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Posted by: ghastley Jan 29 2016, 08:04 PM

I put together a Nordic Tower home for my latest Dremora character, and have started making it into another Hearthfires mod, so you can find the tower empty (except for a workbench and anvil) and start making it more comfortable by adding furniture etc. The location is between Valthume and Lost Valley, near the Cradle Stone Tower, but closer to the edge of the map. So close, that you can't fall off the back side as "you can't go that way".

I've managed to squeeze in all the crafting stations, and a double bed. There's no room for kids, which avoids having to support adoption. It has an observation platform on top, copied from one at Valtheim.

I'm thinking of providing a spell book that teaches "Summon Dremora Housecarl" which combines the long duration of the elemental thralls with a bit of the Dremora Merchant and Butler powers from Dragonborn. To make it useful, I'd select one of several "builds" according to the player's skills, so a mage gets a tank, and a melee character gets a mage or archer, etc. However, the gender of the summoned Dremora may need player selection, somehow. Maybe two spell books, and reading one destroys the other?

The reason for summoning, rather than just using a Dremora NPC, is that the Dremora can be levelled when summoned, so re-summoning when the player levels will keep them in step without re-equipping. Since a Dremora can't wear most armour, this would offset the inability to swap out their gear, and also provide the in-game reason for not doing so.

Posted by: Acadian Jan 29 2016, 09:00 PM

Nice idea for a home - and a Dremora housecarl is the perfect touch!

Posted by: Grits Jan 29 2016, 10:04 PM

That sounds like a great idea, ghastley! What a neat location.

For the summoned Dremora, are you thinking spell or power? I think being able to choose their gender is especially nice. Do you have a quest requirement in mind?

Posted by: ghastley Jan 30 2016, 12:39 AM

Yes, I'm considering both. Spell would be OK if the duration is a long one (999 days?), so you get the Magicka back before needing it again.

The location isn't easy to reach. The usual route is through Lost Valley Redoubt, but you can bypass the Hagravens at the top. So I'm thinking that a quest might not be needed. Finding it will be hard enough. However, there probably will be a quest in the CK setup, just to be able to notify the player that they could go look for it. That might get level-up initiated, and I'm tempted to use a Dremora courier, and make it dependent on the Daedric quest at Dagon's Shrine being completed. The Kyn were impressed, even if Dagon wasn't.

I'm thinking "summon housecarl in bedroom area, and armour is not needed." Lover's Comfort perk without the whole marriage thing and all the CK setup requirements for the home. That makes gender significant.

Edit: Pieces of the Past requires level 20. I don't think I'd want to wait that long.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 4 2016, 03:06 AM

I just finished nav-meshing the tower. It's been a real pain, as it's an exterior, so I have to connect to the existing, and I didn't realize that I'd put it at the junction of four cells, so there are a lot of cell-edge joins. That's on top of the need to nav-cut each piece of furniture.

Still I do have a prototype spell for conjuring the housecarl, and http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/RealHousecarl.jpg that she's a real one. Just look where she chose to stand!

Posted by: Grits Feb 4 2016, 11:42 AM

Ha! That’s a real Housecarl, all right! It’s great to see a female dremora.

Good luck with the navmesh. Just reading “junction of four cells” gave me a cold sweat.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 4 2016, 04:09 PM

The summoned Dremora Housecarl has given me a whole bunch of quirky problems I wasn't expecting.

First off, I cloned from the summoned Dremora Lord and changed from a fixed level, to "player level multiplier" using 1.0 as a start point, although I suspect it will need to be slightly higher. What I didn't notice was that the Lord had a health level offset to avoid him being OP, so he gets -200 off his calculated 600+. The housecarl was getting the same 200 taken off hers, and I'd summoned her at a level where she got about 205, so nett 5. Colliding with a butterfly could kill her! Presumably at lower player levels, she'd have spawned dead, and immediately disappeared again!

Fixed that, and now she groans all the time. Discovered that all commanded humanoids with a playable race voice do that. Had to change her voice back to CrDremora, but now she has male battle cries. She's due for a custom compilation as a new voice type. Males are OK with the standard voice, of course.

