LE Skyrim needs customizable weapons!

[darklordgiggles]

Smithing just isn't that interesting in most RPG's, since there's never really any incentive to keep making things... When you craft a steel sword in Skyrim, it looks just like every other steel sword in the game.

 

So how cool would it be if you could customize your crafted weapon/armor's appearance when you make them? What we need is a mod that lets you choose between several pre-made blade/hilt/pommel/handle designs for swords, axes, etc. I feel like this would add all sorts of depth to the game, especially if said alterations actually affected the weapon's stats. A wider, heavier blade for example might do more damage but swing slower than a thinner blade. Decorative additions to the hilt could increase the weapon's monetary value. You could even unlock more customization options as your smithing skill increased.

 

These alternate appearances would ideally be integrated with dungeons and npc's, so you would be picking up weapons with unique appearances for every group of bandits you slaughter, etc.

 

It should be noted that I have basically zero modding/modeling experience, but if anyone were to make a mod like this you would be my favorite person in the world.

[GrimyBunyip]

you would need to create a new nif for each combination of upgrades.

it would be rather impractical.

[darklordgiggles]

It seems like there has to be a way around that... is there no way to combine different nifs, like the game does for armor with the weight slider or something?

[KindaInappropriate]

I like the idea

[darklordgiggles]

Does anyone know how the game handles NPC faces? I can't imagine there's a discrete model for every face of every bandit, mage, and villager in the game... it seems like there must be an algorithm for generating faces based on all the different noses, eyes, lips, etc. Could something similar be done for weapons?

[KindaInappropriate]

Does anyone know how the game handles NPC faces? I can't imagine there's a discrete model for every face of every bandit, mage, and villager in the game... it seems like there must be an algorithm for generating faces based on all the different noses, eyes, lips, etc. Could something similar be done for weapons?

Villagers are handmaded for sure, as long as they have real names and not generic names like "Breton" (go check on TES Wiki every villager and you will find he's exactly like the one in your game), and I think bandits, forsworns, hunters and other unnamed NPCs just have like 5 to 10 standard face models for each race and the game picks in there when it generates random encounters or fort inhabitants.

To "generate" I think will be a problem, due to the significantly flexibility of the editor some faces will be just weird.

 

I don't recall if Oblivion's generic NPCs were auto-generated.

 

By the way, such a thing cannot be applied to the structure of weapons because there are not made of different pieces like faces, a weapon it's just one pieced model.

I really like the idea of custom weapons, but it seems that every modification will end in a new model, so everything should be planned first with every variation like in Fallout New Vegas.

[EpicLyWhit3]

this is an alright suggestion/request abit big but yes i would love to see this i think it would do good.