[LE] Disabling manual cost calc for spells

[pw508]

Could this lead to potential imbalances? How accurate is the automatic cost calc function and how important is it to keep active? I couldn't find much info on this on google.

[cumbrianlad]

I'm interested but a bit confused.

 

The title talks about 'disabling manual cost for spells', but the post refers to 'automatic cost calc function'.

 

Are we talking about the "Auto-Calculate" button on the 'Spell' tab?

 

Also, what do you mean by "Could this lead to potential imbalances" ?

 

I find the automatic calculations fine for what I have experience of. That's spells, enchantments and potion costs. All I do is reduce/increase the base cost of a spell/enchantment/ingredient if I don't like the amount it will cost the player. That still means that the cost will go down if they improve the relevant skills.

[pw508]

You're right, I must have been more tired than I thought when I posted this lol

 

It should have been titled "Disabling automatic calculation for spells", or in TES5Edit, flagging the spell for manual cost calc.

 

Basically what I'm doing is slightly increasing the charge time for destruction spells to give me a reason to soften targets up or debuff them in some way before just shooting them with lightning. The way I have my game set up is most enemies only can take one or two hits before going down so there's almost no point in using anything besides destruction for a mage since I can blow them away almost instantly. But if destruction charge times are a bit longer I may want to slow them down, stagger them, etc. to give myself time to charge.

 

Anyway, I learned that you need to enable the manual cost calc flag in order to actually make the charge time different in game. No matter what number you set it to the time will stay at a half second unless that box is ticked.

 

My question was, in the experience of more knowledgeable members of the community than myself, could enabling manual cost calc create an imbalance in spell costs or other ways that may not immediately appear obvious? Auto cost calc exists for a reason, but to me it seems redundant since setting a cost is part of making the spell in the CK/TES5Edit. So I want to make sure there's nothing less obvious that I'm missing before I start messing with these values.

[cumbrianlad]

Well, that's totally clear now. I've got to say I'm a bit stunned that auto calculate interferes with charge time. Like you, I never thought it would have anything to do with it. I can only offer opinions as to what altering the charge time will do. For anything else like you found out there, it's over to more experienced modders than me, i'm afraid.

 

One imbalance that strikes me right away is that all the destruction using NPCs in the game will be hit by your longer cast duration, unless you make an entirely new set of spells for the player only. You'd then need new spell tomes to teach the nerfed spells, rather than the vanilla ones. That way, your vanilla NPCs are totally unaffected by the changes. I'd try it with one spell in a test esp first. If it works as you like, then make the full mod with all spells done that way.

 

You must be one heck of a mage, by the way! The only way I get by as a mage is when I can make three enchantments of 34% fortify destruction! I'm toast, otherwise.

 

Actually, I've just had a thought! (Makes a change). I made a teleport spell for my personal Severin manor mod and i set the charge time to 3 seconds. That worked fine. 3 second animation every time. I've just checked it and the cost is 94 and 'Auto Calculate' is checked. Strange. I set that in the magic effect, though, not the spell. I'm thinking that if you make new magic effects for your new spells, you may not need to fiddle with auto calc. You'd need new magic effects because the likes of chain lightning has three effects, all set to 0.5 seconds. I'd say that they would all have to be set to the same value for the spell to work. It was easy with my teleport spell because it just used a single script archetype effect.