Zombies approach Far Harbor as part of opening sequence.

Progress

The new mod is progressing now that I've figured out inter-mod communication. The main Zombie Walkers mod is now dynamically checking for the Far Harbor plugin and adding fog zombies to the core leveled lists as part of the initialization script.

Outside of that I am now adding and testing spawn replacements starting with Gulpers and Anglers. Once all the core replacements are set for Far Harbor animals/creatures, I'll post the first version of the mod. Right now the mod will automatically replace all Far Harbor creatures and I haven't decided yet if I want to put the work into a holotape config option. The replacements are kind of the main point of this mod.

Wolf bugs?

When I was doing a search and replace for the DLC03_LvlWolf leveled actor and replacing with the zombie equivalent, I noticed the below error message when I next loaded the Creation Kit.

Warning when opening the Creation Kit about how I'm changing a wolf from cell 'NONE'.

The bit about changing ref from base to base makes sense because that is what I'm doing. However, I did not change the cell so I'm not sure why it is saying from NONE to Wilderness. In the render window it is in a wilderness cell (it appears anyway), so I'm wondering if a couple specific instances of LvlWolf are not configured correctly?

Game Crashes (resolved)

At first I tried using the render window to do all replacements. The problem is the game would crash on cell load. Different combinations of replacements would crash in different cells (where the specific creature was used I'm guessing?).

Initially I suspected wolves are what was causing the crash given the error above. It turns out the game crashed even if I didn't touch the wolves. I ended up rolling back all the way to no render-view replacements and updating leveled lists directly before I could walk across half of "The Island" without a crash.

Now that I'm more familiar with modding, I recognize the brief hiccup that sometimes occurs on my XBox is the game loading a new cell. It is during that hiccup that I was experiencing the crashing, so now I cringe slightly each time and then relief comes over me as I realize the game is still running.

I haven't experienced anymore crashing after sticking with leveled list updates, but at some point I'd like to figure out what is going on in case I need to use the Render window for this mod in the future.

Recently I received a generous donation on this very site from a fan of this mod. I decided to invest some of that money back into the mod by purchasing Far Harbor for PC. I own the season pass for XBox, but that does not transfer over to PC where I have to do the modding from (unfortunately). I have plans for replacements and bringing the Fog Ghouls to the commonwealth in a plugin to this mod.

During the process of creating this new child plugin, which is still a work in progress, I am running into all sorts of errors. Basically learning by doing things wrong and quickly learning about limitations. I'm going to document some of those errors below in case others happen upon this page in a future google search.

TL;DR when dealing with mods that depend on others, read the Inter-mod Communication wiki page for options.

Error 1: const type zombiewalkerutil may not be used to define script variables or properties

I have a ZombieWalkersUtil script in my main mod that has some global utility methods I'd like to use in the new mod. I tried to declare a property with the type being the script name, which apparently isn't allowed.

I then changed the property type to "Script Object" which is allowed. The problem is, when you go to assign a value, the list is empty for me so I can't chose any script let alone the one I want.

Solution: I'm not sure this is allowed

Error 2: type mismatch while assigning to a var (cast missing or types unrelated)

Since this is declaring Global functions, I figured I'd try out the special utility method made to call them: Utility.CallGlobalFunction.

In my case, this looked like it was going to work until Papyrus got grumpy with one of my script parameters in the Var array. Either it doesn't like int[] params, or I am doing something wrong. I tried explicitly casting as an int[] but that didn't help. The other parameters (eg. FormList, int) didn't seem to throw any errors.

Eventually I ended up giving up and rewriting a portion of the script inline where I needed to use it (for now). Maybe someone stumbling upon this post can provide some guidance on what parameter types are allowed.

Solution: maybe int[] parameter types aren't allowed?

Error 3: Cannot open store for class "ZombieWalkerFH_QuestPlayerScript", missing file?

The errors above came from a Quest initialization script where the scripts associated with the quest could not be read/bound. This resulted in an abrupt game crash. I eventually realized the error resulted from me violating the undocumented naming conventions for ba2 files.

Solution:

1. File -> Create Archive
2. for each filename, you must follow this convention (including spaces): {modname} - {type}.ba2

Example expected naming convention for main archive. Note mod filename is "walkers-farharbor.esp"

Error 4: Property ZombieListOfLists on script ZombieWalkersFH_QuestScript attached to ZombieWalkersFH_Quest (0800D291) cannot be bound because <nullptr form> (08016D3B) is not the right type

This error occurred after I fixed Error 3 above. I'm a Java programmer professionally and like others in my field, NullPointerExceptions sometimes haunt me. Now I guess they officially haunt me in Fallout too.