I gave the base NPC template a levelled weapon, and discovered that I hadn't checked the box to inherit inventory on the summoned one, so she got an enchanted Daedric Battleaxe at level 5. So I set it, and it switched her to L1EnchWeaponDremora1H and she spawned with a Greatsword! Discovered that the list is not 1H, as it's named, but allows all melee weapons. Made my own list. Now it will be a levelled mace (always with fire enchantment). I've given them a left-hand shock spell, but I suspect I'll need to change the combat style before it gets used, as I've not yet seen it in action.

The next issue will be outfits. You can't interact with a summoned character to swap out their equipment, so her Daedric-like armour is the same downgraded Dremora gear that they all get. I need to create various levels of it, and make a new levelled list of outfits. I might as well try and make visual variety at the same time, for both male and female. That could be just clones of regular armour as Dremora versions, which is what Bethesda did with the Daedric, but I'd prefer it all to look "not from Nirn", so I'll likely be adapting a few custom ones.

Posted by: Grits Feb 4 2016, 09:32 PM

Thank you for sharing the details of your process. I have never made a summonable humanoid before, but I’m working up to a summonable Katria. I would not have thought of these issues myself. Perhaps I will get lucky and find she already has a leveled list of her gear.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 8 2016, 03:03 PM

I keep running into more "gotcha's" with the housecarls. I just discovered that you can't summon a leveled NPC, so I have to create a spell for each one, and a scripted meta-spell to cast the right one. Not a biggie, because I needed to do that anyway to make style selection work.

And I need some feedback on that. In order to provide a housecarl that suits the player's style, I need to decide between Mage, Missile or Melee. I'll first identify the player's preference for their own play-style by checking highest skill. If it's Archery, they're an archer. Then if their Magicka is higher than Health or Stamina, they're a mage. The rest will be assumed fighters (as sneak-thieves etc. need the same follower, or none at all.)

I'll pair a Melee tank with an archer, a Mage with a fighter, and an Archer with a mage. The logic is that an archer can fire around a rushing-in tank, but a mage would have to hold off from using area spells, and would prefer someone who stand back. The fighter gets a mage as a more versatile ranged partner. There's a big difference between human intelligence and AI so the human/computer match-ups don't work so well the other way round.

Are my assumptions valid in your experience? For example, does Buffy count as an archer or a mage? And if the logic gets it wrong, does it still select an appropriate housecarl for that style?

Posted by: Acadian Feb 8 2016, 03:52 PM

Buffy's magicka dwarfs her other attributes. That said, her primary attack is stealth + bow. When paired with a follower, she does okay with any actually. Her preference is:

!. Ranger. Engage by bow at range (like Buffy) but if foes get too close, switch to melee while Buffy keeps shooting.

2. Tank. Same, actually. Housecarl tanks use bows okay when range allows.

3. Mage. Nice from range and friendly fire is not a prob since Buffy and mage both keep distance. Mage is not as able, however to defend them when foes get close so Buffy has to frantically maneuver to ensure foes attack the mage while Buffy has a good line of fire to shoot the foes. It becomes more of a matter of urgency protecting the mage since they tend to be squishier up close.

I think one reason the game uses general warriors (bow at range, !H+shield up close) is that it works pretty well. I'm not sure that a warrior PC would enjoy charging in at the risk of being back-shot by an archer or mage housecarl.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 9 2016, 03:14 AM

Well, the summon spells now seem to be working. My test character is a two-hander, and he gets a mage housecarl of an appropriate level. If I boost his magicka via console, he casts an archer housecarl, etc.

I still have a few issues with the weapon rack in the tower to sort out (which may be due to UKSP trying to fix them), and get the story part sorted out. I.e. why you get pointed to the tower in the first place, and how you get the summon spell. But the hard work of constructing the mod is done.

Kothet, my test Dremora, is the resurrected former owner of Prizna from the Gweden Brothel, last seen dead in an Oblivion realm connected to the gate outside Bravil. He's forgiven her for killing him, as it was exactly what he'd have done if the roles were reversed, but he's a bit miffed at Dagon for setting him up for it. That's why he's wandering Tamriel at the moment, figuring that Prizna must have seen something about the place that she liked.

Aranxa, his female counterpart for testing the male summon spells, has no real backstory. She's having fun wearing the outfits I'm trying out.

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/DremoraBasicArmor.jpg (and on a http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/DremoraBasicArmorMale.jpg) is mainly retextured imperial with the top removed or replaced.

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/DremoraMediumArmor.jpg adds a plate top extracted from the full daedric cuirass.

