castle exterior walls

[DSoS]

I'm designing a mod that the player will be able to acquire a very large castle. First they will have to get hold of the quest, then once complete the player has the option to buy the very *expensive* castle, and the expensive furnishings.

 

This castle is geared for people who are level 25+ and very wealthy, or just completely insane :blink:

 

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Some text is in code boxes to preserve spacing format.

 

My plans:

* Very Large Castle (acquired by finishing a quest and payment of gold) Price undecided, just depends on how long it takes me to "build" it, lol. 
  * Multiple floors, up to 5+ floors with some areas
  * multiple basements
*Multiple Wings
  * North Wing
  * South Wing
  * East Wing
  * West Wing (One or Two wing(s) will NOT be used, just unsure about the layout as of now)
* Many many rooms, up to or more than 50 total rooms
  * one room per NPC (Not including Guards since they have barracks)
  * beds/rooms assigned to each NPC, and hopefully they will sleep in their own beds, and not a random bed
* Private Quarters
  * Simple room
  * Bed
  * Desk and Chair
  * Maybe a few hidden secrets
* Large Library
  * Containing every book in game
  * Several new books that comes with the mod
  * possibility that I might add other books from other mods (Will get permission first) (Whoever lets me use their book mod will have a NPC named after them :D )
* torture chamber
  * Most likely YES, but may not, as long as I don't have to create new items there will be one(I wouldn't know where to start to create new items)
* wine cellar
  * left blank
* possible traps
  * left blank
* possible emergency exit cave system (very long and in-depth, easily to get lost in, near Zero-Lights, many creatures ready for the unprepared adventurous player
  * left blank
* Custom sounds and creepy music, soothing music, and more
  * possibility
* Things might be removed or added

 

* Buy furnishings per room, each room is sold separately (if there are 10 servant bedrooms that's 10 purchases) (Why, you might ask? Well for the high level players, we have so much gold we buy all houses and everything in the game to use the gold. But what happens after you buy all the houses and items for the houses? The gold piles up and continues until you have, like me, 50+ million in gold. And that's why :P

 

* Have plenty of secret passages, hidden rooms, etc. (I'm talking a good 20-30 hidden secrets) (For me, I LOVE looking for hidden areas, after I got BattleHorn castle DLC, I had fun finding the 3 or 4 hidden areas, but it wasn't enough for me)

 

* Have enough New NPC's to actually fill those large dining room tables. (Come on, there are tables that can seat up to 20 npc's or more, but only 5-8 are actually used in them? Not realistic IMO!)

 

* Create the AI, for realism, All NPC's wake up at the same time, eats breakfast, lunch and supper together, etc (I'm creating these idea's as I type them up, so they might all not be good)

 

* Quests to discover hidden secrets:
  * Why was this castle built in the first place?
  * What hidden evil lurked/lurks the halls?
  * The only things I can think of at the moment, more might and probably will come later

 

* Several items that have been customized (NOT NEW MESHES, just enchanted items) acquired through quests

 

* Guards to keep your fortune safe from the might be attacks.

 

* Attacks on the castle... I don't have much info for this yet, or if its even possible to have a small to mid-scale attack on the castle:
  *there would be up to maybe 25 to 50 Very high level attackers, with plenty of strength to kill in just few hits or less. Archers, blunts, swordsman, etc. each with his/her own custom strengths and weaknesses.
  * A Note saying...."Your castle is under attack, do you want to be transported to your castle to help defend it?" "YES" or "NO" 
  * If the player say yes, they will be transported into the center to the castle grounds to be able to take immediate actions.
  * If the player says no, there will be a 15-25% chance of the player losing the castle to the attackers, which then, the deed will be lost, and the castle is given to the attackers.
  * The player would then have to retake the castle, and have to purchase ALL furnishings over again. (Just another way for the high level players to rid of gold)
  * If a single attacker reaches a certain point in the castle grounds the player automatically loses the dead to the castle and will be held in the castles torture chamber, having to find his/her way out.
  * If this is even possible, I will try to do it

 

* Many servants for the many needs of the castle
  * Guards
  * Cooks
  * Cleaning Crews
  * Personal Body Guards (companions) (If I can learn this, as well as everything else listed above and below, lol)
  * and more (give me a break its 3am here and I'm tired)

 

* Villagers do their own things
  * Outside the castle walls, up to 20 houses and 30-40 NPC's.
  * Unsure about any quests or anything with the villagers right now
  * Blacksmith (Armor Repair)
  * General Merchandiser (Buys and Sells items, sells expensive and buys low)
  * Medical (Heals your wounds, again for a price)
  * Chapel (So the Villagers can worship their God)
  * Inn (maybe, probably, gotta keep it real)
  * Small Farm (up to 20 different plants with about 5-10 of each) (to help keep the FPS consumption to a minimum)
  * Small group of travelers, to sell the plants to a larger (unknown ATM) city, all will be essential NPC's so they don't go missing, lol) (the merchant, and 2 guards)
  * might be other stuff added later

 

* Other stuff might and will be added or removed as the time goes by.

