“The time has come!”
– The Walrus, Alice in Wonderland

Indeed, the time has come to revisit Oblivion. It’s been a while, and better hardware has had time to proliferate while, sadly, better software has been slow to follow suit.

Fortunately we still have a gorgeous game such as this! I figured what better for a journey back to Tamriel than an explorer’s companion mod, something useful, and which provides the immersion and functionality of some of the other portable campsite mods, with a bit of a twist.

One example would be no more dragging placement stuff around to position where your tent will be. Just cast the spell and it will appear directly in front of you with the door facing forward every time. Also, exiting the tent will return you to exactly where you were when you entered.

So, this mod adds one camping pack to the game, located out in the open in the Market District, just across from Edgar’s Discount Spells behind the statue (it looks like a large sack; see included screenshot for clear depiction.)

Update: Version 1.2 implements a rudimentary weather tracking system (as an optional alternate .ESP, see the readme. Essentially what it does is make a note of the current weather when you enter the tent, and resets that weather when you exit, to avoid the annoying MoveTo “feature” of otherwise having a random weather anytime you left the tent. The weather system begins to process and transition as normal as soon as the exiting type is set to what it was when you entered the tent, and so runs seamlessly as possible.

Also removed the check on interior cells, so now the only place you can’t use this is inside the tent itself. Added alternate .esp versions for use with other mods. See details included in the readme file.

Fixed: The CS Wiki documents an issue with marker references randomly warping back to their original position, which occasionally resulted in the problem of being unable to port out of the tent when loading a save made inside. This has been resolved in version 1.4. If you happened to get stuck while using an older version and wish to salvage your save you could bring up the console by pressing the “~” key and type coc ICMarketDistrictMysticEmporium which should get you outside. After that, simply casting the spell again should reset everything to working order.

Installation:

Copy the “meshes” folder, “sound” folder, and “phinix_portable_tent.esp” file to your Oblivion\Data folder. Feel safe in saying “yes” when warned the folders already exist. I have tucked all my custom meshes and sounds away in “phinix” sub folders. Nothing from the vanilla game was changed, apart from placing the pack in the Market District storage area as mentioned above.

Click the pack and it will be added to your spell list as a Lesser Power called “Make Camp.” Simply cast this spell anytime to assemble your tent. Casting the spell while the tent is out will pack it away (you can also do this by activating it while sneaking.)

Inside you will find modest accommodations, a (reasonably) comfy bedroll, and some storage, just what you would need to weather a storm. (Incidentally, if it is currently raining when you enter the tent, you can hear the falling rain on the canvas roof.)

I have done my best to provide for this rudimentary functionality without being over the top. Basically think of it as everything you could carry via pack Guar.

Details for the Mod Conscious:

Verified clean with TES4Edit. All containers are unique and set to never respawn, so you will never lose your stored items. None of the weather checks use the “override” flag, so there is no fear of getting locked on a particular weather style. This mod does all of its placements using MoveTo rather than PlaceAtMe and therefore will not cause issues with save game bloating, since the placements are all done on a single set of persistent references instead of constantly creating new ones.

A note on remodeling:

Anyone can freely remodel anything about the interior of the tent without breaking the scripts. Just make sure you leave the door and tent itself alone. Anything else can be moved, added, deleted, etc. To do so just open the mod in the editor, and from the Cell View window select Interiors, then double-click “phinixPortableTent.”

Usage and Copyright:

I reserve copyright to that portion of the mod’s content and scripting material which is unique and my own, as of 12-23-11.

You are NOT licensed to redistribute this content, and to do so without express permission is a violation US Copyright law. If you wish to post a link to this content on your website, you must first contact my via PM through free registration on this website. I will consider each request and issue written permission (via email) where appropriate.

Click HERE to read the entire site copyright, which also appears at the bottom of every page and applies to all content posted to iparadigm.org. Sorry for the legal mumbo, and thanks for understanding and respecting authors’ rights!

Downloads:

Phinix_Portable_Tent.zip
Current version (12-23-11).

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