LE Enlarging the Skyrim Land Area, Technical Talk

[IronDusk33]

This is an idea I've been playing around with for a while; would it be feasible to enlarge the Skyrim world? As in literally make more cells in the Tamriel world space, so it takes longer to walk from one side other, has more possibilities of world encounters, increases distances between settlements so survival mods are actually needed, etc.

 

Obviously this would cause a whole host of compatibility issues, even if the basic idea was implemented. So what I'm wondering is if there is a way to actually relocate the actual cells in the Tamriel world space, so they are in a different part, and different coordinates. I don't think this is possible in the Creation Kit, but I've looked around in TES5edit, and I've found "XCLC Grid" X and Y values that can be edited. This MIGHT allow these cells to actually be moved to different locations. However, each of the internal objects placed in the cell may need to be relocated as well, but if they don't this could allow most world space mods to be compatible, as objects they place in the cells would be moved along with the cell.

 

If the above method isn't possible, there is the other option of making an entirely new world space. If they can't be copied over, the landscape and the navmeshs could be copied over data point by data point through TES5edit, possibly through some script. It might be possible to physically move the actual references of all the objects from the old worldspace to the new one, it may be possible since Open Cities moved the actors from the old city worldspace to the Tamriel worldspace. If that is possible than mods that alter references would be compatible through patches. If it isn't possible, making duplicates of each reference in the old worldspace would be the last option. This would cause a lot of issues with the unique actors, so whatever technique used by Open Cities should be used to move actors over, however only the actors that were placed in the old Tamriel worldspace. Actors placed in the city worldspaces wouldn't need to be changed at all.

 

So, what do you all think? Any other or more practical methods? Anyone wanting to give this a shot?

 

Edit: On a whim I tried swapping the coordinates of the ThalmorEmbassyExterior02 and ThalmorEmbassyExterior01 cells the TES5edit. Aaaaannnd, the CK crashed on loading. The cause, according to the editor warnings was "MASTERFILE: Reference attached to wrong cell for its location:", as I didn't change the coordinates of any of the references. I could go through and add or subtract the coordinates of the 300 or so references, but that is a bit extreme for a minor experiment.

Edited April 24, 2016 by IronDusk33

[Fhaarkas]

There has been some extensive discussion and preliminary effort on this topic some years ago but it kinda withered off since then (I'm on mobile atm so no link but try goggling "Larger Skyrim" and limit the result to 2013 and before).

 

From what I can remember, without an automated process it would take a gargantuan effort as you'd have to replicate everything, recreate the world (objects, buildings etc) by hand and break a majority of mods in the process. This is more related to the last method that you mentioned though. I don't know if it's possible to do using the first method. I think the engine itself has a hard limit on how many cells a worldspace can has as well but I'm not positive (this is a different engine than Oblivion's, though being a successor to Gamebryo you'd have thought it would at least retain this kind of features).

 

All in all the consensus every time this topic is brought up is that it would that too much effort for what would amount to little more than proof of concept. That said, from a user standpoint there's nothing I wanna see more than a bigger Skyrim. I'd love to see this project being given a second serious look. I'll be a grunt if you want.

 

Edit:

 

Found the thread -

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1277482-potential-skyrim-enlargement-mod/page-1

 

Lightwave is one of the modders who probably knows about this kind of project more than anyone. His 3x Cyrodiil (glorious) -

http://www.oceanlightwave.com/morrowind/Tamrielx3/index.html

Edited April 26, 2016 by Fhaarkas

[IronDusk33]

In terms of automation, I think SkyProc might be able to handle moving references, but it would be a hell of a program to write. If the first method can be confirmed to work, a SkyProc patcher could move all the required cells around.

[DavidJCobb]

Things start to break once you go further than 63 cells out from the center of the world.

[Fhaarkas]

Things start to break once you go further than 63 cells out from the center of the world.

And looks like the vanilla world is already at 119x94 cells, so even stretching the world disproportionately we'd only have 9x34 (8x33?) cells to work with. I guess there's the option of breaking up the world and link the pieces with cleverly placed portals, like the good old days.

 

Alternatively just port it to UE4 and promptly get a C&D lol.