 

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Before I can begin building the castle, I have a few questions...

(I've used the CS before, but not for a castle, quests, scripts, etc, just a small village and farm land, that I never released due to me never finishing it)

 

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Question #1:

 

I was looking for Castle Exteriors, like what you see on Battlehorn castle. (I'm either missing it completely or they just aren't there) Where would these be located at?

*Places I've looked:

*WorldObjects/Static/Castle

*WorldObjects/Static/Palace

*and i can't remember but maybe one more area too

 

***** Really would like it to be a multi-story castle ******

 

*Or is the castle a custom built item, done through a CAD program and imported into OB? (If so I can't do CAD, tried it and failed multiple times)

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Question #2

 

does anyone know if there is a current mod that uses the following cells: (Not all will be used, I think, but just in case.)

Is there an official Cell keeper, that keeps track of who has rights to the certain cells? (I know, I know, anyone can use any cell, but for the large mods, that changes landscape, etc, like Unique Landscapes, etc.)

   * 46,3 | 46,4 | 46,5 | 46,6 | 46,7
  * 47,3 | 47,4 | 47,5 | 47,6 | 47,7
  * 48,3 | 48,4 | 48,5 | 48,6 | 48,7
  * 49,3 | 49,4 | 49,5 | 49,6 | 49,7
  * 50,3 | 50,4 | 50,5 | 50,6 | 50,7

 

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Question #3:

 

Is there any easy way to flatten landscape, for only certain cells, listed above, without taking forever to do by hand?

 

I've flattened a little for testing purposes, and its pretty hard for me to understand it. I usually end up in a cell that's not anywhere near my 25 cells.

 

I know that there are several places around the 25 cells I have listed. I'm not going to be moving any of the vanilla OB locations or items, only trees, rocks, creature spawns, etc will be deleted for the Castle and small town that's around the castle.

 

I might try to find someone who is great at creating landscapes, as I KNOW I will not be able to create the land that I really want. Of course who ever would do this for me, I would love forever, and also get his/her name/alias put into the mod, and also a character named after them.

 

 

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I believe that is it for now.

 

Suggestions, comments, concerns, if you would like to help in any way (creating quests, scripts, etc), PLEASE PM me, or reply on the thread.

 

Thank you in advance for any and all replies to the 3 questions.

 

I will try to answer back as soon as possible, can usually be almost instantly, or take a few hours, depending on what I'm doing.

 

 

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Edit:

 

OK, some how I did it again, asking just a few questions turned into a full mod WIP posting, if this post needs to be moved, then that is fine with me :rolleyes:

[DavidBudreck]

I don't really understand what you are getting at with all your "code", but the questions are clear enough.

 

#1. The meshes for Battlehorn Castle are contained in it's BattlehornCastle.bsa, so you won't find them by looking unless you unpack it. Battlehorn castle is the entire exterior in one big mesh; not stackable, and not multi-story, probably not what you are looking for.

 

#2. To my knowledge nobody keeps track of cells the way you are indicating. It is WAY too much of a crapshoot because not everybody has the same mods installed, so what might conflict for one person would not be any problem for the next.

 

#3. There is no easier way to flatten existing landscape. The heightmap editor is basically for new worldspaces, *NOT* for editing Tamriel. There is a preference that makes it a little faster, where you can set the sensitivity, so it doesn't take as long.

 

#4. 25 cells is a lot of cells. Make sure you are not biting off more than you can chew; the idea is to finish what you start :)

[DSoS]

I don't really understand what you are getting at with all your "code", but the questions are clear enough.

 

#1. The meshes for Battlehorn Castle are contained in it's BattlehornCastle.bsa, so you won't find them by looking unless you unpack it. Battlehorn castle is the entire exterior in one big mesh; not stackable, and not multi-story, probably not what you are looking for.

 

#2. To my knowledge nobody keeps track of cells the way you are indicating. It is WAY too much of a crapshoot because not everybody has the same mods installed, so what might conflict for one person would not be any problem for the next.

 

#3. There is no easier way to flatten existing landscape. The heightmap editor is basically for new worldspaces, *NOT* for editing Tamriel. There is a preference that makes it a little faster, where you can set the sensitivity, so it doesn't take as long.

