ZeroTorrent

For your purposes, I'd also suggest SkyEdit. Most of what you want to do can be copied through simple copying and pasting within SkyEdit, then editing the data from there. If you're doing a little more in depth work that SkyEdit can't handle, use TESSnip to manually patch up the rest. I also suggest learning from other mods. It sounds like everything you need is implemented into the Dragonbone Weapons mod. I suggest giving that a download and looking through it, since it has both custom item drops and crafting. As for renaming and retexturing, that's just a matter of making an item, then giving it the same FormID as an already existing item in its master file. It should overwrite and your new item should appear.

A while back, I posted "Ebony Blade One-handed", a mod to make the Ebony Blade a one-handed weapon. With some help from people, I was able to get the original 2h Ebony Blade into a 1h form and release my first mod. Since then, that project has merged with Lucubration's "Ebony Blade Fixed" and has done pretty well, and is nearing its final release. However, I never got around to a feature that I've wanted since the beginning - a custom mesh and texture of the Ebony Blade to fit its new one-handed style. The problem is, I'm no artist. I have absolutely no skill with Photoshop (though I do own a copy), and have never touched modeling software. So, I'm looking for someone willing to help on one mesh and one texture to cap the final release. Basically, I need a katana-sized version of the Ebony Blade. This could probably be a slight reworking of the Akaviri Blade mesh, although I would prefer to keep the Blade's unique curved shape as much as possible. As for the texture, I want to keep the style the same, just fitted for the new body shape. All the fringe that makes the Ebony Blade texture unique should stay. If anyone would be willing to do this, I would be very grateful. I'm fairly new to the community still, so sorry if it seems a bit odd looking to pair up with an artist. In the meantime, I'm going to look into at least the modeling portion and see if I can produce a usable mesh. Thanks for reading, ZeroTorrent.

I've not seen any number crunching on the matter myself. I'm trying to find something at the moment to no avail. EDIT: Yeah, couldn't find anything. I'm going to look into the source for the critical hit formula and limbsplitter damage per perk level. It's quickly becoming a project to even start this project! :facepalm: Well, I couldn't find what base critical damage is, but I found enough about battleaxes to know their perk tree sucks immensely. I guess rebalancing base DPS for greatswords would require rebalancing battleaxes. Battleaxes need a good overhaul anyhow, it would seem. Perhaps this is a project for another day.

It is widely believed that greatswords are faster than battleaxes. Most of the Skyrim websites out there report it as such. However, upon poking around a bit, I found this to not be the case. Greatswords are actually equal in speed to battleaxes. They both have a speed value of 0.7, even though battleaxes have higher damage to compensate for a supposed speed difference. There are certain greatswords that feature a speed of 0.75, which leads me to believe that at one time, that may have been greatswords' intended speed. It would certainly be a bit more balanced to implement a speed of 0.75 for greatswords so they aren't completely overshadowed by battleaxes. Anyhow, I need some opinions. I was considering making a mod to correct this. Is this worth the time to correct? A slight balance issue doesn't seem like the thing you would alter 200+ items for, but on the other hand, even that one point of base damage difference in advantage battleaxes have is, on average, about 5% more damage, which is a fairly big amount. What do you guys think?

If it was on the same engine, this would be pretty easy. Because it's not, it would require a full game port, which isn't allowed, since you'd have to distribute the whole of Oblivion.

Glad to help. :) EDIT: After a bit of playing around, it seems that SkyEdit DOES at least allow you to SEE raw HEX data. I'm not sure about editing it, but that's pretty handy to have.

I have no idea of a tutorial either. I've only done HEX editing on my own, and haven't written anything up on it. Basically, you open the file with a HEX editor and find the path for Spellbreaker, which should be, in HEX: 41 72 6d 6f 72 5c 53 70 65 6c 6c 62 72 65 61 6b 65 72 5c 53 70 65 6c 6c 62 72 65 61 6b 65 72 2e 6e 69 66 00 A r m o r \ S p e l l b r e a k e r \ S p e l l b r e a k e r . n i f [null] You'd replace that with your path, which you could probably just copy/paste from the ARMA entry, depending on what kind of HEX editor you use. Otherwise, Convert the text and enter it manually. Don't forget the 00 byte at the end though for the null character. Unfortunately, I don't have an armor plugin at my disposal to give more specific answers.

