Can you have too many quest aliases? : V

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 4:33 am

Hey guys. When I started to learn quests I got to grips with aliases. Mainly for the marker, where to go next etc, like in all the tut vids. I also read a post on these forums somewhere that they are the best way to reference things in quest, as apposed to properties.

With these things, I know use only aliases when referencing objects and stuff. Is this the best way? For things like enable and disable... you know, all that stuff.

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 1:34 am

It really depends. In a lot of cases, there's no need to make a ReferenceAlias for an object/actor provided it's already persistent. Most actors and doors, for instance, are already persistent so you might as well just set up properties for 'em. If pointing a property at something that isn't persistent by default, why that'll make it persist forever in users' saves and would be a prime candidate for use as an alias that it'll cease to persist in the absence or completion of your quest. There is still a "Persistent Reference" flag for all cell children, it's just not visible in the CK. =/

I guess if you *don't have a way to check, go with an alias unless it's a door or actor as they'll already be flagged as persistent. You can also "Use Info" and see if it's referenced by another form's script as a property. If it is, then you'll know it's persistent.

*When TES5Edit is out, this sort of stuff will be a lot easier to determine.

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 12:41 am

It really depends. In a lot of cases, there's no need to make a ReferenceAlias for an object/actor provided it's already persistent. Most actors and doors, for instance, are already persistent so you might as well just set up properties for 'em. If pointing a property at something that isn't persistent by default, why that'll make it persist forever in users' saves and would be a prime candidate for use as an alias that it'll cease to persist in the absence or completion of your quest. There is still a "Persistent Reference" flag for all cell children, it's just not visible in the CK. =/

I guess if you *don't have a way to check, go with an alias unless it's a door or actor as they'll already be flagged as persistent. You can also "Use Info" and see if it's referenced by another form's script as a property. If it is, then you'll know it's persistent.

*When TES5Edit is out, this sort of stuff will be a lot easier to determine.

Actors have special handling in the Alias system, so it's still worth using the Alias system for actors because you can easily do a lot of things to them inside an Alias (add them to factions, give them new items, etc). You can still do that through script, but using an Alias is less time consuming and requires less debug work.

» Fri Nov 16, 2012 11:05 pm

Actors have special handling in the Alias system, so it's still worth using the Alias system for actors because you can easily do a lot of things to them inside an Alias (add them to factions, give them new items, etc). You can still do that through script, but using an Alias is less time consuming and requires less debug work.

I'm using aliases for all the enabling and disabling, which due to the way my quests work, happen every stage. I'm also making it seem like the world is impacted by the quests, because something gets enabled in a quest, that references what happened in a previous quest. It's cool in game lol, gives the illusion of time passing (don't want to be specific incase of spoilers for etc) :smile:

It's just I'm in the habbit of using an alias wherever I can now, instead of properties. Ofcourse there are times a property is needed though.