LE Realistic Alchemy mod

[phil5813]

I'm interested in making a mod that basically overhauls Skyrim's current alchemy system. The concept is relatively simple, but it would involve having to change the functions of the lab table itself, and to add new items, though creating new meshes would probably not be necessary. I'm not familiar with modding at all besides creating a book, so I'm hoping that someone here can help me with the scripting. I have no idea if it's at all possible to do what I describe, or how hard it may be to make it work, so some feedback on this would be nice.

 

The concept is based off of actual alchemical processes and philosophy, and I think it would greatly improve the user-friendliness of creating potions. Here's how it works:

 

In alchemy, creating a "potion" involves the obtainment of a specimen's salt, mercury, and sulfur. The salt is the literal salt of the specimen, the mercury is the specimen's "blood," or the liquid matter that runs through its veins, and the sulfur is the secretions of the specimen. Alchemy mostly focuses on plants, but there are obviously weird things like Giant Toes and Mudcrab Chitin in Skyrim, so this system of alchemy would have some inconsistencies in that sense. I don't see why the same concept can't be applied to these items though, as it is just a game.

 

Upon activating the alchemy lab and choosing an ingredient of any kind (say a Blue Mountain Flower), the player would have the option to either macerate the specimen or to steam it. Macerating the specimen would yield two items labeled "Salt: Blue Mountain Flower" and "Mercury: Blue Mountain Flower," while steaming it would yield two separate items labeled "Sulfur: Blue Mountain Flower," and "Caput Mortem: Blue Mountain Flower." These would all be individual ingredients that could be combined, and they would all have only one effect each.

 

I wanted to apply new effects to these items based on alchemical philosophy, but then I figured that keeping the ingredient's original four effects would be easier; if new effects were to be added to an ingredient, then tasting it would be pointless. So here's what a modified Blue Mountain Flower would yield:

• Salt: Blue Mountain Flower (Restore Health)
• Mercury: Blue Mountain Flower (Fortify Conjuration)
• Sulfur: Blue Mountain Flower (Fortify Health)
• Caput Mortem: Blue Mountain Flower (Damage Magicka Regen)

If realism is desired, there would be one discrepancy that some people may not like. Realistically, maceration requires alcohol, and steaming requires water. The option to have these kinds of items used in the game during the creation of a potion can be overlooked if it's too overbearing, but I think it would balance this new system well; the real bonus to this form of alchemy is that a potion can be crafted with perfect specification in regard to its desired effects. No more creating a damage-boosting potion that also has fortify health, or even damage health in the side effects. This would obviously affect the final Alchemy Skill Tree perk, but that can be modified as well.

 

If the use of alcohol or water is enabled, then macerating and steaming can be done separately. For example, macerating a Blue Mountain Flower would yield the salt and the mercury, but the Blue Mountain Flower would still be in the inventory, which would allow the player to steam it at his/her discretion.

 

Something else I thought of is what would happen if two or more ingredients from the same plant were to be recombined. I think that doubling the potion's effects would be suitable.

 

So what are the chances that this could be created? I'm willing to do some work, but like I said I have no experience with scripting, which is what would need to be done for this mod. I really want to see this come to life, so help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited June 18, 2014 by phil5813

[IsharaMeradin]

Using any of the available crafting interfaces, you can only obtain one item. To obtain more than one item, it must be scripted in some way. It would most likely be very similar to the Atronach Forge. Which means, of the items you put in, the first viable result will be made even if a different result could be possible.

 

A more controlled method would be to add a custom station that uses the create object method (like the forge) that gives you a single item which represents the two items you really want to have. A script with an inventory event filter for these specific duality objects could then be applied to the player and convert that one object into the two individual objects. Your individual objects would then be normal ingredients but with only the one effect (might have to apply it to all four effect slots).

