Message Spam
From The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki
Tes4 displays messages to the player whenever: 1) spells are added to, 2) items are added to or removed from the player. For some scripts such messages are very undesirable (e.g. for an alchemical sorters which adds/removes many items). Hence, message "spam". There are several techniques for avoiding this spam.
[edit] AddItem - aTemp Container
When adding items to the player, spam can be avoided by first adding the item to a container, and then removing the contents from the container to the player. This works because unlike addItem, RemoveAllItems is silent.
tempContainerRef.addItem deathDagger 1 tempContainerRef.removeAllItems player
If you're using Cobl, you can use cobGenXFerRef for the temporary container -- it's defined for just this sort of use.
Note: Do not wait a frame to remove the item to the player. If you do, you run the chance of running the item's script, which in rare circumstances can cause problems.
[edit] Message Queue Overloading
Simplest technique is to overload the message queue by sending the exact same message twice in a row. I.e.
;--No messages. message " " message " " ;--OR... Covering message... message "[You've been pickpocketed!]" message "[You've been pickpocketed!]"
There's no obvious reason why this does or should work, but it does. :shrug: The message that is sent (including a blank message) will still display for the usual time, but messages that would ordinarily appear after it seem to be discarded -- i.e. they never enter the queue.
Con: The downside of this approach is that it may block more messages than you want to block. It basically nukes the queue for a second or two -- any message sent by any script or action during that period will be lost.
Con: Some UI mods add an Oblivion icon for all messages. This icon will still appear for the duration of the message - defeating the purpose of the blank message.
[edit] OBSE Commands
OBSE 0015 now provides spam free versions of functions that don't generate messages.
Con: Requires that user have OBSE v0.15 or higher installed.
Con: The sound generated by the CS versions of these functions is also generated by these functions.
[edit] Item Activate
When adding items whose "activate" action results in being added to inventory (e.g. armor, but not books), you can use activate in a script.
someItemRef.activate player
Pro/Con: Requires that you have a ref for the item. On the plus side,this means that if you want the player to pick up a specific pre-existing, placed item, you can do that.
