Forum:Possible improvements to console commands articles

As far as I can tell, there are currently 3 article on this wiki which relate to console commands for the Gamebryo engine:
 * Gamebryo console commands (all)
 * Gamebryo console commands (Fallout 3 console commands redirects to here)
 * Fallout: New Vegas console commands

I have some ideas for improving these, and I'd like to know what other contributors think.


 * 1. Remove redundant information from Fallout: New Vegas console commands, or delete the article entirely.


 * Ausir proposed merging this article with the main Gamebryo console commands article back in 2010 (talk page) but nothing came of it. At this point, most of the information in the article is already covered by the more general Gamebryo console commands article. My opinion is that both articles could be improved by removing redundant information from the F:NV console commands article. That way the separation of articles would make it clear which commands only work in a certain game and which ones work for both games. Alternatively, the F:NV console commands article could be deleted and all of the commands specific to F:NV could be put in a specific section within the main Gamebryo console commands article.


 * There are very few commands that are specific to Fallout: New Vegas. The following are the only parts of the Fallout: New Vegas console commands article that are game specific:
 * The warning that using console commands in the Steam version of Fallout: New Vegas will prevent players from obtaining achievements.
 * Reputation and faction related commands.
 * A few commands are mentioned in the Fallout: New Vegas console commands article but not the Gamebryo console commands article. I don't know whether this means they are game-specific or not, because the redundancy between articles makes it unclear.
 * CompleteQuest X - Complete the current quest. (X = Quest ID#)
 * GetQuestCompleted-checks if the current quest is complete. if true = 0 false = 1
 * player.additem F X - Get indicated amount of caps (X = amount)
 * setpccanusepowerarmor 1 - Toggle power armor use; 1 = can use, 0 = cannot
 * tcai - Toggle all non-player character combat AI (non-player character doesn't fight)
 * tai - Toggle all or selected non-player character AI (disables AI processing)
 * setrestrained X - Will cause an actor to stand in place, not engaging in combat or carrying out AI packages.
 * Playidle X - Plays an idle, where X is the idle's EditorID string (not the FormID). The number of EditorIDs are too numerous to list here.
 * PushActorAway X Y - Causes another actor (variable X, an Actor reference formID) to go into a ragdoll state and gets impelled away at a force of Y, away from the calling reference (selectable by clicking on a ref in console mode or by using the 'prid' command)
 * tdt - Toggle debug display
 * tlv - Toggle leaves
 * tg - Toggle grass
 * tp - Toggle view of projectiles and spawns
 * enableplayercontrols - Enables player controls (when disabled by quasi-cutscenes)
 * tcg - Toggle Collision Geometry Visibility
 * twf - Toggle Wireframe


 * 2. Add game icons to the tables in Gamebryo console commands (all) to show which games the commands work in.


 * I think this would make it clearer which commands are game specific or don't work in either game.

~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 01:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that we don't really need two articles for this; the FNV console commands article can safely be merged into the general Gamebryo one if the FNV-specific content is clearly marked as such.
 * Out of the commands above, I'm pretty sure most will work in FO3 as well. You can simply double-check your list with Gamebryo console commands (all) - since that was created based on a FO3 console dump and hasn't been updated content-wise after FNV release, only commands which are not listed there would really be FNV-only. -- Porter21 (talk) 05:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I am of the same mind as Porter on this. Plus, it is something I have been planning on doing for a while now, but due to many other things I wish to improve upon which are in a much worse state, and the fact that it doesn't actually harm the wiki in its present state, it has always been a low priority. So I am more than glad someone else is happy to take this task on board. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 12:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess I'll go ahead and merge the two some time soon if no one beats me to it.
 * What do you think of my second proposal about adding game icons to the tables at Gamebryo console commands (all)? ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 12:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * That I am not to sure about for 2 reasons, one of which being a functional issue and the second cosmetic. Firstly, the icons do look messy in my eyes, yes I know I was the one to first introduce them into page layouts, but they serve a purpose for when there is limited horizontal space to denote game usage (i.e. tables with to much information and infoboxes etc.) - otherwise they should be used sparingly. The second one is the functional issue, the more images you add to a page the more requests it makes to the server (even if it is the same image repeated), this can have the effect of a slower page load, to the point of a page not loading at all. As we experienced with the Fallout: New Vegas characters page, having many upon many graphical checks and crosses prevented the page actually loading (suppected server HTML request limit reached), which resulted in the need to strip out all the crosses so the page would load.


