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| Bella Moretta -or- Octavia's Raiders |
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Being a simple home, for the nautical novitiate.

Courtesy of Grumblepunk
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grumblepunk@hotmail.com

= Version History =

0.93 - 10 July 2006
- Added icons for the cape, cloak and bedroll

0.92 - 30 June 2006
- Moved the helm down one deck, to grant better 1st person visibility to the Captain
- Clicking on the hull now transports the player on deck, rather than at the helm
- Clicking on the helm now activates the sailing menu
- Modifed the hull to include stables for the player's mounts
- Remodeled the jollyboat into a form that resembles more a rowboat and less a planked over log dugout
- Remodeled the masts to repair an open seam at the bow
- Added a bedroll, 2 cloaks and 2 capes
- Compressed all files into .bsa format

0.88 - 05 June 2006
- Fixed Cabin chest ownership
- Repositioned player exterior location when exiting Cabin cell
- Moretta crew toughened up and repositioned
- Extraneous activation menus removed
- Off-hand steel gladius moved to a location more available to the player
- Minor weapon tweaks

0.87 - 03 June 2006 - Initial Beta Release

= Premise =

Octavia Lucia paced her cabin restlessly. She'd served with honor throughout the entire Morrowind Campaign, having earned a Letter of Distinguished Action for bravery at the Battle of Sadrith Mora. Three years of war had elevated her to the rank of Praefectus as well as a something of a legend among her Marines.

Burning questions lingered across her mind. Why was the Emperor disbanding her unit? Why was she being asked to turn in her blades and retire? Like some simpering land worm milk sop?! Pretty pink dresses and formal dances?

Humiliated by the loss of her brigade, Octavia commandeered the Bella Moretta, a small merchant yacht, and gathered to her those Marines with loyalties stronger to herself than to the Emperor. The remainder of her troops, making their way home on the flotilla of various warships destined for Imperial City, were given order to inform the Magistrate of her intentions. By now, the entire Palace would be burning with rumors of her betrayal.

Retirement was never an option. She would die with blood on her blades as her mother had and her father before her. Bravil was ripe. Ill defended and brimming with gold. With her armor blackened in defiance, no guard would mistake her, or her Marines, as one of their own. Not that it mattered.

Born from the womb of war, they would face little opposition from the infamous Bravil ale fattened militia. Marines? No longer. The word was almost an epithet as it rolled across her tongue. Octavia's Raiders would taste blood, today. A prophecy painted in harsh crimson strokes, leaving the young former Praefectus laughing at the irony.

= Description =

This mod was very much my re-introduction to modding. After an almost two year hiatus from modding for Morrowind, I decided to get my feet wet in the same way that I had in Seyda Neen. I'd build my ship home and learn from there. This little project has ended up much larger than I had originally intended and now encompasses some 55-60MB of material.

Furnishings - Brand new bed and wardrobe. Everything else was reskinned, including the flatware. New tapestries, rugs and paintings, both reskinned and remodeled, are included. Much of the art may not be to your individual tastes, but it fit the theme that I was looking for.

Armor - 2 new suits. One based off of the Imperial Watch and the other off of the Town Guard armor. One heavy, one light. Also, the caligae, or sandals, from the Arena set have been declawed and made independent.

Clothing - 1 new cloak and 1 new cape, blessed with the colors of my beloved Corps.

Weapons - 2 gladius with off hand versions, 1 spatha and a reskinned and rescaled bow.

Shields - A new roman style scutum and an larger version of the Imperial Watch shield that matches the heavy armor.

Misc - Too many items to list effectively. Two items of note require further explanation, however. The bedroll is activated simply by dropping it and using it. The more level the drop area, the better the effect. Enter sneak mod to pick it back up. Rubbish barrels will *PERMANENTLY* delete items placed within, when activated in sneak mode. Otherwise, they act as any other barrel. There are two of these on the ship.

Ship - The entire ship has been remodeled, piece by piece. Most of the changes and corrections will likely not be noticeable to most people. However, there were some glaring issues with the original meshes and these have, for the most part, all been corrected.

= Location =

The ship is moored at 18,0. This is a small dock, south of Imperial City and north of Bravil.

= Instructions =

Extract GP_Moretta.esp and GP_Moretta.bsa into your Oblivion\Data directory.

Once the ship has been discovered and claimed, a few brief instructions will ensure that everything operates according to design.

