LE Dwemer Mech

[GOsteW]

Hi, everyone! I have to apologize for my english. I'm not a native speaker, but I'll try my best to give some sense to the text below. :smile:

I recently got a quite silly idea for a mod that would be quite cool. I'll put it here for you because it is something beyond my possibilities (I don't know much about modding and I don't have much time to learn what I would like to). I hope someone of this awesome modding community will like to make this mod :smile:

 

Ok, here's the idea. A dwarven mech! Yes, a dwarven mech: a dwarven robot that can be driven by a person inside it. I wouldn't be completely out of place in Skyrim, because the dwemer technology has potencial for many many expansions (it's "just" a matter of not breaking the lore).

I thought about this "ridable dwarven robot", that you Dragonborn could use when you are in great danger ("DRAGONS!!!"). Here's some detail. (skip to "Details" if you want to read how I think the mod could work).

 

Background

In a forgotten dwarven ruin a team was working on the ultimate weapon: the power of a machine combined with the brain of a dwemer. a weapon that could let them win every battle and every war. They started building the robot and studying a way to maintain it functional, but they met a very serious problem: during the tests all riders died. First they thought that the machine required a very big phisical effort in order to be used. All other machines work with infused magicka, so they didn't think to problem was the "fuel". They discovered too late that the robot they built was so powerful that it needed to consume a soul in order to be activated. The dwarven mech consume a soul every time it is activated and it infuses the soul in itself in order to be riden. Once the team discovered this, they decided to abandone the project: it was too dangerous and the chances of success were becoming much smaller.

Now the Dragonborn has discovered this old ruin and found the project. Will our hero be cpable enough to make it work?

 

Details

Of course he will!

I thought this thing about the souls because I wanted the mech to be balanced... very powerful, but balanced... a sort of last hope to save your ...behind.

This is my idea. In the dwemer ruin you will find a mech and a book. The book will teach you a power (or spell, if you want, but I think the power is accessible to more types of characters) that lets you summon and ride the mech that you found. You are able to ride the mech without dying because you are the Dragonborn: you absorb dragon's souls. This means that every time you use that power and ride the mech you will consume a 1 dragon soul, in order to activate the mech. This also mean that if you don't have dragon souls you die (well, personally I would prefer simply not to be able to use the power and receive a message like " You need at least 1 dragon soul to use the mech"; rather than use the power and game over...).

 

The machine

The model of the dwemer mech may be a problem. As you can tell I'm not a modder (well, I don't consider myself a modder), but I can understand that putting the character inside a machine and making him/her ride it can be not so easy. I was thinking about a ridable monster with the mesh that covers also the player. I know the animations for enering/exiting the mech would look weird... but maybe the new FNIS furniture animations can help...

My idea of the mech is something like the Cerberus mechs in Mass Effect: character sits inside it and uses dwemer levers (not really, but it may look good with the default horse riding animation); the mech is as tall as two or three people (5-6 meters max, maybe; I don't think a bigger mech would be comfortable in Skyrim).

 

Well, I think that's it. I hope I didn't forgot anything. That's my idea. The basic purpose is to have a badass dwemer mech to use to bring some chaos to those dragons... (or hords of bandits/forsworns/whatever). Like the idea behind the Jeager in Pacific Rim (yeah, you got me, that's the inspiration :P ): big monsters, big weapons. :smile:

 

Now it's your turn :biggrin:

[ryanshowseason2]

There are two mods close to what you wish for. Although I don't have links to them.

 

The first is a mod that adds basically dwarven power armor to the game. Not quite what you desire though...

 

The second was a player home mod that oddly enough had a ridable and completely useable dwarven centurion that you could attack with and everything.

 

I wish I could remember the mod.

[GOsteW]

Thanks for the post, but it's not what I'm looking for... The Dwarven Dwemer Power Armor mod is awesome though :smile:

Edited July 19, 2013 by GOsteW

[Gerandirr]

Consuming dragon souls seems a bit too much to me.

How about filled black soulgems ?

It could run on a charge, like enchanted weapons. Only, this would take nothing else than human/mer souls.

