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ABANDONED MOUNTAIN SHACK  /  Vince Bly  / Rev. 1.10  /  README
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OVERVIEW

The Abandoned Mountain Shack is a different kind of house mod in several ways.  It's an exterior home.  That is the "interior" is actually part of the exterior world, so you can see out the windows, hear the wind blowing outside, and so forth.  Also, since it's been abandoned for many years, it's in very poor shape.  However, everything can be fixed--by you.  Fixing it up is actually a mini-adventure game within Oblivion.  Once it's fixed up, the shack has several unique features that can be very helpful to your character.  You'll have to discover what these are for yourself.

The shack is on the side of a cliff in the Jerall Mountains SE of Bruma.  The previous owner set out on a quest, was killed, so never returned.  The house is yours if you want it.  You will find the outside littered with logs, boulders, and other debris.  Things are becoming overgrown with vines and in a general state of disarray.  Inside, the lights and stoves burned out long ago, spider webs are everywhere, and there's a big hole in the floor.  There's more--but you get the idea.  Fixing it up is a matter of finding the right components or tools.  For example, to fix the hanging lamp over the dining table you'll need to find some lamp fuel to put in the lamp.  Some things require more than one item.  If you put in at least one correct item and more are needed, you will see a message telling you what and how many.  For example, there's a burned out candle bowl in the basement.  If you put one candle in it, you will see a message "You need 3 candles".  (Hint: all 7 candles can be used to fix lights in the basement).  The components and tools needed for fix-up are all in plain sight or in containers that are in plain sight.  Everything you need is in the house or its immediate vicinity.  Some things can be "fixed" without tools or other components.  For example, vines and spider webs can be torn down, overturned items can be set upright, and boulders and logs can be thrown over the side of the mountain.  Setting things like wine bottles and pitchers upright takes some care and patience.  Many of these items have been modified to lower their center of gravity, making setting them upright a bit easier.

As you fix things, set overturned items upright, throw debris over the cliff, tear down vines, clean things, and so forth, the shack keeps score.  When you reach 90% of the maximum, you will hear a unique sound, perishable items will be refreshed, and a few things will be added that were not there before.  You may find some of these things very handy!  You will then also be able to brew hot coffee--a powerful and long lasting potion.  You will find instructions for making coffee in a note in the desk.  Important note: SINCE SOME OF THE ITEMS ARE QUITE POWERFUL, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET THE REFRESH UNTIL YOUR CHARACTER IS AT LEAST LEVEL 8.


INSTALLING

Extract all from AbandShack110.zip into your Oblivion\Data folder.  This will place three files in that folder: MountainShack.bsa, MountainShack.esp, and MountainShackReadMe.txt (this file).  When you start Oblivion, go to the Data Files list and check MountainShack.esp and you're good to go.  You will see a marker on your Oblivion map of the Mountain Shack SE of Bruma.

To uninstall, simply remove these three files from your Oblivion\Data folder.  


NOTES:

Compatibility: The mod was developed running Oblivion with the 1.1 patch, so it does not require the 1.2 patch or SI, but runs fine with them.  So far, there are no known conflicts with other mods.

Graphical Issues: An exterior home places an extra burden on the graphics processor.  It must no only process the terrain, trees, and exterior of the house, it must also process the interior and all the clutter and lights in it.  If you have a modest graphics card you may notice a decrease in frame rate.  If you do have an issue, it would be a good idea to tear down all the vines first.  Once you've fixed up the house, you can maximize the frame rate by turning on only the lights you need.  Leave the fireplace and stove off, except when you need them.  If you have an older graphics card that are not on the officially approved list, this mod may not be for you.  Older video cards may not work well, or at all.  Systems using the nVidia 7600 gs may crash when you approach the shack.  Some Radeon x1300/1550 series cards may show graphic glitches around the windows.

Weather: It should never rain, snow, or fog inside the shack.  If the weather is bad, it will change slowly to good as you approach the house on foot or horseback.  It will change instantly to good weather when you fast travel there.  Because the mod needs to control the weather to prevent raining inside, additional weather types added by other mods may not be present in the vicinity of the shack.

Containers: All containers with an asterisk after the name (like Tool Box*) are safe for long term storage.  Those without are definitely not.

Glass lantern bowl: Smooth, curved, glass surfaces, like the hanging lamp bowl and the candle light bottle, will look much better if you turn the video option Window Reflections off.

Sleeping with the enemy: Sometimes you may try to sleep in the bed and get a message that you can't sleep with enemies present.  If that happens, you can either go out and try to find and kill it, or go sleep in the basement and kill it in the morning.  :)

The Shrine of Alignment: The origin of the shrine and what it does are described in the book "The Origin of the Shrine of Alignment" on the mantle.  The Shrine will operate when you have assembled it and reached the 90% refresh bonus.  If you do not have any of the objects described in the book in your inventory, nothing will happen.


REVISION HISTORY:

Rev. 1.04	First public release

Rev.	1.05	Two bugs were squashed:
		1) The mod accidently rescaled a bone typically found littering the floor of dungeons without renaming it so it affected all of these bones in Oblivion.  This, and four other references that had no effect away from the shack, have been corrected.
		2) On rare occasions, after uprighting the small table and leaving for a few days or weeks, you would return to find the table partly sunk into the floor.  The table's collision has been revised to fix this.
		
Rev. 1.10  One bug was squashed: The book "Song of the Alchemists" was above or behind
		the desk from the beginning.  It should not appear until the desk has been opened and the 90% refresh has been achieved. That's been fixed.
		
		The stone stairs up to the trap door in the basement has been replaced with a taller wooden stairs.
		
		A button can now be found on the end of the bookcase.  Once you have set the small round table upright and placed it where you want it, pressing the button allows you to convert it into a normal, immovable table.
		
		A new item has been added, the Shrine of Alignment.  The Shrine can convert powerful items to ones more aligned with your character.  For example, if you found the Amulet of Axes, that's great if you specialize in blunt weapons.  It's much less useful if you specialize in bladed weapons.  The Shrine will allow you to convert it to the Necklace of Swords.  The details of how the Shrine came to be and what it can do are described in a book on the mantle.
		
		A variety of small tweaks were made here and there.
		

CREDITS:

Garak for his booksets resource

Texian for his Static Water Meshes resource

Trollf for his Canvas Galore resource

And most importantly, I wish to thank the beta testers: Shezrie of Oblivion's Real Estate and WhoGuru and WindmillTilter of the TES Alliance.  This mod would be much poorer without their valuable help and suggestions.




