapons should work just fine, as should vanilla axes, maces etc.
I recommend grabbing the excellent:
Classic Sword Replacers
which will replace most of the vanilla swords with new (better looking anyway) ones and solve your problem for about 60% of the weapons. Its unfortunate, but for now there's nothing I can do about this bug. The current version of nifscript is as much in beta as UV and in this case the issue is on that side. It's not unexpected that there would be some problems, though we've yet to figure out what the common factor is for people suffering this problem. Some users have reported that simply unpacking the weapons from the BSA fixes the issue - though that may not be true for all users.
If you have suffered from a crash when toggling/switching at all - please run the Nifscript cleanup batch file distributed with nifscript as it will remove any 'bad' meshes created during the crash.
Q: Where should I put UV in my load order?
A: As late as possible. It shouldn't conflict with anything (except arena clothing mods and the conflict isn't critical so they can be loaded after it if necessary, or preferably bash graphics can be used). UV needs to be as close as possible to last to give the scripts sufficiently high priority to function correctly (Same reason Duke Patrick's mods need to be so late). By default BOSS puts it a bit too early. With the exception stated above it shouldn't cause any of the types of conflicts that LO is typically used to fix so it can safely go last (even after the bashed patch).
Q: Why can't I see my arms in FFP mode?
A: FFP is not the same as 'real' first person mode. It's still actually third person and the camera isn't attached to your skeleton. The animations you see are actually the third person animations, so in many cases the arms would be in the wrong place and flailing wildly. Also, even if this were not the case, it's impossible to selectively null part of a mesh. I have to null the *whole* upper body or nothing. The engine can do it for 'real' first person, but that functionality is not exposed for scripting.
Q: When I exit FFP mode my helmet/wig/hood is unequipped.
A: Disable FFP in the INI.
Q: When I enter FFP I see a headless body and all my armour breaks.
A: Disable FFP in the INI
Q: When I enter FFP mode my amulet/tail is still showing floating about.
A: Issue with some amulets/tail pieces that have specific female versions. Disable FFP in the INI
Q: I can't duplicate my very expensive weapon even though I have an armourer skill of 100.
A : Known bug. Already fixed and will be included in the update.
Q: Hitting some OOO opponents makes them unequip their armour.
A: No known fix for now. It will be repaired for the update.
Q: My hotkeys are going crazy and hammering when I press them / hotkey mod xxx is broken now.
A: Known bug. Will be fixed for the next release. For now, disable FFP in the INI, Disable weapon on back in the INI, Disable Bow Autoswitch in the INI, open the console and type 'StopQuest ptFakeFirstPersonQuest'
Q: When I throw azura's star I don't get it back. OR Azura's star is completely not working
A: Known bug. Will be fixed in the next release. Don't throw azura's star OR disable soul gem effects in the INI
Q: Something strange happens when I load a game with a gripshifted weapon or my shield on my back.
A: Switch your grip back before saving, or wait five seconds after reload and everything *should* revert to normal.
Q: Suddenly I can't perform any UV attacks and/or NPCs have stopped ducking/dodging/countering.
A: The animation locks have not been cleanly released. Wait ten seconds before pressing the UV attack key again and they'll revert (unless you're using the hotkey fix described above). Alternatively (if you're using the hotkey fix), open the console and type:
set uvVariables.uvPlayerLock to 0
set uvVariables.uvAnimationPlayingOn to 0
The first of these is for unlocking the player, the second for NPCs
Q: OOO hottkey torches don't work.
A: See the hotkey bug above.
Q: I see weapon called ptDummyTwoHander.
A: Gripshift the weapon, it should go back to what it's meant to be. Otherwise, just throw it away.
Q: Unlimited rings doesn't work with UV
A: That's true - it doesn't. Solution currently unknown.
Q: Camera mod xxx doesn't work with UV
A: Also true. Choose which you prefer and go with it.
Q: I see a lot of debug text in the console.
A: I left some console spam in my accident, so did DW in nifscript. This will be gone in the next release.
Q: The console says "error in script xxxxxxxx" over and over again.
