Oblivion gate not working!!!

[AndalayBay]

Arthmoor, I just thought of something... The gates are randomly generated. Not all of them will necessarily open. If you've hijacked a vanilla gate, have you taken that into account?Here's a screenshot of the area.In my game, a gate has never spawned in that area. I could load Verg up in my completed game and see what's there, if anything.

[Arthmoor]

Yes, the gate is a distinct object and the script controlling it removes the random factor from it. I think the problem though is that it's hanging on to data tied to the formID. The problem there is though that I tried changing the gate reference into a new formID but the linked pair fails when grabbing the sigil stone in that case.I think the game stores something about each one in some buried list or something that isn't exposed to the CS. OBSE hasn't got any gate manipulation functions to check that with.Probably has spoilers, but this is the script on my gate object:

scn VergayunOblivionGateScriptfloat timershort countshort destroyed		; set to 1 after destroyed script runsshort ignoreshort activeref mySpawnMarkerbegin OnLoad	disableLinkedPathPoints	; reset count	if count > 0		set timer to 60	endif	set count to 0	; if MQ is over, destroy me if I'm open	if( getdisabled == 0 && getdestroyed == 0 && getstage MQ16 >= 100 )		ForceCloseOblivionGate		enablelinkedpathpoints		set VergayunOBGateQuest.MQClosedIt to 1		if( VergayunBrutusRef.GetDead == 0 )			VergayunBrutusRef.MoveTo VergayunGuardPatrolRoad			VergayunBrutusRef.SetAlert 0		endif	endif		if( active == 0 && GetStage MQ06 >= 100 && GetStage MQ16  5000 && MQ00.nearOblivionGate == GetSelf				set MQ00.nearOblivionGate to 0				ReleaseWeatherOverride			endif		endif		if timer > 0			set timer to timer - getsecondspassed		elseif count 

[AndalayBay]

Yeah, Arthmoor, I think we've de-randomized your thread enough. How about moving this to a new thread?

[AndalayBay]

Next question: do you really need to hijack a vanilla gate for this? Can't you test if the vanilla gate is spawned and open and use that? If it hasn't spawned, could you spawn it? If it had spawned and has been closed, spawn another one in it's spot?

[Arthmoor]

Yes, the gate needs to be hijacked because it sends you to an Oblivion realm of my making rather than one of the 7 randoms. There's no method for forcing the gate target to change at runtime, so it has to be a distinct base object with its own script. Which means if I leave the vanilla gate alone, I have to then consider spawning a second gate very close by. Or doing evil and deleting the vanilla gate entirely.

[AndalayBay]

Loaded this up in my completed game. I went back to an earlier save where the MQ was still active. I went to Verg and what did mine eyes behold:Difference? In this game I've never visited the area at all. Both gates were open - the one south of the inn and the one north. This game doesn't have new roads loaded, so I had no reason to visit the area.So, are the two gates connected somehow? Does closing the one gate affect the other? I don't know. I do wonder what I would see if I went back to an earlier save in my other game. But it would be hard to find a saved game from before I closed that gate - I would have done it on my travels.I guess the other difference with this game is that it would be at the height of the crisis. I've actually started Defense of Bruma in this game (MQ13). I left it with the Countess and Martin waiting for me in the chapel. So when does the maximum number of gates appear? But you said that you've removed the random nature of the gate. Also, have you tried looking at the city gates? Is there anything different about a "hard-coded" gate? Or even looking at the gates that spawn in MQ13.

[Arthmoor]

Getting the gate to appear is only one small hurdle. It's not much use if it can't be accessed, let alone retrieve the sigil stone. I swapped out the formIDs again just now on my end, forced the gate to take a new one, forced the enable parent to take a new one, forced all the rocks and shit to use the new enable parent. Deleted the vanilla gate. I got mine to show, and was able to click it this time, but it was all for naught when the sigil stone whited out and nothing happened. Still standing in the chamber. I. Do. Not. Get. It.Noticing your gate there isn't showing the gate weather. Did that eventually kick in?

[AndalayBay]

*grumble grumble* I hate Oblivion gates... All right, I'll try it.

[AndalayBay]

Forget Grumpy Lizard. I'm going to change your title to Nasty Lizard. :tongue: It worked fine for me. Although I didn't see anybody inside - I didn't explore the whole place either. Very innovative. Taking the first door on the right as soon as you enter the tower teleports you pretty far along the ramp though - a bit touchy there. I got a transcendent sigil stone, as I should at my guy's level. About the only thing I would say is that the close sequence after grabbing the stone seemed a little longer than normal.Edit: just saw your question about the gate weather. I noticed that it didn't kick in too. The gate weather had just started to clear from passing the previous gate, so maybe that confused it. When I reloaded my save, the gate weather was in full force.

[Arthmoor]

Nobody inside? The tower had no people? Odd, but hey, made it easy for you to get through I guess :PThe ramp thing was deliberate. Sort of a gotcha trap.Want to know something really uncool? Even a DELETED reference that's marked persistent will not go away. My guy walked up to the gate to find it z-fighting with the vanilla gate. Which is very clearly marked in the ESP as a full delete. To the point I was even able to console click it, then disable it. That should not have been possible. I hate this game's stupid ass bugs.I'm going to check and see if waiting out a respawn period will resolve anything. Who knows, it could be contaminated cell data at this point. Everyone I have except my super-noob has been to this area before and has that gate stuck in their save in one form or another.