 * Since the page is rather long in its table entries, adding the icons would probably prevent it from loading also. That, combined with the fact that the table doesn't even stretch the full width of the page- so there is no real width constraints, are the reasons I don't thing this would be the best solution. Personal I would add 2 extra columns labelled FO3 and FNV respectively, then use HTML check marks (✓) in said columns to denote in which games the command is usable. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 13:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You're right. That would probably work better. Do you know of a good way to check which commands work in each game? The intro section of the page mentions commands that "remain from an old game - possibly Oblivion - and do not work properly." ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 13:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If we can get raw data dumps for both games, it shouldn't take much to compare the lists with a few patterns to determine which commands are exclusive to which game. Porter I believe would be the best person to get the dumps, as I do believe he has the tools to do so (which reminds me, must ask if he can use the same tool used to garnish the creature data, to do the same for dialogue files). As for finding out which are the broken legacy commands from other prior Bethesda titles, that is not so simple I fear. The only way to know for sure is to try them in-game, but to even do that we most first understand what the command does to confirm it, something that the pages doesn't have a full list on. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 14:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The following two pages list Oblivion console commands with explanations. It might be useful if individual testing of the commands in-game is necessary.
 * http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Console
 * http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php/Category:Console_Functions
 * ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 15:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * FNVDump (the tool you're probably referring to) can only dump data from the .esm files (i.e. the kind of data you can also access via the GECK), so it'll be of little use for this I'm afraid. However, Gamebryo console commands (all) mentions that the list was generated with the console commands scof and help; it seems that'd be simple enough to do. -- Porter21 (talk) 17:00, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

well it seems FNV retains all the commands from FO3 and only adds 2 more commands (EnableWeaponMod and ToggleProjectileDebug (TP)). As for scripts, that pretty much the same - FNV retains all previous ones while adding new ones seen below. 19:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I've created a rough draft of the tables on my userpage. I added the commands listed above with rows to indicate which game(s) the commands appear in. I also used Template:Console to format the examples in the tables. Let me know if you think it should be changed. ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 05:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The page takes an incredible amount of time to load, due to all the images. Compare its load time to a HTML version I have added to my sandbox here. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 21:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)