 

I certainly do not want to do scripting for the first method, that would be the entire mod. The second method is better, IMHO, The script could be fairly simple in a complex sort of way :P

 

Basically, one formlist consisting of the duality objects to pass into the inventory event filter. One formlist consisting of sub-formlists that have the desired components of the duality objects. The indexes of the two lists must match. Meaning the object "Macerate: Blue Mountain Flower" should match the index of the sub-formlist that has the contents "Salt: Blue Mountain Flower" and "Mercury: Blue Mountain Flower"

 

Or break it down into the four parts. Use the create object method and require the water and alcohol (tho you'll have to supply the water somehow), the player then gets a single object that is automatically replaced by the four individual desired components. Either way, I think the script would be the same.

 

No promises being made, just sharing my thoughts on the subject.

[phil5813]

Using any of the available crafting interfaces, you can only obtain one item. To obtain more than one item, it must be scripted in some way. It would most likely be very similar to the Atronach Forge. Which means, of the items you put in, the first viable result will be made even if a different result could be possible.

 

A more controlled method would be to add a custom station that uses the create object method (like the forge) that gives you a single item which represents the two items you really want to have. A script with an inventory event filter for these specific duality objects could then be applied to the player and convert that one object into the two individual objects. Your individual objects would then be normal ingredients but with only the one effect (might have to apply it to all four effect slots).

 

I certainly do not want to do scripting for the first method, that would be the entire mod. The second method is better, IMHO, The script could be fairly simple in a complex sort of way :tongue:

 

Basically, one formlist consisting of the duality objects to pass into the inventory event filter. One formlist consisting of sub-formlists that have the desired components of the duality objects. The indexes of the two lists must match. Meaning the object "Macerate: Blue Mountain Flower" should match the index of the sub-formlist that has the contents "Salt: Blue Mountain Flower" and "Mercury: Blue Mountain Flower"

 

Or break it down into the four parts. Use the create object method and require the water and alcohol (tho you'll have to supply the water somehow), the player then gets a single object that is automatically replaced by the four individual desired components. Either way, I think the script would be the same.

 

No promises being made, just sharing my thoughts on the subject.

It took a while for me to understand what exactly you were saying, but I think I do now...and the second method does seem to be what I was thinking of when I thought of how to pull this off.

 

I still have no idea how I would script it, but if I miraculously did make the script, could I just sort of assign it to all alchemy tables with the Creation Kit? Also, what site would you recommend to learn how to create this?

[IsharaMeradin]

 

 

I still have no idea how I would script it, but if I miraculously did make the script, could I just sort of assign it to all alchemy tables with the Creation Kit? Also, what site would you recommend to learn how to create this?

No. Assigning scripts to stock workstations is a bad idea. It can cause problems on uninstall if the player wishes to continue playing without the mod.

 

As far as a tutorial on how to create something like this... The CK wiki could be a start. Beyond that, asking for specific help tends to yields some results.

[phil5813]

 

 

 

I still have no idea how I would script it, but if I miraculously did make the script, could I just sort of assign it to all alchemy tables with the Creation Kit? Also, what site would you recommend to learn how to create this?

No. Assigning scripts to stock workstations is a bad idea. It can cause problems on uninstall if the player wishes to continue playing without the mod.

 

As far as a tutorial on how to create something like this... The CK wiki could be a start. Beyond that, asking for specific help tends to yields some results.

 

So would I basically have to create completely new tables and add them into the world? And with that logic, is there any way to create this mod by simply extending the script used for stock alchemy tables, based on the second method you mentioned? Or do I simply have no idea what I'm talking about right now? Haha

[IsharaMeradin]

New workstations, most likely, yes.

Stock alchemy script? There is none. It is "hard coded" behavior. Mix up to three ingredients to get a single item if at least two of the three ingredients have the same effect. So you'll need new ingredients...

 

I actually found a similar mod that exists already. It may do what you want but not call it by the same terms

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/36389/?

[phil5813]

New workstations, most likely, yes.

Stock alchemy script? There is none. It is "hard coded" behavior. Mix up to three ingredients to get a single item if at least two of the three ingredients have the same effect. So you'll need new ingredients...

 

I actually found a similar mod that exists already. It may do what you want but not call it by the same terms

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/36389/?