The ZombieListOfLists property above was setup to point to a FormList in my base Zombie Walkers mod. You can see the id value (08016D3B) is present but it isn't happy because apparently the game knows the file is not provided directly by my Far Harbor plugin.

Solutions?: It was at this point that I realized I am probably doing this wrong. After some reading, it seems there are a couple options:

• you can use Inter-mod Communication which seems like the correct way to go
• HACK: you can"esmify" a plugin to a master temporarily in order to link a plugin to it to override/depend on files from that master. See Using FO4Edit or How Do I Esmify An ESP File? for a hackish approach.

Zombie Walkers + D.E.C.A.Y = terrifying looking walkers

Mod Conflict

The D.E.C.A.Y - Better Ghouls mod started out as just texture and sound replacements for Fallout 4's Feral Ghouls. This initial first version didn't conflict with Zombie Walkers (or probably most mods out there). Then they released an update (v2.1) that introduced additional changes to drop lists, new Feral Ghoul types, and most importantly a modified leveled list.

The custom leveled list included brand new Feral Ghoul types, some of which were customized and didn't inherit everything from the base template. Specifically, it was reported on several occasions that some Zombies were performing leap attacks when my mod was used with this one even though I explicitly disabled those.

Fixing the Conflict

I ended up "fixing" the conflict accidentally while working on a totally different change. I modified the Feral Ghoul default leveled list which meant if my mod is later in the load order, only zombies in my leveled list will spawn and the new ones introduced by D.E.C.A.Y will not.

The reason I finally modified the leveled list for Feral Ghouls was that I wanted to introduce spawn variety. Basically, I created a whole slew of new Feral Ghouls so that each of the base types in the game were represented at each "level" of Feral Ghoul. I also made the leveled list spawn each zombie independently so each would be a random type even when they spawn in groups.

It is nice when you kill two birds with one stone like this.

If only software bugs were this easy to kill.

I've been away from modding for a few weeks. Work has been very busy as I was away at a conference, representing my company at a job fair, and then giving presentations on new technology. :)

I finally got back to looking at this mod and figured attempting to tackle a couple bugs would be a good way to start. After perusing the comment threads and reviewing my notes I decided to look into the immoral zombies and issues starting a new game.

I liken the below "fixes" to spraying a can of raid on some bugs. You think you hit them but they scurry away into a hole. Hopefully they are going to find a comfortable place to curl up and die and the best you can do is hope they don't surface again.

Bug 1: Immortal Zombies?

Apparently some zombies just won't die when "Headshots Only" is enabled. I have to assume this is because deferred kill is being set but never unset. I think the video in this link speaks for itself ...

 XBox game clip - courtesy of Dxrk Element

That poor, poor zombie. I've actually encountered this bug myself and I'm not 100% certain how I did it. I wish I saved the game actually because I had a zombie that simply wouldn't die no matter how much I shot him in the head. Maybe it is just a game engine bug?

Anyway, one thing I did with the latest 1.06 bug fix release was add an additional check for a zombie's head condition in the onInit script. I figure this way every time the script attaches to nearby zombies (every 5-10 seconds or so) it will double check if the head is destroyed, end deferred kill, and actually kill the zombie.

I'm not 100% sure this will fix the issue and it is difficult to test it so I'm just pushing it and relying on the community to report back on this one.

Bug 2: New Game Infinite Loading Screen

I'm a little more confident in this fix as I am easily able to test a new game. It didn't work before and worked the first time quickly after my changes.

Basically, I got fancy in a prior release and added a popup that describes the changes in the current version of the mod the first time you load your game after updating. Trying to create this message right away when a new game starts is a bad idea and apparently causes the game to hang.

I moved the message to the code block where I add the holotape (after you acquire the pipboy) for now and that seemed to do the trick. I need to verify the message still appears as my PC save game appears corrupt based on the errors I'm seeing in the log. I have a feeling that message not appearing won't upset too many people though as you can see the changes in the mod description anyway.

Update 10/17/2016: I received reports of the game hanging on loading screens during fast travel.One in particular was very detailed and thought they could hit 'A' and hear a menu closing. As a result, I have completed removed the popup since it isn't important and the changes are listed in the mod description anyway.