 * For me it takes 6.46s for my version to load and 5.14s for yours to load (times measured with the Firebug Net panel). Personally, I don't think the difference is perceptible, but the HTML version could be used instead, if you prefer. ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 00:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry to butt in, but for me yours took nearly 15secs and GA's took around 6. -- GOTW '''User 12:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I just got 4.29s (HTML) and 20.58s (Image) on FF, measured by the same Firebug extension. On Chrome I got 3.11s (HTML) and 20.07s (Image) and IE 4.60s (HTML) and 8.39s (Image). The thing that freaks me out after that testing is the IE results. But that is getting off topic, basically It could just be me, but with GW saying he is getting the same kind of lag, it looks like having that many images (even though they are the same) is putting a heavy strain on the page load times. So I dont know if you are using any other extensions for FF, or changed anything in about:config that might be giving you better load times. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 18:17, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I tested it a few more times and noticed that sometimes I get a long loading time on my page (18s) and sometimes not. Your page is definitely better.
 * I don't understand why having so many placements of the same image on a page would cause this problem. Repeating a single image with such a small file size shouldn't strain the server, considering that the browser only needs to request the image once and then can call it from the browser's cache. ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 14:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Well I am no tech head, so I don't know all the ins and outs of the browser mechanics and how they deal with http requests/packet data etc. But from my understanding, downloading the image and making a server request are completely different things. For each instance of the image (regardless of it being the same image) the browser makes a request to the server to validate the image etc., then either downloads it if it isn't cached or renders the image from the cache if it has already been downloaded and is validated to be the current image. Now most servers limit the amount of simultaneous connections (basically requests from the browser) from a single IP (basic DDoS protection method and other reasons), so do most browsers (so as not to trip DDoS protection on the server etc.). Basically, if you have 200 images on a page (even if they are the same image), the browser will have to make 200 requests to the server in batches of say 8 at a time. Additionally, that number can be reduced by other requests, as the browser has to also download the HTML document, CSS file, JavaScripts etc. taking up connections to the server. So it all depends on how the server and browsers are configured to how fast a page is displayed. This is why I was kinda surprised at the results from IE, because I do believe that IE is limited to either 2 or 4 connections, while FF is limited to 8 by default. But that all aside, what I do know is that reducing image sizes and also limiting the amount of images displayed on a page always makes for a faster page load time. 16:33, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I did some testing to determine the average loading times from 10 instances of loading each version of my page with the Firebug Net panel. I found that the use of images isn't the biggest factor slowing it down. For Template:Icon, the biggest impact seems to be the use of JavaScript to position the tooltips.


 * My conclusions:
 * Using a text checkmark definitely results in faster page loading. The difference between the text checkmark in a table and File:Icon check.png in a table is 4.25 seconds on average.
 * The use of the Template:Icon to create a checkmark with a special tooltip is the slowest of all, even when not used in a table. On average, it takes 14.58 seconds longer to load than File:Icon check.png (more than twice as long). My guess is that the JavaScript used to create/position the tooltips is slowing down the page loading.
 * ~ Gardimuer { <font color=#33CC66>ʈalk } 18:05, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Yep, I would expect the version that includes JavaScript to run the slowest, because that is another element added to the page layout. Plus, since scripts are run client side, the results can vary from rig to rig. One thing to note about the HTML version I provided as an example, is that it is running much slower than it could do. This is due to in-line styling as opposed to using the CSS file. Once the styling is moved to the main CSS file, page load times for that would also drop, further improving page load times. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 17:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Maybe it would be better to change corresponding templates? <font face="Segoe Script">veryblackraven 18:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I am very much considering that, just to improve page load time for other affected pages such as Fallout: New Vegas characters, Fallout 3 characters, and most project pages that amass ticks in the tables they use to log progress. But before I go ahead and do that, I am trying to consider the impact to other pages that use the template. Basically are there any cases where the tool tips or the image are needed in a way that the HTML can not achieve the same. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 20:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I have changed the templates in the mean time to see if it has any unwanted effects. Let me know what you guys thing? User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 16:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Thought I'd give a little update for the people who were involved in the discussion here. GA and me have been discussing this on our talk pages, and there's actually a third alternative: rendering the check marks and cross as background images.

As a result, I have modified icon to support a "high-use" mode for certain icons which does exactly that (rendering specific icons background images). This means we can keep the more consistent/better-looking image-based check marks/crosses but at the same time achieve loading times which are not significantly slower than those for the pure HTML version (we're talking about 0.5-1s difference for Gamebryo console commands (all), and that's with JS tooltips for the background image version and no tooltips for the HTML version). There's no practical difference for editors; you can keep using Yes and as before.

That aside, I'm not sure whether all the check marks are needed in this specific instance. I'd simply have highlighted the FNV-specific commands with "va-table-highlight" and added an icon after the command name (for the FNV-specific commands only). Seems more reader-friendly than having a lot of check marks and forcing people to scroll up in case they forget which of the columns stands for FO3 and which for FNV. Just my 2 cents. -- Porter21 (talk) 21:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * That's a good idea. I agree that highlighted rows would stand out more than icons when scrolling up and down the table. ~ <font color=#006622>Gardimuer { <font color=#33CC66>ʈalk } 14:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)