INSTALLATION

• Install Plugins.txt enabler
• extract DoorwayPlaceholder.esm and drop it to your Starfield\Data folder
• add "*DoorwayPlaceholder.esm" to your Plugins.txt

OVERVIEW

So. At the moment, the elements are working stably and according to clear logic

• Doorway Placeholders - inserts that recommend laying a path between HABs in a given place
• Hole between habs - inserts that require an open passage (without a door) between the HABs
• Mandatory Ladder - an insert that will definitely open a stairway between floors
• Spacer - passive inserts, designed for situations where it is necessary to align the HABs (see description below)

Added two experimental inserts

• Mandartory Door - inserts that require installing a door between the HABs

( this can end sadly, be sure to read the description below! )

DOORWAY  PLACEHOLDERS

This is a recommendation, a "priority path", not a requirement. However, with this mod there are no other recommendations other than what you add by inserts. Therefore, the game will route between the HABs exactly as you specify - along the priority path, even if this path is the most suboptimal.




But the path selection algorithm can be influenced by elements that require opening a passage, and there are such elements in the game:

• Nova and Hope Crosspassage
• Hope Spine
• Hope fuselage HABs

These elements may break the logic. But, elements that require opening a passage affect the route in an extremely illogical way.
Mandatory passage is not a priority!  It's strange, but it's true. My experiments show that most likely the algorithm works like this (understanding this will be very useful for understanding how "Mandatory Doors" work):

1.  Find all HABs
2.  Start searching for a path from the Landing Bay
3.  Select one of the adjacent HAB into which we will lay the path (most likely randomly or depends on the order in which the modules were build)
4.  If this path is marked as "required", then we open it (at this stage the “recommendations” mechanism may break down, and in place of the "recommended" door a "one-way passage" may appear - the wall on the side of the door will not be removed), go to step 7
5.  See if there are recommended exits from this HAB, if there are, then open the recommended one (the first one we come across)
6.  If there are no recommended ones, then open the one you chose in step 3
7.  Go to step 3 if there are still unconnected HABs

Eventually:

• if you create an unambiguous route without loops using "Doorway Placeholder” inserts, you will get exactly what you expect
• if elements with mandatory passage are used, and you really want to get loops, then you will have to experiment and find the best option

Do not attempt to attach inserts to the cockpit, landing bay, docker, cross-passage or spine. Place them only between living compartments.

HOLE  BETWEEN  HUBS

This is a requirement to open the passage (without door) between the HABs. The game is guaranteed to open it. But since this is a requirement, placement may affect the path selection algorithm. Read the description of the algorithm above again.



MANDATORY  LADDER

Requirement to install stairs between floors. Here it should be noted that the path selection algorithm works floor by floor, and the part where it “thinks” about connecting floors was written by another programmer, a normal one. You can safely and always install this element, it works exactly as you expect and does not cause any problems. But they can lead the route away from the “recommended” path, since they have a required keyword.



MANDATORY  DOORS

Now we have finally come to the point “I really want a door and only here!” :)

This insertion may cause an algorithm failure resulting in your ship not having an internal cell at all!

Entering the ship you will find yourself in an eternal fall. You will no longer be able to exit in the usual way, only through console commands (coc), tcl will not help either, since there is no internal cell, and therefore there is no door through which you entered, there is nothing to click.

If you decide to try to install these inserts, then be sure to SAVE before entering the ship, if a problem arises, you can simply read the save, move the insert to another point, or swap it with the "Doorway Placeholder" in the same HAB, and try again.

In fact, everything is not so scary, failure happens no more often than 50/50 :)  I have not yet understood what is causing this behavior, but it is somehow related to how the algorithm places the door, namely to the markers to which it binds it. I have more thoughts, I haven’t finished the experiments yet, but don’t expect quick results, all the ideas may turn out to be nonsense.

Also, when using these inserts, portholes can affect the final path and failure, since they are also a "mandatory" passage. Yes, that’s right, add a porthole and you get something completely different from what you had before.

I actually have a simple recipe for using Mandatory Doors.

1. place "Doorway Placeholders" wherever we want the doors
2. find the nearest door that is partially open
3. change its insert from a "Doorway Placeholder" to a "Mandatory Door"
4. return to step 2 until we get what we want

You should not change several inserts from a "Doorway Placeholder" to a Mandatory Door at the same time.

In about 8 attempts, I achieved two loops in my ship, while I never got a bug of the internal cell, but due to point 4 of the algorithm I received one-way passes several times.




There is a situation in which the internal cell fails 100%, this is the situation when you set the "Mandatory Door" insert in all possible exits from the compartment (the entrance does not count, it is where you entered from according to the assumed doors). This is reproduced in the tests consistently.



Experiment, it’s also interesting!
But don't forget to make a temporary save before entering the ship for the first time after editing using "Mandatory Door" inserts!


SPACER

In general, they are no longer needed. But it's never too late to delete. The inserts currently have a thickness of 0.004, after dozens of hours of testing, I came to the conclusion that this is the maximum comfortable thickness. If you make it thinner, then due to the fact that the “closure” occurs with an overlap, the inserts "sink" too much. If you make it thicker, an error begins to accumulate (additional distance between the compartments), and it is precisely to compensate for this error that the Spacer elements were invented. But, I repeat, at the moment I do not see the need for them.


SANDWICH

In the discussion there was an idea to try to connect inserts, for example “Doorway Placeholder” + “Hole between habs”, in order to solve the situation when a “one-way passage” occurs. I've dropped that idea for now. Firstly, the inserts have their own “body” and it will not hide on its own. Secondly, the snap works with an overlap of 0.005, i.e. To ensure that the inserts do not sink into each other, they must be made to a minimum thickness of 0.005001, this causes the accumulation of distance between the compartments and problems with snapping.


There are also a few small fixes in the mod

•  The limit on the number of modules has been slightly increased, vanilla is 130, I set it to 200. If you use tweaks, they will still rearrange their value.
•  Small flickering on the edges of the inner body of Hope Spine, moved by 0.000001
•  In the Deimos Computer Core 2L1W HAB, three interior elements are located very far outside the compartment (-8.xx at a maximum of -4), I set "initial disabled" flag, I had them hanging in the middle of the adjacent HAB
•  in the Stroud Berthing All 2L1W HAB, the table located in the corner of Fore-Stbd is not linked to the Stbd wall and interferes with the passage if this wall is opened, the correct Linked-References are set, author keithvsmith1977