Hrm, sounds like straight HEX editing might be the only option then. I'll look into the structure incompatibility and see what's different. I've not modded armor myself, only weapons. I guess ARMO has changed at least a little bit, causing some issues. It's good to know this, though.

It's under MOD2, just like in the ARMA entry. Change it the same way you did with ARMA. EDIT: This is assuming you're using TESSnip (or straight HEX editing). SkyEdit doesn't allow you to change the model, looks like. I just opened it up to check, and that may be what's causing your problem, if that's what you use.

There are two mesh MOD2 records to change in regards to Spellbreaker. One is in its ARMO entry, the other in its ARMA entry. From the sound of things, you've only replaced the ARMA one, which dictates what it looks like in your hand. As for the crashing, that sounds like some sort of typo when swapping enchantments. I had the same forge crash after changing an item, simply because I entered a wrong value. But since that's tied to a measure you used to duplicate the enchantment, that shouldn't be a problem once you sort out your mesh issue.

I figured it was handled something like that. I've just seen many mods doing it, and when I needed to, I released minor mesh edits myself. Just making sure I was in the clear.

Nexus already keeps track of downloads, and whether or not you've remembered to endorse. I just don't think a lot of people know about the page. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/members/history.php I don't like the idea of popups, but spreading the word of this feature should help.

What about NIF files? I realize that retexturing an item is basically creating an entirely new image, but with NIFs, they are part code and part art, in that they contain data the game uses, and also the mesh of the item. Say for example, I wanted to make a small change to a NIF such as changing the item to be held in one hand vs. two, causing the item to be sheathed on the back instead of the hip, or providing a new texture source. These types of things can't, to my knowledge, be released without also including mesh assets, which I assume are covered by copyright, as providing them for download is basically giving away the art assets for the game.

The purpose of this topic is simply to report my findings. As I have been poking around the source, I have been making contributions to various TES wikis. I like to cite my sources, and since I do my own research, I figure I need to do at least a small write-up to back up some claims. This topic, therefore, is educational only. Any discussion is welcome, but there's no point or argument being made - just findings being reported. Shrine of Talos The Shrine of Talos displays its effect as reducing shouts by 0%. The DESC entry refers to a string that uses the token phrase "<mag>%". This is short for magnitude percent. Checking the EFIT data in the MGEF entry for the shrine's effect shows that the magnitude is 0.2. Therefore, the <mag> is returning a reduction of 0.2%. Skyrim, however, truncates magnitude values, and 0.2% becomes 0%, the value shown to the player. Morokei Mask The Morokei dragon priest mask is assigned a generic enchantment for magicka regeneration. In the master file, though, there is an enchantment included that appears to be intended specifically for Morokei. It is pictured below: Morokei is referred to as "DragonPriestMaskMoonstone" within the master file. This enchantment, then, seems to match, but is not assigned. Ebony Blade The Ebony Blade is wielded by players in-game with two-hands, but it is classified as a one-handed sword, as shown below: "WeapTypeSword" is the keyword used for one-handed swords, as opposed to "WeapTypeGreatsword" used for two-handed ones.The only values of the Ebony Blade that point towards two-handedness are an ETYP of "BothHands" which causes it to be wielded in two hands, and a skill value of "07 00 00 00" within the DNAM which makes it raise the two-handed skill when used in combat. Other than that, the BIDS, BAMT, parts of KWDA, INAM, TNAM, NAM9, NAM8, DATA, most of DNAM, and VNAM all seem to reflect the default values for one-handed weapons.

That would seem to solve both issues. The lower levels would still stack decently, while the higher levels don't get out of hand. I'll definitely keep that in mind. Thanks.

I really like those suggestions, especially the staff thing. I think staves get too few charges, and there's currently no way to change that. Adding staves to the enchanting table could allow for some powerful mage weapons, with a lot of customization. That would also give some use to Soul Trap, like you said. It's kind of weird that soul trap as of right now is really only good for melee and ranged types to recharge their weapons. Mages don't really have a weapon in the staff at the moment, but with some adjustments, it could be. Another rebalance thread drudged up from a few pages back this morning. Reading over it seemed like they think mages are weak in that thread too. I think mages start off strong but potion-dependent, but begin dropping in power after some levels. I know that once you leave Helgen, dual casting flames will kill pretty much anything in a couple seconds, but killing one thing can drain your magicka completely in the process. I think a bit lower damage to start and much lower magicka cost to start would help in that regard. As it scales, damage would get much better. Damage as of now appears to cap out pretty early. Someone said they didn't see a single damage point increase for some spells for 40 levels of destruction, which is silly. Still no plans for this as of yet. I'm going to edit on a bit about perks onto the main post while I'm at it. Doing those calculations last night made me think about the current state of perks.

