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[RELz] Open Cities Skyrim


Arthmoor

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Open Cities Skyrim is a comprehensive project that aims to bring back at least part of the feel of Morrowind - specifically how most of the cities were a natural part of the world and you could just walk in without loading screens. The added immersion and realism goes a long way, probably a lot more than you might think. Ever wanted to ride your horse into the center of Riften? Well now you can. Need to get some help from the city guards to vanquish a foe? Run toward the gates and the guards will do their duty while you can seek safety within the walls. The town guards make for some very interesting interactions this way. This will also make running dragon battles that much more interesting since the flow of the battle won't be interrupted by the loading screen and all of the city guards can be involved at the same time.

Downloads

AFK Mods

Open Cities Skyrim Bugtracker

Installation Requirements

Official Skyrim patch 1.9.32.0.8 or greater.
Requires Official Dawnguard DLC.
Requires Official Hearthfire DLC.
Requires Official Dragonborn DLC.

SKSE 1.6.9+ and SkyUI 3.2+ are required in order to use the in-game configuration menu. They are NOT required in general for the mod itself.

SKSE 1.7+ is strongly recommended if you are having trouble with ILS/CTD issues. See the troubleshooting section.

Installation - Wrye Bash BAIN

Drop the archive into your Skyrim Mods\Bash Installers folder, then install as usual.
Make sure the mod is active in the Wrye Bash mods tab.

Installation - Manual

Drop the Open Cities Skyrim.esp and Open Cities Skyrim.bsa files into your Data folder.
Activate the mod using whatever management tool suits you.

Post Install Configuration

Set the mod's load order using whatever management tool you feel most comfortable with.
LOOT should set the proper load order, and is the recommended method for doing so.

It may also be necessary to rebuild your Bashed Patch if you're using one.

Once the game loads, you need to allow 24+ game hours to pass for AI to fully update in each city.

You can configure three options using the in-game menu if you have SKSE and SkyUI 3.2+ installed.

Option 1: Oblivion Gates. The menu will now allow you to toggle them on or off as desired, on the fly, with no external patches necessary. If you have any such patches, uninstall them. They'll crash the game now.

Option 2: Gate Attendants. The gate attendants who open the city gates when you approach on horseback can be toggled on or off as desired. Yes, some people despised them enough to ask for this. Don't ask me why.

Option 3: Outdoor Lighting System. You can toggle the state of the outdoor lighting system as desired. Nobody asked for this, but I figured what the heck. I was messing with MCM anyway so why not.

These optional configuration elements will not be supported through any other mechanism, so if you're one of those people who irrationally hate SKSE and SkyUI, you'll have to live with using external patches for the gates, and you won't get to turn the other two things off at all.

Uninstalling Open Cities Skyrim
 
Due to the nature of Skyrim mods, especially those adding scripts, it is strongly discouraged to attempt uninstalling a mod from your active game. Any mod that is more than pure mesh or texture replacements has the possibility to leave behind permanent changes to your save that you may not want. This is not something modders can correct for. It is how the game was designed by Bethesda. No support will be provided for anyone who uninstalls this mod from an active game and continues on with that save.
 
Load Order

Open Cities Skyrim should be loaded as late as possible in order to preserve changes to navmeshes and other exterior city data.
 
LOOT should be used for optimal placement.

Compatibility Patches

Official Dawnguard DLC  - Available in the patch archive at the Open Cities Skyrim download sites (except Steam).
Official Hearthfire DLC - Available in the patch archive at the Open Cities Skyrim download sites (except Steam).
Skyrim Sewers 4        - Available in the patch archive at the Open Cities Skyrim download sites (except Steam).
CL Cities - Whiterun    - Available in the patch archive at the Open Cities Skyrim download sites (except Steam).
Drinking Fountains of Skyrim - Available in the patch archive at the Open Cities Skyrim download sites (except Steam).
Atlas Map Markers (scroll down the files tab a bit).
Inconsequential NPCs
Interesting NPCs
Dawn of Skyrim Collection
Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul - Included in Shurah's installer.

Compatibility

Mods which strictly replace vanilla textures or the vanilla meshes are 100% compatible.

Expanded Towns and Cities has been confirmed to be 100% compatible since it does not affect the 5 walled cities.

Generally speaking, any mod which adds things to the closed cities will be incompatible.

City mods that add some details to the open worldspace will be partially compatible.

Alternate Start: Live Another Life - Fully compatible. No patches needed so long as AS:LAL is loaded after Open Cities.

