Containers and ownership issues, advice?

[acatlady ●]

Hi all, first post yay!

After a while having my Nord just leave her extra stuff on Mages and Fighters Guild bunk beds, I recently decided to move her into an actual living space. Read about the Ald-Ruhn Mages Guild guest quarters on the UESP wiki, chugged some Feather potions, moved everything to the larger room with the desk...

I'm using a mod that shows container tooltips in red for owned containers, and the containers there were owned, but the wiki said it was still legal since my Nord was in the Guild. Plus nobody was seeing me "steal" from my own containers... except Julan, who usually goes berserk if I accidentally steal something, so I figured it was okay.

Of course, when I tried to join House Redoran and talked to one of their guards, I got the message that I had stolen something, would I like to pay the fine and return my stolen goods. I was like sure, whatever... Figured it was from stealing a book for Skink-in-Tree's-Shade, which I'd already given to him anyway.

It was not. Everything that had been in the guest quarters containers vanished from my inventory. As did the glass armor I'd gotten from Percius Mercius, which he'd legally given my character, and which according to the highlighting mod was not owned when I picked it up.

This is all with OpenMW 0.46.0, the Flatpak version, on Fedora 34 x86-64. Mods I'm using:
- Morrowind Optimization Patch
- Project Atlas
- Better Heads
- Better Clothes v2.0
- Better Bodies
- Julan Ashlander Compation v2.02
- Alex's Running Without Fatigue
- No Arrow Weight
- More Barter Gold

And so anyway two questions I guess

1. Where are some good locations home locations with unowned containers? because in at least some of the ones recommended on the wiki, everything is actually owned and will flag stuff as stolen on removal.

2. Is there a workaround for Mercius' armor getting flagged stolen even when he gives it to you? Maybe a mod? From my reading about this there seem to be some engine limitations around stuff being flagged stolen, but the Mercius issue seems to involve a game data issue as well, since his armor chests should be unflagged as owned once he gives you access to them.

[acatlady ●]

Ah, an update... I just learned about ToggleFullHelp and turned it on. Turns out the "guest rooms" are not, the wiki is wrong - the containers in them belong to the apprentice Orrent Geontene, not the entire Guild.

[acatlady ●]

Further update: the urns outside shops in Vivec Foreign Quarter Plaza are unowned, so I'm stowing my stuff there for now. I ToggleFullHelp.

There's definitely some other bugginess going on though, not just the old ownership issues. e.g. the Telvanni Cephalpod Helm, which I stole from their tower in Sadrith Mora and later stored in Orrent's chest, wasn't flagged as stolen. And some other items in my inventory were, but an Ordinator didn't notice.

Thinking it might be time to ask about this on the OpenMW forums. Thanks anyway y'all.

[SeaGtGruff ●]

I normally use Foryn Gilnith's house in Seyda Neen as my base of operations, especially during the early part of the game. You can use all of the containers in his house without your items being flagged as stolen.

Before that, there's a back room in the Census and Excise office in Seyda Neen where you can safely drop items on the floor for later retrieval and sleep on a bedroll. It's not much more than a storage room, but the fact that you can sleep there for free and safely leave items on the floor makes it very handy if you haven't done the Death of a Taxman quest yet.

I don't use third-party add-ons or mods, so I can't help with any questions related to those.

[acatlady ●]

Ah thanks, interesting. I missed the place in Sayda Neen because I just head straight to Belmora by stilt strider.

Really wish the game offered more than one recall mark TBH. Maybe there's a mod for that.

[Wolfborn ●]

Really wish the game offered more than one recall mark TBH. Maybe there's a mod for that.

There is.

[acatlady ●]

Oh, thank you! I'll have to give that a try later.

[superrobe ●]

ToggleFullHelp is a feature I just discovered and enabled. As it turns out, the wiki https://forums.uesp.net/ is incorrect, and the "guest chambers" actually belong to the apprentice Orrent Geontene and not the entire Guild.

[Jarmer ●]

I normally use Foryn Gilnith's house in Seyda Neen as my base of operations, especially during the early part of the game. You can use all of the containers in his house without your items being flagged as stolen.

When I turn on [ToggleFullHelp] it still lists all the containers as owned by Foryn

Spoiler:

(even though I've killed him and completed the quest)

-- so how can you tell that it is safe to store things here without them being marked as stolen?

I brought a bunch of stuff from that first dungeon outside Sedya Neen into the shop-keeper to sell and he wouldn't talk to me with Moon Sugar, so I put the moon sugar in a crate next to the shopkeep, but then when I tried to retrieve it, they attacked me and called the guards. So now I'm paranoid about putting anything into any container lol.

Should I just look up safe places to store things in each town? Or is there an actual way to tell if a container / location is safe or not?

[Thefakewhitefang ●]

Hi all, first post yay!
1. Where are some good locations home locations with unowned containers? because in at least some of the ones recommended on the wiki, everything is actually owned and will flag stuff as stolen on removal.

2. Is there a workaround for Mercius' armor getting flagged stolen even when he gives it to you? Maybe a mod? From my reading about this there seem to be some engine limitations around stuff being flagged stolen, but the Mercius issue seems to involve a game data issue as well, since his armor chests should be unflagged as owned once he gives you access to them.

Don't really know about the second question, but the Hlaalo Manor in Balmora is a good player house. It doesn't have anyone in it, except a maid (Who you can kill easily) Has a good amount of containers, and one container cough... Ralen's corpse... cough with INFINITE STORAGE CAPACITY!