MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod [v0.7 released]

Show off your mod creations or just a work in progress.
meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod [v0.7 released]

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2024-03-06
Last change to any development post: 2024-03-21
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: 28 March 2024


My DFU modding efforts are concentrated here, around the project I have named MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod (or "MMM" or "MT's MMM" for short). The original introductory post has been moved into the last development post (the 10th).

There will be periods of time - mostly several weeks long but sometimes even over a month - when I am absent from the forums. I may indicate an approximate time when I will endeavor to return to address the most pressing issues. You can find any such indication above.

Please find the code and releases of my (Mostly) Magic Mod here on github. Releases are available for
DOWNLOAD HERE
Here you can find the dfmod files to add your StreamingAssets/Mods folder.

What can you expect to find on the first page of this thread?

This first development post will include:
  • The status quo - what the mod can actually do
The second post will include:
  • Short-term plans - usually for the next couple of months, up to a year - will include things I am confident I can do and where I am confident enough in the amount of work needed and the time I will have available to actually plan implementing the given task
  • Long-term roadmap - this part will contain an enumeration of any long-term plans - will be similar to the short-term plan but will usually include ideas that didn't fit into the mentioned timeframe
  • Long-term ideas - this part will usually contain an enumeration of any other ideas I would eventually like to see implemented, with a short description
Further development posts may contain
  • Any detailed description related to the aforementioned
  • For my alternative skill and attribute system for DFU see the ninth dev post. I do not plan on hacking the core game any more and will be focusing on implementing the changes I'd like through the mod system. Will be looking to implement this skill and attribute system as part of MMM once it becomes possible.

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod ("MMM" or "MT's MMM") - a description

Please find the code and releases of my (Mostly) Magic Mod here on github. Releases are available for
DOWNLOAD HERE
Here you can find the dfmod files to add your StreamingAssets/Mods folder.

I don't express, neither do I imply any warranty. Use at your own risk. Although, I will try to resolve issues if it requires a reasonably small amount of effort.

The most current release is 0.7. Main features (modules):
  • Unleveled and Extra Strong Enemies - makes dungeon mob level contingent on Dungeon Quality Level, the level of random encounters will be random based on where and when the encounter takes place. One of ten or certain types of monster have some of their characteristics increased. Spell caster enemies' spell missile speeds depend on their level.
  • Features related to Everyday Magic - Minimum Magicka Cost Override, Spell Learning, Experience Tallies, Effect Confidentiality Levels, Spell Instructor Themes, XP-based Player Spell Missile Speed etc. etc.
  • Everyday Non-Magic features - A version of Hazelnut & Ralzar's MeanerMonsters and a version of JayH's Unleveled Mobs functionality integrated (does not contain the 'unlimited quests' part).
  • Effects And Spells - FixItem + Reparo spells, Conjuration and Creation (MultiplyProvisions + SummonSimpleItem), Advanced Teleportation etc.
  • Quality of Life - Speeding up simulation when enemies not present
A lot of the individual options can be turned on or off independently of one another.
Disclaimer: Testing has been done only in the context of my own use-cases. I use the mod with nearly all features on. I tried to make available a lot of options, there might be - and probably are - some bugs that need fixing. Please let me know in a forum post below if you find any issues or would like to have something added/fixed.

------------
Unleveled and Extra Strong Enemies

Unleveled Class Enemies
Makes dungeon mob level contingent on Dungeon Quality Level, the level of random encounters will use a base level (usually 12, 15 or 18, but in some cases lower and some cases as high as 21)contingent on the place (climate, location or not) and time (night/day) of the encounter + a degree of randomness is also introduced.
The main features are covered relatively accurately in the comments in the code files. If in rush, please read that.
Also, the mod leaves a lot of info in player.log. For a quick summary (hopefully one without big mistakes), please refer to Dev Post #4.

Extra Strong Monsters
Certain enemy types can have certain individuals that are exceptionally strong. The types currently affected are: VampireAncient, AncientLich, DaedraLord, OrcShaman, DaedraSeducer, Daedroth, FireDaedra, FrostDaedra, Wraith, Imp (Spellcasters), Werewolf, Wereboar, Giant, Harpy, Dragonling_Alternate (the ones I like to think of as dragons), SkeletalWarrior, Zombie, Mummy, OrcWarlord (non-spellcasters).
Currently, this is all there is to it. Every 10th such creature is exceptionally strong (higher level, more than 2x the max health, 2x-4x the max spell points and buffed attributes.)
I have some ideas to take this feature a bit further in the future,.

Spell missile speeds - enemies
The speed of propagation of spell missiles is contingent on mastery of missile spells and spells of the given element (for enemies, this is estimated based on their level, both for monsters and for class enemies). For details please refer to Dev Post #4


Everyday Magic
  • Unleveled Spells - the strength of a spell effect no longer dependent on player character level, but on 'spell level' that in turn is contingent on 'effective' (lee below at 'Experience Tallies') magic skill, willpower and luck. This is essentially the functionality of the old Unleveled Spells mod . For a few details, please refer to Dev Post #4.
  • Unleveled Potion Effects - drinking a potion generates the appropriate effect with a level of 10-15 (inclusive) (where the game checks for level)
  • Minimum Spell Point Cost - core unmodded game has this value at 5; able to set as low as 1 and as high as 10
  • Guild Base Spell Fee Coefficient - the basic fee an instructor (previously: vendor) will charge for a spell is X times the spell's spell point cost - you can set this value here, the core game has it at 4.0
  • Spell Learning - spells are no longer bought and sold, but learned and taught - apart from gold, it takes time (and so fatigue) and magicka points to learn a spell/effect; expended fatigue and magicka can be restored for gold if you buy 'refreshments' (recharge at guild using potions), but the time cost cannot. Learning/inventing a new spell trains the relevant magic skill too
  • Experience (XP) Tallies - monitors the player's experience with Target Types, Elements and the individual effects, this in turn affects spell costs and efficiency. You get a coefficient for Target Type (Caster On Self, Touch etc.), Element (Fire, Cold etc.) and for each individual effect. If no experience with the given aspect, the coefficient is 0.7. With loads of experience, the coefficient is 1.0. For the purposes of spell cost and spell level, 'effective' magic skill is calculated from the nominal relevant magic skill and these coefficients (with low experience, can be as low as one third of the nominal magic skill). Stronger spells will add more XP than weaker spells.
  • Strong Spells Advance Magic Skills More - If the spell-point cost of a spell in higher that a certain percentage of player Intelligence, casting it will add further points to magic skill tallies.
  • Diversified Spell Experience Required For Magic Skill Advancement - after a certain amount of experience with a given effect has been reached, further practice using that effect will add less and less to the relevant magic skill tally. After an effect is 'maxed out', it will hardly add any to the skill tally (goes as low as 10% of the value that would be added in case of an effect that the player has no experience with).
  • Effect Confidentiality Levels - the 'shroud of secrecy' surrounding magic; you will only be offered certain spells/effects if you have sufficient standing in the given guild.
  • Spell Instructor Themes - not all spell teachers are alike - they all have different interests and experience with the different schools of magic; each place where spells can be taught, belong to a Theme - a school of magic in which its instructors are proficient in. The level of proficiency also varies. You will find it is quite rare to encounter instructors that are able to teach you certain 'difficult' spells shrouded deeply in secrecy (effects with high confidentiality levels).
  • Display Effective Magic Skill - the Effective Magic Skill is the value used to calculate spell cost and spell level for the player at the given time (can be influenced e.g. by XPTallies)
  • Max Length of Displayed Spell Name String - QoL, you can now set how many characters the spell names can be in the SpellBook window
  • Spell missile speeds - player - The speed of propagation of spell missiles is contingent on mastery of missile spells and spells of the given element (for the player, this is calculated using Experience Tallies). For details please refer to Dev Post #4
Effects and Spells
  • Fix Item - a spell effect that can be used in spells to repair mundane items; items made of lesser materials (Leather, Iron, Steel) are repaired the fastest while rare materials like Ebony, Orcish and Daedric are repaired only very slowly (will add further effects in a later version to repair higher material items effectively and also ones to repair and recharge magic items)
  • Rebalance SlowFall to Thaumaturgy - an option to have the Slow Fall effect (Gentle Fall) belong to Thaumaturgy
  • ConjurationCreation - Multiply Provisions - If you have some of a given provision (water, rations, arrows), this effect can add to the provision through conjuration. Target: an item that the player is conjuring up. Magnitude: has an exponential effect on how much new provisions are added (strong spells will generate increasingly bigger increases).
  • ConjurationCreation - Summon Simple Item - A modified version of 'create-item'. Target: an item that the player is conjuring up. There is a chance of success - if the spell is successful, the item thus conjured will stay (not disappear after a certain amount of time).
  • Multiple Anchors For Recall - An advanced override to the Teleport effect with support for more anchors. This is the legacy Advanced Teleportation spell, a new improvement is an option Dispel Does Not Erase Anchors. For some further details, please refer to Dev Post #4.
High Magic
This part is currently empty. Will start adding things here when I get to it. For the immediate future, I have other priorities.