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/DremoraMage.jpg - this is the "skimpy" version. Standard will just be a re-texture. (I'm thinking of a third spell that summons the female in skimpy stuff if you just want eye-candy, so I'm playing with outfits.)

The Daedric armour at higher levels is the same visually as the player armor, but has the lower stats that all Dremora get, so it comes in a bit earlier. The boots and gauntlets shown in my images gives way to those items before the cuirass gets replaced. No helmets are worn, and the mage robe stays at all levels, with the mage armor spells doing the same job.

Posted by: Grits Feb 9 2016, 04:53 AM

Your pairings sound good to me, ghastley. I find the most difficult things to manage with followers are their Destruction spells that have an area of effect and their summonings, and that’s easy to avoid by not giving them troublesome spells.

I often spread out the attributes even when a character doesn’t use them all, but I don’t think I’ve ever gone so far as to give someone the most of an attribute that they don’t use, so I wouldn’t have a fighter who was identified as a mage. However sometimes my mages have more Health than Magicka, so if I’m following this right they would be identified as a fighter and get a mage Housecarl. That would work out fine because the mage Housecarl would stay out of the way of the mage player character just like an archer Housecarl would.

Great progress! I like that their armor is unique.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 12 2016, 07:50 PM

The spells all seem to working as intended now. Including fixing the problem of multiple Active Effects that I had for a while (needed a flag set not to show the initiating spell in the UI).

My progress is getting slowed because Kothet is enjoying his time in Tamriel, especially as his housecarl is a hottie! He's just trying to complete his set of Legendary Daedric Armour, because he's clearly trying to impress someone, and all he needs is one more Ebony Ingot to temper his cuirass. However, he mined out Gloombound making Ebony bows to grind up his Smithing, and he's had all the ebony from Northwind Mine (found two dragons at the summit afterward - the resident one had company). We found at least half the veins in Blackreach, and his game doesn't include Solstheim, so not many sources left.

The housecarl is mute right now (maybe that's why he likes her! ) I need to put together a voice for her, with lines from another housecarl, maybe. Aranxa's male housecarl uses the regular CrDremora voice that the summoned Dremora Lord uses. He's vocal, even when she's trying to sneak. We're not sure if he resents being in the complete control of a female, as he's too dutiful to suggest it. Aranxa loves it, and his lines just crack her up.

Posted by: Grits Feb 13 2016, 12:34 AM

ghastley, I’m giggling over your Dremoras’ antics. I always love it when a character gets the Sanguine Rose, because the Dremora lines are awesome. I'm glad your spells are working!

Posted by: ghastley Feb 14 2016, 03:01 PM

I think I have a reasonable way to start the whole thing off. When the Oblivion Crisis ended, and the gates were all abruptly closed, many of the Kyn (the Dremora) were left in Tamriel, cut off from their path back to the Deadlands. Even when they fall in battle, they are now returned to Tamriel. Dagon is not the caring type, who'd go out of his way to bring them home, and they didn't expect him to do so. Their loyalty to him was based entirely on his providing the opportunity for battle, and the chance to prove themselves (to each other).

The Kyn in Tamriel have seen evidence that the player is Dragonborn, and likely to be involved in fighting the great beasts, as they return to the skies. The Kyn would like to participate, and offer the services of one of their number as a companion in the player's quest. If the player will make a home in the tower, as a show of good faith, then the bargain is struck.

If I adjust the build conditions for the house parts, then the bedside table where the spell tome is found will be built after the bed, and enough of the place to make it a home. I'd originally intended a choice of spell tomes, but can probably adapt the Oghma Infinium method to have the player choose their housecarl from a single volume.

Posted by: Acadian Feb 14 2016, 04:42 PM

That's a great 'backstory' for having a Dremora pal!

Posted by: ghastley Feb 15 2016, 11:53 PM

It's ready to roll! (I think)

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/download/DremoraHF_01.7z

Note that only the female housecarl has the glowing eyes. I may do that for the male later, but I'd like feedback first. The place probably needs a bit more clutter, but I'm not sure what.

The doc contains a copy of its http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/Docs/DremoraHearthfires.html

Posted by: Grits Feb 16 2016, 03:58 AM

Woo, got it! Thank you, ghastley! Time for a new Dragonborn, I think. I'll report back when they get to the top.


