LE Recreation of a Smithing balance mod. (Picture of the concept included)

[gamercash]

Hello dear reader. First of all, I'd like to thank you for clicking on my post and being the kind of person that makes cool mods for people. I appreciate your work and dedication to this community! So without further ado, here is my mod idea.

A long time ago I made a post about an idea I had concerning smithing. I wanted to have a mod that required me to 'destroy' weapons and armors before I was able to create them, just like how disenchanting works in the vanilla game; you destroy the item and learn how to make the enchantment in return. This mod is supposed to keep you from rushing to level 100 smithing and crafting the best armor and weapons in the game too early on.

Here is the post I made about the original mod idea, followed by the mod that was made for me by Jtull if you're interested in taking a look:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3680165-a-basic-smithing-fairness-mod/

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/72745/?

This is a picture of the mod could look like.
http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab312/gamercash/Disassemble_zpspkwfo0rj.png?t=1452810639

The mod that was made by Jtull works like this:

The armors and weapons for dwemer, glass, ebony, and dragon that were previously listed in the menu of the blacksmith forge disappeared. In a few different locations across Skyrim there is a schematic table. At this table I am able to destroy any item in the armor and weapon categories I listed previously in exchange for a schematic for the item that I destroyed. As an example, if I wanted to have the ability to make an ebony sword, I would first have to obtain one of them in my travels across Skyrim, bring the sword to the schematic table and destroy it there, thus adding the ebony sword to the items listed as craftable at the blacksmith forge.

This is great! I love this idea, but I didn't use this mod for very long because of a few flaws that made it not worth using. The idea of this mod is to have almost exactly the same functionality of the enchanting & disenchanting system in the vanilla game. Although similar, once in-game it feels drastically out of place. When you use the enchanting table, you are presented two menus. The first is the enchanting menu, where you can enchant your currently held weapons and armor. The second is the disenchanting menu, where you are given a list of your currently held enchanted items. The items you haven't previously disenchanted are able to be destroyed so you can learn the enchantment. You are also given some enchanting experience as a reward. That's how I want it to work.

For this mod, you are presented a new schematic table when there are already multiple options for possible crafting stations to have this menu in that don't feel intrusive or out of place. You could have it in the smelter, the workbench, the forge for armor, the grindstone for weapons, and so on. Moving forward, the menu displays all possibilities for obtainable schematics instead of just the ones that are held in your inventory. It feels like a mess. I don't want to have to scroll through an extensive menu to do what it is that I want to do. It is very immersion breaking because the menu isn't quick to navigate. It also feels like a checklist because everything you don't have is listed in that menu. Like enchanting, I don't want to see all the possibilities I don't have access to. What I am able to do then and there is all that interests me. I am also given a sense of wonder to not know all of the possibilities of armor and weapons that are craftable. Another thing I have an issue with: in the menu I am told that I am receiving a schematic for said armor or weapon as opposed to being told I am just learning it. Now, when I finally do have the desired item to destroy so I can make it myself, there is no reward. With enchanting, if I come across an item with an enchantment on it that I didn't have before, I am encouraged to disenchant it because I receive some enchanting experience, and the ability to make a stronger version of the enchantment as a reward for doing this. With this mod, I am not given any experience in smithing, in addition to that, there is no difference between the armor I make, and the armor I find. As an example, in a playthough of the game with this mod enabled, if I happen to come across a dwemer shield and I already have a dwemer shield, I have no motivation to destroy the item to learn how to make it myself. Why would I ever need a different copy of that shield? Simply stated, I wouldn't. It doesn't actually progress my character in any way. Selling the item is more beneficial, and I dislike that immensely.

I have a great concept of how this should be fixed. The beauty of this mod is that the Dragonborn doesn't know how to do something he or she has no reference for. If I don't know how to make glass armor, how would I know how to improve it? However If I did know how to make glass armor, I may very well know how to make it better! So, the gameplay fix for this problem is to make it so you can only temper an item you know how to craft by destroying it. Okay, the last problem I have with this mod is simple. The rules of this mod don't apply to all armor and weapons in the game. Just like some people don't like knowing the 'flames' and 'healing' spell at the start of the game, I don't like knowing how to make iron armor and weapons at the start of the game. With the mod that was made for me, I know how to make items out of iron right off the bat, and when I get the perk that enables me to make steel armor, I already know all of the recipies. I don't like that at all. I believe that I should have to find and destroy an item before I am ever able to make my own copy of it. There is also the issue of mod compatability. I use the immersive weapons, and immersive armor mods made by Hothtrooper44. The game loads fine and everything, but I don't have to destroy the weapons and armor from the mod before I am able to craft it.

That was a lot to take in, but I appreciate you taking the time to read this. Thank you so much. If you are interested in attempting to make this idea a reality, I would love to help you in any way I can, just say the word. Have a wonderful day.