Quality of Life
I like to develop skills while manually running around, then camping, resting, battling etc in the wilderness.
This takes time. A lot less time if I can speed things up...
...so, I have included a feature that allows the player to speed up ('+' key) the game if there are no enemies nearby and the PC does not have a disease ('-' key to slow back down).
Last edited by meritamas on Thu Mar 21, 2024 7:09 am, edited 116 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #2

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2024-03-21
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


Plans for the near future:
I am currently working on setting up DFU 1.0.0 Release on my computer. I will probably be using this version for the foreseeable future (till 2025 or even beyond - we'll see what new versions emerge, if any). The plans for the year 2024 include:

1. School rebalancing in light of planned High Magic - Since all or almost all of High Magic is to be included in version 1.0, I now wish to outline a more detailed plan about what High Magic would include; with the new powerfull effects and possibilities, a rebalancing of the schools of magicka will also be in order. (As these plans are taking shape, I will add details about the rebalancing here below and details about how High Magic would work in Dev Posts #5 and #6)

2. V0.8 will be released for DFU v1.0.0 (planned date: summer of 2024, perhaps somewhat earlier), which will not include a lot of new features, instead, I plan to restructure and possibly optimize some parts of the code to make further development easier. What I do want to add at this point:
  • integrate functionality from other mods (Persistent Dungeons, Unleveled Loot - the part that determines materials of weapons and armor sold in shops
  • possibly, some of the easier ones from the list under point 3 below
3. The release of 0.9 for DFU v1.0.0 (planned date: summer of 2024) that will probably include some of the following:
  • integrate functionality from one more mod: Limited Gold Shops
  • effects&spells for Ralzar's Climates and Calories mod - wetness control, create foodstuff
  • tons of spells - at least one somewhat usable ready-made spell for the PC to learn at the appropriate guild
  • spell notes - another way of obtaining spells. Some spellcaster class enemies could drop one or more spell notes, which the player could use to learn a new spell (add the spell to the spellbook, not for gold, but still incurring a time, fatigue, magicka etc. cost).
  • spell notes as quest reward - since MMM features substantially increase the cost of mastering new spells, a great way to circumvent these costs would be to earn them through quests
  • fatigue point cost of running - It should not be indifferent where exactly you are running when the price in terms of fatigue points are determined. The weather conditions etc. are well tackled by Climates & Calories, but running on road with a relatively low grade should not cost the same as running uphill. I plan to fix this by adding an option that the cost of walking/running is dependent on whether you are in a city (later: on a road - this should confer a flat bonus, like 20%, perhaps also later on how dense the vegetation is in that place) and also on the steepness of the incline (approximated by how much your altitude is changing - the size of this effect should depend on the steepness). These differences should also depend on the player Running and Climbing skill. Running could reduce terrain-related penalties, while Climbing could reduce penailties for steep grades.
4. Potions - The introduction of differences in potion quality.
  • The potions independent from MMM will have a strength equal to a spell level between 10 and 15.
  • MMM will be able to generate its own potions that can have a strength of up to level 100-150 (in case of a master alchemist with state-of-the-art equipment).
  • MMM takes over Potion Maker and if possible Guild Potion Merchant windows. Will generate potions better than those for sale in the store but usually much weaker than level 100 (this leaves an incentive for the player to study and gain experience in Alchemy - a functionality planned to be implemented at a later date).
  • A potion created will depend on the quality of the equipment used and the alchemy skill of the potionmaker.
  • This way, the player will get potions of slightly different quality at each Potion Maker.
5. A few more things I plan to work on in the nearer future
  • Roads - I think I might be at a point where I would give implementing an automatic road-generating algorithm another go. The things Interkarma suggested, Basic Roads and other mods can serve as sources of inspiration.
  • Unleveled & Extra Strong Enemies - further development (adding further equipment for high level enemies - further enhancing the challenge and the reward, I will contemplate the option of using the location of the dungeon - the level of the enemies that would otherwise be present if not for the presence of the dungeon - as a factor when deciding on Dungeon Quality Level)
  • perhaps some High Magic (see below) spell effects - like SlowTime, QuickFlight, properly add Advanced Teleportation to High Magic (not as an override to a classic spell, but instead as a new - appropriately confidential - spell)
6. I will also be trying to reproduce the bugs that were reported and sort these issues out.

I plan to develop new effects and spells (including ones that are not included in the plans below) as I play and get the ideas for them. Please do let me know of any good ideas that are compatible with my general aims.

Long-term roadmap

First, let's define a goal for 1.0. For a version 1.0, I plan to have
- most if not all High Magic effects implemented and available at least through specific Mages Guild or Temple of Kynareth instructors
- a working Enchantment system (please refer to Dev Posts #5 and #6) - an alternative to Enchant-via-harvesting-souls mechanism
- a working Alchemy system (please refer to Dev Posts #5 and #6))

My first objective is functionality. Tackling bugs and smoothing the edges around mod features so player experience is nice and smooth, is a secondary issue. But, by 1.0, the mod should not be too rough around the edges.

In the future, versions and releases will be numbered as follows.
1.0 would mean that the mod has the functionality as described above. When that is reached, I probably define new goals for a version 2.0. Among them will probably be any new places, High Magic instructor NPCs and quest chains. Not sure if there will ever need to be a 3.0 - at a certain point I plan to stop expanding the mod. When the main - magic related - goals are reached, there will probably still be a few feature changes, but new minor version numbers suffice for those.

Minor version numbers. Feature updates will be marked with new minor version numbers. After 0.8 comes 0.9, then 0.10 etc. So, when the minor version number is increased, that will mean that there is a substantial new feature included (potentially along with bugfixes).

The next release (time of writing: March 2024) coming up in (around) April 2024 is 0.8. Then, bugfix releases will have a suffix added to the minor version number (e.g. 0.8a, 0.8b etc). Likewise, I plan to make technical or structural changes to the code at some points. Clean up old comments, add new ones, re-structure etc. No substantially new feature involved. No goal of fixing any particular bug, either (but will from time to time probably end up creating some new ones ;) ).
0.8, then 0.8a, 0.8b and so on - might be called the 0.8x series.

Schedule
I am doing this as a hobby, so there could easily be large-scale postponments, re-planning, re-scheduling etc. on the way. The current (time of writing: March 2024) plan is to have 0.8 out in the summer of 2024 or somewhat earlier, then spend the rest of the year playtesting, developing ideas and slow development (release of 0.9) and tackling bugs I encounter myself or ones reported to me by members of the community.

I think 1.0 should be out sometime in 2025 (around the end of the year).

Long-term ideas - conceptual shifts
  • A conceptual shift. Teaching, learning and creating spells.(outlined in the 6th dev post)
I mainly imagine spells as things to be taught and learned, as opposed to bought and sold. To eradicate the spellbook and create a whole new way of doing things would probably require a lot of effort on my part - something I am not particularly interested in. A better idea is that I will not consider the spellbook to be the artifact enabling spellcasting, but rather as a symbolic representation of the magical knowledge of the PC. So, spells in the book are those that the PC has mastered (and hadn't chosen to forget - 'delete') and is able to cast at the moment.
  • A conceptual shift. Creation. Conjuration. Formation.(outlined in the 6th dev post)
We have a knick-knack spell that allows you to create temporary items. You cast the spell. The item appears. Some time elapses and the item disappears. I see both creation and conjuration as a more permanent thing. You conjure up a thing. You expend magicka to make it appear. It seems reasonable that you would need to expend magicka to make it disappear again (not just to keep it there).
A fine distinction should be drawn between creation (to create from nothing) and conjuration (to teleport an already existing object to you).
Conjuration can also be a new 'skill-like' characteristic. It can either be that or these spells could be added to Mysticism. If Conjuration spells are added to Mysticism, then other spells would need to be moved to other schools to keep schools relatively balanced.
  • The Assert Control spell - (2024-MAR-21 note: to be updated soon) a spell to take control over an enemy (or NPC) (immerse it in a complex illusion to make it want to do what is in fact the bidding of the caster - inspiration by the Imperius Curse from the Harry Potter universe)
This is another idea I've had... I suddenly got inspired again by the Language Skills Overhaul mod where the player can assemble his team from 'pacified' enemies.
As I see it now, given that most of the code is probably already out there, it shouldn't be too hard to give simple instructions to an enemy you 'control' via a spell either.
Asserting control could be an integral part of the logic of conjuring up living creatures to fight on your side (Conjuration in Oblivion for example). When conjuration is successful, the enemy appears. It takes a few seconds for it to orient itself - during these seconds it does not do anything. You have these seconds to assert control over it if you want to control it. Otherwise, you can leave it there (perhaps fight it). This way you could conjure up weaker creatures to practice figting their kind.

Long-term ideas
I now prefer to implement Alchemy as a 'skill-like' characteristic. Although it pertains to the player character, it will not be connected to it in the code. Rather, related data are maintained in the same place as other mod data (like the wetness of PC clothes is stored in Climates & Calories). This would grant a relatively large discretion in how to implement related features but comes with the limitation of confining these characteristics to the mod (relatively hard to grant access to code outside the mod + it is needed to have MMM's overrides - like SpellBook... - active to deal with this aspect of the PC).
  • Alchemy(outlined in the 6th dev post)
Should be available to the player to do through alchemy equipment installed in his home.
  • Extra strong enemies
Take the already implemented functionality a few more steps. This could mean extra spells, enhanced skills, perhaps later different behaviors.

Other long-term ideas
  • Variability in the availability of spells
Not all venues/service providers of the same guild would be offering the same spells. E.g. some temples or some branches of the Mages Guild could favor certain schools of magicka over others.
  • Spell variations
There could be numerous variations of (essentially) the 'same' spell (minor alterations in parameters). Each provider would be offering one particular version. The names of these offered spells could also differ slightly.
  • Realistic Sun and Moon paths on the sky(outlined in the 7th dev post)
  • Quicker Spell Missiles - a way to get spell effects to target faster. Close-to-instantaneous spell-casting on target for the strongest magi.
  • Terrain-sampler. Town and city placement. Roads.
At the present time, I am entertaining the idea that with a new terrain-sampler, several current problems could be tackled at the same time.
  1. Where should roads be? I find my own ideas described in the old Roads of Daggerfall forum thread to be quite (possibly too) hard to implement, but, at the same time, I find the simple roads solution too simplistic. What if the game could generate the roads via some simple optimization algorithm and then generate the terrain so that the roads would not look misplaced? (If I am not mistaken, Simple Roads accomplishes the first part but not the second.) Similarly, appropriate waterways could be added here too (again, if I am not mistaken, this feature is already added in Simple Roads).
  2. The place of settlements with relation to the terrain. You just cannot have a walled city and then a hill growing right beside it and over it and say that seems realistic. No, the walled settlements should be on the top of hills and have higher hills or mountains at least a bit farther away. Similarly, settlements without walls could be in valleys.
  3. There is something odd about all the town being on a big, level plane. Would also be exploring the possibility of having some of the structures higher up than others. It should be possible, but I am not sure of this.
I also add this. When I first brought up the topic of roads to Interkarma, he suggested that a new TerrainSampler will be needed. So, all these months have been good for something. I came to realize he was right. And one other thing. Another thought. If I am to design a new terrain sampler, I can accomplish so much more than just adding roads to the game :)
Another thought. Since Simple Roads is already there, it could speed up the part of the development about actually placing roads and waterways in the game, but - at the same time - decreases my motivation to put work into this because it is already there.
Last edited by meritamas on Thu Mar 21, 2024 7:08 am, edited 59 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #3

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2024-03-21
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


Known issues
Please refer to this dev post for details on bugreports and some issues known to me. I plan to update the post with information about when and how these issues are dealt with.

