I've been playing around with extending the "TRO Basic Needs" mod, by adding a new rain barrel object that, when activated, should replace any empty or partially empty bottles with full ones. The script in my rain barrel activator has two properties: one a FormList that defines all the different types of "empty bottles" that should be replaced, and one a Potion that says what those items should be replaced with. I assigned the property values in my base activator object, dragged a ref into the game, and went to test it. However, the script didn't work, and when I looked at the script property values in-game, the form list was empty and the potion type "typeNone.". Just to test to make sure it wasn't some advanced mod-within-a-,od thing I'm not familiar with, I went back into the base object script and changed the properties to point to vanilla potions and formlists. However, when I loaded up my save again, the properties were still showing up as empty.

I enabled the debug log and looked at the log from that run, and it said that the properties couldn't be assigned because they weren't the right type. I don't understand how this can be the case, since I selected the property values from the editor's own drop down menu, and the vanilla object I chose as a backup are definitely potions.

I saw some forum posts about old property values being saved in save games, and needing to save again and reload. I did this, and the property values were still empty... I also don't see how saved property values would be applicable, as I was adding a brand new object and loading from a save I made before I ever created the mod with the new object. The only time I was able to get the properties to have a value was when I console-teleported to the rain barrel object straight from the main menu with the dummy debug character, and even then, only the vanilla assignments worked; my intended final script still had empty property values. I was wondering if anyone could offer any insight into why the property values I set in the editor don't get set in the actual game. I made sure, for my tests with the Basic Needs properties, that my mod loaded after the Basic Needs mod, so I'm not sure where I am going wrong.

I went to work on my mod again today, and when I loaded it up in the Creaton Kit (with TRO basic needs also selected as a data file), I got warnings from my FormList of potions from the basic needs mod, saying that it couldnt find the reference for each of them, and I check the FormList and, indeed, it was loaded as empty. So I decided to try, instead of making a separate mod that relied on Basic Needs stuff, to just edit the Basic Needs esp directly. When I did this, all of the stuff I had edited and done last night worked correctly, no missing properties.

However, I really would like my additions to be a separate mod... I didn't change anything in the basic needs mod to do what I wanted, I only added stuff on top of it, stuff that I would like to be optional without having to turn off the entire basic needs mod itself. I must be not understanding something about making mods that rely on other mods, unless it's just not possible period. When running my tests last night, I made sure my mod was at the bottom of the load order, below the basic needed mod it relied upon, so why wouldn't it be able to initialize properties based on the data from that earlier-loaded mod? And is there the equivalent of a load order in the Creation Kit for loading up data files that are dependent on each other?