That mod is pretty similar to this idea, actually. I haven't installed it, but from reading the description it seems that one of the functions is creating individual ingredients with singular effects for crafting at the alchemy table. The difference here though is that this idea would yield four separate ingredients with singular effects from one item, while that mod yields one ingredient with singular effects from one item. That information could be useful for this idea, so maybe I'll ask him about it.

 

The mod also combines already-existing potions into some mega-ultra potion, kind of like pouring two or more potions in a bucket and calling that its own potion. This would not do that.

 

As for getting new ingredients, does each effect of all ingredients have its own "ID" or something? If so, then the sole purpose of this mod would be to create four individual items with individual effect IDs by separating a certain ingredient, and these items alone would create potions of any sort. Never mind, I found that they do indeed have IDs! I don't know how I would go about separating an ingredient like this, or assigning individual effects to an individual item, but it would take care of half the mod.

 

I think that [this mod] would render the aforementioned "hard coded behavior" inert though; if the behavior is based on ingredient effects that match up to each other, then most custom potions couldn't possibly be crafted with this mod...right?

Edited August 4, 2014 by phil5813

[IsharaMeradin]

Ingredient effects do have their own form ID. But to create a potion you need two separate ingredients with the same effect attached. If you were to split every ingredient into the four effects (a new ingredient with just one effect attached), you would need to ensure that at the very least you maintained two "effect ingredients" so that they could be combined at the alchemy station. Otherwise, you'd split all your ingredients into singular stacks of each "effect ingredient" and have nothing to combine together.

 

Example,

Break down Blue Mountain Flower into the following effects

Restore Health

Fortify Conjuration

Fortify Health

Damage Magicka Regen

Break down Wheat into

Restore Health

Fortify Health

Damage Stamina Regen

Lingering Damage Magicka

If you used the same new ingredient with the Restore Health effect, you could not combine the two to create a Restore Health Potion. You must keep them as separate entities in order to combine.

 

So suggested method is as follows:

1. Create new ingredients, assign only one effect to each

2. Duplicate and rename each new ingredient so that you have one per standard source ingredient

i.e. Restore Health: Wheat -- Restore Health: Blue Flower

3. Create a custom workstation of some kind similar to Atronach Forge or the Imbuing station (spider machine in Dragonborn). Similar in that there is a container you place the ingredient inside and a lever or button of some kind to activate.

4. Script on the activator would look for pre-defined ingredients on a formlist. The index of that item would match the index on another formlist that contains formlists. Each of the sub-formlists would list the specific new ingredients associated with the deposited ingredient

5. The script then swaps the deposited ingredients for the same number of "effect ingredients"

6. Player is notified of completion and opens the container to obtain the separated "effect ingredients"

7. Player can then go to an alchemy station and create "clean potions" from the "effect ingredients" provided they have two or more different "effect ingredients" of the same effect but different sources.

 

8. Make any patches for any mods that add new ingredients.

 

Probably clear as mud... still maybe helpful...

 

[phil5813]

 

Probably clear as mud... still maybe helpful...

 

I think I see what you're saying...so the [custom-made] Atronach Forge station is just a function in itself, used to "create" four different effect ingredients after inserting and converting one ingredient from the world. And those would be used to create potions at the alchemy station. It would take a long time to create individual effects items based on the source ingredient though.

 

What you're also saying is that creating a potion with multiple effects would essentially be impossible, right? Hmm...could there be a way to create a universal "tag" on each effect ingredient so that the alchemy lab recognizes each and every one as being compatible with each other, but that would also not affect the potion itself?

Edited August 4, 2014 by phil5813

[IsharaMeradin]

Once you split up the effects into separate ingredients you cannot use the Alchemy station to combine them again. You would need to create even more ingredients with the different possible combinations of the four effects of the standard ingredient. Then your script on the custom station activator would need to have either a message box menu for the player to pick the desired split or separate buttons/levers for the player to use that would create the different effect splits.

 

You cannot create a multi-effect potion if the source ingredients do not share effects.

 

However, using my earlier example, nothing would prevent using a standard Blue Mountain Flower ingredient with Fortify Health: Blue Flower and Restore Health: Wheat to make a multi-effect potion. Since alchemy allows up to three ingredients, you can use one standard with two individuals to create a two effect potion.