It would be still pretty expensive to fire it up, but it would be manageable.

The model ? It could use a modified version of the dwarven centurion. Animations should be pretty much the same.

Overall, I think it's a pretty good idea.

I'd also like to see something like this.

[GOsteW]

Yeah, the cost for using the mech is pretty high, but I thought that because I wanted to justify the backstory and I didn't want the mech to be easily accessible. I guess if the backstory changes black soulgems can be used instead of dragon souls. I think it will depend on how much powerful the mech is.

About the model, I also thought about the centurion: same legs and arms, a cabin with a sit for the player in it instead of the chest.

The charge thing is a really nice idea. I don't know how easy would be to make that, but it would be nice to have it (a simple timer for the power would not be very nice, I guess). :)

[Gerandirr]

I think SKSE would enable some kind of charging system to work.

When you get in, it will check if you have a filled black soulgem with you. If you do, then it will take one, then proceed to drain it very slowly, unless you move a lot or attack non-stop. When you get out, it will run out of charge, no matter how much juice it still had before getting out.

Now on making it seem worth the trade-off.

You could use certain shouts trhough the mech, if you had all three words. (along with the original steam spray, that would be equally powerful as you shouts)

Like :

-All breath based shouts (fire, frost, freeze)

-Clear skies

-Storm call

-Marked for death

-Aura whisper

(shouts would not drain power, because they come from your character, it just needs to be channeled to the mech's ''mouth'')

And if these are not enough, it's meele abilities are pretty awesome. Maybe if you apply a nother soulgem, that would not run out when you get out, but rather stay and give your mech's meele attacks elemental dmg until it's consumed. (identical to enchanted weapons, fire, frost and electrical)

Anyways.

I like where this is going.

[GOsteW]

Very interesting! SKSE FTW, I guess :D About shouts, I was thinking more about a mech with its own weapons and with a closed cabin for the character: the mech was designed by dwemer for dwemer, so they had to give weapons and abilities to the mech, rather than making the machine ampifying their own. I was thinking about a gameplay like the transformations in the mod "Wrath of nature - Path of the Druid": the mech has melee attack, steam spray, flamethrower maybe, a cannon (Fireballs spell effect), each with its button (replaces vanilla player attacks). As you said, each ability needs a certain amount of charge from the soul gem.

If the mech is based on shouts, it wouldn't fit every character and every playthrough: there are mods that remove the Dragonborn abilities from the game; also if you use an alternate start mod and you don't want to start the main quest early, if you find the mech, you can't use it because you can't use shouts yet. Maybe the mech could use some shout effects, like "All breath based shouts (fire, frost, freeze)" and "Marked for death" and "Aura whisper", as its own built-in weapons/devices (you know, dwemer are full of resurces ;) )

 

You're right, black soul gems are better than dragon souls. let's just change a bit the backstory. Something like this, maybe.

The project was going well, until other dwemer cities learned about it. Their spies infiltrated in the project base and reported the details to the cities, which immidiately started trying to get the project for themselves. A war started: battles fought with false informations and stealthy infiltrations, that brought the contendants to destruction. And so the project died with their creators.

Fortunately the mech survived the tragedy and it is now ready to be riden... etc. etc. ...

[johnmarkmangum]

I actually was thinking of something like this before. Basically my idea was to make an oversized Centurion rideable. When you decided to climb in, it would take you to a angle where you didn't really see the back and the Dragonborn would climb in like he was getting into a carriage. Makes it look like he is climbing into his seat and all that.

[GOsteW]

Nice idea! What I would really like to see is not just a Centurion, but a sort of a custom model. I don't have enough skills for that (and not enough time to learn), so I can't do the model myself. Anyway, at least a Centurion with some additional gear (weapons, cannon, etc.) on it. Well, the best would be something like the mechs in Mass Effect, with a cabin for the character to sit inside.

[johnmarkmangum]

My suggestion would be to look into making the Mech just simply a giant Ceturion at first, then watch and see if it gains popularity. If it does then see about finding someone to make Dwemer Mech 2.0!