Quick Reference: Locations

In this Quick Reference Video, we're going to make a Custom Location.

A Location is used to reference an area in several situations, such as new Cells and Encounter Zones, among other things.

With Skyrim loaded, go to your Location list under World Data in your Object Window. Right-click and select New.

Give your Location an ID. This is not visible to the player, so it can have abbreviations. The standard is to end your location with the word Location, because it makes it easy to identify in a list.

Next, give your Location a name. This is visible to the player, so it should have correct spelling and punctuation. The Name can be blank.

The Parent location allows you to group locations under one master location. Many exterior locations are grouped under the region Location, such as the Reach or the Rift. You do not have to set a parent location. You can also create your own parent location using the same method for a regular location.

The World Location Marker and Horse Markers connect to markers that are placed in the area. World Location Radius should remain at 0 for default.

Now you can select some music from the drop-down list. This is the default music for that particular location.

The Unreported Crime Faction can be set to any of the standard factions in the game, or you can make your own.

To add keywords, right-click on the keywords section and select Add. Keywords represent metadata that can be added to most objects including locations. They don't do anything to the location, but they allow the location to be used by scripts. For example, if you have LocClearable, then the dungeon is eligible to be marked as "cleared" on the map when all the enemies and its boss are killed. The best way to determine what keywords you need is to look at a similar set of locations and use the common ones.

The Location Reference Types, Cells and Actors tabs all show any references that are tagged with this location. You can't add stuff to this list, but if you add this location to another object, such as a Cell or NPC, it will list that Cell or NPC here.