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Holy Holotape Batman!

CptCOOTS

Lord of the Desk
Staff member
Verified Builder
Messages
228
Version 2.2.a is going to be posted very soon (sometime tonight) and introduces a new holotape: Creation by COOTS Helper Tool (AKA COOTS Helper 2287). The holotape is craftable at any city planner's desk and offers several powerful things.377160_20180401082150_1.png

First, the tape contains a description of all the content currently in my mod and some teasers to what is up and coming (found under Feature Information). This means you can learn about my Compact Interior plot methodology and details (without specific crunch) on all my plots broken down by category: Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, Martial, Recreational, and Residential. Information on plots that you are incapable of building, because maybe you don't have particular Creation Club content, is not available for viewing. This may not be useful in a meta game sense, but is nice for immersion. There are also descriptions of all my City Planner's Desks as well as all my City Leaders.

The second, and most powerful, part of the Holotape is found under Feature Controls. Currently the holotape offers you the ability to remove (or re-add) any of my city planner's desks to the Workshop menu. This will not impact any desks you've already built, it simply hides disabled desks from the Furniture menu under the Sim Settlements category. Importantly for some users there is a tool under Feature Controls (Repair Slocum's Joe Vendor Lists) that fixes the missing vendor items for individuals in my Slocum's Joe plots. When I was removing explicit mod dependency from my mod I inadvertently cleared these lists. This tool can detect if your save is in a situation where the lists are unpopulated and makes itself available to you. This should absolutely not be a problem with new saves that use Version 2.2.a or higher from the start. Currently, you are not able to enable/disable Leader Cards that I've added, but that is in the works and will be available with the next update after this. I have no plans for allowing one to toggle the availability of plots because that is already found through the City Planner's Desk.

Cheers and look forward to the update.
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So I really love my holotape and I think the flexibility it offers is a cool feature (plus I got better at scripting small things). I want to give a complete run-down of the Holotape Hierarchy here so that those who care can see. I also want to clarify a few things about the holotape. I'm going to write in white mostly, but I'm going to put technical stuff in bold red. This way if you're really curious on how a few things work you can read that, and if you aren't then you can skip it. Also note, as a shorthand I make the holotape respond with Data Corrupted... if there is a feature listed in the holotape that isn't implemented yet (teasers). This drove at least one user crazy thinking they messed something up. But now y'all know.

I want the Holotape to be an immersive way that you gain access to my creations. A lot of people thought my mod broke their shit when suddenly all my alternative desks disappeared. Ultimately I want NOTHING from my mod to be available until the Holotape is installed (and I'm working on that). Right now Desks and Leaders are the only things forbidden until you "install" my holotape. Installing COOTS Helper 2287 means that you've selected it from your Pip-boy. Technically I included a check to make sure you've run City Manager 2078 from Sim Settlements first, but that should be unnecessary because you needed a city planner's desk to build my holotape. Once installed there is a little greeting with some pretty heavy Maine-er vernacular and then two options: Feature Information and Feature Controls.
  1. Feature Information contains all the "Fluff" written by me about the things I've included in the mod. I'm still a novice at formatting shit to fit in a Terminal Screen nicely so bear with me. There are three major categories of information: Plot Descriptions, Desk Descriptions, and Leader Descriptions.

  • Plot Descriptions is simply another menu of "categories": Compact Interior, Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, Martial, Recreational,and Residential. Selecting any one of these will give you a list of all plots that you are capable of building. If you can currently build that plot then selecting that option will give Loading Plot Data... . If you cannot currently, but may eventually, build that plot then selection that option will result in a Fragmented Data Request... . Let's talk about these responses for a second. My Slocum's Joe plots require a) that you have the Slocum's Joe CC content to be selectable and then b) that you've completed the fetch quest for the Franchise document over in Malden. So if you do not have the CC content (the .esl) then options like Slocum's Joe Satellite won't even show up. If you have the CC content, but have not done the quest yet, the option will show up but selecting it will result in a response of Fragmented Data Request... (so you need to get more "data"). If you have the CC content and have done the fetch quest then selecting the option will result in Loading Plot Data... . I've formatted Plot Data as follows:

Plot Name: Name
Type: Category (Vendor Type if Category is Commercial), Plot Type
Levels: N
Description: A fluffy description of the plot.
Benefits: A fluffy description of any benefits this plot offers in addition to those of it's Category.
Penalties: A fluffy description of any penalties this plot offers in addition to those of it's Category.

  • Desk Descriptions is another menu with each of my desks listed. Selecting one that has been implemented results in Loading Data... and then you get a fluff description of the desk and then a brief Functionality description (usually Full, a list of what is not in that desk, e.g., some desks lack a Terminal, or a list of added functionality). Some desks will return Data Corrupted... which means I haven't written the entry yet (teasers?).

