Category:About Modding Etiquette

Design

• Keep game balance in mind when creating mods. Making an item that would normally need recharging use no charges or creating super spells with little or no magicka cost will severely alter the balance of game play.

Compatibility

• Don't alter objects that exist in Oblivion.esm unless your mod is specifically designed to alter them. Examples of bad alterations include changing the contents of a chest, the destination of a load door, the properties of objects, adding a script to an object, or changing a magic effect. Changes like this will affect all instances of that object in the game. To avoid that, copy the existing object with a new ObjectID before making any changes.

• Keep your mod clean. Information on cleaning mods can be found in the Mod Cleaning Tutorial.

• Keep any new dialogue clean. Information on unclean dialogue can be found in the Unclean Dialogue Tutorial.

• Don't create self-centered dialogue that adds topics or greetings to all NPCs in the world, without a means to avoid them. Another modder might want to create a NPC that knows absolutely nothing about current events or doesn't care about them. If you want to add generic topics to all NPCs, add them to the quest "Generic" or make your own quest and test for "GetIsPlayableRace == 1" and "GetInFaction ForgottenOnesFaction == 0".

• Don't click on Recompile All in the Script Edit window of the TES Construction Set. Doing so includes all of the scripts from currently open TES Files in your mod making it bigger in file size and possibly interfering with somebody else's mod.

• Include alterations to Worldspaces in the Summary window of your mod, in the description of the downloadable file, and on the Mod Worldspace Alterations page.

Bug Avoidance

• Don't alter anything in cell (3,3) in any existing worldspace. Due to an engine bug, when the player has a mod with edits to this cell active and the cell is loaded, all markers including the player's marker on the local map will disappear. Removing any edits to (3,3) from your mod will fix the problem. This bug does appear by itself even with no mods active, but (3,3) edits will make it worse.
• If your mod adds a bow weapon, or edits any existing bow, be sure to change the Reach value to something other than zero. The suggested value is one. Otherwise, you will trigger a very nasty bug for a small percentage of users where equipping the bow doesn't just crash Oblivion, but can result in a Blue Screen Of Death or a reboot of the PC, depending on their system settings.
• See Troubleshooting for more bugs and other tips.

Efficiency

• Don't unnecessarily make references persistent. Persistent objects are always loaded in memory.

• Check "No Low Level Processing" for actors (creatures or NPCs, even dead/disabled ones) that are never intended to leave a given cell. Low level processing causes their scripts and AI to run once every 5 (?) seconds or so, even if PC is not near.

• Do NOT check Quest Item unless necessary. Scripts for Quest Item actors run every frame of the game even if PC is nowhere near. If quest item status is necessary, then it's best to turn it on and turn it off using scripts as required.

• Keep your scripting as efficient as possible. Scripts can very rapidly add up and kill performance if too many are running at once - ensure that your scripts are only running when they need to be. Avoid Global Scripts as much as possible.
  • Avoid using gameMode blocks if possible. (E.g., if you can use an onLoad block instead, do so.)
  • If all the script does is enable/disable, consider enabling/disabling from an external script, or if there is a group of related refs, assign them all to a single parent ref and enable/disable the parent ref through a script.
  • Use quick exits from gameMode block scripts when possible. I.e., rather than letting the script fall through several lengthy if statements, instead do a single test at the top to see if rest of script should be skipped, and if so, return.
  • When initializing the state of multiple objects (e.g., setting three actor references to attack player under a certain condition), use a single script on one object which sets all, rather than scripting each of them separately.

• Avoid using PlaceAtMe to create new copies of an object when you could simply use MoveTo on an existing object. Apparently, placed items are never deleted from the world and if used enough can cause savegame size to expand significantly. (E.g., earlier versions of Harvest Flora had this problem.)

Releasing

• Include a detailed Readme file along with your mod. A good readme provides a description of the mod's features, any potential bugs or technical issues, a list of changes made to existing objects, possible sources of conflict with other mods, and some information on how to contact you in the event that a user encounters a problem with your plugin. Creating the readme as a plain text file (such as one written in Notepad) ensures that everyone will be able to read it. And to avoid overwriting another mod's readme, give it a unique name, such as "YourModName - Readme!"
  • Here's a sample readme template (modder's resource) that includes instructions for how to best deal with ArchiveInvalidation problems.
  • You can also use the Readme Generator to quickly build a custom-tailored and professional-looking text file with very little effort.
  • Alternatively, Wrye Bash (0.42 or later) has readme templates and wikitext to html conversion built in.

• Flag an unfinished mod as alpha or beta release. Unfinished mod include those that have known bugs you weren't able to fix yet as well as mods with missing or awkwardly substituted stuff (for example a pants-icon as placeholder-icon for a new skirt model)

• Make your release OMOD-ready by including OMOD conversion data for Oblivion Mod Manager. This avoids the need to release a separate OMOD version while still giving users an easier way to create their own OMOD. In an OMOD-ready archive, all the "omod conversion data" is pregenerated and included as a separate directory, including readme, install scripts (if any), screenshot, etc. This way, when the user goes to create an OMOD from the extracted download, OBMM finds that directory and asks if the user wants to import the conversion data. This prefills all the data fields, etc., for the OMOD.
  
  You should probably include a very brief OMOD_or_Manual_Install.txt file explaining the steps. Feel free to use any of the files included in this small mod package as a guideline (I'll post a separate modder's resource version as soon as possible).
  
  The best thing about this approach is that it works just as well for users who like OMODs and those who don't (the only difference is the one extra directory in the archive).
  
  To do this, simply create an OMOD in OBMM and then export it (right-click the OMOD and select Convert to archive).