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Orc Hearthfire, Help me with the story part |
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| ghastley |
Feb 27 2014, 04:11 PM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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I have most of the pieces for adding an Orc Stronghold to the homes the player can build in Hearthfire. It's going to take some time to connect it all up - especially linking all the pieces to the their enable parents, and making the lists of components that drive the scripts, but everything is figured out. The bit that's missing (apart from some of the partial building meshes) is the quest that allows the player to use the plot of land.
In the DLC, the player is granted the right to purchase the land by the Jarl of a hold that has no ready-made home. The only one that doesn't already provide a plot or a house is Winterhold, and that's all heavy snow and ice. The Orc Longhouse comes in regular and light-snow variants, and I didn't feel like adding to the load by making another, so a grant from Winterhold was ruled out. That left me with putting the plot in one of the others, and the need for a different story.
I found a suitable location at the northern side of the central plain, near to Greenspring Hollow. It has iron veins (6) and corundum (2) in reasonable reach, plus 2 clay, and I've found a good spot to add a stone quarry. That puts it in Whiterun's area, and the Jarl there already lets you buy Breezehome. So I need another way for you to get the grant to the Greenspring Longhouse plot.
One idea I have is for the Orc chieftains collectively to reward the player if he/she has done favours for each of the four existing strongholds. The chief of Largashbur gets replaced by the Malacath quest, but that's no different from the Civil War replacing Jarls, and can be accomodated by an appropriate alias. None of them would step down, and let him/her replace them, but letting the player build a new stronghold would advance the Orcish cause in general. This only makes sense for an Orc player character, but I suspect that's what the human playing the game would expect.
The questions remaining are: Who to pay for the land? It's easier to use the existing scripts if I can keep this part of the process. I'm thinking Whiterun Steward, as it's in their territory. Adoption? The longhouse is smaller than the other three houses, but you can fit child beds into it. The code allows adopted kids to move to a house that has those, plus their own chest. The counter-argument is that there's no Orc orphans without another mod. On the gripping hand, you don't have to adopt kids of your own race. Since I can control what's put into the house, I can turn adoption on or off by the making of the kids' beds and chest(s). Should the longhouse recruit other Orcs? DLC houses can add bard and carriage driver, and convert a follower to steward. It may be possible to re-purpose those slots to more Orcish-stronghold "jobs", like shaman or smith. Multiple marriage? Orc chieftains can have more than one wife. Should building the longhouse give the player the right to extra wives? And what if the PC is female? I'm not sure if this would mean new script, or if "hunts-wife" could just be a replacement for "bard".
This post has been edited by ghastley: Feb 27 2014, 04:14 PM
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Replies(40 - 59)
| ghastley |
Jan 28 2015, 04:24 PM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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I looked at sculpting the slope, but the result looked artificial, so I scrapped it. I'd already flattened a small area for the hut, which didn't look unrealistic, but the longhouse would need too much work. I can't change the level at the front, or it affects the hut, and lowering the back would need a new cliff/rock outcrop to justify the step. The final longhouse now looks like it was dug in, which is similar to at least one of the others, but I don't know how to replicate that during the build. I don't think it's possible to disable a piece of landscape.
Since the current process works, it stays for now.
I've adjusted the interior lighting a bit, adding lights that get enabled with the chandeliers and the dining table (which has candles on it). The major part that's holding up release is the lumber purchase dialog. The script to add the mill owners to the lumber vendor faction is not being fired off, so they won't sell logs unless you started a regular Hearthfires home. When I manually add a mill owner, it still doesn't show, sometimes.
And the log pile has reverted to showing "Log pile (" instead of giving the current count. I probably have to purge some empty scripts that were unintentionally compiled from the base DLC. The CK sometimes does that, and since it doesn't have the source in the right folder, they become empty. Doing that may fix my startup issues, as well.
Progress is slow, as each time I change the properties of the main quest, I have to roll a new character, as they're fixed once the quest starts (at beginning of game for that one). Largashbur requires level 9. I really need to run a character up to that level without the mod, and make a save I can reuse, but they'd still have to do the making friends quests, so it wouldn't save much time.
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| ghastley |
Mar 2 2015, 12:43 AM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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Well, it looks like it may actually be close to usable.
My latest Orc (Thudd) has a log-pile that shows how many logs she has, and Hert is selling her lumber, even though the Greenspring Stronghold is her only home. She's built the longhouse and all the outbuildings, and furnished most of the place. Just a few more ingots, and she can complete the basement.
I still have a few little things to tweak, like getting the bedrolls in the hut to appear and disappear at the right times, but I may have something for you to try really soon. That's if I can figure out what needs to be included.
I want to provide a piece of the Elf Kids as an optional esp/bsa, so you can have Uzi if you want a matching child, but that can wait for a later beta release. It won't be easy extracting her from the others.
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| ghastley |
Mar 2 2015, 04:23 AM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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Well, if you're brave enough to try an 0.1 release - here it is. Because of the way Bethesda wrote the scripts which I cloned, much of the variation is in the properties, which get baked into the save game. That means that when I fix anything in that area, it can't affect an existing game, and you'd have to start over. I'd strongly recommend a new game to try this. I've found that if you run round the Orc Strongholds, and do Ghorza or Moth's quests at Markarth, then by the time you reach Largashbur at the end of the cycle, you're just reaching the right level (9) for The Cursed Tribe. Of course, killing the giant at that level isn't easy. I've managed to find a location where I can use a bow, but not get hit, but the giant isn't dumb and retreats out of range. It's then a cat-and-mouse game of following, sniping and running back to safety. When you leave Largashbur with Volendrung then the game will start showing you how many Orc friends you've made. It's been counting since installing the mod, but you don't see the count before. If you're lucky, you already have five, and a courier is on his way. If not, mine some ore, beat up the chief, or seduce Borgakh. Happy building!