 

#4. 25 cells is a lot of cells. Make sure you are not biting off more than you can chew; the idea is to finish what you start :)

 

Thank you

 

The code boxes are just to preserve the spacing for the bullets, so the ideas are not clustered.

 

1) I found the battlehorn exterior earlier today, i noticed that, i was kinda mad but its fine, gives me the chance to learn CAD.

 

2) I was just kinda joking around with that, but it would be nice if there was one for the UL and other mods that changes landscape. But I'm in a fantasy world on that, lol

 

3) I've been playing around with flattening out land with the Land Scape tool in CS, I'm getting the hang of it slowly, but surely.

 

4) I know that it's a lot of space, just the 10 that I flattened last night was amazingly large, But the wall I played around with took up just those 10 cells itself. I enjoyed the destruction of large mountains (oh can't forget the trees and super heavy rocks that defy gravity) :D

 

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So since there isn't any real castle exterior walls, I guess I'll have to create my own then?

 

** What programs do you suggest that I use to create it. Or would there be a tutorial that I missed at the CS wiki or somwhere?

 

I would like to have:

* walls that guards can walk on, from one tower to another (like how battlehorn castle is)

* stairs to get up on some walls

* open city entrance and open/close city gate (like battlehorn)

* Inside the walls (the castle grounds) the ability to place houses and other items

 

I'll have to try to draw something up to show my plans for the castle and the castle grounds, and post it a little later

 

Again, Thank you for the reply ^^

[DavidBudreck]

There are LOTS of castle walls.

 

Here is one http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14295

 

There are others, like Seaview Castle and Griffon Fortress.

[DSoS]

Going different route since I can't find any castle stuff.

 

Instead of castle (which there are 100's of downloads), I'm going Ayleid Temple. Once I get in more in-depth in the mod, I will create a new topic about the new mod.... (But it's still has the same concepts listed above, but only Ayleid :P )

 

Thank you again for the help you have given me! Kudo's Given

 

Mods please lock this thread

[Vagrant0]

Going different route since I can't find any castle stuff.

 

Instead of castle (which there are 100's of downloads), I'm going Ayleid Temple. Once I get in more in-depth in the mod, I will create a new topic about the new mod.... (But it's still has the same concepts listed above, but only Ayleid :P )

 

Thank you again for the help you have given me! Kudo's Given

 

Mods please lock this thread

 

If you're going to be working with Alyied exterior pieces, you might want to look at my article here:

http://www.tesnexus.com/articles/article.php?id=192

 

Working with the ruin pieces can be rather tough until you figure out the trick. For making it look less ruined, you might want to try the ruin retextures here:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7952 or one of the slightly different shades.

You can make them non-replacing by linking renamed textures to renamed .nifs for each of the ruin pieces you intend to use, and defining them within your mod in the CS. It's a bit more work, but is a nice alternative for when you want just one place to stand out as being "like new".

[DSoS]

Going different route since I can't find any castle stuff.

 

Instead of castle (which there are 100's of downloads), I'm going Ayleid Temple. Once I get in more in-depth in the mod, I will create a new topic about the new mod.... (But it's still has the same concepts listed above, but only Ayleid :P )

 

Thank you again for the help you have given me! Kudo's Given

 

Mods please lock this thread

 

If you're going to be working with Alyied exterior pieces, you might want to look at my article here:

http://www.tesnexus.com/articles/article.php?id=192

 

Working with the ruin pieces can be rather tough until you figure out the trick. For making it look less ruined, you might want to try the ruin retextures here:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7952 or one of the slightly different shades.

You can make them non-replacing by linking renamed textures to renamed .nifs for each of the ruin pieces you intend to use, and defining them within your mod in the CS. It's a bit more work, but is a nice alternative for when you want just one place to stand out as being "like new".

 

 

Thank you very much i will check the links out

 

kudo's to you :)

[bben46]

Also, if you use any resources from a DLC, you MUST require that DLC to be loaded for your mod to work - per Bethesda's lawyers.

That prevents anyone from using a mod with resources from a DLC unless they first have the DLC.

[DSoS]

Also, if you use any resources from a DLC, you MUST require that DLC to be loaded for your mod to work - per Bethesda's lawyers.

That prevents anyone from using a mod with resources from a DLC unless they first have the DLC.

 

Oh wow, good info, thank you very much.

 

At first I was thinking about using the battlehorn exterior, but I wanted something that no one really see's a million times. (hence why i went towards aylied ruins for a player house)

 

Kudo's to you bben :)

 

I might have some questions at a later time, about this or that