SSE Determining the size of a soul contained within a soul gem

[Magicockerel]

I'm needing to determine the size of a soul within a soul gem. I've run into a brick wall, as the only ways that I've found to accomplish this is through using SKSE functions, which we obviously don't have access to in SSE.

 

I'm struggling to even find how the game records the size of the soul that a soul gem contains. Looking in the CK, there's a form for each gem size and their filled equivalent. The filled equivalents can only be looted or purchased from vendors, where filling your own soul gem doesn't give you a filled equivalent. These filled equivalents don't have any variations, as they only contain a soul the same size as the gem. This means that the size of the soul contained within the unfilled soul gem isn't recorded using separate forms, which was my initial guess.

 

Somehow, capturing a soul yourself links the soul to an unfilled soul gem of sufficient size, but for the life of me I can't work out how it's done. I can't find any housekeeping quest script, etc. The closest I've gotten is the game-setting string "sSoulLevel", which receives the size of the soul from somewhere. It might just be determining the size of the soul from the level of the trapped creature, which is used to determine the size of the soul (eg creatures level 38 and above have grand souls, etc.). Hopefully, this isn't the case, as it's not like I can determine the level of the soul within the soul gem.

 

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Masterofnet]

You said you looked at the soul gems in the Kit. Did you see all of the different ones filled with different souls? Like grand filled with lessor. or lessor filled with petty etc.?

 

I think if you kill a lesser opponent and you only have a grand soul gem the function on the soul trap spell will remove the empty grand soul gem and replace it with a grand filled with lesser soul gem.

 

That is how you can tell what type of soul is in the gem. Unless the gem is the black star.

[Magicockerel]

You said you looked at the soul gems in the Kit. Did you see all of the different ones filled with different souls? Like grand filled with lessor. or lessor filled with petty etc.?

 

I think if you kill a lesser opponent and you only have a grand soul gem the function on the soul trap spell will remove the empty grand soul gem and replace it with a grand filled with lesser soul gem.

 

That is how you can tell what type of soul is in the gem. Unless the gem is the black star.

As I said in my OP, that's how I thought it worked before I got the chance to have a look in the CK. From what I can tell, there's not a separate form for each variant of each soul gem (that is, there doesn't appear to be a separate form for each size soul a soul gem could potentially contain). I'd love to be wrong, as that would make my job incredibly easy - but I can't see any evidence of this being the case.

 

Are you sure that this is the case? If so, the form's not within the Soul Gem or MiscItem sub-menu of the CK - could you direct me to where you've found these forms?

 

Edit: That is, from what I can see it links a soul to an unfilled soul gem in some way other than creating a separate form.

Edited December 2, 2016 by KernalsEgg

[Masterofnet]

How could all of the gems be listed separately in the Kit if they did not have their own form?

[wizardmirth]

I don't think the CK/Papyrus (non-skse) recognizes a gem you've filled yourself in game with a lesser soul size after its was originally empty? And in the CK I only see soul gems that are filled with the equal soul and not any lesser ones.

 

Can someone clarify this?

[Lisselli]

There are only two kinds of forms in the CK per Soul Gem type.

 

Type Empty

Type Filled

 

There's no way through the CK to indicate what kind of soul is inside a soul gem. There are two functions in SKSE for Skyrim 32 that can do this however. You'll just have to wait for them to be available for SE.

[wizardmirth]

Just to confirm in vanilla scripting, if you try to send a "in game" under-filled soul gem through a formlist for soul gems, the game/code will treat it like its unfilled. I think if you match it (e.g. grand for grand) though it will treat it as filled. I'm still testing this but I think that's right so far...

[Masterofnet]

I do apologize. I can not find them now either. I am working in the original kit and have seen such a list. When I saw the list all of the gems had what I described except the black star.

 

 

How would an enchanting station or a weapon know how the gem was filled?

[Lisselli]

Just to confirm in vanilla scripting, if you try to send a "in game" under-filled soul gem through a formlist for soul gems, the game/code will treat it like its unfilled. I think if you match it (e.g. grand for grand) though it will treat it as filled. I'm still testing this but I think that's right so far...

But you wont be able to return the type of trapped soul within the soul gem? I think this is the main problem.

[Magicockerel]

There are only two kinds of forms in the CK per Soul Gem type.

 

Type Empty

Type Filled

 

There's no way through the CK to indicate what kind of soul is inside a soul gem. There are two functions in SKSE for Skyrim 32 that can do this however. You'll just have to wait for them to be available for SE.

If you're talking about these two functions, they only return the default size (and therefore won't help if the soul gem's underfilled). If these aren't the functions however, I'd like to know what you're talking about. Also, the filled variants are only found on vendors or loot level lists - you don't actually get them when you fill an unfilled soul gem (I've taken this from the value of the soul gem in my brief testing).

 

Just to confirm in vanilla scripting, if you try to send a "in game" under-filled soul gem through a formlist for soul gems, the game/code will treat it like its unfilled. I think if you match it (e.g. grand for grand) though it will treat it as filled. I'm still testing this but I think that's right so far...

As I've said above, it doesn't look as if you're given a filled variant when you fill a soul gem (going by the gold price of the soul gem). The game links the size of the soul to the unfilled soul gem in some other way. Therefore, a soul gem you've filled yourself should always be treated as unfilled by the game (given that the formID would be the same as a unfilled soul gem).

 

I do apologize. I can not find them now either. I am working in the original kit and have seen such a list. When I saw the list all of the gems had what I described except the black star.

 

 

How would an enchanting station or a weapon know how the gem was filled?

It's a question of whether the game hard-codes this information/doesn't provide this information to a user in the CK. We're not privy to a lot of information, hence we rely upon functions and what we can see in the CK. The only solution is a script extender, such as SKSE (or doing something at an equivalent level, which requires some pretty impressive knowledge).

 

 

Just to confirm in vanilla scripting, if you try to send a "in game" under-filled soul gem through a formlist for soul gems, the game/code will treat it like its unfilled. I think if you match it (e.g. grand for grand) though it will treat it as filled. I'm still testing this but I think that's right so far...

But you wont be able to return the type of trapped soul within the soul gem? I think this is the main problem.

 

Yes, my goal is to determine the size/quality of the soul contained within a soul gem, rather than the size of the soul gem itself (which is easy to determine by adding the forms to properties and matching the in-game soul gems to them).

Edited December 2, 2016 by KernalsEgg