Idea: Legendary Item Overhaul

[Ansler]

So the following is a preliminary outline of a mod I intend to do myself once the Creation Kit is out. I'm posting it here in case I get distracted by something and forget about it. So I can either look up my own ideas or someone else can make the mod in my place if they so choose.

 

I'll start off by saying that I like the legendary enemies and items in the game, the challenge for potentially awesome items is cool. What I don't like is the randomness of it all so I plan to change the system.

 

- Make it so instead of dropping a random Legendary item, Legendary Enemies drop a new and unique Legendary Crafting Material. Something like a "Exotic Radioactive Isotope". I can easily reuse the object model of Nuclear Material and recolor it a bit.

 

- Add crafting recipes for Legendary Weapon Mods and Legendary Armor Mods.

 

- Add a new mod slot to weapons and armor to incorporate Legendary Mods. Make it so existing Legendary Weapons and Armor are compatible with the new system.

 

Behind the scenes, Legendary enhancements on weapons and armor are considered item mods, the main objective of this will be to bring that to the surface and allow the player to further customize their gameplay experience while maintaining the relevance of Legendary enemies. Because I would be removing the element of chance from these items, perhaps the recipes would call for multiple Legendary crafting materials with Legendary enemies only ever dropping one each. Perhaps create a scale to determine how "powerful" each Legendary enhancement is and assign different requirements for each. While the quantity of the Legendary crafting crafting component may change, I feel there should only be a single type of Legendary crafting component.

 

Some other ideas to possibly incorporate into the mod after I've finished the above:

 

- Add a new category for cosmetic only power armor paint so players can choose the material stats they want without it affecting the armor's appearance.

- Ensure this system is mod author friendly for new unique paints to made and added via plugins.

- Add a paint category for normal armor pieces like Combat Armor for unique cosmetic only paint jobs.

Also I can see the potential for this mod to conflict with mods that add ballistic weave to more apparel or that change the allowed additional armor pieces. I may have to make a couple of versions that include similar functions.

 

Anyways that's all I can think of for now. If anyone else has any other ideas, feel free to post them below.

[ToxicWhiteout]

Neat stuff, I think this is a great idea. I'll follow this thread in the hopes that some work is done on it eventually, as I'd love to see something like this come to fruition.

[Ansler]

Well like I said, this mod will require the GECK or Creation Kit or whatever they want to call the official tools, so until those come out I won't be able to move forward with anything other than pre-planning. On the bright side, this will be a data driven mod where I can reuse vanilla game assets so I won't have to mess around with nifskope or Blender / 3DS Max. Maybe a tiny bit of texture modifying at the most in GIMP. If you have any other ideas you'd like to toss in for consideration, feel free to do so.

[Ansler]

I thought of another idea I could work on and incorporate into the mod after reworking the Legendary system. Separation of Power Armor paint from materials.

 

- Add a new category for cosmetic only power armor paint so players can choose the material stats they want without it affecting the armor's appearance.

 

- Ensure this system is mod author friendly for new unique paints to made and added via plugins.

[gamesaremywaifu]

I think this could be cool and, while I can't make it (or at least not right now), I just want you to know that legendary enhancements aren't actually considered mods behind the scene. They're considered magic effects and are in a completely different category than the actual armor/weapon mods are, as far as the files are concerned.

 

But still! +1, would be cool.

[Ansler]

Well either way, it shouldn't be too hard to tie those into mods, or figure a way to craft them onto an item. Just need the official tools to get a better look. The reason I thought they might be mods though is because the console command to add them to an item is "attachmod". Never Ending for example is "attachmod 1cc2ac"

 

Yeah, going through F04Edit, 001cc2ac and all the other legendary effects are listed under the Modification header.

[gamesaremywaifu]

That's odd.. I may have lost my mind last night. Could have sworn they were in a different category, but I may not have been actually paying attention, might have just scrolled past it while working on my mods.

 

But yea I still can't make it right now :pinch: sorry

[Ansler]

This post is more of a reminder to myself for me to make it anyways. I figured I'd post it here in case I forgot by the time the official tools came out.

 

Suggestions are always welcome, please post them below.