Added: Read the doc, thank you for the logs! That saves a long hike to a mill. I'm looking forward to this!

Posted by: ghastley Feb 16 2016, 04:56 AM

Not in the one you have, but http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/DSW.jpg

I was wondering what to put on the dining table, and then this happened.

Posted by: Grits Feb 16 2016, 05:07 PM

Ha! That's awesome. Chocolate and blood flavored?

Junia Atrius, Dragonborn, just got a fun letter from the Kyn. She is leaving Whiterun to go check out the tower. Woo!

I installed the mod right after the fight at the Watchtower, and the courier found her as expected as soon as she leveled up.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 16 2016, 05:40 PM

I noticed one minor thing I need to fix. You don't get "well rested" from sleeping in the bed. Maybe because it's logically outdoors?

I found a few discussions that implied that the (interior) location needs a keyword as well. That might not be applicable to an exterior situation. I'm not even sure how (if?) "location" works in the wilderness.

Posted by: Grits Feb 16 2016, 06:40 PM

Junia got her (first, lol) tower up, and it looks AWESOME! What a view! She picked the male Housecarl, and I have a save from before that so she can check out the ladies too. I have squeaked out my last second of time this morning and wanted to give you a quick report. I will take the Housecarl out for an adventure next and go over the tower with fresh eyes probably tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s how the http://i.imgur.com/atMGQ9P.png looks in Junia’s game. She has Immersive Armors installed, if that makes any difference.

And here’s a shot of http://i.imgur.com/KYVXiEl.png. Faendal is lurking around the lower floor somewhere. It took all of them to battle their way to the top of the hill. Getting there is quite an adventure! You picked an absolutely stunning location!

For the resting keywords, all I know is that you need them, sorry. I think the bed needs one as well. I don’t remember how Campfire handles the well-rested or spouse benefit on the bedrolls. I can check in Jensa’s game. She is never far from her spouse.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 16 2016, 06:53 PM

What level is she at? I've had invisible body syndrome with some of the female robes, and it's usually the mesh Partitions not being switched from BP_TORSO to SBP_BODY after the export from blender. Since the body armor levels with the caster, her level will tell me which mesh is bad.

Or it might be the _0 meshes are missing. I remember that the TES5edit script to extract the files sometimes forgets them.

Posted by: Grits Feb 16 2016, 07:55 PM

She is level 9. Thank you for this, ghastley!

Posted by: ghastley Feb 16 2016, 08:10 PM

It was interesting to discover that the Hagravens at Bard's Leap Summit don't notice you're there if you just cross the bridge at the top. The other one in Cradle Stone Tower remains inside it, and the only problem with her is that you can't use the corundum vein until she's dead.

I'd like to add another weapon rack, probably the wall kind. My thoughts are that Dremora would go for that over trophies, so there aren't any mounted heads, and there's quite a bit of blank wall. Also there aren't any sacks, which would get added when you build other things. Next version should have some more clutter.

Edit: I can confirm it's the missing _0 meshes. Sometimes the script works, sometimes it doesn't. Whenever I don't check, it hasn't.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 17 2016, 02:31 AM

Added missing meshes, fixed a couple of minor things, and added more clutter.

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/download/DremoraHF_02.7z

There's a weapon plaque you can build, but it won't be available unless you start a new game. The extra clutter should just appear if you made the parent items, so don't restart unless you're desperate for a weapon plaque.

Posted by: Grits Feb 17 2016, 03:15 AM

Ha, I think I can live without the plaque for now! I'll just have to remember when I say "I think this spot could use a weapon plaque" that it probably already has one!


Added: We have sweet rolls!! The armor looks great, now they just need their facegen data (in the next package, please don't make 0.3 just for that). Is Sexy lady different from Dutiful lady in appearance? They're both in awesome short skirts and cropped tops for Junia, and they're all three carrying maces which I think is what the archer correctly gets. (Junia is an archer.) It is getting dark in the tower, but Junia will take her Housecarl out to play in the morning. She's keeping the guy. Wow. Looking forward to daylight!

Thank you for this, ghastley! I love the faces you gave the Housecarls. They look appropriately badass but also appealing.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 17 2016, 03:02 PM

I keep thinking the TES5edit script will be as comprehensive as TES4files used to be for Oblivion. With that, I'd normally have to delete a lot of things that would already be there. The Skyrim method leaves required things behind.