ISSUE/2022-JUL-02/JayH - With retro rendering, MultiplyProvisions text is outside the box limits. UPDATE 2022-12-31: hopefully fixed in 0.6b
ISSUE/2022-OCT-22/TalonTarp - Unleveled spells prevents potions from working properly UPDATE 2022-12-31: hopefully fixed in 0.6b
ISSUE/2022-NOV-12/Xipe-Totek - would like just the Advanced Teleportation parts. Will try to test if the mod indeed works with the setting appropriate for this use.

BUGREPORT/2023-JUN-09/GitHub-roni669 - "Any and every enemy leaves an item behind. It is a parchment named "MMM" followed by a series of numbers." These are items the Unleveled Enemies part of the mod uses to remember certain particulars of the enemies (so after save-reload you get the same enemy back). Maybe the issue is only that the mechanism for removing these items at enemy death is broken. Need to test, attempt to reproduce the issue.

ISSUE/2023-NOV-30/kiramarshiku
"I saw an earlier post about the Advanced Teleportation mod and I tried using only that part. It actually functioned but unfortunately seemed to have an effect on the cost of certain spells in an existing save. I don't know if it's a conflict with the Unleveled Spells mod (I use a ui replacement and any part of your mod that requires it's own spellbook window just crashed the game even if I removed the spellbook texture, probably a conflict with UncannyUI) or just that it was an existing save but I had spells like sleep jump up into around 300 spell points to cast. This was just a premade spell I bought at the mages guild, not a custom one."

And, we also have this older issue:
BUGREPORT/2022-APR-05/1 - (original on the 3rd page) some enemies that were spawned in dungeons as time progressed, could not hit the playr. Have not encountered the problem more recently. If the issue doesn't show itself in the next months, I will mark the issue as resolved.
Last edited by meritamas on Thu Mar 21, 2024 7:14 am, edited 34 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #4

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2023-11-29
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


How things work
Please refer to this dev post for details on how certain parts of the mod (are supposed to ;)) work and what they do. Some spoilers might be ahead.
Spoiler!
The Unleveled Enemies module - a quick summary
Makes dungeon mob level contingent on Dungeon Quality Level, the level of random encounters will use 10 as a base but a large degree of randomness is also introduced.

The mod is now processing monsters' equipment too (will set materials to be inline with MMM standards for class enemies, based on monster level.)

Dungeon mobs
As for dungeon mobs, Ralzar's basic idea, that he applied to loot in his Unleveled Loot mod, is a good one: invent a 'Dungeon Quality Level' and make the opponents' level contingent on that.
Here I would add that some difference should be allowed (like from DQL-2 to DQL+2). Ralzar has already invented DQL in Unleveled Loot, we will go with his method for now, with some additions.
There should be some flexibility when it comes to dungeon levels. E.g. having all DragonsDen dungeons at level 18 is a good start, but perhaps having all concrete such dungeons having a level from 18-2 to 18+2 might be even better.
These dungeon levels are not random, it is deterministic, but allowing for some small change over time.
This way any given dungeon can gain or loose some quality as time passes.
An example: any concrete VampireHaunt dungeon should have a level calculated as a base (15) + modifier (from -2 to +2).


Random encounters
A random encounter is an enemy encountered outside a dungeon.
If random encounter, then
- 10%-10%-10% chance of enemy at baselevel-4 .. .. baselevel +3
- 10% chance of an enemy level lower than baselevel-4 (down to baselevel-10)
- 10% chance of an enemy level higher than baselevel+3 (up to baselevel+9)

Change: For baselevel, we are using a figure based on the place and time of encounter (climate, night/daytime, at location).
The following base levels are used at the time of writing. The interpretation of the figures: [atLocation/atnight, noLocation/atnight, noLocation/daytime]:
Mountains : [12, 18, 15]
Swamp/Woodlands : [15, 18, 12]
MountainWoods : [15, 21, 12]
RainForest/SubTropical : [12, 18, 12]
HauntedWoodlands : [15, 21, 12]
Ocean/Desert/Desert2 : [12, 15, 8]

There are plans to expand this logic and make random encounter class enemy levels also contingent on the season (e.g. mountains more difficult in wintertime, deserts in summer)and other circumstances (like if a mountinous region is at a higher altitude or surrounded by mountains, that could increase the difficulty, or if a dungeon is present, then the enemies encountered outside could use dungeon quality level as the base level).


Townguards
A special case are townguards.
If townguard, we implement a method like we have for dungeons :: Town Guard Quality Level
This quality level is contingent on the size and prominance of the town:
- Daggerfall, Wayrest and Sentinel: base level of 21, like the hardest of dungeons as per Ralzar
- other regional capitals LVL18
- other cities LVL15
- smallest of towns LVL7
- general: LVL11

There is also a small (-2..+2) correction based on time to account for the fluctuation of the quality of town guards available from time to time.
AND: The individual guards can deviate form their guard (average) level (-2..+2)


What is affected by enemy level?
Currently: max health, skills, attributes, spellcasters' spell missile speed, magicka and spells and equipment materials. The higher level, the bigger the chance of getting equipment made of valuable and rare materials.

Spell missile speeds - enemies
This is a new feature. The speed of propagation of spell missiles is contingent on mastery of missile spells and spells of the given element (for enemies, this is estimated based on their level, both for monsters and for class enemies).
LVL1 - LVL10 -> MissileSpeed = 11.0f + LVL (at LVL2, it is 13.0f)
LVL10 - LVL19 -> MissileSpeed = 21.0f + (LVL-10)*2
LVL20 - LVL29 -> MissileSpeed = 41.0f + (LVL-20)*2.5
LVL30 - -> MissileSpeed = 67.0f
Note1: The value in vanilla is a constant 25.0, so this means that missile speeds range in between somewhere around half of vanilla speed to around 2.5 times vanilla speed.
Note2: Extra strong enemies can throw really fast missiles at you.



Unleveled Spells
Removes character level from the equation when determining the strength of (some) spells; this is essentially the functionality of the old Unleveled Spells mod .

Introduces the concept of Spell Level (SL) and the duration, chance of success and magnitude of player-cast spells is a function of the relevant magic skill, Willpower and Luck.

Formulas introduced by the mod:
Skill Spell Level = (Relevant Magic Skill - 9 ) / 3
Willpower Spell Level = 10 + (Willpower / 5)

- Luck will have a role in that there will be (Luck -50)/ 10 points available to increase (or decrease) the one of the aforementioned with the lower value.
- Overall Spell Level is defined as the lower of Skill Spell Level and Willpower Spell Level after adding or subtracting the Luck-points as appropriate.
- I am open to adding other, alternative formulas in the future if there is substantial interest.


Spell Learning
- You don't buy spells anymore, you learn them. Spell 'merchants' teach spells.
- Time costs and fatigue costs of learning a new standard spell are calculated based on how the spell casting cost relates to PC intelligence (the minimum is 12 minutes and the maximum is 10 hours).
- You cannot attempt to learn a spell if it would take more than 10 hours.
- Learning a spell will also take time and spell points you use up while practicing during instruction.
- On picking a spell from what is on offer, (if you are intelligent, skilled and experienced enough to master the spell - mastering it would not take more than 10 hours), and not too exhausted (have enough fatigue and spell points) or have enough extra gold to afford a recharge of magicka and fatigue expended during learning (refreshments), the 'merchant' (I like to call them instructors) will offer to teach you.
- If you have enough gold for refreshments and are not too tired at that time, you will be asked if you'd like refreshments for extra cost or not.
- Fatigue points are subtracted in proportion to the time of instruction.
- There is also an extra charge per quarter (15 minutes) of instruction (if you are a member, the last quarter only counts if at least 8 minutes are used - without membership each quarter began count as a whole quarter). The higher your rank in the guild, the less the fee. (Apart from these differences, outsiders get double rates - so it literally pays to join the guild you'd like to train you in magic.)
- The spell maker works similarly, but learning a brand new custom spell, or - inventing a new spell together with the instructor - takes more time, there is a coefficient for this that can be set via the mod settings: is at 4.0 default. The part of the cost contingent on needed time is twice that of learning standard spells.
- Learning/inventing a new spell now trains the relevant magic skill too.

Involves an override to the SpellBook and SpellMaker windows (conflict with other mods overriding these windows).


Experience (XP) Tallies
The game now keeps tallies of the player's experience with Target Types, Elements and the individual effects and this in turn affects spell costs and efficiency through an 'effective' magic skill.

Target Types supported:

Code: Select all

[Flags]
    public enum MMMTargetTypes
    {
        None = 0,
        CasterOnly = 1,
        ByTouch = 2,
        SingleTargetAtRange = 4,
        AreaAroundCaster = 8,
        AreaAtRange = 16,
        ThingAlreadyInPosession = 32,
        ThingBeingConjuredCreated = 64,
        ConjuredCreature = 128
    }
For the purposes of spell cost and spell level, 'effective' magic skill is calculated from the nominal relevant magic skill and these coefficients (with low experience, can give a result as low as one third of the nominal magic skill).

Each spell effect cast adds to three tallies: one for the relevant target-type, one for the effect and one for the given element. The tallies start at 0 (later on, I plan to have the mod calculate a starting value on character creation based on the magic skills the character starts with). 1 point is tallied if the effect cast costs 10% of your Intelligence. As many as 7 points can be tallied for stronger spells.
At a tally of about 700, the relevant coefficient maxes out at 1.0.


