New to Modding, Help with Smithing

[sukeban]

Greetings friends,

 

Massive modding newbie here, looking to better understand the CK.

 

I'm trying to make a Smithing mod (I know there are tons, it's mainly for practice), but have been getting nowhere fast. Here is what I am trying to do:

 

1. Add two new perks

2. Edit and reposition "Steel" and "Advanced Armors"

3. Prohibit tempering any equipment that one does not have the perk for

4. Lower the improvement values for tempering so that each grade gives only +1 weapon and +2 armor, up to +6 and +12 max.

 

So what's the problem? In short, numbers 3 and 4.

 

I made all the edits I thought necessary and created my two new perks. I re-made my Smithing "constellation" and started it up in-game. And then nothing happened. My constellation was indeed changed, but my edits to Smithing tempering values were not. And my mod was loaded last in my load order.

 

So I am wondering where I went wrong.

 

Adding the perks was easy, and I am pretty sure I did that correctly (click in white space in perk tree --> "add perk" --> choose dummy perk --> edit --> accept changes and create new form). But my edits to the Smithing values were completely irrelevant. When I was editing this, I changed the "Modify Temper Health" field from "Multiply Value 2.00" to "Multiply Value 1.6" thinking that would approximate my desired tempering values (~40% reduction). In reality, this did nothing.

 

So I figured that modifying that value ("Modify Temper Health") wasn't actually determining the improvement magnitude; rather, it was only affecting the "Effective Smithing Level" of my character (the "ActorValue" rather than the "BaseActorValue"). Now, this might be a handy, and I might use it to nerf one's ability to get their Smithing level higher than the first tier of Legendary (with perk), but it did not seem to affect the actual utility of tempering. So what does? I searched and could not find where the fields for the tempering grades (fine, superior, etc.) are actually defined. ARE they actually defined like this (simple as editing a field with my new values?) or is the tempering bonus the byproduct of some enormous formula that I am probably not good enough at math to comprehend?

 

Finally, how do I prohibit the player from tempering equipment that they do not have the perk for? Do I actually have to edit this field on every single item in the game? I read in the Beth tutorial that it is possible to edit the properties (the "Temper Recipe") of an item so to only allow improvement with the requisite perk, but that seems like a tragically inefficient way to implement this. Is there a way to implement this on a more macro level, using the actual perks and Keyword checks (HasKeyword --> ArmorMaterialSteel, etc.)? I tried examining the "Arcane Smithing" perk, because that perk seems to work this way, but I came away with no real answers. Any and all help on implementing this would be immensely welcome.

 

Alrighty, thank you guys so much!

Edited April 13, 2012 by sukeban