Establishing Cities

[GuNSl1nG3R7065]

All of this mod was discussed in a previous post of mine, but probably was ignored because it was so lengthy and posted under Oblivion despite being primarily Skyrim focused. As such, I'm dividing and reposting the mods in the Skyrim section. I also don't know if they belong here or the request mod section, but since I'm willing to work on the mod myself I suppose its a mod in work at snail paced production.

 

This mod is especially lengthy due to all the details and being worthy of two separate large scale mods. The concept of this mod is essentially the same as that of FO3's and FONV's Real Time Settler mods. Another way to view it, this mod lets you build your own cities in which randomly generate NPCs which take on jobs within the cities. A fair comparison would be the Millienaire mod for Minecraft where entire villages are randomly generated, evolve, and its residents perform jobs; except now the city is completely player built. Perhaps this should be called the Minecraft mod of Skyrim.

 

The counterpart idea for this mod is found here, as this mod may use materials from it.

 

Craft & Establish (Establish):

Establish Overall Summary: This mod pretty much is purely inspired by the Real Time Settler mod for FO3. The goal is to take RTS and revolve it around a craft system with random generation, while improving or adding in several features that RTS did poorly (usually buggy rather than poorly) or did not include at all. The first and foremost important aspect: the player can create any building they desire. The player can blueprint interiors of houses (statics included or not, but no clutter/loot or NPCs) as well as their exteriors. The player can then place this building like you could in RTS, but give that building an interior the same as the blueprinted one.

 

Terrain will be able to be edited using static chunks of "land" to fill in holes and gaps to make a smooth surface (I assume land is difficult to edit, especially so in-game). Furthermore, the buildings won't be made instantly (NPCs will build it over time - not 100% accuracy on what the final structure will be) and it will consume resources as well as may require the player to do the work himself. Materials will be estimated based on the interior and exterior sizes plus statics in the interior. NPCs then can be granted permission to live within the house or business (as designated by the player). Using a small player filled "survey" the local traffic, regional traffic, daytime vs night time traffic, the patrons, and the NPC dialogue are determined (ie: questions ask to rate the building on how close to town it is, what kind of building/business is it, and so forth).

 

The player can also obtain schematics which build homes or businesses with random generated but pre-mapped interiors so the player doesn't have to fill the building. Alternatively, the player may make their own zones within their own chosen interior and exterior. The player marks off specific "zones" that are marked as work spaces, living spaces, bedrooms, food, and sales. Furniture and clutter will fill up the spots as they see fit and will face the nearest "designated" path zone. These custom built buildings can then be sold to NPCs who will inhabit the building and fill it with clutter on their own, rather than the player paying for it. The random generated NPCs who visit these businesses or homes can be moved into nearby buildings if available, resulting in a functional town (although dull, since NPC dialogue would be limited as well as quests).

 

 

This mod probably will be prone to many bugs as well as difficulties and a few impossibilities (landscaping in-game probably isn't a possibility). Even if the final product is buggy, as long as its functional people will probably use it. Minecraft is a prime example that there's a ton of nerdy or artistic people out there who'll sit around and build cities/buildings as full time jobs. While I probably don't stand a chance at modding this myself, I already have vague ideas of how the random generation can be done as well as what other video games may be able to be looked at for examples in random generation. Worst case scenario is the mod becomes a stand alone Skyrim game in the creative engine with a "Sim City" style of landscaping and placing objects. Additionally, if the random generation is successful other modders could then use it to fill entire cities with lore fitting interiors without much work. I have plenty of ideas regarding the technical of the random generation or sources to research about how its generation was dealt with, so anyone interested in the concept can contact me if they desire more information.

Edited October 7, 2011 by GuNSl1nG3R7065

[Stormcrown]

My mod, Forces of Takarn, does have features involving a camp turning into a city, and be able to create cities...etc.

 

If anyone is interested in joining the Takarn Development Team, please PM me and I'll direct you to our forums.

[PaladinRider]

I had the same idea a while ago, but I think I will take it a different direction. Rather then putting the focus on allowing players to blueprint buildings and place buildings a la real time settler, I will have a pre-built city that the player will build. The reason being is that real time settler style will take much more time and debugging and it will never be perfect or flawless, whereas if you have a more structured city, you will be able to add much more immersion. You can then focus on more quest-related and city related aspects.

