Barenziah's stackable stones with optional quest markers

Fixed Barenziah's stones stacking correctly in player's inventory. Also added an optional quest marker for Barenziah's Stone.

Overview

This mod overhauls the No Stone Unturned quest using SKSE functionality to allow Barenziah's Stone to stack correctly in your inventory. Since quest markers on Barenziah's Stone are also quite popular, and this mod is not compatible with other mods that add quest markers, I'm free to add them as well. They are optional and can be enabled and disabled through the MCM menu or by setting the value of a global variable in the console.

Also works in Oldrim.

Require

SKSE。

SkyUI (for Mod configuration menu).

Install

I do not recommend installing or updating this mod on an existing save, as it modifies the mission scripts enabled by launching the game. Only install or update before starting a new game.

Recommended: Use the mod manager to install and uninstall.

To install manually, copy SSoB.esp and SSoB.bsa to the Skyrim/Data directory. To uninstall manually, delete these two files.

usage

To enable quest markers, use the MCM menu (called "SSoB" for "Barenziah's Stackable Stones"). You can also use the console (''' - backtick or tilde key by default):

(enable)

Set SSoBGemMarkers to 1

(disabled)

Set SSoBGemMarkers to 0

Known issues/incompatibilities

This mod is not expected to be compatible with any mods that modify the No Stone Unturned quest, including other quest marker mods and droppable/sellable gem mods.

GORY details

Previously, if you collected multiple Stones before talking to Vex, they would appear in your inventory as a "stack." If you collect four unusual gems, you will open your inventory and view:

Unusual gemstones (4)

However, after you speak to Vex, these four gems will be renamed Stones of Barenziah - and then any other gems you collect will not remain on the stack, but will appear on their own row in your inventory:

Stone of Valencia (4)

Stone of Valencia

Stone of Valencia

Stone of Valencia

I stumbled upon the cause of this annoying behavior as I was making a different mod and decided to spend a day using SKSE to correct it. So how does it work? The vanilla No Stone Unturned quest renames gems by forcing them to become new aliases during the appropriate quest phase. It got the job done, but the new container used by the task didn't stack properly.

To solve this problem, I used the magic of SKSE: instead of forcing Unusual Gems to add new aliases, I directly renamed them using SKSE's "SetName" form script function. Since the new gem object is the same as the old gem object, just rename it and it will stack correctly, just like the old gem object!

One drawback of SetName is that its changes only persist during the game session. When you quit the game and start over, the gems are called "unusual gems." So every time you load a game - and only when you load a game - SSoB will check the status of your No Stone Unturned quest and, if appropriate, rename any unusual gems to Barenziah's Stone. This is a trivial operation. If you happen to save and exit your crosshair, focus on the Stone of Barenziah somewhere in the world, then restart Skyrim and reload your game, you'll see "Unusual Gems" because the mod hasn't had a chance to rename all the gems. Move your crosshair away and back again, it should be "Barenziah's Stone".

What impact does it have on the overall mission structure? Since I no longer need the new aliases that the old gems were forced to use, they have been removed. This is 48 complete reference aliases, deleted. These aliases are only used in the rename step of the task, so their removal will not affect any other stages of the task. Even so, removing 48 aliases is a pretty big overhaul, which means you definitely shouldn't enable this mod in the game. At best, it won't work; at worst, it will screw up your stone-free progress in all sorts of unpredictable ways. Since the No Stone Unturned launch game is enabled, you should only activate SSoB before launching …