[AndalayBay]

Oh, there were tons of enemies - hence my Nasty Lizard comment. :tongue: Thank god I'm a high level mage with area lightning spells! But it sounded like I was supposed to find a friendly and I didn't see anyone. As I said, I didn't explore the whole area.I think you might be right. With my characters visiting that area before, it really looked like it needed a cell reset of some sort. Can you do that on exteriors? Because the dock was still a mess of coffins and stuff. The crates even had my hand prints on them and the barrels were still open (running Harvest Containers). Now HC really doesn't reset properly, so they may have remained that way anyway. But I was surprised stuff didn't look more reset or the dock a little cleaner. I'm not sure how much stuff you intended to leave on the dock though - so that's hard to judge.So it appears that if the player hasn't visited that area before, things will be fine, but if they have, you have a battle on your hands. Maybe some resets if possible and reset3Dstate. Not sure what you can do.

[Arthmoor]

Well obviously I can't use brute force to delete the gate. It doesn't STAY deleted. God damn persistent refs.The dock in the village still has plenty of the vanilla containers on it so you'll get some mixing there. I didn't remove it all because I wanted to retain the somewhat chaotic appearance.As for inside the gate, did you explore down to the dock there and go in the house? You missed the best part of it! I am Sad Lizard now because of it. That's most of the effort wasted.Anyway, yeah, I dunno. You can't force reset an exterior cell except by way of waiting the 3 days for a respawn event. That didn't solve the gate issue though. There's something deeper going on here. I'd really hate to have to abandon all this work because of it.

[AndalayBay]

Well obviously I can't use brute force to delete the gate. It doesn't STAY deleted. God damn persistent refs.The dock in the village still has plenty of the vanilla containers on it so you'll get some mixing there. I didn't remove it all because I wanted to retain the somewhat chaotic appearance.As for inside the gate' date=' did you explore down to the dock there and go in the house? You missed the best part of it! I am Sad Lizard now because of it. That's most of the effort wasted.[/quote']Awww... Now the lizard is sad. It was 3am and I was tired. I did see the house and thought it was cool, but I was more concerned about the baddies. Then getting my butt up the tower so I could test this! Under normal circumstances, yeah, I'd check out the house. I might go back to my saved game to see what I missed now. :smile:

Anyway, yeah, I dunno. You can't force reset an exterior cell except by way of waiting the 3 days for a respawn event. That didn't solve the gate issue though. There's something deeper going on here. I'd really hate to have to abandon all this work because of it.

Ok, one more idea. I would restore the original gate and it's marker. I would place a second gate in the same location. Add some code that will detect the player approaching and move the original gate and marker out of the way so the player accesses your gate instead. You're using the original references and I can't see how to get the game to process those references otherwise. As you said, they're persistent. I don't even know that everything would reset upon cell reset anyway. Not pretty, but the Oblivion weather may help mask some of the shifting. Or perhaps the same shrink to minuscule size trick you did with the city gates.You could even close the hidden gate when the player closes your gate so they get credit for closing the gate.And thanks for the spam report. Our spam prevention service chose that moment to fail and a couple of them got through. We are really being hit with spammers right now. I think Amadaun and Deeza were in the process of cleaning it up when you did the report. ShadeMe did one too, which was amusing. He said "Call the minutemen! And the men-at-arms!". Gotta love shadeMe. :tongue:

[Ysne58]

You might want to take a look at Dremora Companion. That author does create his own Oblivion world. I can't remember whether he actually uses a gate or a spell or a combination though.

[Arthmoor]

I've already tried placing a second gate at the location and force-moving the first one out of the way. While that results in a gate I can enter and leave from, the sigil stone link simply fails. It shouldn't. There's no reason why a gate that has nothing to do with the real one should behave like that.The only other thing I can think to try would be to modify the sigil stone script to manually move the player back outside the gate and then force the gate to run its closing animations. A rather crude and hackish way to go about it but there seems little else I can do.I think it's best if I leave the gate with the real formIDs so that it doesn't decide to go rogue later and pop up again when it shouldn't.

[Ysne58]

I did artificially complete the MQ using that msqdone mod and then went into the village. Still did not find a gate or the remains of one.

[Arthmoor]

That would be expected. If you're not in the MQ where gates can still open, the gate at Vergayun will not be there. If you never visited the area while it had a gate, there won't be any remains left from one either.

[AndalayBay]

Can you upload the plugin where you tried placing a second gate?

[Arthmoor]

It's uploaded now. I'm at a total loss.

[Ysne58]

grabbing it now

[Arthmoor]

The test copy up now will have an Ayleid door that goes directly to the sigil chamber. I'm reasonably confident the quest works, I just need the gate stuff to work now.I have one last ace I can try if this continues to fail though, which sadly it is for me. Nothing says I can't force-move the player once the gate sequence fires

[Ysne58]

I am in the gate now. I did not get any quest dialogue this time when I talked to the inn keeper.I may not have your latest version though. Is the gate still supposed to be an Oblivion gate?

[Arthmoor]

Yes, it's an Oblivion gate. It isn't strictly necessary to get the quest from the locals. It will trigger as soon as you're through the gate. Although if you already had received it before, it should still be in your journal. If the gate works, and it seems to be even for me now, the only thing left is to make sure the sigil stone part works. THAT is still failing for my test guy, which means there's a chance it could fail for others too.

[Ysne58]

I got all the way through the gate and got the sigil stone. The gate closing sequence worked just fine. The quest never triggered and I did not find an Ayleid door.

[Arthmoor]

Well you used the wrong version then. The Ayleid door should have been right there after entering the gate. I stuck it there because I got tired of going through the tower only to find it not working in the end.