 

It will start off as a very small village - one shop, an inn and a tavern. Eventually the player will be able to build a city that will likely be bigger then the vanilla ones. I can make it a more realistic and technical city where the player acts as the karl (?) of the village. You must balance taxes, resources, establish trade, and keep your villagers happy.

 

Even though the city will be pre-laid out and the player will build each of the civil buildings, and people will move in and build houses/farms/businesses in real-time. The player must keep everybody happy by building schools, churches, create jobs, keep the peace, defend the town, etc. Before being able to further expand the city many things must be taken care of. It will be very possible to bankrupt the city as each civil worker (guards, teachers, garbage collectors, road builders, etc) will need to be paid, and many things cost maintenance. You must balance the taxes for the farms, the residences, and the businesses to maintain a profit otherwise the city won't grow.

[GuNSl1nG3R7065]

I have thought of pre-constructed cities like you're speaking of. My "lore" based mods consisting of world spaces all have parts of everything you just mentioned. I didn't upload them since they're more personal and also to a degree depend on the more generic mods, as this mod would allow randomly generated interiors and therefore, a completely different city every time the player plays the game. Most pre-constructed cities are fun at first, but get boring fast. I think about the only game so far I've seen with an addictive pre-constructed city format is Fable 3 (playing it now) but even it runs out of things to do despite being a 3rd person "The Sims" with the ability to kill people. It certainly is possible to make pre-constructed cities fun by throwing in huge economic systems (like RTS games have like Dawn of Discovery), but might as well be a game by itself for the quality that it would be (same with my lore based mods).

 

Also players like to build things themselves, as Minecraft has shown. I do have a far more elegant form of this mod, but I highly doubt it'll work well in Skyrim (players need grid lines and so forth for complex construction).

 

Your idea certainly will be fun and popular as well, but if it lacks in replayability people will kinda forget its there. My problem with almost any house mod or city mod is that even if its high quality I still won't go there after my first visit. Unless the city/environment is highly interactive (kinda like Fable 3 where you can buy every building in the game) or offers multiple routes of playing, I just can't find it that enjoyable for second playthroughs. Having an economy is quite fun and interactive, but if it plays through the same way each time people eventually get bored of it (again, like Fable or RTS games). That is the primary goal of this is to introduce both random generation as well as player innovation. The player innovation is limited especially by the terrain and so forth, but the random generation should be able to be carried on to other mods such as the one you describe. If a home's interior is randomized every day (the NPCs are tired of the same meal every day, not to mention the food on their tables are years old by now) whenever you enter, plus every time a new structure is built its furniture is randomized, the player will find every home unique as well as fun to revisit (Fable 3's homes are all the same, therefore boring to explore).

 

Rather than start with a large mod as yours, I'd rather start on something like this then elaborate in the areas it severely lacks in as well as apply its beneficials to the next mod.

[El`derina]

PaladinRider has a good idea actually... and it'll be more replayable due to having less bugs and other issues, in comparison.

 

What "I" would do is make an ESM master file, providing starter scripts and the basic layout of the first village, house, or whatever and a basic layout of what you build it into...

 

Now, from there, leave it open to the public to add into the city you build, so they can post their addition online.

So that way your always getting something new, and new additions would have to tie into the main esm and get built or done or activated in a way that progresses smoothly with the towns construction- or not be added as an addon on the main page.

 

This allows for continuity, it cuts down on work load, and it creates a nice pet project that you can keep adding to yourself, or just let others do it for you. :)

[terzho]

I would have to agree more with paladin riders idea. As fun as RTS was for fallout new vegas it was buggy as hell and crashed my game whenever I went near my town that I had worked so hard on and in the end had to remove it. Plus I also loved run the lucky 38 :)

[Stormcrown]

Gun, In my mod, The starting camp turns into a city after the player advances so far in the questline.