An example
In your character sheet, you have a Destruction skill of 75. You are trying to cast Single-Target-at-Range spell with a Damage Fatigue effect. You have tons of experience with the Magic (as opposed to Shock, Fire or Cold) element, but have never cast either a Single-Target-at-Range spell, or any spell with the Damage Fatigue effect.
The Element coefficient will be 1.0, the effect coefficient 0.7 and the Target-Type coefficient 0.7. So, overall a coefficient of 0.49 will be applied and the effective skill for this spell will be 36.
This means that for your lack of experience with the given target type and the given concrete effect, despite your Destruction skill of 75, you will be able to cost this spell for the cost and with the effect as if your Destruction skill was 36.


Yes, you can learn and know things in theory, but if you want to be effective, you need practice as well.

Up to a certain proficiency level, tallying is done for certain similar target types as well. Like:
if a Single-Target-at-Range spell is cast, the AreaAroundCaster, the ByTouch gain an increase of 25% of the increase the SingleTargetAtRange got and, similarly, the ThingAlreadyInPosession, AreaAtRange and AreaAroundCaster tallies receive a 1/8 increase.


Strong Spells Advance Magic Skills More
If the spell-point cost of a spell is higher than a certain percentage of player Intelligence, casting it will add further points to magic skill tallies. A maximum of 7 is reached when the spell-point cost equals player Intelligence.

Diversified Spell Experience Required for Magic Skill Advancement
After a certain amount of experience with a given effect has been reached, further practice using that effect will add less and less to the relevant magic skill tally.
Up until a tally amount of 500 (a little less than maxing-out point), the experience is added with a 1.0 coefficient.
After an effect has reached a tally of 950, only 10% of what it initially would have added is added to the tally.
In between 500 and 950, this coefficient shows a linear decrease from 100% to 10%.
This results in that you have to practice one spell effect really much to gain mastery in the magic skill. Around 4-5 different effects may be needed to reach mastery efficiently.


Effect Confidentiality Levels
The 'shroud of secrecy' surrounding magic; you will only be offered certain spells/effects if you have sufficient standing in the given guild.

If you lack sufficient standing, you will not even know of the effect/derived spells from any of the instructors in the given guild - the secret is kept from you and the guild services work as if the effect didn't exist at all. When you reach sufficient rank, the next time you check, you will see the effect/derived spells listed.

The default confidentiality levels (note: confidentiality = 0 means that the effect/derives spells can be available to non-members as well, anything above 0 means that non-members are not informed of these possibilities):

Code: Select all

static Dictionary<string, int> defaultConfidentialityLevels = new Dictionary<string, int> {            
            { "CreateItem", 3 },          { "Teleport-Effect", 0 },      { "FixItem", 1 },              { "MultiplyProvisions", 1 },        
            { "Chameleon-Normal", 0 },    { "Chameleon-True", 6 },                                      { "Charm", 0 },                 { "Climbing", 0 },
            { "ComprehendLanguages", 0 },                                { "ContinuousDamage-Fatigue", 5 }, { "ContinuousDamage-SpellPoints", 5 }, { "ContinuousDamage-Health", 5 },
            { "Cure-Poison", 0 },         { "Cure-Paralyzation", 0 },    { "Cure-Disease", 4 },
            { "Damage-Fatigue", 1 },      { "Damage-Health", 0 },        { "Damage-SpellPoints", 3 },
            { "Detect-Enemy", 3 },        { "Detect-Magic", 3 },         { "Detect-Treasure", 3 },
            { "Disintegrate", 8 },                                       { "Dispel-Daedra", 8 },        { "Dispel-Magic", 0 },          { "Dispel-Undead", 6 },
            { "Drain-Agility", 4 },       { "Drain-Endurance", 4 },      { "Drain-Intelligence", 9 },   { "Drain-Luck", 4 },
            { "Drain-Personality", 6 },   { "Drain-Speed", 4 },          { "Drain-Strength", 4 },       { "Drain-Willpower", 9 },
            { "ElementalResistance-Frost", 1 }, { "ElementalResistance-Fire", 1 }, { "ElementalResistance-Poison", 1 }, { "ElementalResistance-Shock", 1 },
            { "Fortify-Agility", 3 },     { "Fortify-Endurance", 3 },    { "Fortify-Intelligence", 7 }, { "Fortify-Luck", 3 },
            { "Fortify-Personality", 5 }, { "Fortify-Speed", 3 },        { "Fortify-Strength", 3 },     { "Fortify-Willpower", 7 },
            { "FreeAction", 0 },          { "Heal-Health", 0 },          { "Heal-Fatigue", 0 },
            { "Heal-Agility", 1 },        { "Heal-Endurance", 1 },       { "Heal-Intelligence", 3 },    { "Heal-Luck", 1 },
            { "Heal-Personality", 2 },    { "Heal-Speed", 1 },           { "Heal-Strength", 1 },        { "Heal-Willpower", 3 },
            { "Identify", 4 },                                           { "Invisibility-Normal", 0 },  { "Invisibility-True", 6 },
            { "Jumping", 0 },             { "Levitate", 1 },             { "Light", 0 },                { "Lock", 1 },
            { "MageLight-Inferno", 1 },   { "MageLight-Rime", 1 },       { "MageLight-Venom", 1 },      { "MageLight-Storm", 1 },              { "MageLight-Arcane", 1 },
            { "Open", 1 },                { "Pacify-Animal", 0 },        { "Pacify-Undead", 4 },        { "Pacify-Humanoid", 3 },              { "Pacify-Daedra", 7 },
            { "Paralyze", 4 },            { "Regenerate", 5 },           { "Shadow-Normal", 0 },        { "Shadow-True", 6 },
            { "Shield", 0 },              { "Silence", 6 },              { "Slowfall", 0 },             { "SoulTrap", 5 },
            { "SpellAbsorption", 5 },     { "SpellReflection", 5 },      { "SpellResistance", 5 },
            { "Transfer-Agility", 6 },    { "Transfer-Endurance", 6 },   { "Transfer-Intelligence", 11 }, { "Transfer-Luck", 6 },
            { "Transfer-Personality", 8 }, { "Transfer-Speed", 6 },      { "Transfer-Strength", 6 },    { "Transfer-Willpower", 11 },
            { "Transfer-Health", 3 },     { "Transfer-Fatigue", 3 },
            { "WaterWalking", 1 },        { "WaterBreathing", 0 }
        };
It is possible to edit the individual confidentiality levels through editing the save. Once a confidentiality level is established, the game will not check against the defaults, but will save the established level into the mod's save file.
So, the defaults are simply my first-glance preferences. Since, it would have been tedious to include each effect in the mod settings, I decided that the way the player can customize this should be through editing the save.


Spell Instructor Themes
- There are six different Themes: one for each school of magic.
- Each guild house with spell instructors (Mages Guild, Temple of Kynareth) has a Theme assigned, deterministically, from the region ID, location ID and guild ID. So you can count on these not changing - once the player has established that a given hall is an Alteration hall, you know it will always be an Alteration hall.
- Similarly, the hall also has a proficiency level assigned, this can be 2 to 11.
- The Theme and proficiency level apply to all instructors working in the given guild hall. These will be able to provide you with service regarding universally available spell effects and effects from their Theme school where the confidentiality level does not exceed the guild hall proficiency.
- So, there are simple spells/effects (confidentiality level 0 or 1) that are available everywhere but if you want to learn the less-known ones through a guild service, you'd need to find a guild with the appropriate Theme and also a proficiency level high enough to teach you the given effect.
- All this makes trying to learn a little-known (complex, highly confidential, potent) spell/effect via the Guilds an adventure on its own.
- In case somebody is wondering. If you have a high rank in the guild, you are granted knowledge about the highly confidential spells too. Knowledge of their existence, but not necessarily the effect itself. That means, e.g., that you would see the effect in the effect list in the Spell Maker, but - unless the given instructor belongs to an appropriately themed and proficient guild hall - when you click on said effect, the instructor will inform you that he cannot help you. Conversely, if you don't have sufficient status, you would not see the effect in the effect list at all.

Looking for a specific Themed hall?
- Themes are not entirely quasi-random. The chance a given Mages Guild will belong to a certain Theme is strongly contingent on the region it is situated in, more precisely the official deity of the given region.
- The rarest Themes should be Mysticism, Thaumaturgy and Alteration. On the other hand, Restoration, Destruction and Illusion should be quite common.
- This code should be of help to those seeking more details.

Code: Select all

        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] AkatoshArray = { DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism };    // For Akatosh: 1 Rest, 6 Dest, 1 Ill, 1 Thau, 6 Alt, 1 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] ArkayArray = {
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism };           // For Arkay: 6 Rest, 6 Dest, 1 Ill, 1 Thau, 1 Alt, 1 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] DibellaArray = {
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism };           // For Dibella: 6 Rest, 1 Dest, 6 Ill, 1 Thau, 1 Alt, 1 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] JulianosArray = { DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism
                        };                                          // For Julianos: 1 Rest, 1 Dest, 1 Ill, 4 Thau, 4 Alt, 5 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] StendarrArray = {
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism        };        // For Stendarr: 11 Rest, 1 Dest, 1 Ill, 1 Thau, 1 Alt, 1 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] KynarethArray = { DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism };               // For Kynareth: 1 Rest, 6 Dest, 6 Ill, 1 Thau, 1 Alt, 1 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] MaraArray = {
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism };                // For Mara: 6 Rest, 1 Dest, 6 Ill, 1 Thau, 1 Alt, 1 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] ZenitharArray ={ DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,       
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism };               // For Zenithar: 1 Rest, 1 Dest, 1 Ill, 11 Thau, 1 Alt, 1 Myst
        static DFCareer.MagicSkills[] KynarethTempleArray = { DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Restoration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Destruction,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion, DFCareer.MagicSkills.Illusion,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Thaumaturgy,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Alteration,
                        DFCareer.MagicSkills.Mysticism };           // For Kynareth-Temples: 7 Rest, 3 Dest, 3 Ill, 1 Thau, 1 Alt, 1 Myst 

Spell missile speeds - player
The speed of propagation of spell missiles is contingent on mastery of missile spells and spells of the given element (for the player, this is calculated using Experience Tallies).

