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Question Pointing at other assets - best method?

Captain LaserBeam

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So I'm in the process of "remastering" my own mod to make it so the creation club content is properly locked behind barriers and not explicitly required and I've tried to piece various things together by reading the tutorials but I feel like I'm still foggy on some of the details. Theoretically, could I pop open xedit, copy all of the CC objects (for instance the donut boxes) as new records into my own mod, use archive2 to extract the archive contents into my hard drive, and then happily churn up SCOLs and then NIFs using these copied donut boxes for my levels and statics, but then require that the building templates be locked behind requiring the cc .esls and go on my merry way? This seems like the most straightforward way to do it but I want to make sure I'm not missing something entirely.
 
If you're only copying the nifs and using new static records (create new ones instead of copying over the existing CC records) to make SCOLs and locking the building templates behind a CC requirement then you should be fine. The user will still need the CC to unlock the building template and for the textures. It would be very problematic if you copied both the nif and the texture but by copying nif only and not textures you still have 2 ways that the users will need to own the CC pack to enjoy the plots. We do this for CC and DLC content in Creative Clutter. We have the constructible locked behind a scripted condition that checks to make sure the CC or DLC is present and we don't copy textures only nifs.
 
What if I don't even copy the nifs but copy the forms? That's more what I was thinking. Kinggath has mentioned that they simply have them "point to the original assets", which to me what suggest he has used the pathing from the original mod but not actually included the nif. So if they have the archives and/or loose files loaded already because they have the cc enabled, then the form would reference the nif. I know I could do this the "long way" by simply creating new forms, manually creating the path, etc. etc. The only irritating thing would be how long that would take for objects like light and furniture when that information is already included in the form. Bottom line: I'm just trying to cut down my data entry burden.
 
What if I don't even copy the nifs but copy the forms? That's more what I was thinking. Kinggath has mentioned that they simply have them "point to the original assets", which to me what suggest he has used the pathing from the original mod but not actually included the nif. So if they have the archives and/or loose files loaded already because they have the cc enabled, then the form would reference the nif. I know I could do this the "long way" by simply creating new forms, manually creating the path, etc. etc. The only irritating thing would be how long that would take for objects like light and furniture when that information is already included in the form. Bottom line: I'm just trying to cut down my data entry burden.
For things like lights/containers/etc that aren't in the SCOL would it be beneficial to use the external spawn items option? You can specify the CC plugin plus a decimal conversion of the FormID and I believe it uses GetFormFromFile or similar on the script end of things to allow usage without needing to include the plugin as a master file.

For stage model as SCOL, I suspect it might be possible to use a proxy model for navmesh. In this case you would take a "floor only" version of the mesh and navmesh it, then change the static to TinyHelper or similar but leave the navmesh data alone(may need to use xEdit for that in case CK clears navmesh data if the NIF is changed). The SCOL containing CC stuff could be added as a spawned item.
 
You are probably correct for the furniture items, but the lights are a big issue because most of the CC lights I've worked with don't actually work unless you apply kgsim plot powered keyword to them. This means if you spawn them in through the external spawn option they don't work. The only way you can make it work is to create a copy of the form and apply the keyword. It does look like you probably have to create forms in that case. I've been testing trying to copy the items as new records into the file in xedit, and it always assigns the esl as a master. Even when you clean the masters it stays, so it sticks around. My guess is that you do have to simply copy an existing item (like a kgsim desk lamp or wall light) and then substitute the nif path from the CC's archive. What is irritating is that I thought there might be some way to skip the process of slowly having to create and swap all of these new forms by copying just the pure data entry over to a new file without having to inherit the master, but it doesn't look like there's a straightforward way to do that at all.
 
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