Name: Passenger Ships of Cyrodiil for Vanilla Oblivion and Better Cities Version: 1.3 Date: 05/07/2016 Category: Immersion Requirements: Shivering Isles Patch 1.2.0.201, Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.416, Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) Team Author(s): comespm Source: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/42188 Description =========== Adds roaming passenger ships to Cyrodiil. You and your followers can travel on them or use them as roaming inns for a small fee. Compatible with Better Cities, Arthmoor's Open Cities Reborn, Vanilla Oblivion, Elsweyr Anequina and Valenwood Improved. Location ======== - One ship (Dawnstar) is near Anvil lighthouse (goes to TR Stirk and Leyawiin) - A second one (Barenziah's Jewel) is south of Bravil, at the river. It goes to Fort Grief, Leyawiin and Anvil. - Another ship (Topal Bay Treader) is in the Imperial City Waterfront. It goes to Bravil, Leyawiin and Topal Bay. - The fourth one (Taurus) is near Deepscorn Hollow, it crosses the Niven and lake Rumare, going to Leyawiin, Bravil, Vilverin, Weye and the Imperial City. - One more (Cutty Shark) is near Anvil castle, next to the last tavern in the dock's boardwalk. If both mods are installed, goes to Valenwood Improved, Elsweyr Anequina, and finally to Leyawiin. - The next one (Oaken Arrow) is also near Anvil's lighthouse, but outside the bay. This one goes to Garlas Malatar, Hammerfel border, Stirk and Valenwood border. If Valenwood Improved is installed, also goes into the Strid River and finally to the south of Skingrad. - The last one (Abecean Wind) is at the Waterfront. This ship goes to Pell's Gate, the little isle south of the Imperial Bridge (the Archaeology Guild ex- cavation, if you have that mod), into the Corbolo River, passing near Drakelowe and then to Vahtacen, returning to the Niben and going to the Mouth of the Panther, then to Fort Redman, Leyawiin and back. If you have Elsweyr Anequina and Valenwood Improved, it goes to several ports in the South and finally to Seaman's End Isles Details ======= - This mod adds roaming sailing ships that can be rented for a small fee. They provide both shelter and transportation from one place to another, with some planned stops along the way. - The ships itinerary is pre-defined and can't be changed, but you can control where and when the ships stop during the travel. Once one day passes or the ships arrive to their final destination, the trip ends and you have to purchase another trip to start traveling again. You have to buy one ticket for going and another one for returning. - The ships now are rented for full 24 hours or until arriving to destination. - The ships have interiors with food, beds and other facilities (including a bathroom stool!). Simply use the doors available on board and inside the ship to get in and out. - By default, the ships travel by sleeping and/or waiting inside them. Only the ship which you are inside travels. You can change both behaviors using the command book. - The ships can do U-turns at any point after their start and before reaching their destination. You can now ask the ship mate to do that, but it will cost you some money and the ship mate has to like you for agreeing to return on the middle of a trip (disposition > 70). After paying a U-turn, you have to wait/sleep into the ship for starting the return trip. - The ship's containers aren't safe. So don't store in them anything you don't want to lose. - The ships go from one location to potentially several others with a final destination, and then go back following the same path they used the first time , but in reverse order. - Your followers can travel with you. Simply activate the exterior of the ship mesh and they will follow you to the upper deck. You can also bring them inside the ship while you travel by simply using the ship's doors. - While on animated travel, the ships stop automatically during combat and they can't resume traveling until the enemy has been disposed of. If you want to escape the combat, enter the ship and sleep/wait. - The first time you board a ship by "activating it" you receive a guide scroll and two command books. The guide scroll can show the ships position in the map. The command book allows you to configure optional features: + Animated travel: when this is enabled, the ships can move while you are outside on the ship's deck. With full sailing and turning animations. Simply "activate" with [spacebar] any part of the upper ship's deck to start/stop movement. + All ships travel when you sleep: when this is enabled, all ships travel when you sleep/wait indoors. + Reset ships to their start