The Last Defeat of the Dragon Cult - The mod hasn't been updated since March 2012. It's navmeshes are partially corrupted and must be repaired.

More Dynamic Shadows & Striping Fix - Numerous dirty edits that cause some interiors to cease functioning.

Mods which edit the following scripts will not be compatible unless patched:

QF_DialogueWhiterunArgueScene_00037CC2
SF_MS11OpeningCrimeScene_000206AE
SF_MS11SecondMurderCrimeScene_0002422C

Known Issues

The Civil War battles which take place in Whiterun, Solitude, and Windhelm will be fought within the closed city worldspaces. This had to be done due to complications that were not possible to overcome with the scripting involved in the war and how it relates to several other quests. Expect load door transitions when a city battle is underway.

Troubleshooting Problems

If you have a problem with an Open Cities mod and wish to report it, I'd appreciate as much information as possible, preferably in the form of a screenshot with console data showing if it's something that can be screened. The FormID of the affected object would help greatly to narrow down any problems that might result. Post this information along with your load order. Reports with less than detailed information may result in delays in getting it fixed, or result in being ignored entirely. It helps everyone to provide details. I am especially interested in verifiable conflicts, as I wish for Open Cities Skyrim to be as conflict-free as is humanly possible given the circumstances. If the situation requires a patch, I can only work something out if I know what to look for.

Help! I'm experiencing Infinite Load Screens (ILS) and/or Crashes to Desktop (CTD)!!!

In March of 2013, Bethesda released their final patch for Skyrim. Version 1.9.32.0.8. Prior to this, Open Cities Skyrim had little trouble operating in the available memory the game provided.

It has since been found though that Patch 1.9 changed something about the way Skyrim allocates its initial pools of memory, likely due to trying to get the DLC to work on the PS3 and then not bothering to make sure the PC had, you know, PC specific code for that.

The end result is that when traveling, either on foot or by fast travel, it becomes possible for you to run into problems with ILS/CTD issues. This is especially true in Windhelm and almost guaranteed to happen when trying to get back from Solstheim. It's also likely to happen when fast traveling from one city to another, and CTD may result when trying to enter some interiors after you arrive.

Fortunately the community has devised a solution to this problem in the form of a pre-load memory patch. There are several options for these now, but the one I most strongly recommend is shipping as part of SKSE now beginning with SKSE 1.7. In order to configure SKSE 1.7 to resolve this problem, you simply need to make sure your skse.ini file in Data\SKSE contains at least the following lines:

[Memory]
DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=768
ScrapHeapSizeMB=256

This should resolve the problem on all but the heaviest of load orders. If you still have issues, then you can try either raising the 768 value to 1024, or install ENBoost which will help further reconfigure how RAM is used by the game. There are limits to this, so be careful. Skyrim can only have a maximum of 4GB even on a 64 bit system with boatloads of RAM. Allocate too much to either of the two SKSE settings and you'll be right back where you started with the ILS/CTD problem.

My own load order has 96 active mods, and the SKSE settings alone turned it from totally unstable to fairly rock solid reliable.

The doors inside Warmaidens (in Whiterun) are missing, what have you done with them!

The More Dynamic Shadows & Striping Fix mod makes a bunch of dirty edits in Warmaidens that will cause the doors to disappear. This mod has several other problem locations as well and it isn't recommended to be used in general until the author fixes the problem.

I am getting unexplained CTDs when using Open Cities with other mods. What gives?

Open Cities Skyrim requires the latest version of Skyrim, Patch 1.9.32.0.8 as of the writing of this document.

Many mods have not been updated since their creation. The most likely causes of issues will be from mods that have navmeshes but have not had them properly redone using CK 1.6.89 or greater. These mods need to be updated by their authors or they will simply not be compatible with the updated navmesh formats and will cause CTDs in any configuration that includes updated mods.

When a mod is reported and confirmed to suffer from this problem, it will be listed in the Incompatible Mods section until such time as it is updated by its author.

Locations of AI Doors

The AI doors are entry ways into the closed wordspaces should it become necessary. Not everything that is placed in a city by a mod is worth the time it takes to create a patch. Mods that drop items for a one-time pickup are a good example of this. It's much easier to just go through the door, get what you need, then exit the city as normal.

