[LE] Altering Equipment Behavior (Shields / Staves / Casting)

[CredibleJoe]

Morning modders. Quite a while ago, I posted about creating a small staff overhaul Here. I'm finally motivated to get started, and I'd appreciate any help or advice.

 

I wanted to start by bouncing some pseudo-code around. See if what I had in mind was viable before I dove into the CK.

 

1. Duplicate a vanilla staff, and re-classify it as armor / jewelery (find some open equipment slot to equip it to-- I was thinking shields, but that might make things more complicated)
2. Do (Boost magnitude of magic school x spells)
   1. While (staff is equipped)
3. Spells will be able to be equipped to the same hand as the staff, but not other equipment (shields, torches)

That's the bare bones of what I want to accomplish. I was considering equipping them to the shield slot, but that would classify them as shields-- and as I understand it, it's nearly impossible to equip a spell and a shield in the same hand. Or, if I'm wrong, and that's completely possible, this mod just got a whole lot simpler. Either way. There are a couple of other mods that kinda sorta do what I'm trying to make:

• Staff Casting
  • Cast any spell through the staff, at the cost of the staves' charge instead of player's magicka.
    • Doesn't work on concentration spells-- I'm not sure why.
  • This guy figured out how to equip an item, and equip magic at the same time. OR-- He made a script that generates a new staff / wand to match whichever spell you try to equip, and puts it on your player model. I really hope it was the former, because his is open source and would be a great starting point for mine.
• Morahirs Staff Overhaul
  • Equip a staff, and get a boon that empowers spells from its school of magic
    • This guy didn't figure out how to cast and equip at the same time-- the staves are cosmetic and don't do anything other than apply their enchantment. Really frustrating.

I would appreciate any and all help and advice. Cheers!

[J3X]

Doesn't work on concentration spells-- I'm not sure why.

 

Due to scripting reasons. I could not find a reliable way ot detecting when a staff started a concentration casting and stopped it. If one would poke at it for some bit it might be able to be solved.

 

This guy figured out how to equip an item, and equip magic at the same time. OR-- He made a script that generates a new staff / wand to match whichever spell you try to equip, and puts it on your player model. I really hope it was the former, because his is open source and would be a great starting point for mine.

 

The staff is a weapon. When you use it it detects this via animations, when the right animation event is triggered it casts the last spell equipped to that hand.

 

So It is neither one.

[NinjaWarriorPoet]

Have you seen this for crafting: Turn a Container into an Activator? or Staff upgrades?

 

And I'm sure you've seen these mods:

 

Staff Overhaul

Staves of Skyrim

Staff Enchanting Overhaul

Edited August 12, 2016 by NinjaWarriorPoet

[CredibleJoe]

Have you seen this for crafting: Turn a Container into an Activator? or Staff upgrades?

 

And I'm sure you've seen these mods:

 

Staff Overhaul

Staves of Skyrim

Staff Enchanting Overhaul

 

Thank you, I guess, but I think you didn't read the topic. I'm sure you're just trying to be helpful, but none of those are pertinent to what I'm trying to accomplish, which is to cast the players' spells through an equipped staff for a bonus in duration, magnitude, and spell cost.

 

And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the section for CK advice and discussion? I might not have been clear above, but I was just looking for ways to get started making this. Thanks for replying, though.

 

 

 

Doesn't work on concentration spells-- I'm not sure why.

 

Due to scripting reasons. I could not find a reliable way ot detecting when a staff started a concentration casting and stopped it. If one would poke at it for some bit it might be able to be solved.

 

This guy figured out how to equip an item, and equip magic at the same time. OR-- He made a script that generates a new staff / wand to match whichever spell you try to equip, and puts it on your player model. I really hope it was the former, because his is open source and would be a great starting point for mine.

 

The staff is a weapon. When you use it it detects this via animations, when the right animation event is triggered it casts the last spell equipped to that hand.

 

So It is neither one.

 

Oh wow, that is super simple. Props man, seriously. And thanks for replying.

 

So, does that mean that whenever you switch spells on the hand holding the staff, that it un-equips the staff, requiring you to re-equip it for the switched spell? Or do you have a script that auto re-equips it upon switching spells? Or does it just stay equipped on its own, allowing free switching between spells? Ideally, I'm ganna go for the latter. Even if I need to script it, I don't think it should be all that complex.

[NinjaWarriorPoet]

Sorry, I was reading through your linked posts, and didn't think about what this one was.

[Deleted2838758User]

The only idea I had for this was to make staves into 2-handed weapons.

 

* They are classified as 2-handed warhammers and can only be equipped into the right-hand

* You can ONLY equip spells into the left-hand, anything else will prevent you from using the staff to attack (This is done by changing the ATTACK animation conditions into in the Idle Animations tab in the CK)

* Create FNIS alternate animation script that will fire when a staff is equipped and changes the left-hand spell-casting animation into the right-hand staff casting animation.

 

This was a mod that I planned to make but never even started doing it, since I'm focusing on something else right now, I can't guarantee this method will work :sad:

Edited August 15, 2016 by Guest

[Ponddust]

I see i'm a bit late to this thread but i was looking into this exact idea.

I would assume that the way you were going to do it, equipping a staff as a jewelry of sorts, would be the most reliable. However, the snags i can see are having the animation of the spell cast change and repositioning the projectile to the end of the staff, all when the staff is equipped as a jewelry.

