LE [REQUEST] Charge weapon mechanic applied to soul gems

[aquilux]

My request is simple. If possible, apply the mechanic used to charge enchanted items to soul gems. This way we would be able to consolidate the energy from many small soul gems into one larger gem, transfer a small soul in a large gem into a more appropriate gem, or top off a gem that was filled with a soul smaller than what it is able to hold.

 

I can think of two possible scenarios for implementing this.

• The energy in soul gems are handled by a value saved in the item's memory, similar to the charge of a weapon.

• (Unfortunately more likely) Soul gems do not store a value, and instead rely on the indication of what type of soul fills it to produce a value when being used to charge an item.

In the first instance I imagine achieving this would be rather straight forward. I hope this is the case.

 

In the second instance, I imagine the mod generating an invisible, weapon-like item (in the fact that it'll accept charge) when the charge item button is pressed, who's charge capacity is determined by the type of gem selected. In this moment the gem to be charged is, behind the scenes, emptied into this item and destroyed. Afterwards the player can charge this phantom item with as many souls as they wish, using the same mechanic as charging any weapon (including the waste incurred by overfilling, and the conservation of empty gems). Upon exiting the charge menu, a new gem is created in the player's inventory who's type and contained soul is determined by the phantom item's capacity and charge level respectively, and he phantom item is destroyed. As a penalty this method would be quite prone to waste as the resulting gem can only hold certain categories of soul, and not energy values (if this is the case). Any overflow of the phantom item would be immediately be lost, as well as the excess charge when rounding down to the closest soul type in terms of potential charge.

Edited March 2, 2013 by aquilux

[aquilux]

Now that I think about it, the phantom item may have to keep track of the actual item being charged, such as in the case of a black soul gem or other specialty gem-like items.