Oblivion Mod talk:Vs. Morrowind

Here's where we chat/argue about what goes on the page...

References

Internal Form ID references and plugin dependency

It looks like new ESM/ESP format uses 4-byte Form ID (using TES CS terminology) to store object references (e.g. SCRI field in many records). While this is more efficient, it looks like it has an unfortunate side effect that one (ESP) plugin cannot be dependent and reference objects from another (ESP) plugin - it can only reference objects defined in (ESM) master files. --Ghostwheel

While Morrowind doesn't have reference variables in scripts, it does use references internally -- and they're also four bytes. First three bytes are the object id (a long with the last byte chopped off, I think), last byte is mod index number (0=save game, 1-255 corresponds to load order of mod). See Wrye Notes: Doubling Explained for more info. Of course, Oblivion doesn't have to follow the same scheme -- it might hash the number or something like that. OTOH, if Oblivion does follow the same scheme... Eeep! Given the extensive use of references, worse problems then doubling might appear frequently.

Note that there's a distinction between creating mods, and playing mods. Mods in TESCS 3 don't remember other mods, and so can't modify their references. Discussion above is for playing. --Wrye 19:39, 28 March 2006 (EST)

GhostWheel and I were kind of talking at cross-purposes above. I had thought he was saying they couldn't integrate because there was only a four byte variable to match. But he was talking about Mod Isolation, which I later spelled out in my FormId paper -- after forgetting his original point. My bad. --Wrye 23:13, 2 May 2006 (EDT)