 

If you're interested I'd love to have this system be in place for the City of Takarn/Forces of Takarn Mod. Obviously after you've established your mod. :P Not for your first project on it. Simply creating bonds for the future! /overly emotional

[GuNSl1nG3R7065]

I haven't gotten around to playing with RTS for NV too much, but didn't have too many problems with it in FO3. I assumed that the bugs lied in the LOD of objects, as just spawning a few objects in NV did cause my game to lag despite being near lag-free in FO3.

 

I do have worries about the external construction of a player made city, primarily because of the rugged terrain and lack of level spots. However, what I do have more complete as an idea is interior creation. Instead of manually placing objects inside an interior (clutter and statics both), I essentially had an idea to make an interface (whether for modders or players) similar to that of NavMesh. Instead of being a walk path though, the area becomes a spawning location for statics and clutter of the modder's/player's choice. For example the player could draw a 4x4ft square in the middle of a room and specify it as a dining spot. The game then hunts for all pre-constructed layouts and picks on of those that fits the 4x4 area. Alternatively, if someone draws are large area of 10x20, the game would place a few objects along player defined "walls" (real or fictional) and then fill in the center wherever it can while still granting clearance for walking (if you've played the Sims, you should recall the objects that required extra area in front of it for the character to use the object). Thus, just by drawing squares on the floor the player can have an entire building furnished.

 

Additionally would be the possibility for the game to randomize the clutter. You might walk into an old lady's dining room and find her table covered in atrocious rat meat on a dirty white table cloth. You return the next day to murder her, but stop when you find that she's replaced the table cloth with a luxurious red one and is now serving cheese. Of course, this random generation could be controlled by giving each home/room its own designated values for wealth and cleanliness. Thus the random generation will only spawn food and dishes appropriate for that person unless their status changes. This could also be used to determine the personality of the residents and even be used to make a working business, as a business zone could be designated and the NPC goes there to do the respective randomly generated work.

 

As for exteriors, I hadn't given it too much thought as I was more concerned about finding ways of leveling the ground before concerning myself with lag or NPC interactions with other buildings. Regardless, each home could be given an initial range that the occupants may explore within. As the player builds more buildings nearby, the NPCs could be tempted to travel further and even visit each other. Since NPCs are free to do what they want with their leisure time (as in FO), they might travel to each others' homes or businesses and partake in daily life. Some new AI scripts would have to be made to get the NPCs to visit each other, but its definitely doable. The lag experienced with RTS I presume was due to some bad design choices with the mod, such as faulty NavMeshing or LOD variables. I'm unsure as to what problems RTS encountered - but considering Bess the Brahman caused my game to crash by requesting her to fast travel with me (for NV's version) I presume it was faulty design/coding.

[El`derina]

Gun....

think about what your saying,...

 

the game fills in the room itself?....

no,... this ISNT the sims... the game wasn't DESIGNED for that.

Have fun re-writting the game code!

 

no really.... after reading your posts between your two topics, I am really interested in hearing from you exactly how you intended any of this to work. I mean, it all sounds GREAT and if you have the means and experience to pull these things off, then please do tell!

[paeron24]

So I know nobody has posted on this particular topic in quite some time but I thought I'd add in here since the quick read over seems relevant. I've been looking at the CK and some of the things you can do with quest creation and scripting, and I think that to an extent what Guns is talking about is actually possible with enough work and debugging. Here's how I think it could be done:

 

ESP contains book and potentially other items placed in the Keep at Helgen (central chamber with Gunjar's body, or possibly torturers cell as those would be most likely lore wise to have evidence chests or such). Book would trigger activation of settlement quest, other items in box could be initial stock of construction supplies to get PC started once out of Helgen. Since the game never explains the circumstances of what you were doing upon your capture, it's roleplay friendly in that you could have simply been on your way to establish the settlement all along, from where the PC hails from at creation (the materials for that could just as easily be used for establishing a basic military camp- hence confusion and association with the Stormcloaks). I would use a book because you could then use the quest trigger as your tutorial/ user guide for how to use the mechanics of the mod. You could do this quasi-RP friendly as well by couching it as words of advice from a friend/relative/aid whatever ("quasi" because there isn't an easy way to explain which hotkeys do what in the mod without breaking the 4th wall *shrug*).