Of course, the Khajiit, Argonian and Orc mods didn't have any NPC's, so that wasn't an issue with those.

Let me know where you think the invisible plaque is. I might even add more, as I suspect Dremora would be fond of weapons.

The "sexy" housecarl's skirt should be a bit shorter, and her top a bit looser than the regular one. There are pictures on the second page of the doc (link on the first or http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/Docs/DremoraHousecarl.html). Once she has armour, her top is ventilated, and the full armour is also not quite full. That page also details equipment. I'll be adding a few more screen-shots of the the outfits when I find time. If you notice anyone in the wrong outfit, let me know. I did have a couple of instances of that, but I thought I fixed them all.

I'm currently playing three games, with Archer, Fighter and Mage housecarls, and each player has all three spells, so I can take pictures whenever they level up. I'm reluctant to use the console for that, as it's too easy to forget doing so.

One other thing that needs some of my attention is the combat style or class for the Melee housecarl. I intended them to use a levelled shock spell as well as the mace, more like the Oblivion ones did, but they seem reluctant to do so. The levelled list may be giving them the wrong hand spell, or something in the combat style makes them always choose to run in with the mace.

Posted by: Grits Feb 20 2016, 09:46 PM

Aha, yeah I’m sure I just missed the difference in the near-dark. Also I was possibly still dazzled by the male Housecarl’s bare chest.

NPC Jerric sometimes runs in with his sword and sometimes uses his frost spells first. I think I adjusted a slider in his combat style that gave him a higher chance to use spells. I found that as the player leveled up and NPC Jerric got more magicka he would never use his sword, so I had to knock his magicka down a little. Maybe increasing the Housecarls’ magicka will get them to use their spells?

Also I read somewhere that giving them an assigned-hand spell works better than giving them the general spell. I don’t know if that’s true, but I always give the assigned-hand spell just in case.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 20 2016, 10:18 PM

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/download/DremoraHF_03.7z has the face gen data, and the bed now gives the Well Rested bonus (even though it doesn't say that).

You can get the Lover's Comfort bonus if you find the easter egg.

The housecarls do have the left hand spells, so they should be able to use them. Magic was not boosted for the melee versions, so it might just be "not enough", especially without any cost perks. I'll fiddle with their stats a bit for a later version. They work well enough now, and the use of the shock spell is just to make them more like the Oblivion ones.

Posted by: Grits Feb 21 2016, 07:02 PM

Thank you for 0-3! I’m starting over from before I installed it the first time to check everything out properly, but first I’ll taghttp://i.imgur.com/tNa1Lyh.png as a good potential weapon plaque location. I thought also over the table, but I wasn’t sure if you’d have to step on things to get the weapons up there. I would not mind stepping on things. I agree that shields and weapons from more intelligent enemies than animals would make better trophies for Dremora than animal heads.

Ooo, Easter egg hunt! Fun!



Edit: forgot screenshot. D'oh!

Posted by: ghastley Feb 21 2016, 10:22 PM

Already found a couple of things to fix: The male eyes aren't glowing, and the letter from the Kyn has a book icon. There will be more, I'm sure.

I agree with the place for another plaque. Might even try and put two there.

Edit: Placing one Coat of Arms style and one single-weapon style works without interference. So you get three weapons and one shield and maybe room for a single rack next to the tanning rack. I'm also looking at the space inside the door one floor up. Between the door and the bookshelf, you could have a rack, and a plaque before the stairs. The top floor is mostly open, and steel weapons might rust ...

Edit: http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/download/DremoraHF_04.7z has the bsa fixed, and new weapon racks, etc.

Posted by: Grits Feb 23 2016, 08:57 PM

Got 0.4 and will update tomorrow. Thank you, ghastley!

Posted by: ghastley Feb 24 2016, 08:34 PM

Note to self: Update the documentation for the new stuff that can be built. And update the number of logs provided for free, just in case the player has to go shopping for one more log!

Log purchase adds a lot of scripting requirements, so I want to avoid it. If you build any other Hearthfire homes, including mine, that's done in those quests, and the log pile is shared. However, you can't buy logs until you start building, so there would be a problem if this one is first.

When I tested the building process I bypassed the whole quest, and just console-added more logs whenever the character ran out, so I need to update the part of the quest where you get them, and make sure it's enough. Ultimately, I'd like it to be exactly enough, so the log pile is gone when you finish, and doesn't spoil the view. That can wait until general release.

