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Falkiner

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MyPower

What is it?

A mod that allows you to customize the availability of your greater powers (racial powers, Nightingale powers, vampire powers, etc.). Options will include: multiple times a day, custom cooldowns, optional sleep requirement, optional 'new day' requirement, and more. A focus on balance and immersion will be maintained, with options to disregard balance and ignore immersion if desired.

 

Example Configurations:

  • 20 real-minute cooldown on all greater powers, with no other restrictions.
  • 3 greater-power uses a day, 3 game-hour cooldown on each use, 8 game-hours of sleep required along with a new day to reset full use count.
  • No cooldown or daily limit, but sleep consisting of at least a 3 game-hour nap is required to recharge availability (so really, a minimum 3 game-hour cooldown).
  • Just like vanilla, but adapted to a reduced timescale: 1 power use in each 1.2 real-hour block. (at timescale 20, 24 game hours is 1.2 real hours)

 

Current Status:

  • The pseudocode is mostly written, so the logic is, for the most part, worked out, and the design largely complete.
  • I believe I've verified all the events and functions I need to implement the pseudocode.
  • This leaves the actual scripting and creation Kit object-creating, which will largely be an exercise in syntax and interface-clicking.
  • Obviously testing and debugging have not begun.
  • I have also not yet pseudo-written the MCM menu, though I have a good idea of what it will contain and how it will be laid out.
  • I have not yet designed any compatibility patches.

 

On Compatibility:

MyPower will not alter vanilla racial powers, so any mod that assigns these to NPCs will not conflict. I will alter Standing Stones powers, because I imagine these generally only get applied to the player, and I'd rather not go through all the references to these powers and alter them. I will handle other powers on a case-by-case basis. I definitely will not alter any vanilla power that's applied to a vanilla NPC.

I do plan on making a SkyRe compatibility patch or standalone version. SkyRe significantly changes greater powers, but does leave some with "once-a-day" restrictions. The original impetus to make this mod springs from the incompatibility of "once-a-day" availability and reduced timescales, and this incompatibility is not addressed by SkyRe, as far as I know.

I'm open to considering any other compatibility patches that are suggested.

Notes on Functionality:

The only tricky bit, really, is the user interface. There is no simple way to convey information about dynamic cooldown remaining, daily uses remaining, or even unavailable powers to the user. Vanilla greater powers appear greyed-out in the power tab of the magic menu -- that functionality is not available for customized powers. The current plan is to use magic effects for the various blocks to availability (cooldown, sleep needed, daily limit reached, etc.); these will appear in the active effects tab. However, cooldown remaining cannot appear on the effect listing. Effectively, cooldown time becomes a magic effect duration, and these cannot be set dynamically with a script. So unless I make a new magic effect for each greater power (there are 33 of them) and for each cooldown-time option (with, say, 6 cooldown-time options that's 198 new magic effects!), I must use permanent durations and dispel the magic effects as needed.

The result: Your powers will never be greyed out on the powers tab, but taking a look at the current effects tab will show you which are blocked, and why. Then you can try to use a blocked power to get an upper-left screen notification of the time remaining on your cooldown. I'm considering putting a full listing of powers statuses in the MCM menu, which will also include uses still available for the current game-day, So there may be a way to see all your greater-power info at once, though only through two menus and some scrolling.

I think this is the best, or least-worst, UI implementation, given the current limits. [An SKSE function like setSpellDuration(form akForm) would be an elegant solution here.]

Why make this?

Actually, I'm surprised a mod like this doesn't exist already. There have been mods to completely eliminate greater-power cooldowns since just after the Creation Kit was released, but I have always felt that those were drastically unbalancing.

Like many Elder Scrolls players, I have long been deeply dissatisfied with the default timescales (30 for Oblivion and Morrowind, 20 for Skyrim), and one of the first things I do with a new Elder Scrolls game is reduce the timescale. With Skyrim, a reduced timescale can introduce problems, but our understanding of those problems is now mature enough that a reduced timescale can be properly used with stability. One glaring issue with a reduced timescale, however, is the decreased availability of greater powers.

The once-a-day nature of greater powers is hardcoded. This is almost surely the reason no mod like MyPower has not been made. Converting greater powers to lesser powers eliminates the once-a-day feature (which is exactly what 'no cooldown' mods do, generally), but further customization requires some scripting.

I decided that as long as I was going to make a mod for my own use that eliminated the reduced-timescale disadvantage, I would go ahead and include other options, then release it to the community. There have been requests for this kind of mod for a couple of years now, though I haven't seen a forum post anywhere on the topic for some time -- perhaps many of those interested have given up, or moved on to other games. Still, I'm sure there are some who will be interested in MyPower. Or I hope there will be. :blush:

 

 

Lastly, why "MyPower"?

The "My" does not refer to me, the author, but you, the user!

Elder Scrolls games have always been about the character you create, the adventure you discover, the journey you take -- your game. With Skyrim, Bethesda made some meta-design decisions that limited player- and modder choice; MyPower aims to return some of these choices to you, so you can say "This is my power!"

Edited by Falkiner
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