Riften: East of the main city gate, next to the alley gate.
Markarth: Enter the city gate, turn immediately to your right. The small rock in the grass patch next to the ivy.
Whiterun #1: East side of the bridge into the city, right next to the brazier that is closest to the guard shack.
Whiterun #2: North side of Jorvaskr, on the side of the path up to the Skyforge.
Solitude #1: In the rock pile between the city gate and the executioner's platform.
Solitude #2: In the rock pile across from the Bard's College, immediately to the south of the manhole cover.
Windhelm: As you enter the city gate, turn immediately to the right, then immediately right again. It's in the bushes right next to the wall.

Performance and FPS

Open Cities Skyrim should not produce a significant change in your frame rates and performance. Due to the liberal use of occlusion planes in the mod, the game will not render anything on the opposite side of the city walls in any given location. So your viewing content will be limited to roughly what you'd see if you were in the closed city worldspaces. The closed city worldspace system was NOT devised by Bethesda to improve frame rates. It was devised to conserve system memory on the XBox 360 and PS3. You're playing on a PC. Or, at least legally speaking you ought to be anyway.

Anyone who insists that this mod is a framerate destroyer is already experiencing other problems with their game. Do keep in mind, Skyrim is not one of those silly shooters that requires 60fps at all times in order to be playable. Dropping from 60 to 55 would go absolutely unnoticed. Even playing with 30-40 frames would go unnoticed to those folks who keep those dumb little indicators running while they play.

If you're seeing a massive frame rate drop, point the finger somewhere else. This mod is absolutely not the cause of your problems. I know this may seem harsh, but this sort of disinformation was rampant with the Oblivion mod and wasn't true then either and I absolutely will not stand for this sort of disinformation being spread now either.

Credits

Throttlekitty - Help with the Riften city gate collision sizing.
BassEX - Corrections made to the Markarth dam mesh.
Hannaise - Oblivion Gates in Skyrim
jonwd7 - Fixing the collision on 6 Whiterun wall pieces without normal collision height.
pihwht@Nexus - For having the patience and dedication to dig deep into the civil war and ferret out problems causing it to fail in Solitude.
Dwip - For numerous improved meshes at the various city gates. No more crappy fake collisions!
nonoodles - Riften southeast gate mesh plus the animated dock gates.
Nico coiN - Cut back version of the Whiterun drawbridge mesh as well as numerous other cleanups and fixes for the mod.

Disclaimer

This mod is not made, guaranteed, or supported by Microsoft, Zenimax, Bethesda Game Studios, or any of their affiliates.

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Poor, poor blank Markarth load door location. You've made it feel unloved.

 

Also, that was quick. Yet unsurprising.

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Blank Markarth door? What? It shouldn't be quite THAT bad, but yeah, Blender needs to catch up quick or things are going to get ugly fast :P

 

Also, fruits of my CK beta testing. Surely you knew I was involved in that?

 

Steam, your DLC system sucks ass, go die in a fire! What do you mean "sorry, we can't add this item" or whatever the fuck you just told me?

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Yeah, I knew about the CK testing. Hence why this is unsurprising. :P

 

Riften: East of the main city gate next to the alley gate. Markarth
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Oh, heh. That's what I get for writing that part before I'd chosen the spot. I guess I'd better make sure I actually placed it now.

 

Yep, I had, it's updated now.

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I grabbed this. No idea if I'll actually be able to run it or not. My Skyrim has started to act really weird. Might need to reinstall. I even grabbed it off Steam, as frightening as that thought is...

 

I've been downloading that DLC for over an hour now... Let's hope it works once it arrives!

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Holy crap. You remember how long it took to reach 1,000 downloads for Oblivion mods? OCS has hit that and then some already on Nexus in just the last 6 hours. Plus another 4700 via Steam. I knew Skyrim was popular, but damn.

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Holy crap. You remember how long it took to reach 1000 downloads for Oblivion mods? OCS has hit that and then some already on Nexus in just the last 6 hours. Plus another 4700 via Steam. I knew Skyrim was popular, but damn.

 

Simply amazing isn't it? TESVAL broke so many records for me I was amazed.

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I'll give this a try as soon as I get time. Which may not be for a bit yet with the way things are going with the rest of my life (and probably not until I put several bullets into Ulysses's head as well).

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Open Cities Skyrim v0.21

Riften: Fixed a bug that caused the quest "A Chance Arrangement" to fail intermittently due to Madesi's strongbox not getting the ring added properly.
Markarth: A corrected mesh for the dam on the south side of the city has been provided by BassEX.
Markarth: A collision plane has been added to prevent people from walking through the altered dam mesh, until such time as the collision can be repaired properly.