positions: does as said. All active tickets are lost. - The Motion Commands book allow to start the ship's movement when you are not on board. You can order any ship to move on its own to its next destination. You can stop the faraway ships by using the book again, or by "activating" any ship you are close to. The faraway ships also stop when you enter a fight (due to scripting limitations). So better stay in a safe vantage point and enjoy the view! The ships in autonomous movement stop if you get too close to them, or if you change your current game cell, so you can fast travel or simply walk/swim to them and they will stop to pick you up even if they are not on a designed stop. IMPORTANT: you can't do fast travel by waiting/sleeping while any ship is moving autonomously! please stop any ship auto-moving and then try fast traveling. - The ships can now detect each other and the shore, so they no longer pass through another ship or go into land while doing animated travel. If you are stuck, you can order the other ship to move with the Motion Command book, or simply sleep/wait inside the ship you have a ticket for. - Killing a ship member or passenger is a punishable offense. Besides the guard's bounty, you have to pay a 500 gold compensation to the shipping company guild master in order to travel again. You can pay the fine to the Shipping company owner (Torygg Cruel-Sea), onboard the Taurus. - Land Mass Mods: This mod automatically adjusts the ships' itineraries according to the supported landmass mods you have. V1.3 update: It now supports Open Cities Reborn by Arthmoor. + Better Cities makes the Niben fully navigable, so you don't need anything else for allowing the ships to sail in Cyrodiil. + Arthmoor's Open Cities Reborn also makes the Niben fully navigable, so you don't need anything else for running this mod. + Vanilla Oblivion does not make the lake Rumare and Niben fully navigable. In this case you will need a mod that opens the channel at Leyawiin. + For Vanilla Oblivion this mod is recommended with either Kyrielle's Shipping in Cyrodiil mod ( you can find it here: http://http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/23261 ) or Lametrie's Shipping in Cyrodiil mod ( http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/40403 ). These mods make the lake Rumare and Niven bay fully navigable and add nice drawbridges and/or lamps. Otherwise ugly clipping issues will happen. - IMPORTANT: It is strongly suggested to have the Stirk mod by Tamriel Rebuilt team. You can run this mod without it, but the Dawnstar ship in Anvil will simply seem to go to an empty region in the Abecean sea and back. - IMPORTANT: This mod supports Eldarie's Valenwood Improved, Iliana's Elsweyr Anequina mods and Arthmoor's Open Cities Reborn. Simply install any of them and some of the ships (Cutty Shark, Abecean Wind) will be capable of mooring on the new southern ports. If you have Valenwood Improved, the Oaken Arrow in Anvil will also be able to navigate the Strid River between Cyrodiil and Valenwood, going to the south of Skingrad. The other ship's itineraries remain unchaged. The Abecean Wind will also be able to go into the southern Elsweyr's and Valenwood Improved's ports. - This is a Beyond the Borders mod. Remember to turn off the in-game borders! Install ======= 1. Make sure you have the pre-requisites installed: obse 21 or higher, Ilianana's Elsweyr Anequina, Eldarie's Valenwood Improved and TR Stirk. 2. Extract the files to a temporary location. 3. Examine the folder structure and make corrections where necessary. 4. Copy files to (install folder)\Oblivion\Data\ 5. Start Oblivion Launcher, click 'Data Files', place a checkmark beside the .esp file(s). Uninstall ========= 1. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck the .esp file(s). 2. Delete the files/folders associated with the mod. List of files to remove : Oblivion\Data\PassengerShips.esp Oblivion\Data\PassengerShips.bsa Oblivion\Data\PassengerShipsReadme.txt Upgrade ======= 1. Exit any ship interior, 2. Save your game and exit Oblivion. 3. Uninstall the old mod. 4. Start Oblivion. 5. Load your savegame and save it again (make a clean save). 6. Exit Oblivion. 