Crosslinking plugin files

Introduction

Linking doors between cells in different plugin files is problematic. Because the doors need to function even when only one of the two plugin files is active. This is a very effective solution to that problem if you don't want to merge the plugins, or if merging would be impractical or detrimental to what you are trying to accomplish. In this tutorial a simple method for linking two cells is explained, there's a more advanced method available listed on the bottom.

The Plan

For this tutorial two plugins from oblivionsource.com will be used. The "house tunnels/catacombs" mod, and the "myhome" mod, downloading these mods is not necessary to understand the tutorial.

• The "housetunnels/catacombs" plugin connects all the purchasable houses to one another via trapdoors in the basement and a short but winding set of caves.
• The myhome plugin is a house mod that we're going to connect to the catacombs of the housetunnels plugin.

If we load the Construction Set, put doors in the catacombs and the house, save the doors, reload the Construction Set, and then link them, the resulting save will crosslink the two mods together and create "not a unique object" errors, no matter which file is set active. The only way to make this type of link work is to link a door from the catacombs to a wilderness space just outside your house.

Placing the Doors

We select both plugins in the Data Files window, the housetunnel plugin should be loaded as the active file. After the Construction Set is finished loading, we put a door in the catacombs in a likely looking place, but not going anywhere.

Then we load the exterior cell of the myhome plugin, just outside the front door is a well door siting to the left of a stable. The well door doesn't go anywhere, but it can't be used because it is part of the myhome plugin and using it would result in errors. A wilderness cell on the other side of the stableis a suitable spot for an exit. We drag a matching well door from the Object Window and plop it down by the stable on the right side. Now looking out the front door we see a well door to the left of the stable and another well door to the right of it. Once added, we can double click the door and go to the teleport tab, and link it to the previously added catacomb door. After adjusting in the teleport marker and saving we're done and close the Construction Set.

End Result

If the housetunnels plugin is loaded but not the myhouse plugin, you can walk down the road where the house should have been and see a well sitting off to the side of the road. Approaching the well you'll see it's a door and POOF!! down to the catacombs you go, meaning that the link to the catacombs is independent of the myhome plugin and will work with or without it. Since we intentionally placed the well door next to where the stable's are when the myhome mod is running, the housetunnels mod will work nicely with the myhome mod running as well. So, if you reload the game with the housetunnels mod and the myhome mods both running, you can walk out the door, go to the stables and to the well on the right, and access the catacombs. It looks like the well was originally part of the myhouse mod all along.

Other Situations

While there are as many variations to the way you execute this plan as there are people to execute it, the concept of modifying plugin files to fit together like puzzle pieces, is one of the simplest yet effective plans to solve the potential crosslinking issues. For a more advanced crosslinking method take a look at the link below.

See Also

• De-Isolation Tutorial
• Combine your SI and non-SI mods into one (OBSE, Patch v1.1, Other mods too)