Corpses Become Skeletons

[darlingg]

The bodies you've left are quickly eaten by rats, so that all that remains when you return a day or two later are their stripped-down skeletons, now permanent features of landscape or interior.

What happened to their stuff? Maybe still in each skeleton's "inventory", or scattered nearby, or just the inedible items remain, or only the least valuable stuff per pound (configurable cutoff), or nothing, after your own looting and that of the scavengers who've been following you from a distance.

Applies to humanoids and creatures with corresponding skeletons in the game.

[darlingg]

Bonus points for skeletons still wearing the clothes they died in.

For creatures like deathclaws and supermutants, maybe their skins are too tough or toxic to quickly eat through. For radscorpions, they wear their skeletons on the outside anyway.

If you've taken all the meat from a body yourself, that could make a skeleton right away. Ideally, would be compatible with Hunting Expansion (Fixed).

Edited January 14, 2021 by darlingg

[devinpatterson]

I think I could make a "desiccated" corpse in blender, however an actual skeleton of something non human, may take much longer with my humble skill set.

 

I'll experiment with a desiccated (and emancipated) model and see how things go. I was going to have to make one anyway for a wendigo, in a native american lore mod I had in mind.

[Nachtej]

You'd have to make a skeleton race, and make a timer to change.

While it would be odd to have an item go from body to skeleton overnight, I think it would be marginally easier to do than the multiple stages of decomposition.

[darlingg]

@devinpatterson, glad to see you're interested. You did great realizing another dream of mine at Wearable and Reusable Stealth Boy Adds Rads by request. Emaciated would indeed be the next best thing, or even fungussy--some sign that anything edible or sufficiently valuable that might've once been on--or in--the corpse is gone now. I thought bones might've been easy because they're already in the game, but whatever works. I note that ghouls already look pretty corpse-like.

@PaultheKing, possibly the time could be configurable. Though it's my understanding that full-fleshed corpses get stripped pretty quickly out on the African veldt.

My plan is a for a run without the vanilla re-spawning of enemies--that whatever gets killed, stays dead. This by disabling cell re-load through setting iHoursToRespawnCell to very large, while plants keep on giving through Bountiful Harvest. But passing by intact bodies I killed months ago breaks immersion.

Possibly the corpses/skeletons could be naked and their inventory empty due to scavengers; they could even be static objects, if that would help save processing power; or even have been removed completely by a different timer that doesn't also cause re-spawns (I already do this manually with Zap Away the Wasteland Cleanup Tool, but it would be nice to have this happen on its own, as Nature intended, and does). Or if they're still wearing what they died in (might look a little strange), then perhaps those item conditions could be set to zero through weathering and rot.

[devinpatterson]

You'd have to make a skeleton race, and make a timer to change.

I'm not sure that's the way to go, Only NPCs (humans and civilized ghouls) have a race entry (and I think Darlingg is referring to "humanoids and creatures"). But even if your focusing on just NPCs, changing the race is going to be problematic as their outfits/armor isn't going to change. Their head might if it's unadorned, but not the mesh of their outfit....at least I don't believe so (although I'm no expert in this area). That is also assuming the best case scenario and I suspect using that function after they die may have other pitfalls as well (I'll have to do some research).

[devinpatterson]

Good to talk to you again Darlingg

 

Emaciated would indeed be the next best thing

I think I could piece together a skeleton for *some* humanoid creatures. For example, with deathclaws, it's really the skull and the digitigrade legs that I don't have enough confidence in my skills to make.

I think I could do something like a super mutant pretty easy, since that'd just be editing a human skeleton.

 

they could even be static objects

Statics would probably be the safest bet, but placement might be a problem (ie. trying to line it up in the same pose as a ragdoll body killed).

Do you care if the skelton is moved around. Maybe like a havok'd object that is dropped. Or possibly a real critter rigged to bones then killed over the corpse and dropped a foot or two (to let the new skelton corpse fall in a quasi natural position).

 

Hmmmm I don't know, I feel like we're missing a important component or need a bit of out of the box thinking, as all of these solutions are problamatic.

Any suggestions from knowledgeable peeps re: the model would be greatly appreciated.

[darlingg]

<snip>

Do you care if the skeleton is moved around.

<snip>

 

No, it's natural that a body was disturbed as it was being eaten.

 

Whatever's possible, and captures your fancy. For me, the important thing is that corpses and whatever they had become missing, unavailable or useless to the Player Character after a certain time even without a cell re-load, and that this be obvious from a distance. Even for the body to just disappear completely (might create the least save bloat), especially for animals, though skulls etc left over from the biggest and baddest would make for cool "landscape trophies".

 

In the game, I've noticed skeletons in unidentifiable scraps of clothing, which would be plausible in general for humanoids.

 

I think I've seen loose skulls from various species too, if that helps.

 

This would be for things killed by the Player or otherwise in the course of the game. I know the PC comes across bodies with stuff on them, and I don't want to break those quests/experiences; but I think the game has those particular cadavers marked as permanent.

[Nachtej]

 

You'd have to make a skeleton race, and make a timer to change.

I'm not sure that's the way to go, Only NPCs (humans and civilized ghouls) have a race entry (and I think Darlingg is referring to "humanoids and creatures"). But even if your focusing on just NPCs, changing the race is going to be problematic as their outfits/armor isn't going to change. Their head might if it's unadorned, but not the mesh of their outfit....at least I don't believe so (although I'm no expert in this area). That is also assuming the best case scenario and I suspect using that function after they die may have other pitfalls as well (I'll have to do some research).

 

 

Yeah I don't know much about modding for that sort of thing (or modding in general), I was basing the idea off Dr. Calis from old world blues, however I now remember that he is only skeletal because of a mask, not a race.

[darlingg]

Could

 

 

I was basing the idea off Dr. Calis from old world blues, however I now remember that he is only skeletal because of a mask, not a race.

Could such an item be added by the timer, then hidden in inventory, to make a body look like that?

A completely different approach, but which might meet some of the objectives, could be to let cell re-load happen, but instead of dead bodies being resurrected and re-spawned, that they be removed, stripped or replaced as discussed above.