7. Install the new mod. 8. Start oblivion and play. The mod has very little effect on saved games and (hopefully) cannot corrupt any saves. Incompatibility =============== IMPORTANT: This mod requires Better Cities (only), Open Cities Reborn (only) or Vanilla Oblivion AND one of these mods: + Kyrielle's Shipping in Cyrodiil mod ( you can find it here: http://http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/23261 ) or + Lametrie's Shipping in Cyrodiil mod ( http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/40403 ), because it uses water bodies that are not present in Vanilla Oblivion. New water/heightmap mods: This mod can conflict with any other mod that adds or removes land/water to Cyrodiil. The mod will work fine but the ships could collide with unexpected landmasses and shores, resulting on them being unable to do animated travel, or in clipping issues on any of the planned stops. V1.3 UPDATE: TR Stirk is not compatible with Open Cities Reborn. You can install both mods together with this one, but ugly clipping issues will happen. Given this comes from the conflicting changes those two mods do to the world, I can't fix that problem. Known Issues or Bugs ==================== + I have low FPS / CTDs while on animated travel! : after A LOT of experiments I found out this is related to the overuse of LOD/Visible When Distant (VWD) objects in my game. The difference with and without them in performance and execution is really dramatic. By removing all auto-generated LOD objects and using a small footprint LOD generator like TES4QLOD (which generates just the landscape with textures and the trees' LOD objects), I was able to have nearly flawless execution of this mod, sailing on Animated Mode for long (like several hours) gaming sessions, while using very graphic-intensive mods like Better Cities. I tested this on a very low end system, with the Graphics settings to Low and it works very well too. Therefore these are the solutions I propose: 1) Don't use LOD/VWD mods. Oblivion is very pretty as it is, and keeping LOD/VWD count low will help a lot to improve your FPS. This includes avoiding using programs that generate additional LOD objects like TES4LODGEN. Sorry, TES4LODGEN and VWD work for very pretty screenshots, but they're real FPS killers. 2) If you really want to use LOD/VWD mods or TES4LODGEN with this mod, then try to install and use Streamline. Streamline ( avilable here: http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10400/? ) is a very handy mod that changes the game's settings dynamically, improving the overall FPS of your game. And if nothing helps, try disabling animated travel. :-( UPDATE 1.0: I found another reason for CTDs in the scripts and I removed that too. The game sometimes crashed when on Animated Travel, especially when approaching a ship while traveling onboard another one, because the game engine tends to 'forget' about displaced objects that are too far (outside the 5x5 cells around the player). It simply doesn't expect to have activators/meshes moving outside from the cell they are initially declared. A simple trick of MoveTo Player takes care of that problem. + The ship no longer moves when I activate the upper deck! This is the default behavior. Sleep or wait inside the ship to travel. You can enable/disable ship's animated travel by using the command book (quest item). - Player character is stuck on its place on the ship while the ship moves: this is a expected behavior. As a workaround, you can simply stop the ship, move your character and then restart the ship movement (activate/touch the ship). You can use your inventory, map or spells while you travel, though. - There is some clipping with rocks/shores/trees/bridges! Yes, and that is a very difficult problem to fix. Oblivion was not designed with roaming vehicles (e.g. ships) in mind, therefore the world spaces/water bodies and objects are not made to respect ship's collision. The ships will simply pass through any object on their paths. - The mod allows the ships to detect each other and refuse to pass through another ship of this same mod. The ships also can detect the shore, and will refuse to move if the path right in front of the ship has a landmass. Note that rocks and parts of the shore can still clip with the sides of the ships! - NPCs seem to "stutter" or fall off again and again while the ships move: this comes from the way I used to ensure the characters keep their feet on the ship mesh instead of floating above ground. As a workaround, try placing your character in another part of the ship. I have not found a solution to make the ships work with full collision as Side's sailing ships yet. + This problem is strongly reduced if you run Oblivion without LOD/VWD mods. See note about preventing low FPS/CTDs above. - While doing animated travel, the ship just did a crazy 360 degree turn! - some times the ships miss their itinerary waypoints, specially on areas with a lot of high resolution meshes or heavy map loading (did I mention the abuse of LOD/VWD objects makes this much worse too?). Try reducing the quality of graphics/ textures