Trying to make a Constant Effect Detect Life

[ShadowDragyn]

I'm trying to make a Constant Effect Detect Life for a perk, which activates the effect whenever you're sneaking. For some reason though, it only applies the shader to the player and no one else.

I took one of the Detect Life Magic Effects used by the Detect Life spell, then changed it into a Constant Effect and slapped it on an Ability granted by the perk. It has an Area of 100 on it, and everything seems to be properly in place when looking at the other Detect Life effects and spell, so I have no idea what's going wrong.

One other thing I did was remove all Target Conditions, like not working on Undead or in interiors/exteriors so it would always register all actors within range.

[MShoap13]

I'd try setting the activator up to always be active first so you can see if the effect itself is working or if the activator simply isn't triggering it. Basically break it down to to each failable part of the effect.

[ShadowDragyn]

I figured out the issue, which was pretty bizarre.

Apparently, with Detect Life specifically, if you place it on a spell, after having done anything to alter the Detect Life effect within the spell the Area will be set to 0, and therefore only affect the caster.

To fix it you have to close out the spell, open it again, then close it again without editing the Detect Life effect at all and it will get the proper Area again.

 

The whole thing was a flawed idea from the start though, because apparently Detect Life in Skyrim, unlike in Oblivion, will only track the targets initially affected by it when first cast. So if it were a constant effect it would only track whoever was around you when you initially acquired it.

[MShoap13]

Maybe make a spoof Detect Life spell with no sound/animation/casting time attached to a script that recasts it every .5 seconds or so?

 

If at all possible though, please for the love of god, make a way to deactivate the script though. I forget what mod it is, but there's atleast one out there where the author attached every script in it to a single quest script that activates as soon as you start up the game. He then setup the quest script to stop all other scripts from the mod by setting the quest stage for that particular quest to 99 via the console. This prevents the scripts from saving their state into your saves (and consequently starting back up, or atleast trying to, even though the mod they belong to was uninstalled).

Edited December 6, 2012 by MShoap13

[ShadowDragyn]

Maybe make a spoof Detect Life spell with no sound/animation/casting time attached to a script that recasts it every .5 seconds or so?

 

If at all possible though, please for the love of god, make a way to deactivate the script though. I forget what mod it is, but there's atleast one out there where the author attached every script in it to a single quest script that activates as soon as you start up the game. He then setup the quest script to stop all other scripts from the mod by setting the quest stage for that particular quest to 99 via the console. This prevents the scripts from saving their state into your saves (and consequently starting back up, or atleast trying to, even though the mod they belong to was uninstalled).

I was wrong; it turns out the Area issue occurs with ANY magic effect with an area on it. Maybe on ones that are set to Self specifically, I don't know. But any time you go in to tweak the Magnitude or duration or whatever, it gets set to 0 until you close the spell out and open it again.

As for your response, I decided it would be much simpler to just create a Fire and Forget that lasts several seconds, and focus on it being more of a short term bonus rather than a constant thing

 

I'm having a new issue though. To make it less crappy and weak I was trying to add a slow-time effect to it as well, but I can't get Slow Time to work on a self-targeted spell.

When targeting only the caster, it only slows the caster. Which is strange, since I was under the assumption that it slowed everything, even projectiles, and was not actually an actor-targeted effect.

If I try giving it an Area so it should theoretically apply to every actor within range, it instead causes the entire spell to fail and do seemingly nothing.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Shadow_Dragyn