That gibberish is a side effect of some string workarounds we have to do for .esp files now. You have to change FULL and DESC to text for the item's name and description. Text linking to STRINGS files doesn't work, so unless you have explicit text, you're going to get gibberish. I'll look into it for you. My proposed method is to use a circlet (which shows hair) and a helmet (which doesn't), and find the bytes that don't match up. The mismatches will likely be the data you're looking for. I'll have to do it tomorrow. I'm off for now, but I'll take a crack at it.

You're right, removing magicka cost reduction is a limit. I wasn't trying to write removal off as a total benefit. I was merely trying to throw some positive effects of the change in there. I think the Archmage's robes and other great caster pieces get overlooked because of the immediate availability of one enchantment. I still stand by my assertion that the removal would make +Magicka and +Magicka rate useful again. It's not like those items were the only reason I gave. I should explain a bit more in depth why I opt for a complete removal or replacement rather than a cap. Most of it comes down to scaling. Because of how reductions scale, a 10% reduction provides 11% more spell casting; a 20% reduction provides 25% morespell casting. Eventually at 50% reduction you hit 100% more, at 75% you hit 300% more, and finally at 100% you reach infinite. It's a curved graph, 1/(1-x). Capping or reducing the magnitude would have a very large effect. Halving the max bonus would quarter the amount of casting. Capping at 75% would allow for 400% casting, which still seems a bit high. Somewhere around 65% would be nearly 300% casting, which seems to be a nice balance. The problem still persists that lower level versions of that enchantment would only be providing something like a 6-10% bonus once curbed (I'm thinking of the early -10% or -15% cost robes reduced to be more in line with the proposed cap at 65%), which is very small, especially with a small magicka pool at early levels. The +magicka enchantment provides the opposite, being a much larger proportionate bonus at low levels, then splitting off as you focus into roles, although it still maintains universal usefulness rather than simply one school of magic benefitting. The reduction perks that are already in the various school trees seem to bring another wrench into the plan as well. Without high reductions, it's not really viable to cast from a certain school as opposed to stacking +magicka, but with high reductions, the individual perks become either very limited or too powerful, depending on where we draw the line and whether or not (and how) the perks are affected by that cap. The magic perk trees also need a good fixing, themselves, though, just as a note. In my mind, it just seems like a lot to balance for one enchantment type. Of course, I don't want to simply eliminate customization. That's why I referenced a mod that replaced magicka cost reductions with magnitude bonuses. That's one proposed replacement should it come to that. Another proposal is +magicka%. This would effectively fill the same role by allowing more casting, but since its graph is (1+x), it scales linearly. It's really hard to say one way or the other what would work best within the current state of magic. I might draft a spreadsheet to compare data using various different functions to aid in balancing this.

Skyrim Save Manager. Have fun. =)

I really like some of those suggestions. "- Improvements made to armor and weapons will degrade over time as you hit, and are hit by enemies." This would be awesome. I do miss durability from the past TES games, and this would be a nice second-best option, plus be more realistic. "- You can no longer reach the maximum improvement level with one ingot. You will be required to perform multiple hardenings/sharpenings to reach it." I like the sound of this, too. Coupled with the above "durability", that would make your weapons last longer the more you improved it. "- Generally increase the materials required to craft things, and broaden the type of materials needed." This definitely needs to be done. Using more of the same ingots isn't exactly what sharpening means. I don't know what other materials could be used, but it's definitely a good concept. The only bit I don't agree on is the first: "- Choosing between weaponsmithing and armorsmithing. You can not be both at the same time. Weaponsmiths will not be able to improve armor past superior, and vice versa." I think maybe some perk distinction would be better in that regard. Instead of going down the light path or heavy path, have the armor path vs the weapon path. It would make a lot more sense than the silly vanilla version that classifies perks by metal type. Choosing one or the other is too WoW-sy for me. The option to take both set of perks seems to fit the way the game plays out currently. Other than that, I do like the idea of armor and weapon smithing separated.

