Bear Riders for Skyrim, or Bare Riders - it's much the same thing. Options

[ghastley]

Again, I'm splitting this off from Fleur, as it's getting a life of its own. Since she's helped me work on the armours, and done some exploring for me, I'm getting into making a mod.

The Bear Riders that were just outside Bruma in Oblivion, have moved just over the border into Skyrim. I found a location next to the road to the border crossing for the HQ, and added a "Gudrun" and a "Timo" to the staff. The building is an inn, with bedrooms and forge in the basement. The main floor has facilities for alchemy and enchanting. It's about the same distance from Helgen as Falkreath or Riverwood, so it could be a third option for the starting player to head off to join the Riders.

Joining the Riders is only for females. The bears insist on that, and they'll also require the right equipment on the rider. Their special armour can be forged only at the HQ forge, but tempered/improved anywhere. It all has the same stats as the equivalent regular armour of the same material, and is made from the same list of materials. If I can determine how to add a frost protection bonus, I'll do so. Since there's a perk to allow multiple enchantments, there may be a way to do that without blocking the player from adding another.

I haven't found many bears in the Falkreath region in Skyrim, so maybe the bears can come from other places, but the trainer lives and trains the bears in Falkreath? That'll give a little more reason to actually go there...

That was the case with Meija in the Oblivion mod. She lived in Falkreath, and the bears were sent from somewhere else (Solstheim via Windhelm?) for her to train, so she only had one at any time. I'm thinking that the player will have to raise the cost of training a bear before they get one, and the trainer will have a quest to do as well. If I have a "recruit another rider" quest, similar to the recruiting for the Blades, then she'd start training more bears as the candidates join up. There are also possibilities for issues with her supplier, and a whole lot more.

I need to find an outfit for the trainer, that's similar to the one Meija wore - gloves and arm protection, so she doesn't get hurt by roadside foliage, and boots with possible thigh protection for the same reason. Minimal torso coverage, to keep the bear happy, and they also don't like fur or leather in any quantity. Chainmail is OK, as long it it doesn't contact the bear. She'll be a Nord - the 50% frost resist is a must in that outfit - and have an amulet to provide even more. (And it could get stolen for another quest opportunity.)

This post has been edited by ghastley: Aug 20 2021, 06:38 PM

[ghastley]

I don't know whether it's just lack of familiarity, but modding for Skyrim seems a lot harder than it is for Oblivion. The change from procedural to event-driven quest processing isn't too hard for a programmer, but the existing code is inconsistent and arbitrary to a degree that wasn't there before. Perhaps it's a symptom of having a larger team with more diverse styles?

Making outfits is more complex and laborious, too. Oblivion was a question of making one mesh, one texture and one normal map, plus a ground item if it could be dropped. Skyrim requires two meshes for everything, as it's using the second one as a morph target for the weight slider, and it's not documented anywhere I could find what details are used from the other instance. It also uses up to nine textures for the model, although most thing get away with two. Add to that the need to keep a Blender version and a game version of each, as there's a manual process in Nifskope to adjust a lot of settings, in each direction, and you don't want to repeat most of that unless you have to.

Getting textures to work right is a matter of trial and error at the moment, too. I've had Unna's outfit appear all dead black, including her skin. Then I adjusted a setting or two, and she had normal skin, but her clothes were shiny black, and then a few more got me to the right colours, but now glowing. It took a few hours to get the texture right, and now I can see the clipping, and I have to go back around the whole cycle in and out of Blender to fix that!

It doesn't help that many of the tutorials I've found don't explain anything, just list the things the author did, whether they were correct or not! When I understand it more, I may have to write some myself - ones that explain WHY things are being done.

Despite all that, I have managed to piece together some outfits for the Riders. Two levels each of Light (Leather straps and Elven) and Heavy (Steel and Steel Plate) with the higher level of each improvable to the defence cap. I'll likely add some "parade armour" for the Captain to wear - stuff that a bear won't like, but the viewer will. Unna has a unique top, that's taken from Meija's in Oblivion.

