LE Building a small worldspace

[PaladinRider]

I'm going to be building a new (tiny) worldspace for my WIP. My mod will be designed to allow the player to rescue a small settlement from a dragon, and the player can then choose to remain and help rebuild the settlement. It will be much like my New Vegas mod - Run the Lucky 38. This time, however, I'm planning on going more in depth with better quests, etc. I want to make it seem realistic while feasible.

 

Because I'm probably going to spend a lot of time on this and I'll be constantly expanding it, I've decided to go with another worldspace - that is if the CK has the tools to generate LOD and landmass. :ohdear:

 

This worldspace will be very small to begin with. I am going to start with the small ruined settlement, and there will eventually be a neighbouring hostile village that grows in comparison and will always be hindering the player's city. What is the best way to build this worldspace? I'm concerned about the edges, ie how to stop the player from walking off the edge of the map. I want to avoid invisible walls.

 

I can either build a small island a la Morrowind, or a small land nestled by impassible mountains - maybe two main entrances that will transport the player back to Skyrim if they walk through it.

 

I wanted to have quests where the player must establish trading routes between major cities (whether the player must actually visits these cities isn't decided). If I have it situated on an island, I can require the player to construct boats to transport the goods.

 

So which do you think is better? Surrounding the land in impassible mountains or an island?

[Draco856]

You could do like they did with the "Giant's Grove" area in the game. It's reached through a cave near the border. It's pretty much it's own world space, but still within the Skyrim world space (I think). You can fast travel to the grove, but can't fast travel from it, you'd have to walk back through the cave to get out. So maybe do something like that, there's a lot of land around the borders that could be used to hold a new location that can only be reached through a cave. It might not have to be a totally new world space that's completely off the map, but one like the Grove.

[PaladinRider]

That's a good idea.. I've never been there but I'll have to check it out. The problem I can see about that is that the player is building a city. I don't think many player are going to want to climb into a cave to get to the city. I could theoretically do the same thing but with a large gate of sorts, but the plan was that when the player takes control of the city, there's nothing more then a few abandoned houses and a broken down keep. If there's a big stone wall and gate it won't really make sense. The player will eventually build the wall, but it won't be there at the beginning.

 

Another idea is to build close to the edge of the map and should I need to expand I can remove invisible walls/impassible mountains.

[Zonzai]

This mod sounds fun. Yôu know, each of the cities in teh game have an entrance to them not unlike a cave entrance. I'm geussing that we will be able to add fast travel to the map. So if it were hard to get to the city the first time it would still be as easy as getting anywhere else if you can just fast travel to the city itself. I mean you must be able to do it since you can fast travel to the interior of other cities.

[PaladinRider]

Yeah, many of the cities have gates that transport the player to the city's worldspace. Fast travel shouldn't be too much of a problem, either. What I need is a way for the player to travel between the worldspace, without using a gate. My plan is that the player will have to build the gate for defenses when its required. The gate won't be there from the start.

[punxdog]

There's a good amount of world space, some with basic terrain and textures just outside the borders. Turn off your border regions and go check it out, particularly east. Another idea could be to add an island in the water, to the north presumably, a coastal village, that needs to rely on trade [read more quests to keep the trade open]. Good luck with your mod, will be fun