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| ghastley |
Mar 3 2015, 03:03 PM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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Added the documentation to my web site, here. in case anybody needs it there. The missing images on some pages aren't broken links, they're just not created yet, Feedback on that will be useful, too. This post has been edited by ghastley: Sep 13 2019, 02:53 PM
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| ghastley |
Mar 4 2015, 02:16 AM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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QUOTE(Grits @ Mar 3 2015, 06:48 PM)  The documentation looks great! I had some questions in the back of my mind about how the construction would work and if I would have to make choices like the Nord Hearthfire houses such as building the wings, and you’ve already answered them here. I suggest a section about NPCs and how that will work, such as who is the Wise Woman that will live in the hut, do you recruit her from a follower you bring to the site or does she show up on her own (or however it happens), and are there other roles for NPCs that can be recruited to live in the stronghold. The Quest section was perfectly clear to me.  My character (The Hammer) is level 6 and about to start the favor quests, so I needed a fresher on that part! NPC recruitment is not yet included, so that's not described. Although I have several potential NPC's in mind, I don't want to add any dialog, other than pieces I can copy from existing quests. I don't want any voice variation, and I can't hire the original voice actors. So I'm hunting through the text, looking for stuff I can cobble together.
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| ghastley |
Mar 7 2015, 03:43 PM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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Thanks to feedback from Lardrumph, we have some more progress. 1) The storehouse was empty, so I've added some more empties to it. There's now an empty chest, two empty barrels, an empty weapon rack, and an empty crate for minerals and ingots. 2) There was an empty corner in the basement where I'd originally decided to put mannequins, but thought I'd have wandering issues, and changed my mind. Well, I changed it back again after reading more about the problem, so the corner's no longer empty. You can see that the test character didn't have time to collect anything after leaving Helgen! 3) No garden outside. I thought it would be nice to have a goat or two, as well, and they don't mix. So I've moved the stockade back a little from here, to here, and that can be fenced off. I still haven't decided if the plantings or the goats go inside the fence. I eliminated a couple of corner shelves in the basement that never appeared, and would have blocked access to a bed. I'll have another install built soon. The basic testing went OK, but that's with a COC to the site and adding all materials via console. If you add the changes to an existing game, you can't create the mannequins, but the other changes should happen. The fence won't appear, as that will be tied to acquiring the goat, which is still TBD. There's some minor stuff, such as a light in the Wise Woman's hut, that enables with the Enchanter. I already had a lamp appear, but it didn't light the place up before. She also gets some empty shelves with the Alchemy station. This post has been edited by ghastley: Jun 6 2015, 03:35 PM
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| ghastley |
Mar 8 2015, 11:12 PM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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Working on the NPCs as a separate esp for now, just in case... My current idea is that the Wise Woman (tentatively named Yarob) will be found in a cave/ruin, where she's defeated a Dragon Priest. Unfortunately for her, the priest's mask was cursed, and when she put it on, he took control of her. The player must now defeat her before she'll be freed from the curse. At that point she'll destroy the mask, and thank the player. This is what she'll look like wearing it - except that she'll be a bit more aggressive when the player finds her.  I'm not intending to explain whether the tusks on the mask have anything to do with her, or the priest. They're just there.
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| ghastley |
Mar 9 2015, 03:55 AM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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QUOTE(Grits @ Mar 8 2015, 07:39 PM)  Mithilion got the new furniture and a surprise mannequin with 0.2, and I’ll report back when I get Greenspring built in a new game.
The mannequin (and a couple of other items) didn't get their "initially disabled" set correctly, or they got the wrong enable parent due to clicking on the wrong thing in the window. So there will be at least an 0.3 to fix those things, before I start to add the NPC's. I'm leaning the same way on the goat(s) being outside the fence. Not sure if I can put "plant your own" on the sloping ground, but I might be able to enable a patch of veggies if they won't work. The problem with Yarob will be that she needs unique dialog, so she'd have to have a unique voice, or silent dialog. So far the mod has avoided having any dialog at all.  On the other hand, once I make that decision, I can do a lot more with her at the stronghold - e.g. she can build a shrine to Malacath and use it. This post has been edited by ghastley: Mar 9 2015, 03:56 AM
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| ghastley |
Mar 12 2015, 01:42 AM
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Councilor

Joined: 13-December 10

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Here's a shot of the veggie patch, indicating the slope situation. There's more space around each plant than I'd like, but moving them closer to the sides makes the dirt poke through the wood. This is the Orc version of Dibella. A slightly more robust representation than the Breton one seen in Markarth. This post has been edited by ghastley: Jun 6 2015, 03:36 PM
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| haute ecole rider |
Mar 12 2015, 04:15 AM
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Master

Joined: 16-March 10
From: The place where the Witchhorses play

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QUOTE(ghastley @ Mar 11 2015, 07:42 PM)  Here's a shot of the veggie patch, indicating the slope situation. There's more space around each plant than I'd like, but moving them closer to the sides makes the dirt poke through the wood. Hey, that screenie of the veggies looks awesome! Reminds me of my landscaping efforts back at the old Homestead - '50's ranch set on top of a steep-sided rock pile. In order to get plants to grow, I had to terrace the slopes, remove the pebbles and rocks, and add in good soil (amended with peat moss). Speaking from personal experience, you do not want to plant anything too close to the edges of containers unless you want them to either a) grow out of the container or  break the sides of the container. So the plant placement in this looks perfect for this former hobby landscaper!
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