[LE] Getting started/Object replacement

[PrinceZen]

I'm on my 4th playthrough of SKyrim and I've noticed little things I'd like to change. I've been very curious about getting into modding and how to start. I want to do something very simple and work up.

 

I want to change clutter items like brooms, forks, shovels, etc. into weak weapons. How do I replace/convert existing objects into an object of a different nature?

[Tasheni]

It seems that you have to start like anyone else: Work through tutorials. At the top of this page is a thread that covers lots of them. Work through the creationkit.com tuts, they will give you the basics for creating mods. TESAlliance has also very good lessons in the classroom. It takes some time to get the basics and make progress. Have fun.

 

Greetings, Tasheni

[candlepin]

I'll help (hopefully) with a little hard-earned advice; if you want your mod to be compatible with other mods, I'd encourage you to NOT do a search-and-replace (e.g. search for all brooms and replace with weak healing potion). That will cause a number of issues, including the fact that it would edit TONS of cells throughout Skyrim.

 

Your best bet will be to use a script to replace all the vanilla items OnInit (check out the CK Papyrus pages to get familiar with the scripting language). I know this mod concept sounds simple, but if you want to make it right you should probably do it via scripting. Scripting hint; you'll likely want to use Form Lists (i.e. swapping item 1 from list1 with item 1 from list2). Hope this helps.