[LE] "Nobility Overhaul" - Looking for tips/tutorials

[Roelen]

I've been planning to create a "nobility overhaul" mod for Skyrim that will allow for more in-depth noble titles, etc.

 

Here's what I want to happen:

Player completes quests that would allow them to become Thane in vanilla. Instead they become Huskarl to another Thane, at this point they can purchase land/houses in the hold from vanilla, get a key to a heradlry shop in the repsective hold where they can choose shields/cloaks from one of 5-10 hold-specific designs. Then they are directed to a town added by the mod, where their thane liege lord waits to give a few more quests. Most of these quests would likely involve commanding local militas against large-scale bandit camps and the likes, rather than the pettier tasks you completed for the Jarl to gain your first title. After a time serving the Thane, a position for a new Thane would open up, requiring the player to report back to the Jarl where they could pay around 10,000-20,000 gold to receive an abandoned village in the hold, along with it's surrounding lands. After that it'd play out like the Blackthorn house mod, with the player restoring a ruined town and being able to gather gold/crafting materials payed as tributes by it's citizens after building certain structures. I'd also like the ability to have bandit and potentially thalmor/stormcloak/imperial raids, sort of like Tundra Defense.

 

So, here's what I need help with:

 

- How do I set up ths quests so that they don't trigger until after the player has completed the vanilla "thane" status quests?

 

- How do I make a chest that would automatically fill itself with an additional amount of gold each day/week? Would this also be possible with crops rather than gold, for farms? Or even firewood/quarried stone for woodcutter camps and quarries?

 

- How would I go about setting up raids, I have no clue what to do with them.

 

- Would it be possible to enforce a rule of only one thane title? (Huskarl status in each hold would still be allowed so you could buy all the vanilla homes)

 

Also, I see a few potential conflicts, specifically:

 

- If the player completes the civil war before gaining the title, the Jarl would be stored in Solitude/Windhelm respectively. Everything would still work, but it's kind of immersion breaking, I doubt there's a good way around this though.

 

- You'd still get the Housecarls at Huskarl rank which is kind of weird, a bodyguard having their own bodyguard. Probably shouldn't touch it though, or I'd run the risk of f*#@ing things up/making the mod undesirable

 

- How would Whiterun even work, since the titles are linked to the dragon quest? Perhaps the only way to gain the Whiterun full-on Thane title would be completing "Dragonslayer"

 

 

So, if you guys have any tutorials on these (or anything pertaining to my mod idea in general), please share! Thanks!

 

EDIT: I'm going to be doing this on SE, by the way, so I can't use any SKSE features...

Edited March 21, 2017 by Roelen

[GreatSilentOne]

I hope you're competent with scripting, because you're going to be doing a lot of it.

 

Starting the quests dependent on another quest's completion is quite simple, actually. In the first tab on the quest menu, set a condition to find whether or not the quest or quest stage you need completed has been completed. If it hasn't, then your new quest will be unable to start until it has.

 

The chest is also fairly easy. You need to attach a script to the chest to periodically check how much time has passed before using the additem function to actually add whatever it is you're looking to add.

 

Raids should be something you add later on, after you have the majority of your necessary features in place. They would need to be implemented via quest, meaning you'll have to find some sort of trigger, whether that be a conversation, an activator, or a script running an RNG.

 

Depending on how you set up the quest, it probably wouldn't be that difficult to force only one thaneship.

 

For the sake of continuity, I'd recommend calling your new title something other than "thane." While in real life, a thane is fairly indistinguishable from a feudal lord, the title is basically nominal in Elder Scrolls lore (as most of the jarls point out before appointing you the title). Since vanilla dialogue has the player being referred to as thane both by their housecarls and the town guards, it doesn't really make any sense to change that rank to housecarl.

 

Using quest aliases and filling them based on who is currently the jarl of whatever hold you're currently working in would be the best way to avoid the issues with the civil war. The vanilla thane quests use a similar system, so I'd recommend checking that out first.