Notes:
- The lowest possible player spell missile speed (with zero experience with missile spells and zero experience in the element) is 13.0f.
- The multiplier representing missile speed experience is in the range of 10 to 40, so you can get a 300% increase in missile speed based on missile spell experience.
- The multiplier for experience in the element ranges from 70 to 100, so you can get a total of around 40% spell missile speed increase from being proficient in the element the missile belongs to.
- The highest possible player spell missile speed (with maximum experience with missile spells and maximum experience in the element) is around 74.0f.
- The value in vanilla is a constant 25.0, so this means that player missile speeds range in between somewhere around half of vanilla speed to around 3 times vanilla speed.
- At low experience, the player is strongly outmatched by high level foes like Vampires, Daedra and the like, but when fully developed, the player can well outmatch them

Credits due here to Interkarma, for without his idea and the insight into where the given prefab is, this change would now have been implemented. Thank you.


The Fix Item spell effect
A spell effect that can be used in spells to repair mundane items; items made of lesser materials (Leather, Iron, Steel) are repaired the fastest while rare materials like Ebony, Orcish and Daedric are repaired only very slowly.

It is also a lot harder to repair broken and nearly broken items than items that are just a bit damaged. When drained to 0% condition points, restoring an item to 10% will require the same amount of magic as restoring the same item
- from 10% to 30%
- from 30% to 60%
- from 60% to 100%.
So, it is worthwhile to fix your things while they're in pretty good shape and not wait until they are completely broken.


Armor and weapons
The spell will restore roughly 80 condition points per casting magnitude to Leather, Chain, Iron and Steel items, when the item is above 60% initially.
Then there is an exponential decrease: for an item that is made of a material two categories rarer, the effect is halved. So, Elven is repaired at a rate that is only half the rate for Steel, Mithril half the rate as for Elven, Ebony half that rate and so on.


ConjurationCreation - the Multiply Provisions spell effect
- If you have some of a given provision (water, rations, arrows), this effect can add to the provision through conjuration.
- A conjuration spell, target: an item that the player is conjuring up.
- The magnitude: has an exponential effect on how much new provisions are added (strong spells will generate increasingly bigger increases). The amount of provisions after the spell will be somewhere around (between 75% and 133% of) the value calculated using the formula PROVISIONS-AFTER = PROVISIONS-BEFORE * 1.1 * 1.025 ^ MAGNITUDE
- So, you have better chances if you have more of the given provision available. But, after a certain magnitude is reached, the spell literally multiplies your provisions.


ConjurationCreation - the Summon Simple Item spell effect
- A modified version of 'create-item', in line with my Conjuration-Creation long-term idea.
- A conjuration spell, target: an item that the player is conjuring up.
- Instead of a duration as in the core game, there is a chance of success. If the spell is successful, the item thus conjured will stay indefinitely (as opposed to disappearing after a certain amount of time as in the core game).
- The base chance of success is the duration the spell would have in core game.
- The effective chance of success is dramatically higher when inside settlements. It is doubled for a hamlet, quadrupled for a town and multiplied 8-fold for a city. It is easier to conjure things up if there is a lot of items nearby...
- The item conjured up will have a condition of 45% to 100%.


Teleportation effect
When cast, the player is presented with a choice:
  • either attempt to set a new anchor
  • or to attempt to teleport to one of the anchors he already has.

Anchor setting.
The player can choose which one of the possible anchors he would like to overwrite. The number of available slots is contingent on Teleport Spell Level (explained lower) - it is twice the amount. The lower the slot is in the list, the less the likelihood of success.

Anchors can be named for easier reference.
If the player attempts to set an anchor, he either succeeds, setting the anchor, or fails, in which case nothing happens (apart from having expended the magicka anyway).


An example: if the player has a Teleport spell level of 8,
- the player will have the first 16 slots available
- about the first 2 of the anchors (a quarter of 8) will work all the time (100%)
- about another 2 anchors (another quarter of 8) will work nearly all the time (99%)
- from then on, the probability of success gradually changes,
- at 8 (equal to Spell Level) the chance is about two thirds
- at about 16 (twice the Spell Level) the chance reaches 0


Teleportation.
The number of anchor slots the player can access is two times Teleport Spell Level.
Only successfully created anchors are permitted targets (so at a Spell Level of 8, you will see only 2 targets if you have only set up two anchors in total).
Once selected a valid target, teleportation is attempted. The more down the list of anchor slots the target is at, the less chance the teleportation succeeds. If teleportation fails, in about one in four cases, nothing happens and in three in four cases, the player is randomly teleported to one of all the anchors he has (could be the one he originally aimed for, the chances are equal).


Compatibility with the old Advanced Teleportation mod
You will not be able to load old saves with the new mod.
However, it should work after you edit the save.

In SaveData.txt,
look for "MTAdvancedTeleportation.MTTeleport+SaveData_v1"
and change to "MTMMM.MTTeleport+SaveData_v1"
Last edited by meritamas on Wed Nov 29, 2023 6:01 pm, edited 14 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #5

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2024-03-21
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


High Magic (HM) - general ideas
A lot should be accomplishable through magic in the game and even lots and lots more, but this magic should not be available just by visiting a Mages Guild or other spell merchants/instructors. Spell confidentiality levels and Instructor Themes (see above) is a good start, but there could be even more. Spoilers ahead.
Spoiler!
There would be quest givers, powerful wizards, who would teach these abilities in exchange for or based on some services the PC would render (in the form of completing quests). I call these parts of magic high magic (HM) and the characters that give you quests in relation to them high magic quest givers (HMQGs)

HM and the beginning of the story-line
I plan to go with the idea that the storm that shipwrecked you into Privateer's Hold was a supernatural storm created by the same high power who (possibly aided by Deadra Princes) cursed you in order to stop you from completing the Emperor's quest.
The curse was unsuccessful in destroying you only because of a strong divine blessing that counteracted some of its effects.
  • This curse explains how you got to entering the game story-line as a level-one character and how could the Emperor have entrusted this all-important quest to such a low-level character. Indeed, you had been a stronger character, but the curse sapped you of some of your skills, attributes and almost all of your life-force.
  • The divine blessing also explains how your character would evolve so quickly in-game. Since even in your pre-curse form you clearly had nowhere near the strength, skill and power that would ensure success, the Gods - whose intervention was triggered by the curse - chose not to annul the curse but instead decided to place a blessing on you right before the curse would have destroyed you: at level 1. The blessing stopped the deterioration and bestowed upon you quick learning. This way, it takes you only months or years to acquire skills, attributes and levels that would cost an average mortal several years or decades of practice to acquire (or be outright impossible).
There could also be a few quests given by a HMQG where as a reward for completing the quests, this quest giver informs you of all this (and sends you to other such quest givers who could in exchange for your services teach you other high magic things).

HM - new spells, effects, features etc

High Thaumaturgy (2024-MAR-21 note: will be updated soon)
  • Artificial gravity spell(s) (immobilize enemy or to make it 'fall' somewhere the caster wants) - Perhaps even to control which direction the target would 'fall' even after the spell is cast
  • Quick Flight - a spell that allows to fly quickly for a realtively low cost
  • Key to teleporting into Mages Guild service places - I have come to think it might be better if this remained impossible. Not a priority task in any case.
  • The magic effect that is needed to create a magic box (a box to store and carry a lot of items - a "magic cart") - space in box expands but weight of items put into a box would be drastically reduced) I have come to think this might not be the best approach. Perhaps the player could acquire such a box as a reward after a HM quest.
  • Some parts of the MMM enchantment mechanic (see it in detail in the Enchantment section).
High Alteration (2024-MAR-21 note: will be updated soon)
  • Fix magic items
  • Some parts of the MMM enchantment mechanic (see it in detail in the Enchantment section).
  • Reduce artifacts to their material, Form artifacts from material (use Mysticism to conjure something up, then use an Alteration spell to transform it into the material it is made of and then another Alteration spell to transform it into the item you wish)
High Illusion (2024-MAR-21 note: will be updated soon)
  • the Imperius effect (some text already available in another dev post here but plan to update it)
High Mysticism (2024-MAR-21 note: will be updated soon)
some of these should be most difficult to come across and master
  • Conjure up items (also see my thoughts on conjuration vs creation)
  • Conjure up creatures
  • Necromancy
  • Create material (Water-Skin filler might remain available without high magic)
  • Advanced Teleportation1 (multiple/more anchors)
  • Advanced Teleportation2 (teleport to Mages Guild service places)
  • Advanced Teleportation3 (teleport to a selected point on the map)
  • Recharge magic items
  • Portal effect for artifacts - add an enchantment that would allow the artifact to transfer the user to a given location, this could include certain locations in the world but later on also entry into the Daedric realm
  • Mental spell to speed up PC reactions (in effect slow down in-game time)
High Destruction and Restoration (2024-MAR-21 note: will be updated soon)
I imagine these to be the most popular and most frequent schools of magic in the Illiac Bay.
I am not planning to add any new spell effects, but as skill levels of above 100 (like 125 or 150) become possible, and the minimum casting cost for a spell is reduced to 1, very - and I mean very - strong spell should become possible.