 

Upon exiting Helgen, PC now has supplies and an established questline for the opening portion of the Settlement. Finding a site can happen whenever-wherever but once found this is how I propose it happens:

 

An item from the Helgen chest will be marked as quest essential (0 weight of course) and will be used to summon an NPC. In all honesty, this could actually be a summon dremora (or anything really) spell effect or lesser power given when the player first reads the book that simply has the spell cost reduced to 0 or no daily cooldown. That keeps inventory clutter to a minimum, but it's modders choice. So this NPC will be a named, packaged, quest essential non-follower with dialog (voiced or not, either works). I envision a title of Steward since it's lore friendly and actually fits the concept rather well, but modders choice. This dialog would (RP friendly) provide access to construction options, mod settings, NPC recruitment and anything else the mod required. Dialog can be attached to menus and formlists, which in turn feed scripts and activators so that when PC tells Steward "This looks like a good spot, lets set up camp here" it spawns a modder defined static/activator of a town square (i'm partial to the fountain/ mezzanine in Whiterun) at the players cursor. Auto-assigned hotkeys (creatable with scripts that detect when conditions say actionable object is under cursor or has been selected with any number of different actions) allow PC to move across X,Y,Z axis and rotate to desired position, then place object into the gameworld. Since RTS has already done this in FO3/FNV/Skyrim it's merely a matter of finding a cleaner way of doing it. This static would be a generic mesh (anything will do, be it an Anvil, a pile of rubble, or a shed of some sort) that the player can interact with a hammer or such and create progression via the "destructible" mechanic only operating in reverse- when the PC hits the object enough times to cause it to be "destroyed" it triggers a menu item (and pauses the game) that alerts the PC that the item has been built (By design this will allow the system to update the "destructible" mesh with the mesh for whatever building was selected by the PC, triggered in actuality by the PC clicking "OK" in the message box). As I see it, this building should (at least in the beginning phases of mod development) be a standard texture from the main game, there are plenty to choose from anyways so why make it difficult by trying to repackage the various building block meshes into something new. The exterior of the building is now complete and placed in the game world, since it used an existing base object from the game it's also navmeshed, collidable, and can be assigned to display on local and world map views. Now, for the interior space- Once PC selects "OK" and the exterior mesh is placed into the game world, script enables the spawn of a door that is specific to that exterior mesh type (not frankly an expert at Papyrus but if/then statements are pretty much standard in any scripting). Door is tagged as being an activator and portal to an interior cell space created for that building. Again, every building in skyrim that has an exterior mesh has an already created Interior cell space as well, everything in the game world is still happy. Modder can add or remove clutter, change the interior space however he wants, and from what I can see there are actually ways to make formlists and randomly generated inventories (i'm thinking leveled lists, similar to what the merchants use. Tie that to spawn triggers that tell the game to spawn x item at y marker when z formlist says it exists and you have something akin to randomized clutter in buildings.) For instance, the loot in containers can be leveled/randomized based on any number of different "get" conditional functions, which can be assigned to evaluate the player level, class, race or other values, the in game time or date, or any number of criteria (to include whether there is a dead body within a certain radius, which could also be a small percentile random chance Rat spawn in the interior cell for instance).

 

I could go on but my point is that I've dug deep into the capabilities of what CK can do, and I think the right group of Modders could turn out a DLC-esgue settlement mod that would not only be RP and lore friendly, but actually worth playing and with enough time and attention to detail it could even be fully incorporated into the main game processes. I saw nothing in CK that would prevent execution of mods that allow a PC spawned village/PC spawned NPC's from being packaged and scripted such that a trade run between village and Hold generates extra merchant gold in both locations, creates the possibility of escort quests for each, spawns the creation of a "Merchants Guild" allowing the PC to perform trade and exploration quests and attain guildmaster rank, PC facilitated rebirth of the Blades faction complete with advancement quests, recruitment of members, Radiant "Dragon Hunting" missions, random encounters involving Blades Faction seeking, fighting dragons... All of this is feasible in the CK and if properly scoped and planned, with phased implementation and maximum use of in game material it could be done relatively clean and easy.

 

That's my take, feel free to tear it apart and find the holes.