LE Horse improvements

[immortalfrieza]

I want to see some mods to make horses actually useful. I found little reason to actually use horses over simply walking for several reasons, which is unfortunate since I actually like the idea. Even the fastest horses aren't significantly faster than walking, especially when you have to stop and get off the horse to be able to easily do much and then get back on it over and over again. Horses also aren't useful for stealth characters since they give your position away if you ride them and enemies tend to make a beeline for them if you aren't. Horses also aren't particularly useful in combat either, they don't cause much damage, they don't really fight unless they're Shadowmere and they'll probably die even if they do fight. I tend to lose horses until I fast travel as well. I also found little reason to actually get attached to any particular horse anyway, so I usually use mod horses since they tend to be more effective than any of the vanilla horses.

 

I'm looking to see if anyone knows of any mods that can do the features below that already exist or are in interested in making one for me if not.

 

- First and foremost, a mod that allows horses that have just be ridden by the player to follow along behind the player if they aren't riding them and one that makes them invisible to enemies unless the horse attacks them. Also, ways to break wild or stolen horses so they won't run off. Also, if the player attacks them they will run away instead of attacking before coming back later unless they are fighting something in which case they'll ignore it.

 

-Second, I'd like a way to both make horses more effective and also to become attached to particular horses so I came up with an idea for a mod to breed, train, and raise horses, both for profit and for the player's own use. One could either breed two horses together or find a infant foal and then feed it some vegetable and it would follow the player. If one breeds the foal has characteristics of both it's parents, including a baseline strength and stamina (which would be an invisible mechanic varying depending on the bred horses but even the best horse breeding wouldn't result in a significant difference over any random horse without going through several generations). Either way once claimed the foal then requires regular feeding everyday and can't be ridden until it grows a bit. As it's fed and trained and on what, it'll grow and it's damage in combat, health, and the amount of stamina would increase with limits based on it's baseline stats which can be increased with further breeding.

 

-As for the training, the player would be able to train the horse for a few hours each day and thus affect it's behavior and stats to a certain extent. Trained horses would either run from combat, (which is the default) engage on sight, or hang back and only start attacking when the player attacks or is attacked, and this training would take effect depending on the horse's current health and how long and often it's be trained (first time training the horses will run away from the enemies after losing 20% of their health, while horses that have been trained for 10 sessions or more won't retreat at all unless ordered to) . Horses that fight gain experience for participating (not just killing but attacking the enemy) and level up to a max of 10, increasing it's statistics but they can be trained to increase to those levels by the player as well. If possible, have the horse's looks affected by this training i.e. a horse at level . I mentioned it above, but the player can also select as shouts commands, but the horse will only listen to them if they've trained them to do so and even then only consistently if they've trained them a great deal.

 

-To help with the breeding and raising mechanic above for more unique horses, there would be rare supernatural horses running around Skyrim that the player can catch and break. Basically these would be the equivalent of Shadowmere and Arvak but with varied looks and can be bred with them, with each other (but Shadowmere and Arvak themselves cannot be bred together), and with regular horses to create unique appearances and stats (i.e. a Black and White Paint horse bred with a Shadowmere type horse would result in a Black and White Paint horse with glowing eyes of whatever color the parent horse had, a Black horse and a Arvak type horse would be a black horse that's on fire, etc.). These horses would be stronger, faster, and have more endurance than regular horses, but much rarer and only appear under certain conditions (i.e. Arvak type horses only appear at dusk and are only found around graveyards, while Shadowmere horses are found around large murder sites.)

 

-The "for profit" part. The player can either continue breeding horses up to a certain number (I'd say the player could have no more than 3 horses owned by them at a time including the one that they are riding around) and then release or sell any extra horses they have to the same horse vendors the vanilla game uses. Only any wild, bought or bred horses can be sold, stolen ones must be released but can still be bred and their offspring sold. The price would depend on the age, breeding, stats, and type of horse. For instance, a newly found wild foal would be worth barely 50 gold with one or 2 gold difference depending on it's baseline stats or a Arvak type horse foal would be worth 500 gold straight off with adjustment for baseline stats, but a 10th generation maxed stat Shadow/Arvak horse would be worth somewhere in the region of 10,000 to 20,000 gold. The player could also fulfill requests for a particular type, color, and age of horse for a greater than normal amount of money and random equipment for horses (see below) of greater or lesser power depending on the difficulty of the request.

 

-Third, while there's already a horse armor mod, it doesn't have the ability to buy or craft and equip armor on horses, I'd like that feature, while adding spikes and blades and that sort of thing onto the armor near the hooves for the horses to attack with, thus boosting their damage output in addition to their damage resistance as is expected with armor.

[NightmareElmo]

sounds like a fantastic idea! a lot of interesting ideas in this, some difficult, but i think do-able. There is already a wild horse mod that has rideable stallions in herds, but they do not require breaking in. As far as im aware, there is no way to stop a stolen item (including horse) from being stolen, without replacing the base item. But overall a great idea, i hope it can be made

[Himeki]

While not exactly what you're looking for, Convenient Horses does greatly improve horses.

Along side it is Convenient Horse Herding.

 

They haven't been updated in a while, but as Skyrim hasn't seen updates since before that, they work just fine.

[immortalfrieza]

While not exactly what you're looking for, Convenient Horses does greatly improve horses.

Along side it is Convenient Horse Herding.

 

They haven't been updated in a while, but as Skyrim hasn't seen updates since before that, they work just fine.

Alright... That works for the first part, now anything with the horse breeding/feeding/training/selling mechanics? I know Tame the Beasts of Skyrim 2 works with horses, but that's a one animal at a time one breeding only thing, and I don't think generic Shadowmere/Arvak horses are available for that.

Edited November 26, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[nivea]

Nope, nothing has been released with in depth breeding/feeding/training/selling which is sad imo.

 

You can feed a horse for a small boost with this mod:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51473/?

 

You can "train" a horse with this mod, its just perks you can put points into to give bonuses:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/58192/?

 

I do not know of any mod that lets you sell your horse, or any mod other then the one you mention about breeding your horse.

 

As for the horse armor CH does it pretty well, you can try some of these mods if you want to not use CH at all (the last one is pretty old, I had trouble getting it to work):

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57569/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/15842/?

 

I am making a mod about horse tack and armor where you can craft/buy it and put it on the horse, you can check my image section for wip pictures.

You should prolly keep watch on this thread as well:

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2303564-wip-immersive-horses/