Alchemy (possibly also available without completing HM quest)
  • The potions independent from MMM will have a strength equal to a spell level between 10 and 15.
  • MMM will be able to generate its own potions that can have a strength of up to level 100-150 (in case of a master alchemist with state-of-the-art equipment).
  • MMM takes over Potion Maker and if possible Guild Potion Merchant windows. Will generate potions better than those for sale in the store but usually much weaker than level 100 (this leaves an incentive for the player to study and gain experience in Alchemy - a functionality planned to be implemented at a later date).
  • A potion created will depend on the quality of the equipment used and the alchemy skill of the potionmaker.
  • Quality of Equipment could have a value from 1 (barely functional) to 5 (cutting-edge).
Mages Guilds in regional capitals : 70% of QL=3 | 30% of QL=4.
Temples and non-capital-city Mages Guilds : 15% of QL=2 | 70% of QL=3 | 15% of QL=4.
Other places : 10% of QL=1, 60% of QL=2, 30% of QL=3.
QL 5 would be reserved for the player and special circumstances.
  • Alchemy Skill would be a pseudo-skill defined for guild potion-makers - between 30 and 70 (and in a later version available for development to the player too).
  • The quality of the resulting potions could be as follows:
EquipmentLevel = 5 * Equipment Quality squared
SkillLevel = RND(SkillValue-5, SkillValue+5)

If EL>SL, then OVERALL LEVEL=SL+(EL-SL)/5
If SL>EL then OVERALL LEVEL=EL+(SL-EL)/5
Finally, OL will be increased by (LUCK-50)/10
  • A few examples:
A relatively talented potion-maker with an equipment QL 4.
SL=65+5=70
EL=4*(4 squared)=64
OL = 64+(6/5)=65

A potion-maker with a relatively poor talent with an equipment QL 2.
SL=30+0=30
EL=4*(2 squared)=16
OL=16+(14/5)=19

A relatively talented potion-maker with an equipment QL 2.
SL=65+5=70
EL=4*(2 squared)=16
OL = 16+(54/5)=27

A potion-maker with a relatively poor talent with an equipment QL 4.
SL=30+0=30
EL=4*(4 squared)=64
OL=30+(34/5)=37

Enchanting
What is the motivation behind a new enchantment mechanic and the general background?
  • The first argument is an ethical one, from a role-playing perspective. To Understand this argument, we would need to look at what the source of power is.
  • In vanilla, the power source is a captured soul. Having harvested souls for this purpose is a possibility and I don't mind this as a possibility in the game but would mind it being the only possibility - I have long considered harvesting souls evil and I would not like the only available method of enchanting to be a morally questionable one.
  • The rest of the arguments are formed from a game-play perspective.
  • I don't think the enchanter should be able to carefully pick and choose negative effects to offset the positive ones. Instead, side-effects should depend on the kind of enchantment, the kind of item and the skills of the enchanter.
  • Enchanting could happen step by step. At each step you choose the effect you would like added to the item.
  • Then, perhaps, depending on the skill of the enchanter, the item gains some enchantment effect of the kind chosen and also depending on the skill of the enchanter some enchantment side-effect.
  • Optional: The stronger the enchantment (of the kind) already in the item, the lower the (chance of) added bonus and higher the risk of side-effects.
So, I want an Enchantment mechanic to be a parallel to what is offered in vanilla Daggerfall. So, everything possible in vanilla would stay possible, but I would like to offer an alternative route to create powerful enchanted items without the need for soul gems or added dummy irrelevant negative effects. But, what kind of alternative enchantment mechanic would that be and how would it be powered?
  • An alternative that comes to mind is using the enchanter's magicka (would potentially be slow). Another alternative could be to have some ingredients the enchanter could consume to supply the power. Yet another could be a special effect only available at certain places and/or at certain times (like approaching the Daedric realm and somehow utilizing some power emanating from it, or stronger enchantments possible at shrines or in dungeons or at solstices etc.)
  • The possiblity to create enchantments via magic spell should be there and made known to the player even outside the realm of High Magic. The catch being that the parameters would be set in a way that (1) relying solely on their own magic power, regular magi (skills up to 100) should only be able to create feeble enchantments, it would take even exceptional magi a lot of effort to create about average-strength enchantments, but (2) an exceptionally strong mage with the relevant skills 125-150 (please refer to my Alternative Attribute and Skill System in Dev Post #9), using a combination of High Magic effects and techniques would be able to create enchanted items that rival the most potent artifacts in the game. (Will aim to design this in a way that it be useful even without my Alternative Attribute and Skill System, so a mage with the relevant magic skills around 100 would be able to create strong enchantments, but will probably have less options than one who has skills at around 135.)
Implementation framework, skills
  • Enchanting would not be a separate skill (because of the difficulty in implementing such a change), but instead, the player's ability to do it would depend on certain magic skills and whether he has certain magic effects available to him.
  • As I cannot imagine a viable justification for Destruction, Restoration or Illusion to play a substantial part here, the skills we use would be Mysticism, Alteration and Thaumaturgy.
What will be needed to achieve maximum effectiveness?
  • First, an item that is good enough. Preferably a staff or other highly enchantable item made of Daedric. Or a jewel.
  • Next, some High Magic effects. So, some of the effects used in enchanting would be available as standard, but the key ones that allow for the possibility of creating powerful artifacts would belong to High Magic.
A brief everview of magic theory
  • Explanatory note. Magic energy can have several forms. One of them is the magicka the player character (and enemies, NPSs etc.) can have at their disposal to cast spells ('Magicka Form'). Another is expressed by the Enchantment Points of enchanted items ('Enchantment Form').
  • The Magicka Form has an affinity to creatures, living (or undead), 'things with a soul'. The Enchantment Form has an affinity to items, inanimate objects, 'things without a soul'. By its nature, the Magicka Form will not stay in an item. Likewise, by its nature, the Enchantment Form will not stay in a creature.
  • When converting from Magicka Form into Enchantment Form, there is a conversion ratio and this ratio will show big differences depending on whether the one doing the conversion has a low or a high Mysticism skill. The type of enchantment would need to be specified at this point (by the player) and the effectiveness of creating exactly that kind of enchantment will also increase with increasing skill in casting the spell corresponding to the enchantment.
  • But, so far, the magicka has only been converted to Enchantment Form, it is not yet where it is supposed to be: in the item being enchanted. The Enchantment Points are manifested in the body of the caster.
  • As living creatures are not suitable to carry enchantments (enchantment magicka is the form that can be carried by inanimate objects), the Enchantment Points would then not stay in the body of the caster, but would emanate from it into the surrounding world, in all directions. Small portions of it would enter any and all items on the body of the caster that have the capacity to hold that enchantment, and if sufficient, would create a small enchantment on the given item. The part so fat also covers the role of Mysticism and the target spell effect in enchanting.
  • Now come further changes that can be effectuated in this process, by other High Magic effects.
The role of High Mysticism
  • The process of transforming magic energy in Magicka Form into the Enchantment Form is done via a Mysticism spell (with the Transform Magicka effect).
  • It will have two parameters: Magnitude and Duration (no concern with Chance of Success - if you have enough magicka to cast it, it always succeeds). Its cost will be determined like that of any other spell in the game. The amount of Enchantment Points generated would depend on the Magnitude. (With the option that if needed, Spell Level could be added here too - as it possibly is already effecting the result heavily via Magnitude and Duration - but I would prefer not to. If things don't add up, I might consider it though.)
  • This effect will check whether the PC has any enchantable items on his body, and a calculation will be made for each such item - based on the number of Enchantment Points radiating from the PC's body and whether there is an active Direct Enchantment Magicka effect to direct its flow - to determine if there is any enchantment to be added to the given item.
  • It is at this point that the role of side-effects may be considered. A calculation can be made based on Mysticism skill (or Spell Level) and the magic skill (or Spell Level) of the effect that is being added as an enchantment and some of the added enchantment points might be side-effects.
The role of High Thaumaturgy
  • is via a High Thaumaturgy effect (Direct Enchantment Magicka) that could be cast on an item. Now, if any Enchantment Points were to emanate from the body of the caster while this spell is active (see the Transform Magicka effect above), it would be directed in large part (a much larger part than otherwise) to the item selected.
  • This would add a way to make enchanting substantially more effective. The differnce could perhaps even be something like tenfold. (5% without and 50% with the effect active)
The role of High Alteration
  • The baseline enchantment capacity of items would be enough to take in small to moderate enchantments but not enough to take in exceptionally strong ones.
  • There will be a High Alteration effect (Stabilize Enchantment) that increases the enchantment capacity of a given item. You would need to enchant the item with it for it to work though...
  • ...so on the one hand, it increases the enchantment capacity, but on the other, it itself is an enchantment that uses part of that capacity. I will devise a calculation that will result in an optimum above which adding a further enchantment of this kind would take more enchantment points than the increase it brings about. Or some other kind of appropriate limitation that is most easily implementable.
  • Another High Alteration effect, Stabilize Magicka, akin to the previous one, could be used to boost the maximum number of spell points the player has. Then, he can use Restore Magicka potions (or artifacts enchanted with Restore Magicka effect) to fill that newly enlarged magicka pool and thus have the possibility to use copious amounts of magicka to do his enchanting. This option could counteract a large part of the disadvantage any players have who do not use my anternative Attribute and Skill System (are limited to 95-100 magic skill points instead of 125-150). This is so because the magic skill has two impacts on how effective the spells involved in enchanting can be. The first is through Spell Level (via magnitude and/or duration). This is not affected. The second is through spell cost. This is counteracted.
  • A possible addition. Among the most enchantable artifacts are staves. Now, in vanilla, these appear to contain some of the material they are named after, but (through visual inspection) much of the staff appears to be from wood or other light material. Their weight appears to suggest this as well. So, another class of item could be modded in, we could call it 'Mage's Staff' or 'Great Staff' or by some other appropriate name. Now, this would be pure. It would be heavy, especially if made of a heavy material like Daedric, but would have a substantially higher enchantment capacity than a simple staff. In order to create such a staff, the player would have to collect enought of the material (probably Daedric), then use Alteration to break down the items into the raw material they are made of, then more Alteration to change the material into a Daedric Great Staff.
  • Another possible addition Jewels can also carry a comparably large load of Enchantment Magicka. Now, suppose there was a spell that could integrate jewels into the body of an armor item or a weapon. These items would then be able to carry even stronger enchantments but would be frail and need protecting (like an enchantment that protects the item from wear and tear - to make sure the jewel carrying the enchantment is not broken via physical damage).
A short summary on how it will work
  • The mage has a certain number of Magicka points. The maximum number can be greatly enhanced by High Alteration.
  • Now, the mage transforms some of his/her own magical energy to 'Enchantment Points' (effectiveless depends on Spell Levels - Mysticism + that of the target enchantment).
  • Then, the Enchantment Points need to enter the item in question (greatly facilitated by High Thaumaturgy).
  • Last, the item needs to be such that can hold the enchantment. This can be boosted in several ways by High Alteration.
  • Overall, the aforementioned phenomena/effects could bring about a several hunderfold difference. E.g., you can get 2-3 Enchantment Points into the item per 10 magicka points without the HM effects and 200-500 Enchantment Points per 10 magicka points with the effects in place. (The numbers are made-up. Will optimize the formulas based on experience.)
A few notes on side-effects an commercial enchanting
  • Side-effects are created when the enchanter fails in transforming his Magicka Points to exactly the kind of Enchantment Points desired (likely to happen with low Transform Magicka Spell Level and/or a low Spell Level in the effect that is being added as an enchantment)
  • Side-effect would be random, but depend on the kind of enchantment added to the item. (e.g. if you are adding a cast-when-used fire damage enchantment, getting a fire-damage-to-caster or some-other-kind-of-damage-to-target side-effect could be deemed more likely in comparison to something totally unrelated to fire or damage)
  • When the player is doing the enchanting, the strength of enchantment effect added and the likelihood of success and the risk of side-effects would be calculated based on his magic capabilities and active effects in play, as described above.
  • If this possibility is offered, when this kind of enchanting is done commercially, some standard skill values could be used in the same formula, possibly also depending on venue quality.
  • Relative item capacities could remain unchanged. Cost of commercial enchantment could be lower per stage (if there are several stages of enchantment), but the compete cost should be comparable to the current complete cost (times a multiplier perhaps - to signal that it takes more effort to enchant an item this way than via the 'traditional' soul gem method).