0.4 didn't change that, so you may run out (or I may have been over-generous with the guesswork in 0.2 and you'll be OK)

Edit: After updating the documentation, and counting up the requirements, it looks like you need 58 logs, and I provide 60. Whew!!

Further edit: I ran another character through without console help, and forgot to review the models shown during the build. I believe the door was correctly oriented, but I'd intended to check which models were being used for the wardrobes etc. I think some of them could be switched for other BYOH statics without making new ones. I did notice that the log pile is incorrectly showing 0 logs when it should be 2 at the end. For that matter, when there are no logs, there should be no pile, and I have had it disable when that was truly the case. I made no change to that, so I'm not sure why it's glitched this time.

Posted by: Grits Feb 26 2016, 09:17 PM

Junia’s log pile shows 0 too, and she didn’t run out. Sixty was an excellent estimate! I only updated with 0.4, but I will do-over from scratch when I get a chance so I can see the new weapon racks. She and her Dremora Housecarl have been running around causing trouble to see if he’ll cast some sparks. So far no, but they haven’t met anything he couldn’t just charge up to and clobber with his mace.

I did a 32 day storage check and found that the sacks are safe and the barrels respawn, just checking that’s what’s intended. Take a peek at the barrel that’s next to the fish barrel. It looks like it’s clipping just a little with a support post.

I get a CTD now when I try to summon either female Dremora, but bear in mind I’m on a fragile laptop so it might be my limitation. There are some armors that I can’t use because they are too big for my laptop. Also this is not a from-scratch 0.4 yet if that makes a difference. Loyal looks great, all textures in place. His eyes are purple, but I’m not sure if they're glowing.

Junia had no problem stashing all of her stuff in the storage without even using the sacks yet. This is the best location for Become Ethereal! Climb up, shortcut down.

Posted by: ghastley Feb 26 2016, 09:48 PM

They'd be bright red if they were working properly. Even though the base texture is the darker version of the Dunmer eyes, the glows make them lighter then the other shade. This may not fixed until you re-cast him.

Edit: I spent much of the weekend making interface models for the furniture to match what you get. The crafting table took much more time than I'd intended.

Then Heidi was rolled to try it, and she's taken over.

Posted by: Grits Mar 1 2016, 10:09 PM

Ha, I wonder if Heidi is going to want something different! Is she bringing a Daedric Housecarl along on her adventures, or has she just taken off in a completely non-Dremora tower direction?

Posted by: ghastley Mar 1 2016, 10:39 PM

Heidi has a male Dremora mage in tow. Since he's wrapped in a robe, unlike the low-level fighters, he's not distracting her. She may be distracting him, however.

We've mostly built Lakeview as well as the Tower, as HF helps with Smithing, and she was eager to get some Steel Plate just like great-....-great-grandma used to almost wear. That and her steel great-sword will just get smithed up to Awesome, and probably enchanted, rather than swapped for anything else.

I usually add Fortify Carry Weight on boots, Fortify (weapon of choice skill) on gauntlets, and the rest varies. The sword is due to have Fiery Soul Trap as soon as she gets enough skill to do Arcane Smithing. We haven't put any crafting stations except the Smelter and Tanning Rack for the building work at Lakeview. So she'll go back to the Tower for all enchanting, alchemy and smithing work, even though there's an anvil at Lakeview.

She needs a helmet or substitute to get the well-fitted/matching set perks, an I'm not sure if I'll give her a Bear Rider circlet, or some new Heidi-only headgear. It won't become part of DremoraHF, whatever I do.

Posted by: Grits Mar 2 2016, 12:03 AM

I love a tall blonde in steel. I once made an armored Silver and Moonstone Circlet for Jensa who didn’t like her hair flattened. Does Heidi have blue eyes? (Has anyone ever looked all the way up at her eyes?)

The tower would make a great workshop for a mage who doesn’t want their occasional weird project to alarm their friends. Darnand is going to want one for his black soul gem and skull collection.

Posted by: ghastley Mar 2 2016, 03:25 AM

In that case, better have http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/download/DremoraHF_05.7z which has the log count fixed, and the new interface models. The Female Dremora may have a line or two of dialog if I did it right.

Since Heidi's selected the male, I haven't heard any female voice yet.

