Encyclopaedia Cyrodilica
From Oblivion Mod Wiki
| Author: | Kivan |
| Version: | 1.21 |
| Last Updated: | June 21st, 2006 |
| Download(s): | Baldurdash |
[edit] Description
Adds a handy collection of weightless reference "books" (scroll format) to Oblivion...very useful for looking up information in-game rather than in browsers or printed pages. The most recent update adds a new volume 4 for trainers, added some missing Console commands to what is now Volume 5a, and fixed the FormID for Daedric Gauntlets.
[edit] Features
- All alchemy ingredients and properties sorted by effect and ingredient
- Enchanting and spellmaking info and stats.
- A complete list of console codes
- Codes/FormID's for every item, NPC, creature and location there is.
[edit] Information
Oblivion doesn't like sharing your computer with anything else... no Alt-Tabbing to a browser session and expecting to return smoothly. Tired of having to quit the game to look something up, or having to print out information to refer to it in-game, I realized that the in-game books and scrolls were a perfect way to store reference data. Want to make a Restore Strength potion but aren't sure of the ingredients you need? Need to know what size soulgem you'll need to trap that Xivilai you're about to send back to Oblivion? Want to remove unneeded spells from your spellbook but don't know their FormID's? Lost your Arch-Mage gear in a respawning container and want it back? Shum Gro-Yarug fell to his death again so you can't buy the house in Skingrad? Or just want to cheat like hell and give yourself some amazing stuff? All of these things and more can be looked up in the Encyclopaedia.
To obtain the Encyclopaedia, simply visit the First Edition bookshop in the Market District of the Imperial City and buy any volumes you like from Phintias there. They will appear as a series of "EC" scrolls (names are heavily abbreviated so that they fit into the allowed space) and only cost 1 to 3 gold each depending on your Mercantile skill. They have no weight so can be kept indefinitely in your PC's inventory for handy reference. Phintias has five copies of each volume in case any are lost.
[edit] Conflicts
Unless Phintias is changed by another mod so that he no longer sells books (which will break at least one quest) this mod won't conflict with others even if they modify Phintias: the Encyclopaedia is in a new container, not an existing one or in Phintias' inventory. The mod is "clean" in that it only modifies what it's supposed to. You can verify this by going into Data Files in TESCS or from the launcher, selecting Encyclopaedia Cyrodilica.esp and clicking Details. The mod was developed after the Final Patch, so of course will work with it properly.
[edit] Questions
[edit] Why Scrolls?
Two good reasons. Firstly, scrolls... scroll! There's a draggable scrollbar on the right side. To navigate books, one has to clickclickclick the Next and Prev. buttons. Anything to reduce the click factor is preferable. Books are also narrower, which results in far more breaking of long lines (and there are plenty of those in the "tables.")
[edit] Why so many console scrolls?
There appears to be a bug (or built-in limitation) with the size of scrolls. At 16KB or larger they will no longer display properly; instead only the first 10%-30% will appear and the rest will be blank. I had to split up all the console codes (for items, weapons, armor, spells, NPC's, etc.) to get around this limitation into over twenty "volumes." If you're not interested in the console, you can just skip buying them, but they do come in handy even if one doesn't cheat.
[edit] Why don't the table columns line up?
There is no way of doing aligned columns or tables in Oblivion (and Morrowind) books and scrolls other than making the entire text a large graphic image. Tab characters are simply ignored, and there is no table command in the minimalist HTML that the text allows. As well, there is no fixed-width font (like Courier.) All of the allowed fonts are proportional (all the letters are different widths.)