HM - how to learn it
The PC should be able to find HMQG-s by various means. These include:
  • Mages Guild quests
  • daedra quests
  • witch coven quests
  • temple quests
  • random encounters
HMQGs should be available only after the PC has enough magic skills and attributes (exact requirements to be specified later).

HM - what is being offered to non-spellcaster classes
I would like to provide for a way non-spellcaster characters could take advantage of High Magic.
One idea that comes to mind is that they too could get into contact with HMQGs at some point and get quests. Particular ideas:
  • Some simpler chores.
  • The HMQG wizard has a nemesis who is strong in physical combat but completely immune to magic. If you get rid of this enemy of his, he will give you (access to a service that sells you) powerful artifacts/potions/compaion(s) etc.
HMQGs should form a group (perhaps a faction) and 'know' each other - the player would eventually find one of them by one of the means listed above. Depending on the circumstances, this character would - perhaps in exchange for the completion of a chore or two - send the player to the most appropriate HMQG to get further quests.

Also, Alchemy will be quite a distinct field. Even non-spellcasters could engage in collecting Alchemy equipment and ingredients and creating powerful potions that aid them in combat.

HM and the main quest and the end of the story-line
After most or all HMQs are completed and the PC has already mastered High Magic, he is ready to continue and complete the Emperor's quest. The main quest should be modded in such a way that would make it virtually impossible to complete without High Magic.
Last edited by meritamas on Thu Mar 21, 2024 6:56 am, edited 10 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #6

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2024-03-21
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


Creating spells.
The player should be able to design his own spells (in a window similar to the spell-maker). It would not cost money this way, but time. It should need some deliberate work and/or some time to elapse, some rest. Could be able to work on more than one spell simultaneously. Details to be worked out later.

Alchemy
For some time now, I have been thinking of enhancing the Alchemy aspect of DFU. This could be done step by step.

How Alchemy could work (after all minor steps have been taken)
  • The player could work Alchemy at a house he controls, if he had installed the required equipment.
  • The equipment could be made of several parts. Following Morrowind, these could be the Mortar and pestle, Alembic, Calcinator and Retort. One aspect would be potion side-effects. If side-effect can be present, retorts make sense, otherwise just the Mortar and pestle, Alembic, Calcinator. Or some other system that makes sense.
  • The individual equipment pieces could all have their quality level.
  • The player would need to acquire these pieces from dungeons or earn them through quests or by getting into contact with special shops who would sell these to him on the black market (Alchemy is supposed to be a regulated profession).
  • To do Alchemy, it should not be enough for the player to have acquired the equipment pieces, he should have to install and assemble them in a house.
Potion creation could happen though a window much akin to the one used in the core game. The strength of the resulting potion would depend on equipment quality and PC skills/stats. The commercially made potions should have strength equal to a potion made by a PC with a relevant skill/stat of 75 using average equipment.

Another interesting aspect could be poisons. Or adding other recipes or ingredients to the game.

The first step could be:
  • The option to have Alchemy equipment installed in your house. This could come in 4 qualitites: below average, average, above average and state-of-the-art.
  • The quality of the equipment could influence how strong your potions turn out. (Need for potion strength as an attribute - so not all potions of the same kind be the same strength,)
  • The potion creation itself could work the same way as the traditional Potion Maker.
Enchanting
I am designing an Enchantment mechanic to be a parallel to what is offered in vanilla Daggerfall. So, everything possible in vanilla would stay possible, but I would like to offer an alternative route to create powerful enchanted items without the need for soul gems or added dummy irrelevant negative effects.
It should be possible to create enchantments via magic spell and this should be known to the player even without High Magic. But, it would be High Magic that makes engaging in this activity truly worthwhile to the player. So, there would be two effective ways to enchant an item: the vanilla way through the energy of harvesting souls and soul gems and the High Magic way. For details, please refer to Dev Post #5 (Spoilers section).

Creation. Formation. Conjuration.
A fine distinction should be drawn between creation and conjuration.
Creation means to create something out of 'thin air' (nothing). A two-step process seems best. You create the material via Mysticism and then give it form using Alteration. Formation would also work on material obtained from items by magically taking them apart (via 'Lose Form', another Alteration effect), but the success would strongly depend on the caster's level of understanding of the item he is about to form. So, if you are trying to form that lump of ebony into a sword and you do not have enough experience with swords (to have a good idea about how one would be formed by a blacksmith), the material might end up forming into something else, or the spell might fail entirely.
Conjuration means that the given item existed already. It is just made to appear (and disappear from the place where it was situated before the spell). This has an implication of stealing. If you conjure up someone else's item and get caught with it in your possession, you might get prosecuted for stealing. This could use the very same mechanic as shoplifting. The chance of getting caught should increase as the item gets rarer. Like, if you conjure up a steel sword, chances are that the owner could not identify it even if you met him and he saw it on you. But, if you conjure up somebody's enchanted armor, he might actually miss it, go look for it and be able to identify it, so you are more likely to get caught.

With items, both ways of obtaining them through magic should be available, in theory.
However, creation should require so much magic power that it would mean a lot of toil even for the most powerful magi, even when wielding the highest of magic attainable in the game world. In other words, the option should be there, not to be used every day, but for cases like when only a small amount of a certain material is needed for something and there is no good way to acquire it otherwise. Thus, the cost should be otherwise prohibitive. (After all, it is more the domain of the Aedra or Daedra Princes to create matter out of nothing, not the domain of mere mortals. Speaking of which, perhaps, in some distant version of the mod, the player will be able to get into situations in which contact with the Daedric or Aedric world enable effetive creation on his part, but that is very far and not a priority to implement at the moment.)
On the other hand, Conjuration would involve the risk of prosecution for stealing and would require you to have something made of the material of the item you are seeking to conjure up in your inventory, you would need some understanding of what it is that you are trying to get (like if you are after a sword, some skill with swords perhaps) and there also should be the additional possibility of the Conjuration spell yielding something slightly different (perhaps a long sword when a short sword is sought or an enchanted item when a simple item is sought etc).

Later on, I would also consider adding spells to conjure up monsters, beasts, undead or daedra etc. These should work in the following way. You conjure up the thing. It takes it some time to adjust itself to its new sorroundings. If, by that time, it is not under your or somebody else's control, it will behave exactly like a newly-spawned creature would. The thing might attack you just as it might attack anything or anyone else.

Lore-related note: You can conjure up living things, but not create them. Only Aedra (not even Daedra) are capable of creating souls.
Last edited by meritamas on Thu Mar 21, 2024 6:58 am, edited 14 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #7

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2022-10-12
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


Realistic Sun and Moon paths on the sky - a short summary of my elaborations so far

The Sun and moons always rise exactly in the East and set exactly in the West. This is very strange because on Earth we are used to the time and exact direction the Sun rises above or goes under the horizon being dependent on geographical location as well as time of year. Also, the route it travels on the sky.

Some months ago, I thought maybe modding this would be easy, so I wrote to Interkarma [TODO: include the ideas he gave me here], he gave me some suggestions on where to start and that's when I realized it would take me a lot of effort to accomplish this. Anyway, I did do some thinking about it. Some of what I came up with are the following.
meritamas wrote: Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:21 am Axis Tilt - I'd go with: 'it should be similar to the Earth's because it is one of the main factors which makes four seasons possible' (Not sure if this claim is scientifically accurate, but I definitely recall having heard or read it from a reputable source - haven't looked into it further at this point) - so if Nirn has a Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, that would imply a tilt of the axis somewhere near 23.5 degrees; for simplicity, I'd go with 22.5 (1/4 of 90) or 20

Place of the continent of Tamriel on the planet:
I was looking at the topmost map here (and others on the Internet).

The lower regions - seem to be likely tropical, but I wouldn't say that of the Imperial Province or Morrowind. So, the Southern part of the map could go down as far as the Equator itself. The Northern part could go up to 80 degrees North.

Looking at the map of Tamriel, the latitudes of the Daggerfall map could be placed roughly in the 3rd quartile from the South. If the whole map was from 0 to 80 North, that would mean 20 degrees, from 40 Degrees North to 60 degrees North.
On the other hand, taking that the DF map has 500 rows of pixels, it would be convenient to say it takes up 25 degrees of latitute and one degree of latitude would correspond to 20 rows of pixels on the map, with each row representing 3 minutes of latitude.
The northernmost part of the map could be just North of the Arctic Circle (22.5 deg), at say 70 deg North. So, the southernmost part would be at 45 deg North.

...Another interesting bit could be the delayed sunrises and sunsets (Timezones)...

So anyway, I'd do it somehow like this. Perhaps an even better way would be to estimate one line of pixels on the map to represent 2 minutes of latitude. That would reduce the differences and make the whole map take up a latitude of 16.67 degrees. The northernmost part could be just over the Arctic Circle. ...a lot of lore could be invented for the stuff that happens on the days the Sun doesn't rise...
2022-10-12: Another thing is this map.
tumblr_nium22Z8PV1sh0p4ro1_500.jpg
tumblr_nium22Z8PV1sh0p4ro1_500.jpg (47.18 KiB) Viewed 13477 times
I originally saw it on this forum thread and downloaded it from here.

