LE Weapon and Armor Durability Mod

[wartex]

Basically a smallish mod which makes all weapons and armor lose durability (perhaps also damage and defense in the process) until they are broken and cannot be re-equipped until they are mended either by a blacksmith npc or by the player using a forge and some steel or so. The more expensive a weapon is, the more it will cost to repair, making the player have to think economically. Is it worth wearing down your amazing bastard sword on meager bandits or should you use your cheap one-handed axes for them? Maybe non-unique/non-magical weapons could be broken beyond repair, so that the player actually had to buy or scavenge a new weapon.

 

When I think about it, this lack of durability on stuff is what breaks the game the most for me. Once you find that awesome suit of armor or weapon, there is no need to find something else, and you never use that otherwise cool but not as good dwarven warhammer/leather armor or whatever. It's too easy to find stuff which makes your character godlike, once you have played for a while, but with this, being godlike would come with a steep repair-cost. It would seriously increase the immersion I think.

 

I've looked around a bit and only seen one mod made long ago (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12841). Never tried it as it states in the description some flaws which I couldn't see past.

 

However, now that the creation kit has been released I wonder if someone would be interested in taking this concept further? I don't know my way around the creation kit at all, but I reckon a mod like this wouldn't be impossible, considering what amazing things I've seen some people here create.

[PopTartZombie]

I have a similar idea

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/665777-realistic-armor-damage-and-repair-system/page__p__5289494__fromsearch__1#entry5289494

[wartex]

I have a similar idea

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/665777-realistic-armor-damage-and-repair-system/page__p__5289494__fromsearch__1#entry5289494

 

Would be nice indeed, but I'm afraid anything visual, like multi-layered armor pieces peeling off, is quite an endeavor to try to pull off. Especially considering how many armors there is in the game. Been studying game development in school as a 3d-artist for 3 years, so I should know. :)

 

I don't know, however, if the creation kit allows you to add properties in bulk to all weapons in the game, or if you have to do it one by one. If not, my mod idea would be almost as tedious for a modder to implement as yours. :)

 

What would be needed for this armor/weapon durability to work would be:

 

• Weapons and armor have a new property: Durability value; lets say 0-100 for simplicity, preferably listed in the inventory, just like charges, but if easier, the equipped gear could be inspected by casting an inspect-spell and the values listed top left on the screen for a second.
  
• Weapons and armor have a new flag: broken, true/false. If true, the item is stripped from the player and cannot be re-equipped. Broken flag is set when durability hits 0, and removed when above 0.
  
• Every 5 hits on the player, the durability of all or one random equipped item decreases by 1 (balancing of numbers needed ofc.)
  
• Every 5 hits with a weapon, that weapons durability decreases by 1.
  
• Damage mitigation of all armors is multiplied by (durability/100), so 1x mitigation at 100%, 0.5x mitigation at 50% etc. (again, balancing later)
  
• Damage output of all weapons is multiplied by (durability/100), so 1x dmg at 100%, 0.5x dmg at 50% etc.
  
• Repair cost is calculated by original price * (100-durability), so repair at 100 durability is 0 gold, and repair at 0 durability is full price
  
• Known blacksmith NPCs gets a new line of dialogue, "Repair equipment (xxxxx gold)", no voiceover, removes the needed gold and sets durability of all broken items back to 100 (or maybe 5 less maximum for each subsequent repair, so 95, 90, 85 etc). Would be nice with an interface, like the inventory screen, to select what to repair, but I'm not picky. It's easy to drop the stuff you don't want to repair on the ground in the meantime.
  
• Alternatively, if easier, add a repair equipment-spell which does the same.
  

 

Improvements later on to the system could be adding stuff like material requirements for repairs and making different armors and weapons lose durability at different rates.

 

I don't know if any of those points are impossible to implement with the CK as it stands now, or if they can be worked around somehow. I'm almost eager to start working on this myself, as I REALLY think this is what an immersive Skyrim modlist is missing right now. I might give it a try, but I'm sure I would find the CK just very confusing and give up as soon as I got started. Anyway, is this a mod people would want? Is it even possible to do something like this? Share your thoughts, boys and girls. :)