Spell Making 0 Duration

[D2k204]

Hey all. I have searched High and low and I cannot find it. When making spells I would like to have the option to make spells have a duration of 0 so I may make spells that do instaneous damage, much like the ones from the stock game. Is this possible to do, or if it has already been done then just point me into the right direction please.

 

Thanks.

[Vagrant0]

This means that any spell set to a duration of 0 would have no effect other than to look pretty.

Not necessarily, abilities and constant enchantments have a 0 duration. And you really can't make any 0 duration spells, even in the CS if you don't set a duration it sets it to 1 second.

 

1 second on something else isn't a "wait till 1 second has passed to cause effect" it is "entire effect happens in 1 second". This is as instant as instant can get since the game needs that 1 second to process health and damage information on that target. It's probably also needed to calculate costs. I really don't see what the need is for anything faster than that, your rate of casting doesn't increase, so by the time you're able to cast another 2-3 seconds have passed. As far as game mechanics go, you can often get more damage out of a single spell for the same magicka by making it 2-3 seconds duration for slightly less damage per second. (IE a 28 damage spell over 3 seconds is cheaper than a 75 damage over 1 second.)

[D2k204]

Are you sure?

 

In game you are given a spell thats called flare that deals 6-7 points of damage instantly on a target when you start the game. Thereon after if you try to make a spell you cannot make a spell that does that, you may only make a spell with a minimum of a 1 second duration. As Vagrant0 stated the spell will deal, lets say around 50 damage over 1 second.

 

This spell casting conflicts with my style of gameplay. When I want to kill someone with my magic attack or my enchanted bow while being stealthy, my target can possibly run around for an entire second; alerting other NPCS before they die.

 

I realise that balancing duration and magnitude can give you more value; but I need spells that deal all its damage instaneously to prevent being spotted while stealth assassinating targets.

 

Thanks for the replies and I hope to see more.

[Abramul]

Wait a second. Your target bursting into flame doesn't spoil the stealthiness?

 

Are you sure 1-second spells don't do all their damage instantly, anyway? I kind of thought they did...

[D2k204]

moderator edit

Look, I have had this game a few weeks from its release. I have modded many games including: UT2004, Red Faction, Farcry, BF2142, BF2, Neverwinter Nights, GRAW, Morrowind, FEAR, this list goes on. So I am no stranger to the mechanics of videogames and how they work.

 

I know how this game works, I have done some work with its scripting system within the toolkit, but I can not find out how to modify the UI to allow myself to be able to create damaging spells. The spells I wish to create do not need to be fire necessarily. It could be simple damage health spells. IF you are a veteran to modding this game, then you obviously know that when you attack a NPC they will scream bloody murder, even if they don't, other NPC's in the immideate area will be alerted that you attacked and killed a NPC. Which always explains the mysterous bounty on you when you kill someone who is in a house all by themselves, or kill someone in a alley with no one else in the immideate area to see the crime.

 

While 1 second spells allow this alarm to go off, other NPCS in the area WILL inevetably be alerted of your crime, or attack. Instaneous spells on the other hand do not allow this second to pass and therefore not allow the 'fake alarm' to be processed resulting in a stealth kill.

[Abramul]

It's worth noting that Drain Health can instantly kill stuff. Or leave it unharmed and angry.

[Vagrant0]

moderator edit

Look, I have had this game a few weeks from its release. I have modded many games including: UT2004, Red Faction, Farcry, BF2142, BF2, Neverwinter Nights, GRAW, Morrowind, FEAR, this list goes on. So I am no stranger to the mechanics of videogames and how they work.

This is a moot point. Oblivion is Oblivion, and all those other games are their own seperate entity with their own game mechanics. Even Morrowind. Even with a 0 second duration, spells simply don't work like that as far as stealth kills go. As far as enchantments go, the game only applies effects AFTER the initial hit has been made and calculated. This is part of how the engine works, and cannot be adjusted. Even if you had an arrow scripted with an onscripteffectstart (which would technically work at the beginning of the effect (IE more instant than 1 duration)) kill you would still have have that moment between the arrow hitting and the effect taking place. I would imagine the same situation exists with any target based spells. The spell has to hit before any effects can be applied. The only reasonably acceptable way to get around this would be to only use scripted effects which are checked as non-hostile, but that can be rather exploitive.

 

As for the bounty issue, this is a known problem, and can happen even if you have 100 stealth, 100 chamelion, and aren't using magic effects to kill. This is how the AI is setup to figure out bounties. It was probably done this way to discourage the sort of unrestrained killing that some people did in morrowind (the old taunt, kill, loot, sell) so that people don't ruin their games when they realize that they can't sell or complete quests. Killing NPCs in towns is bad, don't do it. There are a few mods out there that tone this down a bit, but most of them have added complications due to bad scripting.