It seems that the rectangle of the game map and that the current North in DFU is not due North as it should be as per the map of Tamriel. This could be corrected as well.
Last edited by meritamas on Wed Oct 12, 2022 3:34 pm, edited 4 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #8

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2023-12-15
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


2023-DEC-15: Soon might be the time I can make some notable progress with MMM again. One of the first things I have re-evaluated first is my approach to other mods.

I've noticed that I like other mods. I like a lot of them. I like them a lot. I like so many of them and so much, that
- they are hard to keep track of
- they often conflict with one another
- some of them I can consider to be an improvement, but not quite what I would have liked in some fields and using them keeps me from moving to implement what I would have liked.


Mods I like

Will try to develop MMM so that it is compatible and does not interfere with other mods I like.

Mods I like whose desired functions I have already integrated into MMM: Mods I like whose features I am working on integrating into MMM at the moment:
  • Unleveled Loot by Ralzar - part of the mod's functionality is already part of the Unleveled Enemies part of MMM, there are still a few features to include (e.g. materials of items sold in shops)
  • Persistent Dungeons (DFU Forums link)- I would like to improve upon the functionality to enable teleporting into and out of saved dungeons + (long term) I would like leaving a dungeon and the returning it to be more realistic (like: depending on how long you left and how many and what kind of enemies remained there - perhaps they could first start to clean up the dead bodies, loot, some new enemies could appear, some woulded enemies could withdraw/get healed etc. - basically what I would like is a gradual change from 'everything as it was when the player last left the place' as currently implemented by Persistent Dungeons and 'everything as it was when the player first entered the place' as the case without the mod)
Mod(s) I like whose features I plan to integrate into MMM in the future, but right now I am using alongside MMM :
  • Limited Gold Shops by Magicono43, the reason is that I will be looking to replace some shop windows (Alchemy shops come to mind because of potions) and that would be in conflict with Magicono43's mod. Also, an opportunity to fine-tune the sums the shops will have at their disposal, e.g. based on the economic power of the town.
The mods I will be using alongside MMM

Graphics and visuals: Roleplay & Realism (the mods by the name of)
  • Roleplay Realism by Hazelnut (Nexus Mods link)
  • Roleplay Realism Items by Hazelnut (Nexus Mods link) - functions related to choosing the material of items is to be turned off/overridden by MMM
Roleplay & Realism (other mods in the theme of, immersion) Fixes & Quality of Life Other mods:
  • Transparent Windows by Macadaynu (Nexus Mods link) - could be in the Graphics & Visuals, the Immersion and also the Fixes & QoL category, couldn't decide where to put it, so put it in 'Other mods'
  • Skill Books by Ralzar (Nexus Mods link)
Quests and Quest Packs
Last edited by meritamas on Fri Dec 15, 2023 4:56 pm, edited 30 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #9

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2022-02-14
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


My alternative attribute and skill system

The following is a short adaptation of my idea published in the 7th post here: viewtopic.php?t=2042.
This is already implemented, I have played DFU with these changes and they appear to work and I have not detected any bugs.
Disclaimer: this is not implemented as a mod but as an edit to core game files (as I didn't think it could be done through the mod system).

Howto

My idea of how you could do it.
1. Download the DFU source code.
2. Open it in Unity.
3. Build the Addressables.
4. Change the code as per the model code in this GitHub repo.
5. Use Unity to build DFU.
<from this point on, carry on as if you had just downloaded a DFU build>

A short description of the system

I would propose a system in which there are normal circumstances and extraordinary circumstances.
Under normal circumstances, there would be set upper limits, but these would not all be 100, but instead could vary by race. It makes perfect sense to have a High Elf or a Breton able to achieve more in the field of magic naturally, and e.g. a Nord or a Khajiit better naturally suited for physical challenges. I have read through the descriptions of races here and come up with the following (changes highlighted in red made as of 14 February 2022).

Breton: STR -1 END -1 INT +2 WIL +2 SPEED -1 AGI -1
High Elf: STR -2 END -2 INT +2 WIL +2 SPEED +0 AGI +0
Wood Elf: STR -1 END -2 INT 0 WIL -1 SPEED +2 AGI +2
Dark Elf: STR +0 END -2 INT +1 WIL +0 SPEED +0 AGI +1
Redguard: STR +2 END +0 INT -2 WIL -2 SPEED +1 AGI +1
Nord: STR +2 END +2 INT -2 WIL +0 SPEED -1 AGI -1
Khajiit: STR -1 END +1 INT +0 WIL -2 SPEED +1 AGI +1
Argonian: STR -1 END +1 INT +1 WIL +0 SPEED -1 AGI +0

The table is to be interpreted in the following way.
-2 means that the given race has a base maximum of 80 defined for the given attribute. Likewise, -1 implies a maximum of 90, +0 a maximum of 100, +1 a maximum of 111 and +2 a maximum of +125. I tried to set the figures so that it be as well balanced as I could manage. I left out personality and luck so that each race has equal opportunity in these areas.

These modifications could be thought of as follows. We consider 100 to be the pinnacle of mortal achievement, on average, but the individual races have their general tendencies, as discussed above, so 100 is the maximum that a member of a race with an average amount of talent in a given attribute gets. In attributes that the race excels in, it gets a higher maximum and in attributes it is weaker in, it gets a lower maximum.

Then, there would be extraordinary circumstances. E.g. you finish a difficult quest chain for the Gods or Deadra or a very powerful and ancient wizard (quests and quest chains to be modded in, also) and as a reward, you can somehow become even greater at some attribute.

Regarding skills: the basic rule could be that a character of a given race can master a skill to the same maximum as the base maximum stated above for the attribute that governs the given skill + extra points enabled by the fact that the given skill is the character's primary skill etc. (question: any exceptions? - see below):
+25 for Primary skills
+11 for Major skills
+0 for Minor skills
-13 for miscellaneous skills

The skill increase mechanism also needed fine-tuning. I think the amount of effort it takes to develop a given skill should be contingent not on current skill level, but on the difference between its maximum and current state.
Last edited by meritamas on Sat Mar 12, 2022 2:54 pm, edited 15 times in total.

meritamas
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:16 am
Location: Slovak Republic

MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod - Dev Post #10

Post by meritamas »

Last change to this post: 2021-09-25
Last change to any development post: see in the first dev post
When can you expect me to be on the forums next: see in the first dev post


A brief introductory message to let you know how I plan to conduct myself in the DFU community in the coming years. Originally posted as a topic opener on 13 June 2021. Text that was altered or edited in after the original message was posted will be highlighted in the color red.

I have been here, with a couple of several-months-long breaks, for years now. I have grown fond of this site and the community. And also the game.

I am currently recovering from an illness. Arguably, the worst part is now behind me, but in all likelihood, I will not be 'running' at full capacity for several more months, perhaps even into the year 2022. But, there is a silver lining. I have a lot of time to think about myself, my life, my things and it seems I have an opportunity now to become a better person and improve my life. What does that mean for the DFU community? Well, first I would like to be more conscious about things.

I am a busy man. A husband and father of two who has a lot of responsibilities but also a lot of other things on his mind, not just DFU. It also occured to me that it might be better if I forgo DFU altogether. In the end, it seems that this is not the case. I think there will be some time in my life for DaggerFall Unity in the future too.

I have come to like this game very much. I think this will be 'my computer game', the computer game I would like to spend a lot of time playing in the rest of my life and the one I would like to mod so I find it even more satisfactory.

So, my primary goal here is not to serve others, gain fame or fortune or be popular. My primary goal in the DFU community is to get the game to fit my liking as much as I can. However, I realize that I have gotten a lot from the developers, from the community, so I would like to return some of that by releasing the ideas and code I create so others can enjoy them, perhaps even build on them. At the same time, to a limited extent, I am also willing to customize them so they fit the liking of other community members too, not only my own. I will also try and help others when I can from time to time.

I will be concentrating my efforts around the project I have named MeriTamas's (Mostly) Magic Mod (or "MMM" or "MT's MMM" for short).

I will not be updating or fixing any of my previous mods (Advanced Teleportation, Unleveled Spells [eventually I will post all their names and links here]). Instead, I plan to make MMM a large singular modular mod, maintain only that one mod and integrate any previous mods' functionality into it. Please be patient. As I mentioned, I am still recovering from an illness and will have limited opportunity to develop anything in the coming months. However, I don't insist on my name being on anything. If there are other authors who produce mods that do the work, I will be happy to use those mods and focus my MMM efforts on areas that are of less (or no) interest to others.

Will also try to develop MMM so that it is compatible and does not interfere with other mods I like. On occasion, I will also attempt to contact other mod authors and attempt to secure cooperation on issues related to MMM's connectivity to their mod (like a spell that only makes sense in the context of another mod - e.g. Ralzar's Cloaks and Calories keeps track of how wet the PC's clothes are, if I make a spell whose purpose is to get the clothes dry, that would only make sense in the context of Ralzar's mod, so cooperation seems preferable).

Mods that I currently like and plan to be using are enumerated in a previous dev post (will try to keep as up-to-date as possible).

I will also not be using Nexus Mods any more. I will be sharing files via a file sharing service and source code via GitHub. This latter I have not used in the past but I have the impression it is worth learning to use and plan to do so. [will post the details when available]

I will be posting the updates mainly in this forum, in this thread, here on the first page (first 10 messages). From time to time, as things progress, I plan to draw your attention to this thread by creating a new post. I also plan to respond to your input that I receive on this thread. For the most part, I will not be looking much at my previous threads, so please post here if you have anything you'd like to share with me (or PM here in the forums).

This will be a long term project, one I am planning to be working on in the years to come. Anytime, the situation might change and/or I may lose interest in the project but that seems unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. In any such unlikely event, I will let you know and say my farewells.
Last edited by meritamas on Sat Mar 12, 2022 2:54 pm, edited 8 times in total.

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