or disabling animated travel altogether using the Commands book. - I have lost one of my ship's map markers! : Oblivion has trouble handling more than 2 dynamic map markers per mod (maybe per game). Basically, you can only see the position of the last 2 ships you used as markers in your map for fast travel. Use the shipping company guide for finding any ship without a visible marker. - I can't buy/control a ship! : this mod is not made for that. It only provides a way for you to sail cheaply and enjoy the view without having to drive the helm yourself, and without requiring for your Player character to be a stinking rich ship owner. If you want to control/purchase your own ship, you can download and use the excellent Side's Sailing Ships mod. - Why the Oaken Arrow ship can't go into the Strid River and to Skingrad? : you need to have Valenwood Improved mod installed for doing that. Iliana's Valenwood Improved mod really improves the Strid River A LOT. Vanilla Oblivion's Strid River is mostly an excuse for an in-game border: empty, very ugly and has clipping issues with my mod. Not really designed to be visited. History ======= 1.3 , 05/07/2016 - Added support for Arthmoor's Open Cities Reborn. 1.25, 15/02/2016 - Fixed the Better Cities routes to avoid clipping issues with the growing Better Cities' docks, like those of Anvil, Leyawiin and Bravil; Vanilla routes remain unchanged. 1.2, 16/12/2014 - Created final version with lots of new features and bug fixes. Added a new ship close to the Waterfront that goes to south of Cheydinhal, Leyawiin and to Elsweyr Anequina's and Valenwood Improved's coast. Ships now can do u-turns (for a fee); now they are rented for full 24 hours or until reaching their destination. Now you can order any ship to move on its own, so you can see them sail in the distance. 1.0, 03/05/2014 - Created new version for Vanilla Oblivion. Added a new ship in Anvil that goes to Stirk and Skingrad. Fixed the shipping guide so the markers follow the highlighted ship's movement. Fixed most CTDs. 0.91, 26/01/2013 - Created new version for Vanilla Oblivion. Fixed a bug that made the ship "flicker" when the ship stopped due to a fight, while on animated travel. Added a map marker on Bravil, so it's easier to reach the ships mooring there. 0.9, 20/01/2013 - Fixed a bug that made the ships not always align correcty when arriving to a planned stop. Fixed a problem that made some ships have the wrong alignment when returning to their starting point. Added a stop to Topal Bay Treader's itinerary (north of Leyawiin). Fixed the Cutty Shark's bathroom door. 0.8, 26/11/2012 - Added support for Iliana's Elsweyr Anequina and Eldarie's Valenwood Improved. And a new ship going to the ports on those mods. Added actual passengers and more dialog options. Fixed some bugs on ticket purchasing. 0.7, 18/06/2012 - Many changes. Travel fee is lower (25 gold instead of 50). Fast travel is now the default method for ship's displacement. Added the Shipping Company guide scroll and the Mod Commands book. Your followers can now enter the ships with you. Animated travel is now optional. 0.6, 20/5/2012 - Performance enhancements. Trimmed the ship meshes and made the sailing and stop animations smoother. Now the 360 degrees turns (bug) are rarer. 0.51, 19/5/2012 - Documentation fixes: this mod used Shipping in Cyrodiil with Drawbriges by Kyrielle. 0.5, 2012/5/11 - Initial release. Contact ======= You can find me on TESNexus as 'comespm' Credits ======= Thanks to Bethesda for creating Oblivion. Thanks to mr_siika, Side and Eldarie for some great meshes I borrowed from them. Thanks to strotis for the wonderful bathroom meshes (when your Player character has to go, s/he has to go!). Thanks to Ismelda and the Better Cities team for making Oblivion much more alive. Thanks to Arthmoor for Open Cities Reborn. Thanks to Tamriel Rebuilt team for the great Stirk mod. Thanks to TESNexus.com for the a one-stop-shop resource for authors and players. Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on. Thanks to God for creating us all. Tools Used ========== 7-Zip - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15579 TES4Files - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8489 TES4Gecko - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8665 TES Construction Set - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11367 Readme Generator - http://HammondsLegacy.com/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp Wrye Bash - http://wrye.ufrealms.net/Wrye%20Bash.html Licensing/Legal =============== You can do whatever you want with this mod but don't complain to me if it doesn't work or your PC blows up.