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Oh boy, that means I'm going to be in for a deluge soon :P

Also, I lol'd at the guy claiming to have lost 16fps. The issue with claiming this? He claimed it while shooting video. Yeah, because shooting video has no impact on your game, right? These people really bug me, but at the same time, seeing the massive enthusiasm people have for Skyrim is just weird.

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So I've been told :)

Still weird though, cause I've even got people coming out of the woodwork offering to do videos, and some who already have and are offering them up without having prompted anyone for them. It's insane. Oblivion NEVER got this kind of attention, even back in 2006.

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I can't find my house! Small bug for you. I just purchased the home in Riften and after doing so you get a little quest marker directing you to your new house. Well the marker is telling me it's located underground near the gate.. :P

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Heh, well at least that's a minor thing. Although I am loathe to want to touch the house quest over something as silly as the quest target.

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Heh well at least that's a minor thing. Although I am loathe to want to touch the house quest over something as silly as the quest target.

 

Just be ready for the inevitable flood of "zOMGz u br0ke game I cnat find mah Riftin house anymoar!!1one!11" :P Do not underestimate stupidity, you will always be one-upped.

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The only concern I had was that the quest wouldn't advance because I hadn't found the house - even though I was inside! It finally did update when I went out back and re-entered by the back door, so you can tell players that if they fuss. And I became Thane anyway, so all's good.

 

You know, I probably won't see the navmesh bug... It requires that you return to an area on the same load, right? I'm usually reloading really often because I get the severe lag so much (on zone change). Hey lucky me. LMAO.

 

That is one benefit of OC: no severe lag since entering a city doesn't load a new zone!!!

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Oh, the irony, because I see bogus complaints everywhere about how it not having a load screen is causing load lag. What they're not telling me though, and I'm well aware of this, is that the DLC texture pack is generating massive increases in load times everywhere, not just in the cities. Of course, you try and tell people this, and they think you're just trying to avoid your mod getting a bad rep.

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I unpacked the DLC into loose files, fixed the paths, got rid of the duplicates and installed it via BAIN. It's not causing a problem for me. This severe lag issue is a weird bug of some sort that seems to be related to my video card. I've even started to have some graphical anomalies to go along with it now. I really need to build a new machine... *sigh*The bug only occurs when I'm loading a new zone, either by leaving or entering an interior or by leaving or entering a city. Since OC doesn't have load zones, I don't have a problem entering or leaving Riften or Markarth anymore. So get cracking on opening the rest, would you? :lol: I'm not experiencing any performance issues I can detect with OC. I might have had a slight bit of stutter when approaching Markarth, but I had some other stuff loaded too, so I can't say what the cause was.

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Due to the navmesh bug, this mod has been taken offline at the Steam Workshop, Nexus, TESA, and Holds of Skyrim. I'll leave it up here for now, but be aware that it is NOT fit for public consumption at this time.

It will remain delisted until Bethesda fixes the navmesh bug and enables me to continue offering it to the community at large. Though I will continue forward with finishing up the rest, because it can still be tested for basic functionality while we wait for that.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Couple of things with the latest version. First, it looks like one of the barriers after the attack on Whiterun is still enabled:gallery_1_5_58253.jpgThe battle was long over before I even installed Open Cities, although I did have a previous version of OC installed and removed it before you found the work-arounds.Also, I can't get into Jorrvaskr by the front doors. The doors start to open but the cell doesn't load. I haven't tried the back doors yet.Edit: I saved the game while standing at the doors to Jorrvaskr. I exited completely and reloaded. Same behaviour. Confirmed that I had the same problem with the rear doors. Then I went back to Breezehome - now I had the same problem with the door to Breezehome even though I didn't earlier. And when I tried to exit the city, it was the usual loading sequence except I found myself inside the city again (I had never left). But when I turned around, the gates were indeed open and I was able to exit the city. This time I've saved outside the city.What should I do?EDIT: CRAP! Hang on. It doesn't look like I'm running 0.32 after all. Let me get that loaded and see if that sorts things. Sorry about that.

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Doors that animate but don't lead anywhere mean you're in the closed worldspace. Exit out the main city gate and you'll be fine.

 

I can't really help the debris pile that didn't revert. Those have all been linked to their proper enable parents and so far my orc hasn't seen one since he's not started the war yet, and my other two guys haven't seen any show up post-war either. It wouldn't surprise me though if something glitched and it didn't disable with the rest.

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