Message Spam

From the Oblivion ConstructionSet Wiki
(Redirected from Avoiding Message Spam)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Tes4 displays messages to the player whenever: 1) spells are added to, 2) items are added to or removed from the player. For some scripts such messages are very undesirable (e.g. for an alchemical sorters which adds/removes many items). Hence, message "spam". There are several techniques for avoiding this spam.

AddItem - aTemp Container[edit | edit source]

When adding items to the player, spam can be avoided by first adding the item to a container, and then removing the contents from the container to the player. This works because unlike addItem, RemoveAllItems is silent.

tempContainerRef.addItem deathDagger 1
tempContainerRef.removeAllItems player

If you're using Cobl, you can use cobGenXFerRef for the temporary container -- it's defined for just this sort of use.

Note: Do not wait a frame to remove the item to the player. If you do, you run the chance of running the item's script, which in rare circumstances can cause problems.

Message Queue Overloading[edit | edit source]

Simplest technique is to overload the message queue by sending the exact same message twice in a row before the offending add or remove line, i.e.

;--No messages.
message " "
message " "
addItem myItem, 1

;--OR... Covering message...
message "[You've been pickpocketed!]"
message "[You've been pickpocketed!]"
addItem myItem, 1

There's no obvious reason why this does or should work, but it does. :shrug: The message that is sent (including a blank message) will still display for the usual time, but messages that would ordinarily appear after it seem to be discarded -- i.e. they never enter the queue.

Con: The downside of this approach is that it may block more messages than you want to block. It basically nukes the queue for a second or two -- any message sent by any script or action during that period will be lost.

Con: Some UI mods add an Oblivion icon for all messages. This icon will still appear for the duration of the message - defeating the purpose of the blank message.

OBSE Commands[edit | edit source]

OBSE provides the following spam free versions as alternatives for vanilla functions that generate spam messages and sound:


These two functions do not span messages when adding and removing spells:


These two functions do not span messages when equipping and unequipping:


These functions do not span messages and do not generate the corresponding sound:



Item Activate[edit | edit source]

When adding items whose "activate" action results in being added to inventory (e.g. armor, but not books), you can use activate in a script.

someItemRef.activate player

Pro/Con: Requires that you have a ref for the item. On the plus side,this means that if you want the player to pick up a specific pre-existing, placed item, you can do that.