Talk:Perk Entry

Needs new example, traits were taken out :P --Quetzilla 00:47, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a mini tutorial on how to create a perk as well? --DaZombie

Perks and Crashing

If one disables a module that contains a perk active on the Player, the game will fail to load the savegame. I have tested it, and my regimen was such:

I have QZ Traits installed, and my current character has the "Clean Living" trait. The trait is actually a Perk added in the manner that Traits were in the previous FO games during CharGen. It has two Entry Point effects; one that halves the duration of chems, and another that halves the addiction chance.

I first attempted to load a savegame of that char 3 times with the QZ Traits plugin disabled. None of the attempts loaded, and all crashed to desktop with an error message. 3 attempts to load the game with the plugin re-enabled successfully loaded to GameMode.

--MadCat221 01:41, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Aaaand it's already present on the main Perk page. However, entering just "perk" into the search points to this page as the best result for some reason, so I think it'd be best to leave it in place. --MadCat221 02:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

This issue seem to be fixed with Fallout version 1.5 and later, should the notes be updated? -Artisten 19:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they should be updated with this information. Would be great if you could do that.

--Qazaaq 19:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I have now updated the AddPerk, Perk Entry and Category: Perk article on this, could be said more precise and clear though.

---Artisten 18:39, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Correct Usage

Considering the fact that "Quest" and "Ability" type Perk Entries are essentially useless, should they be advised against here? The effects of either type of Perk Entry can be achieved without using a Perk so it should be advisable only to use Perks for "Entry Point" type Perk Entries, taking the uninstall crash into account.

Does anyone have any objections the "Quest" and "Ability" type Perk Entries being advised against here?
-- Cipscis 23:27, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

A great deal of perks in the vanilla game are implemented with ability perks. They are far from useless. Abilities can do things that perk entry points themselves cannot, such as increasing actor skill values (like medicine and small guns), increasing resistances, health, and etc.

I don't see any real reason why you should avoid a quest perk either. Sure, there are other ways to set quest stages, but why not use this one if it fits what you want?

--SnakeChomp 23:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Considering that fact that user-made Perks cause some major issues with uninstallation, using Perks to do something that doesn't require a Perk isn't a very good idea. A better idea would be to use SetStage or AddSpell instead of a Perk.
The only time when perks should be used are when perks are required, and the only time when they are required is when an Entry Point must be used.
--Cipscis 00:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are making a mod that has a collection of perks, and in one of them you want to provide a health or HP bonus, then you use an ability perk because there is no other way to do that. Therefore, ability perks are not useless and it would be silly to tell people not to use them.

The bug is certainly unfortunate, but it's up to Beth to fix that one. And they will fix it, guaranteed. Why? One of the DLC will increase the level cap. That means new perks will need to be made available to select when leveling up. And that also means the bug will be exposed once they test removing the DLC from an existing save game. They have to fix it or their support team will be bearing the brunt of people complaining about how they can't load their save games if they remove the DLC.

--SnakeChomp 01:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

No, ability perks don't require the use of perks. All an ability type Perk Entry does is add an ability - the perk itself is only used so that the ability appears to be a perk. Abilities can be added and removed easily via script (AddSpell and RemoveSpell) without any need to use a perk.
-- Cipscis 03:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Except for the fact that you can only select from a list of perks when you level and not a list of abilities to be added to your character; therefore you must use an ability perk. I suppose that you could do something silly like having a quest that checks to see if you picked a perk, removes it and then adds the ability the perk would have added just to get around this bug, but that has the side effect of the player possibly forgetting what perks they have already selected and is IMO not worth the trouble.

If you want to recommend to people other ways they can do things to avoid this bug, go ahead. If you want to recommend ways to provide easy uninstallation of perks to avoid the bug, go ahead. But to claim that ability perks are useless, and to do it in such a way as to imply that their uselessness is common knowledge, is wrong, and I don't want to see that here.

This discussion only started because of the aforementioned bug. The only way to prevent the bug from happening is by having some way to "uninstall" any perks used by mods. Therefore, I think the better course of action would be to create a guide that people can use to provide uninstallation mechanisms for their mods. They aren't very hard to make really. Just a quest that runs which checks a global variable. If it is set, just blindly remove all possible perks that the mod could have added from the player. Then the uninstallation instructions are a simple command to type in the console to set the global variable to trigger the uninstall.

--SnakeChomp 06:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I started this discussion because I became aware of a bug in a method that I was hoping would allow me to "fix" this issue for users of CASM. The method that I had intended to use was to remove all perks from the player before they saved, and add them back again afterwards. The problem that I perceived is that Quest type Perk Entries apply when the perk is acquired, and Ability type Perk Entries have the ability to do the same via ScriptEffectStart blocks.
If Ability and Quest type Perk Entries were replaced with empty perks and the accompanying alternate method of adding an Ability or calling SetStage were used, then this method would work.
I realise now that I've been thinking of perks as a means to an end as opposed to a specific gameplay mechanic (specifically the fact the you can select a new perk when gaining a level). When I step back and think about this now, I can see that this is an overreaction. I suppose I was just too excited about this possible method that I didn't want to let go of the possibility, but I suppose I have to.
I agree that a guide to creating an uninstallation process, or at least a note indicating that an uninstallation process should be made available, would be a very good idea.
-- Cipscis 06:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)