Posted by: Grits Mar 2 2016, 09:59 PM

Awesome, thank you!

Posted by: ghastley Mar 3 2016, 04:49 AM

So naturally I've found a bug already.

If you summon a melee housecarl at exactly level 27, they'll only have an iron dagger. There's a gap in the leveled list I made at that point, so they use the fall-back item in their inventory. It's there in case their primary weapon is disarmed, but it also made a good visual clue when they're summoned.

Posted by: ghastley Mar 6 2016, 02:56 PM

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/download/DremoraHF_06.7z

The female housecarls have some combat vocals now (detection, taunts, etc.) Don't worry, they're not going to start chatting to you, although they may announce your presence when you're trying to sneak.

I filled some gaps in leveled lists, so dwarven and elven maces and bows will be used.

I gave up trying to persuade the melee ones to use a shock spell at range. It appears that once they're tweaked far enough to use it, they then are mages, and won't use the mace. There must be a mechanism for choosing a ranged attack, as the regular housecarls will use a bow, but it may only be for a bow. Since they work well enough without, I'm admitting defeat for now. I have seen the left-hand healing spell being used, so they're not entirely un-magical.

My test characters have advanced to levels that confirm all the upgrades. Some were console-forced, but not all, which is how I caught the hole in the mace leveled list. Mignonette has built all my HF homes, so I know the set of mods is compatible.

Posted by: ghastley Mar 11 2016, 04:36 AM

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/download/DremoraHF_07.7z

I added a couple of hairstyles, so now the mage, melee and missile varieties of females have distinct hair, and it's even easier to see which you got.

I've tested the voices and this one's looking like it may become 1.0 soon.

Posted by: Grits Mar 11 2016, 11:43 AM

Got it, thank you! I started 0.6 yesterday but haven’t gotten all the way to the tower site yet – any reason I should start 0.7 from scratch, or should I just update and keep going?

Posted by: ghastley Mar 11 2016, 02:29 PM

Update and keep going. All I added were the new hairstyles, and those happen as soon as you re-summon or reload.

I re-saved all the FaceGen data, I hope. because there's a lot of use of one actor as a template for another, only the base face gets used, so I may even have too many included. The big bump in the size of the archive is the meshes and textures for the new hair, which is way higher poly than it needs to be. Since the whole mechanism for summoning restricts how many characters are wearing it, I don't think it's a performance issue.

If anyone complains, I'll tell them to drop off the 4k re-textures of the chickens to compensate.

I'll probably spend a lot of time this weekend tying to make screen-shots for the Nexus. A high proportion of my test characters are Dremora, to make it easier to test the hair etc. and most armor, and all clothes, don't show on them. So I have to do a race swap in RaceMenu to get a screenie I can use from the various saves.

And my latest couple of games have Illia or Aranea running around in just a circlet and boots. I've been testing out follower + housecarl to see what problems that causes. It turns out to be better than two followers, because any fight in the ranks that results from friendly fire can quickly be ended with a re-cast of the housecarl.

Posted by: ghastley Mar 12 2016, 06:29 PM

Now released.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/74171

That means I'll start finding a whole lot of new bugs again.

Posted by: Grits Mar 15 2016, 02:51 AM

Ha ha, Junia is never going to leave the bedroom! Faendal, Lydia, you’re dismissed!! ghastley, that’s awesome and hilarious!

Congratulations on the release!

Posted by: ghastley Mar 15 2016, 11:42 PM

Found the two problem Grits noticed.

The hairline for that hair was referring to the wrong folder for its textures. Of course, I have it there as part of KS Haidos, where the unmodified mesh resides, and the texture doesn't change.

The female body that caused the CTD's was linked to a non-standard skeleton, and has been replaced.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/74171 is now on the Nexus with both changes.

Posted by: Grits Mar 16 2016, 12:13 AM

Awesome, thank you ghastley!

Posted by: ghastley Mar 16 2016, 04:49 AM

And of course, I made the right change in the wrong place.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/74171

Posted by: Grits Mar 16 2016, 11:39 AM

I checked out the ladies this morning, and they look great. Thank you for this!

Junia and her Housecarl Loyal (until we think up a better name or he tells us) are headed to High Hrothgar. Junia already can't wait to get back home.