A: Either 1) You're still using one of the OBSE17 beta versions, so update, OR switch off soul gem effects in the INI
Q: I keep seeing big green clouds and hearing bangs when I throw weapons.
A: If you are experiencing green clouds when you throw weapons, it's most likely an issue with supreme magicka, which adds magic effects to hitherto silent ones. All you have to do to fix this is apply supreme magicka's 'SM_NoPoisonLevitationEffects.esp' and you'll be just fine.
Q: My companion hates me after I hit him with a UV move.
A: Known bug. Will be fixed in the next update. In the mean time you can use the targeted console command "setav aggression XX" combined with a charm spell to make them friendly again.
Q: When I load the game it says I haven't installed OBSE and kills me.
A: Install OBSE17 (Read the instructions - OBSE is not installed the same way as normal mods)
Q: When I load the game it says I haven't installed nifscript and kills me.
A: Install Nifscript (Read the Instructions - Nifscript is an OBSE plugin thus not installed to the same location as normal mods).
[color=#FF8C00]Q: When I load the game the mod calls me a 'fool' and kills my character. What gives?
A: RTFM. Pay special attention to the 'configuration' section. Note that this isn't just gratuitous - there's a technical reason too as some of the scripts can be permanently broken if you don't install the mod correctly the first time (which you'll have done if you've read the manual).
Q: Throwing weapons are really slow/fast.
A: Known bug. They're tied to frame rate instead of real time. This will be fixed for the next release. No workaround for now.
Q: FFP breaks mod xxx because it makes you unequip your armour.
A: disable FFP in the INI
Q: FFP breaks the arena because it makes you disable your armour:
A: Wear the UV Arena compatibility ring and EITHER ensure UV is later in your load order than anything that affects the arena armour OR don't wear the arena armour at all (you don't need to if you're wearing the ring). OR Disable FFP in the INI
Q: Is this mod compatible with combat mod XXX?
A: Yes. Probably.
Q: Is this mod compatible with random mod XXX?
A: I don't know - I don't know what every mod does. 99.99% of them should present no problems.
Q: Please make a mesh compatibility pack for armour mod XXX
A: Ask Pacific Morrowind. If you're nice to him he might acquiesce to your request.
Q: Why are some of the animations so 'manga' looking? Why didn't you make more realistic ones?
A: I would have preferred to use more realistic animations, but as I'm not an animator myself I've had to work with the resources available. As more realistic animations are made available some of the current ones will probably be swapped out - however the first priority is to replace the few truly 'ropey' ones.
Q: How come your mod has so many bugs when mod XXX doesn't?
A: UV is probably more complicated (at least from a scripting point of view) than mod XXX. It has literally thousands of lines of code, which creates the potential for far more types of bugs than you get from most other types of mods. Most of those scripts are used intensely and stress tested in a way that few game scripts are. UV also uses some new experimental scripting methodologies. Many many bugs were squashed in the pre-alpha, alpha and closed beta stages but many don't appear until it gets used in the 'real' world. That's the purpose of a public beta. When the mod is referred to as V1 you may expect it to be fairly bug-free. While it remains in beta, bugs are to be expected. It has only been generally available for a few days as I write this and I haven't had a chance to address the bugs with an update yet. Mod XXX has probably been around for a while and had a chance to iron out any problems (for example Deadly Reflex, which has been evolving for three years now). Unlike many projects, UV was released with a huge range of functionality from the word go. This is a recipe for problems hence the public beta. Most of the bugs are related to FFP mode which was rewritten from scratch at the last minute and not sufficiently tested. I was rushing to make the release before I knew I had to leave, so I apologise for the many oversights. FFP mode is gut-wrenchingly complicated because of the number of situations it must be disabled/enabled as well as the complexity of the actual code itself. It was always going to be the worst offender for bug generation.
Please report bugs found that are not covered in this list by emailing clear descriptions of them to:
unnecessaryviolence@googlemail.com
Please do not expect a response - this will be a repository for bugs which I will access and work through when I return to modding next month. Also please *only* use this address for reporting bugs.
Thanks to everyone who's offered support over this project, reported bugs, offered constructive criticism and those who've just posted to say thank you. It's all appreciated.
HeX - 9th June 2009