Im sure this may be something you have already thought of and i have no idea if this is even possible as i have no experience with modding other than some basic item manipulation. Hopefully this will start this thread going again.

[Anvildude]

I was thinking that setting the Staff up as a 'gauntlet' would allow for cast-and-equip to work.

 

The thing is, this, along with so many other mod ideas, is going to dive you down a rabbit hole of changes.

 

For example, changing spells to fire out through the staff tip: Assuming you manage to create the animations for the staff-based castings, you could very well also change the position that the spell 'model' comes from- they're all based on the zero-point of the character model, or the wrist or hand joint of the skeleton, and offsetting the animation and particle meshes should allow you to stick them wherever you want in relation to the hands of the caster... However, this means you'd have to create separate magic effects and spells for every single possible spell to cast through a staff, and set up either a script or other interrupt to 'hot swap' the chosen spell for the staff version- which would also require you to make each spellbook teach both versions, hide the staff version, etc. etc.

 

I'd actually suggest, instead, tweaking the Fluff of the system. Say that casting through a Staff requires a slightly different spell than casting through your hands, and have either new spell tomes for staff-specific spells (which would be suitably offset, and have a much easier "is Staff_x equipped" conditional) or have the original spell tomes teach both versions- and then the Player would be responsible for having both the correct staff and correct spell equipped if they wanted to take advantage of it.

 

But yeah. Sounds cool, but a little difficult.

 

 

May I recommend, as well, utilizing the Atronach Forge for the crafting/enchanting aspect of these staves? It seems to me to be a critically under-utilized vanilla mechanic in all these magic mods.

[betualolla]

Morning modders. Quite a while ago, I posted about creating a small staff overhaul Here. I'm finally motivated to get started, and I'd appreciate any help or advice.

 

I wanted to start by bouncing some pseudo-code around. See if what I had in mind was viable before I dove into the CK.

 

1. Duplicate a vanilla staff, and re-classify it as armor / jewelery (find some open equipment slot to equip it to-- I was thinking shields, but that might make things more complicated)
2. Do (Boost magnitude of magic school x spells)
   1. While (staff is equipped)
3. Spells will be able to be equipped to the same hand as the staff, but not other equipment (shields, torches)

That's the bare bones of what I want to accomplish. I was considering equipping them to the shield slot, but that would classify them as shields-- and as I understand it, it's nearly impossible to equip a spell and a shield in the same hand. Or, if I'm wrong, and that's completely possible, this mod just got a whole lot simpler. Either way. There are a couple of other mods that kinda sorta do what I'm trying to make:

• Staff Casting
  • Cast any spell through the staff, at the cost of the staves' charge instead of player's magicka.
    • Doesn't work on concentration spells-- I'm not sure why.
  • This guy figured out how to equip an item, and equip magic at the same time. OR-- He made a script that generates a new staff / wand to match whichever spell you try to equip, and puts it on your player model. I really hope it was the former, because his is open source and would be a great starting point for mine.
• Morahirs Staff Overhaul
  • Equip a staff, and get a boon that empowers spells from its school of magic
    • This guy didn't figure out how to cast and equip at the same time-- the staves are cosmetic and don't do anything other than apply their enchantment. Really frustrating.

I would appreciate any and all help and advice. Cheers!

 

I was thinking that setting the Staff up as a 'gauntlet' would allow for cast-and-equip to work.

 

The thing is, this, along with so many other mod ideas, is going to dive you down a rabbit hole of changes.

 

For example, changing spells to fire out through the staff tip: Assuming you manage to create the animations for the staff-based castings, you could very well also change the position that the spell 'model' comes from- they're all based on the zero-point of the character model, or the wrist or hand joint of the skeleton, and offsetting the animation and particle meshes should allow you to stick them wherever you want in relation to the hands of the caster... However, this means you'd have to create separate magic effects and spells for every single possible spell to cast through a staff, and set up either a script or other interrupt to 'hot swap' the chosen spell for the staff version- which would also require you to make each spellbook teach both versions, hide the staff version, etc. etc.

 

I'd actually suggest, instead, tweaking the Fluff of the system. Say that casting through a Staff requires a slightly different spell than casting through your hands, and have either new spell tomes for staff-specific spells (which would be suitably offset, and have a much easier "is Staff_x equipped" conditional) or have the original spell tomes teach both versions- and then the Player would be responsible for having both the correct staff and correct spell equipped if they wanted to take advantage of it.

 

But yeah. Sounds cool, but a little difficult.

 

 

May I recommend, as well, utilizing the Atronach Forge for the crafting/enchanting aspect of these staves? It seems to me to be a critically under-utilized vanilla mechanic in all these magic mods.

 

Hi there,

 

I've been thinking about this topic about two years.

I have my own idea but haven't the proper skills to do it.

 

This is my idea:

 

 

The idea is to use staffs models as a torches becouse I think is pretty cool to walk with your staff sheath on your hand.

This presents a problem since torches and shields can't cast a fire and forget spell type whithout scripts.

 

I can handle the tedious work of duplicate all the spells, spell books, magic effects, etc..., and all the new staff/torches.nif to do that, I am, simply, not capable to create new scripts to achieve that.

If my research in this topic could help anyone to create this mod, please let me know and I try to do my best