I'm working up a mod to add Touch spells to the game, and I'm going to make 2 versions of the mod. One that adds the tomes to the levelled lists so that they'll be sold by vendors as other spells are, and a second one thats basically a "compatibility version" which will instead simply place the tomes in a barrel within the College of Winterhold in case the players are using other mods that rely on changing levelled lists (and aren't using Wrye Bash to combine them).

I've got the first version completely done, so now I'm to the point where I'm working on the compatibility version. I've taken a quick look at the way containers are set up, and... I have no idea how to stick my items into an existing container.

Far as I can tell, the containers are all based on a "base item" and the loot is determined entirely by that base item, rather than items being placed in any specific container. So I can't just place the items in one single barrel (far as I can tell, I might be missing something). Obviously I can't change the base itself because that would put the tomes into every barrel in the game of that type. So maybe the solution is making a duplicate of the base item, putting the tomes in there, and then switch one of the barrels in the College to that base. But I see no way to change the "base item" that a placed barrel is using. There's a "Base Object" entry for the item in the cell editor, but its greyed out and doesn't appear changable, so I wouldn't be able to change it to my duplicate base.

So... yah. How can I put my new items into an existing container? I can't see any way to add them directly to one single placed item, I don't see any way to alter a containers "base object" so I can't make a duplicate base for them... there's a lot of things I don't really understand about the container interface like references and parents, maybe there's something in there that would allow it, but I don't know. Or maybe it requires a script, which I'd know even less about, really don't understand scripting at all.

Placing a new container would be an option I guess, but that would make the entire cell "edited" and conflict with any other mod that happens to edit the same interior, right?

I think you want to right click in the objects area and then an 'add new' option pops up. Also change the name of the container ID and save a new file instead of overwriting (I remember a popup coming up for it). That's what I did (but I have yet to see if it works! Should do...)

As for the last bit that's a tricky one, I suppose it would because you have two plugin files trying to do one thing

Containers fill from a list of items for their Base Object. When you drag a Base Object into your game, it becomes a Reference of that Base Object

You can mess with scripting to add an individual item to a specific Reference, but you will hit problems if the container is respawning (which most are).

You can have variaton of contents by using Levelled-Loot-Lists, if that is all you want.

However, the easiest way - unless you want hundreds of unique containers - is to create a new base item with the loot you want in its list. It's why there are so many containers already in the game.

Yah, I figured adding (or duplicating) a new base item would be the way to go. Only problem is that I can't seem to figure out how to change an existing container to use a different base object.

If I right click on an already-placed barrel within the "HallOfContemplation" cell, there's a field for "Base Object" that lists "BarrelFood1". Thats where you set the base object of course, but its greyed out. There's no way (that I can see anyway) to change that item to use my newly created base object instead of "BarrelFood1". If there is some way to do that, then that would certainly be the best option, but I can't see one.

I tried the Ctrl+F "replace" function the tutorials talk about but that doesn't seem to work with containers (at least I can't get it to, I hit the key command and nothing happens).

I could delete the old object, place a new barrel using my new base object instead of "BarrelFood1" but then I assume it would count the whole cell as editted and conflict with any other mods editing the Hall of Contemplation. Since this is specifically a compatability version of the mod, I'd want to minimize conflicts as much as possible and editing one single container would have less chance of conflicting than a whole cell. Of course, maybe the CK would consider the whole cell editted even if I simply switched the base object of an already placed barrel (assuming there's even a way to do that), in which case I'm just looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

In the Object Window, click on Filter ( top left ) and type in "Empty". Then go to World Objects -> Container in the Object Window and click that.

Double click TreasBanditChestEMPTY to open the proerties window and change the ID ( top left ) to something unique ( best to use modmaker_modname_description ie ... I would use rkt_ts_SpellChest for Rocket_TouchSpells_SpellChest ). Click Yes when it asks you if you want to create a new form.

Now find your chest again and drag your tomes into the Item List. Click OK. Then drag your chest into the Render Winow in the location in the cell where you want it to be.

Item Lists are attached to BASE OBJECTS, not Reference Objects in your world.

You must edit (or make a new) Base Object - In your case, make a Duplicate, then edit the Duplicate's item list.

Good how-to posted right above ^^^