It's not the flags that you want. Most of the data on the visuals are either found in the BODT data or by following the MODL data to an ARMA entry. I've messed around a bit, but not with the hair, so I can't tell you exactly where to find the value that needs to be changed, but BODT is a good starting point. Report your findings back. I'm curious to know as well.

Reserved, just in case. Dunno if there's a text limit on posts, but I can easily see the first post hitting the character cap if so, after a few additions.

Having put in many hours on Skyrim and since turned to modding, I feel that there are some things that need to be better balanced in the game. I was a big fan of OOO for Oblivion, and while the scope of what I'm thinking is not nearly as big as OOO was, that's the closest I can find to accurately describe the type of project I'm looking at. The following post is a basic rundown of things I feel need at least some tweaking. Some items I have already thought about extensively, while others I am looking for some more feedback on. Any input on the matter would be greatly appreciated, and anyone willing to help would gladly be accepted. That said, this post is only a list and explanation of some game mechanics I dislike. The project is not yet underway, as I would like to plan out exactly what will be going in beforehand. 1. Magic Magic in general has quite a few issues. The biggest of these seems to be the stacking of magicka cost reduction. Free spells should never be possible, and frankly, I think magicka cost reduction enchantments should be disallowed at the enchanting table. This would promote items like the Archmage's Robes and some of the Dragonpriest Masks, since their abilities would then become unique and actually have some worth to them. Also, +Magicka and +Magicka regen would be viable again. Much like Simple Skyrim Spell Solution does, a replacement enchantment could be bonus damage or something similar. The details are still in the works, but I feel something needs to change to rebalance the various magicka-related enchantments. Ice Magic is the most overpowered of the three destruction elements, in my opinion. Its damage is still relatively high in comparison with its counterparts in lightning and fire, yet its secondary effects make it even more deadly. Not only does it do stamina damage, but it also slows down its target. The ultimate result is that a caster can just backpedal infinitely, killing their target while never being in danger. This is annoying for melee players fighting an ice mage, especially since the mage's AI takes advantage of this imbalance, and it is also unbalanced for player casters. Why choose the other elements if you can just backpedal and never lose? I agree that the slowdown should be there, but not as severe. Backpedal speed shouldn't exceed frozen speed. If the frozen speed was increased to be slightly faster than backpedaling, this would still give the ice casters an advantage, but still allow them to be caught by pursuers unless they turn tail themselves. Additionally, due to the powerful slow effect, the stamina damage should be halved or so, much like how lightning only does half its damage to magicka. 2. Armor Armor is a complex issue. There's a lot of stacking that goes on, and it really creates a lot more issues than it does opportunities. Armor bonuses from perks stack with other perks, which in turn stack with smithing upgrades, and smithing upgrade perks, and that's before adding in potions and other enchantments to further increase your numbers. To illustrate, I have a suit of armor with 82 base armor rating, pumped up to over 900 armor rating at the moment. That's an over 1000% increase, and I haven't yet hit the limit of bonuses available. High armor rating, though, is not the main issue. There's actually a cap at 80% damage reduction, so more than 567 armor doesn't really help the player, due to the formula involved. However, it's the small upgrades per armor tier that really throws the game off-kilter. The strongest heavy armor has 108 base armor, while the weakest has 60. While that's a fairly decent difference, you have to consider that there are over half a dozen more armor sets between those two. Each armor set only improves about 6-8 armor rating over the previous. Taking all of these things together, I'll demonstrate where the real problem starts. Because the difference between tiers isn't that great, the armor cap is so low compared to how high your numbers can be, and the monstrous stacking that can occur, you can take something like iron armor's low 60 armor and apply that ~1000% bonus, and easily break the 567 cap. No matter how much you stack, a player should never be able to cap out armor with the weakest tier. My proposal is that upgrading via smithing be knocked down quite a bit, while subsequent armor tiers be upgraded. This would effectively balance itself. Smithing, instead of being a skill primarily for massive boosts to armor rating and damage, becomes more craft-focused. Since new tiers of armor are stronger, there's more incentive to put perks in smithing to craft the next set. Smithing bonuses would be on a curve with diminishing returns, rather than linear. This would ensure that low-level players can still boost their armor, while high-level players can't just stack to infinity to get absurd bonuses and break the cap twice