LE Traveler/Hunter Vendor Cart - Goat Follower

[Irishwolven1]

Recently I've been itching to have a go at making my own mods for Skyrim, but the Skyrim Creation kit seems to dislike me as it will only run for 5-10 minutes at a time, which is useless considering I know little about modding to begin with. So I'm hoping perhaps someone would like to be the brawn behind my brains.

 

The purpose for this mod would be to provide an alternative play style to having a horse drawn carriage, or a horse inventory which can be acquired via the Convenient Horse Mod.

 

The mod I had in mind is to include a small vendor style cart drawn along by a goat, to whom I'll fondly refer to as Isabella. In the cart it would contain a few sacks, a barrel, and chest for item storage. And perhaps a lamp at the back for when it gets dark. And if it's possible perhaps putting a modded horse harness on Isabella which connects to the cart.

 

This idea was inspired by; Touring Carriages and the DragonKiller Cart.

 

Mods that would be great if fully compatible with;

• Bellyaches Animal and Creature Texture Pack. (Depending on whether or not it is decided to make a unique texture for Isabella, or a selection of unique textures.)
• Elysium Estate
• My home is your home - a mod for followers
• Most if not all Follower mods

 

The location of Isabella and the cart at the beginning of the game can be set at Pelagia Farm outside of Whiterun, and perhaps can be purchased from Severio Pelagia and, or Gloth and Mimriel for 500 Gold.

 

I had in mind that she would be an invulnerable/essential non-aggressive follower and that she is able to enter cities but not buildings/dungeons. And can also travel with the player via fast travel if possible.

 

If the mod goes well, then perhaps an alternate variation could be made of a cow drawn cart, named Dorothy.

 

 

Edit 1:

 

Expanded thoughts I had whilst making a cup of tea. If there were multiple variations of textures than perhaps having multiple goat carts/ cow carts around Skyrim, such as above I mentioned Pelagia farm other could be at;

 

• Salvius Farmhouse - Outside of Markarth
• Hlaalu Farm or Hollyfrost Farm - Outside of Windhelm
• Merryfair Farm - Outside Riften

 

 

Images for Reference:

http://content.screencast.com/users/Irishwolven5/folders/Jing/media/98020822-ff2d-4696-926d-aba2bb48a7cc/2015-09-01_2114.png

http://content.screencast.com/users/Irishwolven5/folders/Jing/media/c0984f29-f2bd-4b19-9da5-d1453fd82f2a/2015-09-01_2115.png

Edited September 1, 2015 by Irishwolven1

[Jokerine]

Aw, that's so adorable! I'd love to have Isabella in my game too. I really hope someone picks up this idea! :)

[Boombro]

That seems fun, but is there an animated cart in the game?

[Irishwolven1]

That seems fun, but is there an animated cart in the game?

I'm not 100% certain, but i'm pretty sure I've bumped into smaller carts before that have at least moved so are dynamic, I'm just not certain if the wheels rotate or not.

 

In the creation kit I found that a number of cart parts could be added separately as clutter in-game, including the wheels. Perhaps it's possible to take apart the carriage animations for the wheels and axle and implement them to the small cart?

 

Edit:

 

just quickly checked. There's a cart like the one in the image above without the canopy just outside of Whiterun. The wheels do move on it. So it's just the small matter ofbeing able to hook the goat onto it and include to storage.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Irishwolven1

[LvxMagick]

I was thinking Of having a go at this I had this same idea today.

[jaffa5]

Just discovered this thread. I've had this same exact idea for a while now too. it's a shame no one has made this mod a reality yet.

[HigheverRains]

The difficulty is in getting the scripts to properly attach. I've been successful in using the TethertoHorse script using an altered skeleton for the goat (added the horse bone that the wagons script uses to attach to), and the default in game wagon. Attempts to add the correct nodes to the cart from the wagons has made it crash. A basic follow package on the goat to test if it was working can prove the goat with altered skeleton can pull the wagon, but with unexpected results. The settings for the distance from the actor pulling the object, and all similar settings, are defined globally for all wagons in the ini file. Changing this will bork up every instance of wagon and horse, even though we're looking at a cart and a goat. So the best I can do is the wagon off-center, at a weird location, being pulled by a goat, and jerking about looking really bad and not really doing what I wanted it to.

Any other methods of trying to "tether" the cart to the goat aren't working either, and the cart gets left behind, or the cart explodes and the havok does it random business as the goat tries to follow. In one case this killed the goat lol. I've tried with ball and socket constraints (requires ragdolling so doesn't work), and also looked into attachtonode or translatetonode, but these only work once, and would need to use onupdate eternally which is bad news for scripting generally and could ruin a game. The reason this hasn't been done yet is because the actual scripts to do it aren't easy to find/work with. Again, the only one I could get remotely working was TethertoHorse, which has game-breaking potential for every other wagon in the game if I mess with the ini.

Open to suggestions, as I'm definitely stuck.