Click on the hull or wheel of the ship to activate. Press 'run' - by default the shift key - to access the control menu while sailing. You'll need to select 'turn to my heading' from the menu to steer and 'half sails' or 'full sails' to move forward.

Access the Cabin via the hatch between the port and starboard aft ladderwells. Below decks is accessed by clicking on the deck of the ship, itself.

There is a jollyboat on the deck of the ship. When activated, the jollyboat deploys off the port side. By jumping down to it and activating it again, it can be rowed. To return the jollyboat to the ship, the ship must be activated while the jollyboat is in rowing mode.

= Updating =

If you are updating from version 0.89 or earlier, empty all of your items from the various contsiners on the ship. You may want to also move any items that you were storing in the hold. A lot has changed, in there. After this, delete the following files from your Oblivion\Data directory:

Meshes\GP\Moretta
Textures\GP\Moretta
Textures\Menus\Icons\GP\Moretta

Then simply extract GP_Moretta.esp and GP_Moretta.bsa into your Oblivion\Data
directory.

= Known Bugs =

- Occassionaly, you may find that the ship will become insubstantial. If this happens, simply save your game, exit to the Main Menu and reload. This will correct the collision detection.

- If your jollyboat is lost to you and you want to get it back to the ship, there are two options available.

If you want it on deck (stowed):

Type tilde (~)
Set GPMorettaJollyboatDeployed to 0
Enter

If you want it next to the ship (deployed):

Type tilde (~)
Set GPMorettaJollyboatDeployed to 1
Enter

= Credits =

I would like to thank these people, for their help in making this bloated mess of textures and .nifs work. =)

Aridale - Whose rubbish script and bedroll I borrowed. This is really a lame excuse to thank Aridale for Companion Gabrielle, who tested this entire mod with me and did so flawlessly. First Mate Gabrielle knows this ship as well as I.

Arriere2 - A modified version of his Steel Balance system is the balancing trio that I use in my own games. It is also the basis for the weapon and armor values that I've used, in this mod.

Belenos - Amazing base textures on Someone1074's cloaks. Now if he would just show me how he did it. ;)

Bethesda - Thank you for the Construction Set. It is easily the most powerful modding tool that a gaming company has ever released, in my experience. I have modded for a *lot* of games and Bethesda has continued to make that task more enjoyable than any other major corporation.

Darknel - His Havok Hacking tutorial thread was absolutely instrumental into getting the new helm system working. This was an issue that I would have pounded my head into for weeks. Thanks to his knowledge, I hammered the fix out in 15 minutes.

Evental - Letting me use his off-hand weapon scripts, which you will find on the gladii. I've been addicted to dual wielding since forever, but having the blocking weapon sheath itself is just the icing on the cake.

Jason1 - Without Jason, this ship would be much like any other. Doomed to await it's prime years, stuck in a dock as a mere backdrop. Thank you for making ships sail in Oblivion and thank you for making it happen so quickly!

JOG - For reminding me of .bsa utilisation with his Tales of Twilight release. This makes life so much easier for both the player and future updates. In addition, archive method is no longer as pressing of a concern, as the .bsa format is already very highly compressed, meaning that more people can install the plug-in without needing to worry about compression utilities that they may or may not possess.

Lautsprecher - Omnibus. And to Quivna for turning me on to it. My life is now complete.

NifSkope Team - Their endeavors have made Oblivion infinitely more malleable and enjoyable to modify. I cannot thank them enough for their continuous effort and dedication, to this community.

Nightstrider - Because I always loved her ebony lute.

Slap Happy - It is Slap's mesh technique that I used to make the exterior windows glow at night. Indeed, I used Slap's window texture for both cabin and cabin hatch glazing. I am completely amazed by the effect. It looks like candles are aflame, within the cabin. Huge ambience bonus, with these alone.

Someone1074 - Why companies still try to make an RPG without a good cloak is beyond me. Thanks to Someone1074, we got exactly what we were looking for.

throttlekitty - There is a lot of mesh altering and new mesh work in this mod. Had throttlekitty not stepped in and lent me a hand with some major issues, none of that could have happened. Thank you for taking the time to look at my failed offerings and for having the patience to help me make them work.

toniworld - The Tamrielic map that I've used was originally created by toniworld. I thought that it fit the genre of the era that I was hoping to achieve and it really is a top notch job.

Vorwoda the Black - Absolutely fantastic ideas for improvements and the implementation of those improvements. Thank you also for all of your encouragement and motivation. You have earned more than my gratitude, once again.
