LE [Idea] Winter's Chill

[Trigonous]

Skyrim is cold. Very, very cold. Sure, you've probably spent quite some time there, and you're definitely acclimated to the cold, but does that really prevent frostbite?

 

Being a native of a rather chilly place this time of year, I propose a mod that I'll be using to get myself into more advanced scripting that uses the weather effects and other variables to apply negative effects to the player. Certain events will add to a cold variable for the player, and others will detract from it. Stat and skill penalties will follow. My brainstorm so far:

 

Add to cold level:

• 
   
  
• Wind speed
  
• Current Weather
  
• Swimming
  
• Staying still
  
• Overexerting yourself (sweating is about the same as swimming)
  

Detract from cold level:

• 
   
  
• Nearing a heat source
  
• Being active (but not too active)
  
• Entering a building
  
• A warming potion? (new item)
  

Negative effects:

• 
   
  
• Reduced speed
  
• Reduced health, stamina, and magicka
  
• Reduced strength
  
• In severe cases, damage over time
  

 

Other ideas so far:

• Resist Cold mitigates your cold level
  
• Portable campsites of improving levels
  
• Eating warm foods reduces cold level (new food items as well, Hot Cocoa!)
  

Any ideas/comments are welcome. I haven't made anything like this before (see my two entries on the FO3Nexus) but I'd like to get into it.

Edited November 19, 2011 by Trigonous

[iansaltman]

Portable campfires? Even portable campsites. Each upgraded campsite is nicer and warmer than the last, but also more expensive and heavier. I.E. A tent with a fire made out of bear pelts would weigh ~50 with a cost of (say 1/4 of a decent house?) 2,000g. It could have a chest for goods, a cooking pot, alch. table might be too heavy to make sense, so possibly a smaller version of an alch. table just for the tent... and while I'm on alchemy, you could have potions that would warm you like resist cold or brand new ones, as well as food items like hot cocoa :wub: I think I rambled a bit too much didn't I? Oh well. Great idea :)

[Trigonous]

I did not even think of Resist Cold coming into effect here, that's definitely a good idea. Portable campsites are excellent as well, and you'd finally have a use for the all the firewood you can chop that does (almost) nothing. Maybe you have to keep the campfire fed for the length of time you'll be staying there...perfect for integration with the eventual food/sleep survival mods.

[JDGameArt]

Just sort of a side thought, but Skyrim started playing with the idea of dynamic camera movement when set events happen. (ie. swing axe, get knocked around) What about adding the effect of a ice cold wind gust hitting the player making it tougher to look in a direction or face a direction.

[ub3rman123]

Any idea how different races could react to it? It'd be mildly unfair to the Argonians, but it'd add some extra challenge.

[Fhaarkas]

I voted for brilliant :D.

 

Some quick, wishful thinking -

 

• Have seasons play some role. The game already has a calendar in place so it would be cool if all those dates and seasons actually mean something. Just putting some fake modifiers for each of the 12 months would suffice me think.
• As the player progresses through the game, the penalty would become smaller by percentage e.g. a level 50 character would be x% more resilient to the cold. In reality you would be better accustomed to a climate the longer you stay in it. It fits the game too since the player was not originally living in Skyrim (he/she was caught crossing the border remember). You can say that he/she went out of Skyrim for some errand and get caught when he/she was travelling back but that's a minor plot hole I think.
• To expand on the above point, different races will have different initial penalties -- a Khajiit who hails from a country with deserts will obviously has more problems getting used to the cold climate compared to a Nord. In the end this discrepancy in penalties should be minor between races since no matter where you come from, once you've stayed long enough in a country you will assimilate with the climate just as good as the natives. So the formula will look like something along the line of this -

 

 

P

_clvl

= Penalty modifier for current character level

P

_base

= Base penalty (race constant)

P

_endgame

= Penalty at end-game character level (race constant)

clvl

_endgame

= Character level for point "end-game" (global constant)

clvl = Current character level

P

_clvl

= P

_base

- (clvl * [(P

_base

- P

_endgame

)/clvl

_endgame

])

For examples:-

clvl

_endgame

= 50

For Nords let's say P

_base

= 10 and P

_endgame

= 1 and clvl = 20

P

₂₀

= 10 - (20 * [(10 - 1)/50]) = 6.4

For a level 40 player it would be :-

P

₄₀

= 10 - (40 * [(10 - 1)/50]) = 2.8

For Khajiit say P

_base

= 15 and P

_endgame

= 1.5

P

₂₀

= 15 - (20 * [(15 - 1.5)/50]) = 9.4

And for level 40 :-

P

₄₀

= 15 - (40 * [(15 - 1.5)/50]) = 4.2

You can see that as the character goes higher in level, the discrepancy of penalty modifier from race to race becomes smaller.

For seasonal effects, just further multiply the value of P

_clvl

with a month modifier and you'll get the final penalty modifier :D e.g. summer months might have smaller modifiers while winter months will have bigger modifiers etc

 

 

• A warming potion? (new item)

 

All hail the Nord meads!

[Vagrant0]

Based on what I know about scripting and state detection, offering some help in figuring out how to find these things.

 

• 
   
  
• Wind speed {direct from function GetWindspeed, if still present}
  
• Current Weather {direct from function}
  
• Swimming {direct from function}
  
• Staying still {not sure, animation detection maybe}
  
• Overexerting yourself (sweating is about the same as swimming) {based on stamina being below 25%, 10% for several ticks}
  

Detract from cold level:

• 
   
  
• Nearing a heat source {not sure, light calculations might be the only way to detect if a fire is near without active scanning}
  
• Being active (but not too active) {stamina being above 75%}
  
• Entering a building {Direct from function}
  
• A warming potion? (new item)
  

 

You'd probably want the script to adjust a value based on regular checks, applying both negative values and positive ones before adjusting the active effect that controls the decreases in ability.