Summary
With this mod, construction materials and scaffolding will be visible at the Great House strongholds during construction of the later stages.
Description
It's commonly understood that the Great House strongholds have three stages, but they actually have six phases. In addition to the three main stages, there are also three intermediate phases during which various portions of the stronghold are under construction. Bethesda implemented the first intermediate phase (where the first stage of the stronghold is under construction), but did not fully implement the other two (where the second and third stages are in progress).
The developers went to the trouble of creating the required objects (scaffolding, wood planks, buckets, and so on) and placing them in the world, as well as assigning them scripts to ensure they'll only be visible during the appropriate construction phases. However, they just never actually set the relevant global variable to the proper values to implement these later intermediate phases.
When construction first begins on your stronghold, the main building is inaccessible, and you'll see various construction materials nearby. But, in the vanilla game, due to Bethesda's partial implementation, there are no such intermediate phases later on. When construction of the second stage of the stronghold begins, there are no changes at the stronghold at all; when construction is complete, the new buildings pop into existence fully built. The same thing happens with the third stage.
This mod finishes the job that Bethesda started by implementing the last two intermediate phases. Now, when construction of the second or third stage of your stronghold begins, you can visit the stronghold and actually see the new buildings - inaccessible, for now - in progress, along with scaffolding and assorted construction materials lying about. The site foremen are also active during the intermediate phases.
After the requisite amount of time has passed, the under construction phase will be complete, the construction materials will be gone, and the new buildings will be accessible.
The mod also fixes a couple errors in the vanilla Raven Rock scripts (principally one that caused certain objects to be disabled when they shouldn't be), but does not otherwise touch Raven Rock.
Compatibility
This mod edits the following vanilla scripts:
Strong_Build2_H
Strong_Build2_R
Strong_Build2_T
Strong_Build3_H
Strong_Build3_R
Strong_Build3_T
Strong3_Not
ColonyFactor3_D
Colony_E_Torch
It will be incompatible (without a patch at least) with any mod that touches the Strong_Build scripts. Stronghold overhauls should be okay, but any mod that changes the actual process of stronghold construction might touch the scripts.
I'm not aware of any other mods that edit the Strong3_Not script, but if one does, the conflict will be relatively minor - certain parts of Tel Uvirith that shouldn't be accessible until stage 3 is complete might be accessible during the under construction phase for stage 3.
Regarding the two Raven Rock (colony) scripts, if any other mod touches those scripts, it should come after this one in your load order.
The above script edits represent most of this mod's changes, although a couple manual adjustments to Tel Uvirith were necessary in order to prevent reaching certain areas before they're supposed to be accessible. The only actual cell edit is to the exterior cell Uvirith's Grave: placing two unopenable doors that will only be visible during the intermediate phase for stage 3. If you're using a mod that changes the exterior placement of Omavel's or Seleth's houses, this might result in a little weirdness. The other Tel Uvirith-related edits *shouldn't* result in conflicts, but I'm not 100% certain about that.
Version History
Version 1.1 - 2021-10-05
- Fixed a couple errors in the vanilla Raven Rock scripts, principally one that caused certain trees/rocks at the SE factor's estate location to be disabled when they shouldn't be.
- Raven Rock is otherwise untouched.
Version 1.0 - 2021-09-29
- Initial release.
Contact
Feel free to contact me on the Nexus or Moddinghall with any comments or suggestions. You can also find me on Discord as Necrolesian#9692.
Use a mod management tool such as Wrye Mash, or just copy the plugin to your Data Files directory and select it in the Morrowind Launcher.
You can use this however you want.