  • Leader Descriptions is probably the ugliest menu I have. All leaders I've added can be found on this list. If you haven't encountered them yet, then you'll get aFragmented Data Request..., otherwise Loading Data... will give a big data dump on the leader:

Fluff about the leader.
Special: Description of where they can lead, if they default to a flag, and anything else relevant.
---------------------
Variant: Name of Variant #1
Description: Fluff of Variant.
Major Benefit: Name (Nonnumeric description of Major Benefit)
Minor Benefit: List of Minor Benefits (Nonnumeric description of Minor Benefits)
Penalty: List of Penalties (Nonnumeric description of Penalties)
---------------------
Variant: Name of Variant #2
Description: Fluff of Variant.
Major Benefit: Name (Nonnumeric description of Major Benefit)
Minor Benefit: List of Minor Benefits (Nonnumeric description of Minor Benefits)
Penalty: List of Penalties (Nonnumeric description of Penalties)

I'm working on notifications for when new information is available.

  1. Feature Controls is where I put in a lot of work. There are options to Toggle Desks, Toggle Leaders, Repair Slocum's Joe Vendor Lists, and Leader Repair Kit.

  • Toggle Desks reveals a list of desks with either [x] or [ ] in front of their names. Selecting a desk preceded by [x] will make it no long selectable (Disabling Blah Desk...) in the Workshop Crafting Interface; selecting a [ ] entry will enable the desk to be selectable (Enabling Blah Desk...). If you select a [ ] entry and you get a response of Data Corrupted... that means that desk isn't implemented yet and the entry is a teaser of sorts. This really just lets you cut down on the clutter in the Sim Settlements -> Furniture menu if there are some desks you don't like.

  • Toggle Leaders reveals a list of all the leaders in my mod. There is a Help option that explains that you should be careful when disabling a leader that you've assigned to lead a city. The next time SS updates the City (usually when the city levels) the leader will be booted and the City will be returned to your control. Each leader variant is listed separately and disabling one variant does not impact the other. Selecting entries with [x] will result in Unregistering Leader Information... and make that leader unavailable. Selecting entries with [ ] will result in Registering Leader Information... and make that leader available. NPCs who cannot yet be leaders will be marked with a [-] and selecting them will return Unable to Register Fragmented Data... . I use global variables (flags) to determine what stage you are in with respect to the leaders. Dogmeat is available as soon as you meet him; Deezer when you enter Covenant through the doors (via any means); Goodfeels once you've claimed Sunshine Tidings Co-Op; and Ronnie Shaw once the two of you need to head into the basement during Old Guns. There are issues with mid save installs that I'll address in Leader Repair Kit. By default, all leaders and their variants are Registered.

  • Repair Solcum's Joe Vendor Lists is only available if your save is in a state that requires it. This will repopulate the custom vendor lists for my Slocum's Joe Commercial plots. You need this if you've already acquired the Franchise Kit prior to Creations by COOTS version 2.3.a. Run it once and you should be all set.

  • Leader Repair Kit is here because I cannot account for all the weird ways y'all will encounter my leaders (actually doesn't matter with Dogmeat). Selecting this will open a menu that depends on where you are. If you are in Sunshine Tidings and Goodfeels left already (usually because you did that quest before installing my mod) then you can run Goodfeels which should "fix" him. If you are in Covenant and Deezer is not available (probably because you did the quest before installing my mod or you went that other way) then you can run Deezer which should "fix" him. If you are in The Castle and Ronnie Shaw isn't available (usually because you did the quest before installing my mod or you and Ronnie were in different cells when the quest stage triggered) then you can run Ronnie shaw and that should "fix" her.
 
@CptCOOTS Hello! I cannot craft your holotape, for some reason. What could be the issue? I can craft three different Sim Settlements tapes (?!) but not yours
 
Hmmm, okay I'm trying to drill down into this problem. So you
  1. Have a City Planner Desk, have clicked on it to craft, and nothing shows up?
  2. Which of my plots have you made?
  3. Go into the bunker basement in Sanctuary. Is there anything out of the usual in there?
  4. NMM has been silly with .esl files lately for me. Are Slocum's Joe and Arcade both installed AND activated? (Even if slocum's joe is activated you cannot build my plots until you do the fetch quest).
 
I've had no issue with the mod and the holotape. I found your holotape and all it's options to be working perfectly. No problems crafting it and it allowed me to use Deezer as a leader (your option to fix the leaders worked perfectly when used with the Peaceful Covenant resolution mod) and I run a heavily modded setup (when I get the time to actually play it.)
 
@CptCOOTS Ok, so I tested what you said: I do have CC content installed, I can build the Deserter's shack and others, there is nothing off with Sanctuary's basement as far as I could tel...
 
I update about every week and a half to two weeks. I've been working on a few bigger projects so I'm going to slow down a bit but I believe everything in my mod right now works.
 
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