Posted by: ghastley Mar 16 2016, 04:12 PM

Yes, even now I've given the females voices, they don't say anything outside combat (which does include impending and resolved combat). They don't have the housecarl dialogue, and "can't carry your burdens" etc. so there's no opportunity for those conversations, even if their actions match the housecarl role of protecting and following. That will make it hard to get a name.

In part, of course, that's because the female dialogue has to correspond to the male, and only the combat and detection info's have the Dremora voice. Although hers is "female commander" or "female sultry" I needed to select things only for those tabs.

---

I started writing Kothet's story, and his housecarl's taciturn nature is causing me all sorts of problems. He's not sure if she's just not on speaking terms with him yet, but he's only just summoned her for the first time. I avoided him doing that in the bedroom, by having him go build as much as he could first. He'd not want to summon a woman into a half-finished building site! What would she think?

The tower still needs a crafting table, and some more chests, so they're looking for the rarer materials together. If you look out from the top of the Tower, you can probably see the smoke from the smelter at Soljund's Sinkhole, so it seemed reasonable for them to head there, to see what they mine.

Kothet won't be too concerned about a name, because he's not used to women having them. Prizna was an exception, and she got hers from the CoC as a reward for killing Kothet and closing the gate, which he considers a prodigious feat that fully deserved it. Mainly the killing him part, of course, which wouldn't have been easy. He doesn't expect anyone to measure up to his woman, not that Prizna's his any more, so others still wouldn't have names.

Posted by: ghastley Jun 18 2016, 05:31 PM

As usual, working on one mod gives me ideas for others.

I was trying out various possible shrines to Malacath for the Orc Stronghold, and I got an idea for one for the Dremora Tower.

http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/DagonStone.jpg uses an existing mesh from Labyrinthian (Shalidor's maze) with a change to the glow hue, and making it activate as a shrine. It gives a mild Fortify Destruction boost, as well as the usual cure disease, etc. It should appear at the same time as the spell book. At present it has two separate scripts, one for the glow and one for the shrine effect. I need to merge those, so the glow turns off after it gives the blessing.

So I had to start a new character to go build the tower. Heavy Armour with a bound sword, so she counts as a mage and gets an archer as housecarl. http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/HisAndHers.jpg. It looks a lot better on her.

Posted by: Acadian Jun 18 2016, 05:47 PM

Great work, but she looks rather overdressed compared to most of your characters.

Posted by: ghastley Jun 20 2016, 02:34 PM

It's an optical illusion caused by the longer hair.

Posted by: ghastley Nov 9 2016, 02:57 PM

I tried porting this over to SE, and ran into a problem with the faces. The new CK automatically builds a new set of FaceGen files, and creates a plain white Tint file that only seems to affect the head!?

This seems to relate to the built-in female head mesh not having any tint mask, but I'm still delving into all the complexities. I had similar problems with Uzi, but she had a custom head, so it broke differently.

I'm not sure whether I'll do a separate Xbox version without the bedroom exception, to meet the no nudes rule.

Posted by: Cain Nov 9 2016, 05:02 PM

Ah, yes. Can't be having boobs on Beth.net.

Posted by: ghastley Nov 10 2016, 03:25 PM

I made a change to the spell script to test the platform it's running on, so only PC players get boobies. I'm not sure how to properly test that part. The bsa will include the nude "outfit" but an XBox player has no way to unlock it.

I need to rework the outfits for SE, as there are higher-res version of the robes to provide the textures, and I could use the opportunity to fix some sporadic clipping, and the odd neck seam.

My test character is currently an Imperial, and the courier with the letter was waiting to ambush him at the Whiterun stables. He never got to report to Balgruuf, as he decided to go build right away.

I want to do a run with a playable Dremora too, so this may all take a while.

Meanwhile, http://ghastley.org/Skyrim/images/SE/ApprenticeHousecarl.jpg

Posted by: ghastley Nov 16 2016, 11:05 PM

Well it's been up on Bethesda.net for a while, and I have way more XBox1 users than it ever got on PC. But most of the comments have been "can you change it so I get the rewards without having to do the work?" just like on the other four. One of the most popular mods is a "cheat chest" for Hearthfires so you don't have to go collecting materials. I'm glad some of mine use non-standard materials that won't be in there.

I really must make the "Win Button" mod. You install the mod and as soon as the game starts it pops up a button labelled "Win". You push it, it tells you you won, and shuts the game down. That's all some of these kids need.