:: The True Blade Of The East ::

:: DESCRIPTION ::

Ever thought it was a bit odd that New Vegas' final boss had this amazing looking custom-made suit of armor, yet his weapon is a generic bumper sword with a cool name and the license plate removed ? Yeah, me too.

Introducing: The True Blade of the East ! This mod adresses this non-issue by replacing the Blade of the East's model with a brand new version designed and sculpted from scratch, complete with custom textures, in an attempt to give the Monster of the East the weapon he always deserved, in a lore-friendly manner. The changes are only cosmetic in nature, I didn't tweak any damage values or scripts, as there are more than enough mods out there that tweak Lanius' stats and level scaling.

Since he is quite the unit, the length of the blade has been increased a little (the hitbox remains the same however). The textures are designed to match his armor as closely as possible and come in three sizes, ranging from 1K to 4K. The pip-boy inventory icon has also been updated to reflect the new appearance of the weapon, not that you'll be able to enjoy it for long if you're not running a functional post game mod, which I highly recommend.


:: FEATURES ::

- A brand new look for the mighty Blade of the East, finally giving the sword the fearsome appearance it deserves. This new look applies to both the playable and boss-exclusive versions, meaning you too can carry this weapon into battle.
- Custom Pip-boy icons matching the new design of the blade (vault boy only).
- Comes with textures in 1K, 2K and 4K resolutions to accommodate a broad range of setups.
- Absolutely no stats or balance changes, this mod is purely cosmetic.


:: REQUIREMENTS & COMPATIBILITY ::

No requirements or dependencies, this is a standalone mod that only modifies two vanilla game assets.

In terms of compatibility, I haven't been able to test it out extensively with every Legion overhaul under the sun, but it should work fine with most of them, provided they don't specifically edit the Blade of the East itself. To ensure maximum compatibility, put TrueBladeOfTheEast.esp below other legion mods in your load order.

- Compatible with We Are Legion, by Dragbody.
- Compatible with Caesar's New Regime, by Dragbody.
- Compatible with Arizona Slave Army, by YanL.


:: INSTALLATION ::

I'd recommend simply using your favorite mod manager to make things easier for yourself. Make sure to have this mod load after other mods that also edit Lanius or the Legion at large to minimize the risk of conflict.

If you're more of a manual installation kind of person, simply extract the contents of the archive into the \Data folder that's located in your Fallout New Vegas root folder.

To see if the files are in the right location, first make sure that TrueBladeOfTheEast.esp is at the root of the \data directory.
Then, check both of the following paths :

- \Fallout New Vegas\data\textures\weapons\2handmelee, in which you should find the following textures :
- legatesword_d.dds
- legatesword_n.dds
- legatesword_e.dds
- legatesword_r.dds

- \Fallout New Vegas\data\meshes\weapons\2handmelee, in which you should find the following mesh :
- legatesword.nif


:: UNINSTALLATION ::

Simply uninstall the mod through your mod manager, or, if you went the manual route, delete TrueBladeOfTheEast.esp at the root of the \data directory.
Then, check both of these paths and delete the following assets :

- \Fallout New Vegas\data\textures\weapons\2handmelee, in which you should find the following textures :
- legatesword_d.dds
- legatesword_n.dds
- legatesword_e.dds
- legatesword_r.dds

- \Fallout New Vegas\data\meshes\weapons\2handmelee, in which you should find the following mesh :
- legatesword.nif


:: TROUBLESHOOTING ::

If you want to check whether or not the mod is working properly before reaching the Lanius fight after a hundred hours of playtime, you can spawn in the playable version of the Blade of the East using console commands.

Press the key above Tab on your keyboard (~/�), and type in "player.additem 000143FBA 1", then press Enter. The weapon should now have been added to your inventory, and you can equip it to see if it's working properly.

You can also spawn in Lanius himself to see if his version of the sword is working as well, as he wields a special version that the player can't access normally. Open the console and type in "player.placeatme 001300AA 1", and the big guy should show up

If the new model isn't showing up, you've either installed the files in the wrong directory, or have overwritten them with another mod that's lower in your load order. See the Installation section for more details.


:: CREDITS ::

- LD, for coming up with the idea and inspiring me to work on this project, for finding the perfect quote to etch into the blade, for testing the mod, and for supporting me all throughout the creative process.
- Astranacus, for his help and feedback regarding the blade's design thanks to his vast knowledge of old stabby sticks, and for putting up with my fantasy sword nonsense.
- Ziom, for his support and feedback throughout the process.
- EgoSumInHorto, for their help in accurately translating the quote on the blade.
- The modding community at large, for providing answers to most of my technical questions by way of past forum threads.
- The Council of Elder Autists, for the gold star.
- Myself, for not giving up on this project the moment the GECK came into the equation, unlike what happened with all of my previous modding attempts.


:: CHANGELOG ::

V1.0 : Full release of The True Blade of the East in three different resolutions : 1K, 2K, and 4K.