More Lakeview debugging

So I have gotten the Creation Kit installed via steam.

It installed in the default location for the steam library which is not where I wanted it installed. I have a second drive that is where I am spreading out all the modding stuff and is out of the UAC write protected system.

However, Steam would not move the files for Creation Kit to the new location as there was already a steam library there.  (It contains skyrim).  So to get it all to happen, I had to rename the existing skyrim folder, (skyrimX) then use the move steam library tool inside steam to move Creation Kit... then merge the files it placed into my skyrim files.... then change the name of the "renamed" folder back to "Skyrim".  This fooled steam into moving the Creation Kit path correctly.

I could then install Creation Kit into Mod Organiser as an executable.  This allows me to run Creation Kit against my full mod stack, with the benefits of the MO virtualised file system.  Very nice.

Then manually unpack the source files that are distributed with Creation Kit into the Data\Scripts\Source folder.

There is still some issues with Creation Kit as it throws a bunch of errors on load.

C:\_Skyrim\Code\TESV\TES SHared\misc\BGSLocalizedString.cpp
C:\_Skyrim\Code\TESV\TES SHared\misc\BGSLocalizedString.cpp
C:\_skyrim\code\tesv\bssystem\BSTSmartkPointer.h

As these are throwing errors based on c++ source file locations its very deep in the guts of CK.  The solution I found is documented in the following nexus post. It involves adding the DLC .esm files to the load paths in the SkyrimEditor.ini. 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/21690/

Once I had CK loading without errors... but still with a bunch of warnings... (Who leaves this many warning in production code? They don't look hard to resolve. Is this a measure of the resource constraints inside Bethesda? Probably. There are only so many hours in the day and hands at the wheel and it gives the modders something to do...)

Ok,  Crack open CK and start to fossic around.  Read through the minimum of the tutorials to get an idea of how to navigate around.  Load up some of the world space cells and get a look at how some of the bits are actually implemented.

https://www.skyrimsearch.com/categories/cells/10/

This database is useful for all sorts of random references inside the codebase.  It's actually something I was considering creating before I found it.  Nice.

Anyway,  home in on the cell with Lakeview Manor and Winstad Manor.  It was pretty much as I expected, all the geometry is stacked in position and ready to be turned on or off via scripts.  Now to figure out the scripts.

I started picking my way into the carpenter bench setting to get an idea of what it does.  Ok.  But when I try to open the source file for the script from within Creation Kit, it is greyed out.  Path error for some reason?  If I double click on a script reference, it just opens the properties dialog.  Useful but no way to get to the script...

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/6845297-script-edit-source-greyed-out-story-time/

I found some notes on installing DLC scripts for FO4 edition of CK.  However it does not seem to get a win for skyrim version of CK. So ignore that.

The solution I found was in the preferences dialog in CK.  Go to the scripts tab and in the "On double click" dropdown select "Edit Script".  Apply and try.

Now CK will correctly open the script when I click on a script on an object in the scene.  Now I can right click on a script and get to both the properties and to the script itself.  Nice.

The inconsistencies in the coding of the CK tooling is interesting. Having written a lot of quick and dirty tools over the years I can see the same problems.  Lack of consistency, no followup once it works  "good enough".  However, this is a code base they have been using as a production tool for a long time.  Would it kill them to put a few hours into polishing it?  Anyway... resouces again... See reddit for other rants on CK tool quality if you are bored. 

However, like other problems with skyrim, its the sort of thing you could solve by releasing feral power of the modding community on it as an open source project... probably some IP reason not to... anyway. There appers to be some open source attempts at replacing Creation Kit but its hard to gauge how complete they may be.  https://github.com/Open-CK