I now have a mind-boggling two whole quests!

The "Join the Riders" one first requires you to craft your own armour at the lodge's forge. It can only be made there, and you can't buy or sell it. Only the body armour is rider-specific, and it still belongs to the usual sets, so you get the perk bonuses as expected. The bear won't allow a rider that isn't wearing it. Then you have to buy a bear in Falkreath from Unna, and report back to Gunilla at the Riders Lodge.

The second is a Radiant quest to retrieve Unna's stolen amulet from a dungeon. Quest-giver is Gunilla again, but the return for the reward is to Unna. It took me forever to get the quest conditions right to select a dungeon, as there was a lengthy chain of associations between the quest-giver and the dungeon, via editor location, parent "town", parent hold, back down to the dungeon, and whole set of checks on the dungeon type to make sure it had all the features that the quest needed, such as a boss chest to put the amulet into. It was all too easy to have a set of conditions that couldn't all be met, or a broken link in the association chain, and then the quest would never start. And there never is any diagnostic information, because nothing is actually going "wrong"; the game is correctly rejecting more than intended!

I also had to revise the ways the quests start and stop, or you'd have had to leave the lodge and re-enter before the second quest would be available.

I expect to be able to examine the entrails of recruiting for the Blades, and use the same things to build a recruitment quest for the Bear Riders. I hope I don't find that I have the same problems again, and nobody is eligible!

I'm still looking for a good way to prompt the player to go find the Riders and join them. I deliberately put the Lodge out of the way at the edge of the map, so I need a reason for the player to go there.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Oct 21 2013, 03:19 PM

[King Coin]

...but the existing code is inconsistent and arbitrary to a degree that wasn't there before...

Holy [censored] yes. I was looking for the 'bar brawl' scripts, and they are all in code fragments. None of them are in any script file on their own. I was expecting it to be a function call or something. NOPE.

I'm still looking for a good way to prompt the player to go find the Riders and join them. I deliberately put the Lodge out of the way at the edge of the map, so I need a reason for the player to go there.

Random encounter somewhere on whatever road is nearest to the lodge? I have no idea how those are created, but it would be cool to just run into a bear rider somewhere, then talk to her and find out where they are.

Also, suggestion with the armor. Could an extra piece of armor be available that covers the legs and waist? It would be something you can wear when your character isn't on a bear, but they would have to remove it to ride their bear. Even though Skyrim armors use one piece for the entire body, you can still make separate pieces that cover the legs and waist separately. I use several mods that are like that so I can have more variety.

Oh and something that you can offer characters that aren't eligible to be a rider themselves: they can get a bear as a follower or something. You can't ride it, but it follows and fights for you. Also has bags on its back to store stuff.

This post has been edited by King Coin: Oct 21 2013, 06:15 PM

[ghastley]

Random encounter somewhere on whatever road is nearest to the lodge? I have no idea how those are created, but it would be cool to just run into a bear rider somewhere, then talk to her and find out where they are.

Yes, but...

The story line I had in mind means that there aren't any yet. That's why you need to recruit them later. However, maybe a woman who used to be one before she took an arrow to the knee?

Seriously, it would make sense that not everyone who rides a bear is one of the patrols. I already have Unna, who just trains them, and one option I have is for her to start it. You can remark on her revealing outfit, and she explains that usually she has a bear to train, and she's expecting a new one real soon. Then I can have the player bear enabled when you talk to Gunilla, and trained before you get back!

Maybe you meet a child who wants to be a Rider when she grows up. Her grandmother told her stories about them, when they first moved from Cyrodiil and Orsinium (Gortwog's crew were modelled on the Bruma bunch, and Uzgash was in their number for a time).

I have a book that Gunilla gives you when you join. Finding a copy earlier, or a similar book that refers to them, could start it all.

I suspect my choice will depend on what I can code, and what's too hard!

[King Coin]

Yes, but...

The story line I had in mind means that there aren't any yet...

Oh! That makes it easier. Make a book (called "The Legendary Bare Bear Riders"?) and add it to a loot list. When you read it then you get a quest!