over. An added bonus to this is that it makes smithing less necessary for survival. Those armor tier bonuses apply to armor found in dungeons as well, so finding new gear will be a bigger bonus than previously, meaning a player might not need to spend hours making daggers just to have a decent armor. The final piece to this would be another armor reduction somewhere, most likely in the armor perks. Increasing base armor and lowering max bonuses from perks seems like it would provide a decent balance. Instead of 100% bonus from 5 ranks of perks, maybe cap it at a 50% bonus from 2 perks or so. This would half the armor increase, but due to higher base armor, work itself out about the same without screwing over those that don't specialize as much. Also, it would make the bonus per perk higher, making a short plunge into a skill tree not quite as perk-heavy in a game with limited options. This would take a lot of messing about to get right so as to balance low-level players, high-level players, non-smithers, and maxed-smithers. If some sort of balance could be found, though, it would greatly affect the game for the better. This is by far the biggest part of the project. 3. Weapon Damage and Enchantments See above, but with weapons this time. Reducing the benefits of perks and smithing makes the high-end of weapons not quite as powerful, which is good, considering a damage of 200 or more isn't very hard and that is enough to one-shot quite a few enemies out there. Base damage, like in the armor situation, would be increased to provide incentives to craft new items and move on from old ones. It's basically the damage as above, minus dealing with formula caps. I'd type an essay on weapon balance too, but it's really the same as above, and should fix itself once smithing and perks get sorted in a more balanced way. The biggest culprit in the field of weapon stacking is the ultimate dagger. Someone showed off some math that resulted in over 9000 damage, which is crazy. The second thing plaguing weapons is the issue of enchantments. Armor enchantments are amazing. You can stack on hundreds of health, stamina, or magicka, and max out magic resistance to boot. Weapons barely have anything going for them. The utility enchantments are handy, especially soul trap, but the damage enchantments feel a bit weak. Stacking smithing results in massive bonuses to weapon damage, while even a maxed enchanter is lucky to eek out a 30 damage enchantment. While 30 damage is nice, it's kind of a waste when my sword does 200 damage already and Elemental Fury can increase my attack speed only on non-enchanted items. Once weapon damage is sorted as mentioned above, this might not be as much of an issue, but I'd like to see enchantments play a bigger part for weapons. 4. Perks Perks currently come in two flavors: worth it or not. There are several skills with 5 tier perks that give +20% bonuses, stacking to 100%. While that isn't so bad in itself, this is not the only source of bonuses, meaning that base values become less and less a part of the final product and bonuses make up the majority of a player's power. Reimagining the perk trees for many skills would help balance things out. Firstly, because these are "trees", it is generally the case that the strongest perks are at the top. This appears not to be the case with several skills. A player who takes only a few perks from the bottom of the tree will be nearly as well off as a player who invests deeply. This is most grossly illustrated with the melee trees. Both one-handed and two-handed's best perks are their very first, the +20/40/60/80/100% damage perk. After that, the total of other bonuses gets no where near that initial boost. One notable exception is dual wielding, which receives a +35% speed boost as well as +50% power attack damage. Deadly. Secondly, the magnitude of these perks restricts customization. Because bonuses are so high, it would be stupid to pass them up. This takes away a perk from something that could go elsewhere. The most blatant of these are alchemy and enchanting. Even with 100 in these skills, most stores will stock better equipment than a player can produce. Throwing in perks adds 100% to 150% overall strength, making them a viable option. But viability shouldn't be based solely on perks. Perks should indeed make the prospect of specializing worth it, but without making it a necessity to even use the skill. A player with 100 skill shouldn't be outclassed by someone with 50 skill and a couple basic perks. Lastly, some "utility" perks that focus on effects rather than numbers are either too strong or too weak. I'd need to compile a list of these, but Impact from teh destruction tree comes to mind as an overpowered one. More will come as I think of it or as it is suggested, but this is a good start for discussion. Please feel free to leave any feedback, whether in support or against. Anyone that wants to suggest some data or mathematical functions to aid in the balance would be greatly appreciated.

I also had this issue. I simply ignored the quest for a couple in-game days, then it worked just fine. I think passing time a little bit seems to help the issue.

I had to clean the mod up a bit. Since I had just done this for a personal edit initially, I copied some bits from other mods (like upgrading for the Ebony Blade). Those are removed now and the mod can be found here.