LE Dwemer Artificer - Craft your own Automaton Army!

[phayze81]

To preface, this isn't so much a "request" as it is a "I had this cool idea and thought I'd throw it out there in case someone with actual skills liked it and wanted to be a part of making it happen". Also, I totally understand that there are limitations to modding without the CK, so if someone /is/ interested in working on this, I realize that no actual work is likely to happen prior to its release.

 

Ahem . . .

 

So I was crawling around my first dwemer ruin today and thought "wow, there's a lot of junk laying around here." Then I got my keister handed to me one of those sphere things . . .

 

I started thinking that it would be pretty cool to combine the crafting skills into a sort of meta-skill centered on building dwemer automatons to do your bidding. This would be something interesting to do with soul gems aside from enchanting gear, a good reason to pickup dwarven metal bits even after you've leveled beyond the point that dwarven stuff is worth using, and would give you the ability to construct a small army of loyal death machines which, lets face it, everyone needs.

 

An example:

Dwemer Spider - Req Dwarven Smithing Perk

3 Dwarven ingots, 1 filled common soul gem, 2 dwarven cogs, 1 dwarven gyro, 1 Dwarven oil

 

Some ideas for upgrades:

Boost armor/HP with more ingots

Boost damage output by adding dwarven weapons

Use an enchanting table to add special effects like elemental damage and resistance (or maybe just add enchanted weapons to the smithing ingredients)

Use alchemy to create higher grades of oil to feed it, increasing it's speed and/or repair rate

 

Naturally, tougher constructs would require more materials, bigger gems and a higher smithing skill.

 

I'm assuming that they could use the same "creature follower" AI that summons and dogs use.

 

For balance purposes, it could only be possible to have only one active at a time, unless you have certain perks, or certain skill levels. That would keep low level characters from building a dozen spiders and just letting them overrun a dungeon for them . . . on second thought maybe balance is overrated. :D

 

I'm not sure what I could do to help, since I know nothing of scripting and only worked out a few basics with Oblivion's CS, but I would love to be a part of making something like this happen. I could start by putting together some basic ingredient lists and skill requirements.

 

Who loves it? Who hates it? Who has more ideas? Who has the skills to make it happen?

 

EDIT: if this mod happens, building one would be the ultimate expression of how awesome my idea could become. :D

Edited November 27, 2011 by phayze81

[InuyashaFE]

I endorse this idea, I think it'd put a great spin on crafting!

[IxionInc]

*COUGHCOUGH NEEDS TO HAPPEN: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=712 COUGH* Edited November 27, 2011 by IxionInc

[phayze81]

@IxionInc: Cool! I've never played fallout, but that mod sounds really cool. Maybe I'll look into it when I want a break from Skyrim . . . next year. :P

 

Okay, I've been thinking about this mod A LOT since my first post a few hours ago, and I've got some cool ideas for making it work. I'm also pretty sure that I'm going to force myself to learn whatever I need to know in order to make this mod happen on my own, because I think it would just be really frggin' awesome and I want it bad enough to not feel like waiting for some kind soul to do it for me. ;)

 

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking:

 

Building a construct will require two things:

1) A set of plans, which will be added to the leveled lists for dwemer loot.

2) A magical item called "Vital Spark" (also in leveled lists, though probably also put somewhere specific with a minor quest to get it). The Vital Spark will have to be disenchanted in order to learn the "Vital Spark" enchantment effect. There may be multiple levels of Spark for making more powerful constructs

 

Once those things have been gathered the process would look like this:

Step 1: Use a forge to assemble a chassis from raw materials. This places a "Dwemer [insert type] Chassis" in your inventory

Step 2: Take that to an enchanting table and apply the Vital Spark enchantment to it. Different types of construct will have required soul gem sizes. This places an item in the inventory called "Inactive Dwemer [insert type]".

Step 3: "Use" the inactive construct from the inventory/favorites/hotkey to activate it (effectively "summoning" it, I guess)

Step 4: The construct effectively acts like a conjured thrall, following you around and killing stuff until it blows up

 

I don't think I'll be able to do anything but plan until the CK comes out, but I'm already coming up with ideas for how to make it work. I'm going to start by figuring out how to build a basic Spider Worker, then branch out from there.

 

`Some long term "wish list" thoughts I had, but will probably never be clever enough to figure out:

 

`Add more types of constructs - a mechanical mount and steampunk-style "Blaster Bits" that float around you and shoot lighting are two things I'd love to see happen.

 

`The ability to "feed" scrap metal and oil to constructs for repair and stat buffs

 

`An inventory system for constructs so you can use them as pack mules

 

`A way to make Spider Workers mine ore for you

 

`If it becomes possible to add perks and/or perk trees with the CK, then I'd like to have some Artificer-specific ones that would make constructs stronger, give them special abilities. Alternately, a Standing Stone would probably work to add some special bonuses.

[Matth85]

The problem with this is, lorewise:

The Dwemers are gone, and so is their knowledge. There is a reason the only way to make their armor is to smelt their metal.

 

Of course, I can think of 2 ways around that:

 

1) You find a book, after a long quest chain. Where it is explained.

2) You capture a live dwemer machine, and someone, somewhere, will start to figure out how it works. Some sort of magic/science thing going on.

 

But I see this as a very doable mod. SOmebody with 100 enchanting and 100 smithing could then do a few quests, find a certain recipe, and make some awesome machines.

 

Perhaps make it so that you'd need to use a dwemer forge? In a custom dwemer ruin. Not too hard to make either.

[kitsuneshoujo]

*COUGHCOUGH NEEDS TO HAPPEN: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=712 COUGH*

 

 

DAMMIT! Now I want to go play fallout again... >.<

[NotCras]

You know how the spiders pop out of the pipes in a sort of undeployed form first? I think maybe when you craft it, it goes into undeployed form and when needed, you throw it out/deploy it, then it works almost like conjuration. Plus the carrying them in undeployed mode (lots of weight) would balance them out so it would be an awesome game mechanic that still adds challenge.

[greeze]

I honestly thought this was the reason for all the scrap metal and cogs and gears laying around in the first place. I collected so much of that crap in the hopes that the game would eventually allow me to build my own machines. My heart was broken when I discovered it was not to be.

 

This really needs to happen.

[IxionInc]

By the way, phayze81, I've kinda stolen your idea and expanded on it: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/477174-build-your-own-empire/page__view__findpost__p__3912074

 

Please don't be mad at me :C

[Telogenesis]

Sounds like a good mod idea. I too grabbed a crap ton of the junk because I thought maybe I would be able to make my own little mechano-spider.