[Jerry Jr. Ortiz]

*Looks up Quadrelle* "A small mace with 4 blades"

Huh, I've played a lot of fantasy video games and read more than a few books on historical weapons, but I'd never heard of that term before. Where do you get your information? (Hoping you know about a good website or encyclopedia about historical weapons)

[Andrew Perry]

Question: if you changed "malachite" to "glass" (a change which I think makes sense, if 'malachite' is what you use to make 'glass' weapons), does that affect any dialogue, spoken or written?

Second question, if it doesn't, can you change moonstone and quicksilver? I get that in Tamriel, "glass" weapons are not literally silicon dioxide, they are some other magic-fantasy ore, and ebony is not a kind of heartwood, it's also a kind of magic fantasy ore. But Malachite and Moonstone are kinds of gemstone, like amethyst or quartz. You can't "smelt" them, you can't turn them into ingots. In fact, they are both known as gemstones primarily because they have stripes, malachite visible stripes, and moonstone a pearlescent appearance caused by tiny planes of crystal. Smelting either of these would just ruin them. Quicksilver is the common name of Mercury, element Hg, the element most known for being liquid at room temperature in its pure state. While I think you can find mercury salts, i.e. it would be reasonable to find mercury "ore," if you managed to refine it somehow you wouldn't get an ingot, you'd get a puddle. A toxic, heavy-metal poisoning inducing puddle. Has anyone seen any explanation for why moonstone, quicksilver, and malachite, all very well know real things with real properties, clearly are different in-game? Is there lore or is it just... I dunno.

As a suggestion, if you do change the names, malachite to glass, I would suggest mithril or something similarly fantasy-ish for moonstone. Maybe make up a name. The same for quicksilver.

As for smithing daedric weapons and armor, I was under the impression that "daedric" items are simply ebony, into which the soul of a very pissed off daedroth has been stuffed. As in, the reason it looks evil is because you crammed someone's soul into a lump of ebony-- and as a daedroth, they are still alive and conscious.

[Peter lopez]

Now that you mention it, maybe I was thinking of Dawnbreaker. I just tried it again in game and didn't get the option to improve that kind of blade, which makes sense. They're still going to require a weapon material keyword though to benefit from the smithing perks, in addition to the improvement recipes.

They keywords are already attached to the items. There just aren't any improvement recipes added yet. I'm going to put together a new way of improving them. Right now I think I will go with using grindstones and weight-stones for improving sharp & blunt weapons respectively. With more exotic grindstones required for the higher level items.

*Looks up Quadrelle* "A small mace with 4 blades"

Huh, I've played a lot of fantasy video games and read more than a few books on historical weapons, but I'd never heard of that term before. Where do you get your information? (Hoping you know about a good website or encyclopedia about historical weapons)

I have a Weapons & Armour Encyclopedia" with pictures. Written by Matthey Balent. I've had it for years. When choosing names for item I consider historical accuracy as well as ES lore accuracy. Sometimes I'm torn between the two.

Question: if you changed "malachite" to "glass" (a change which I think makes sense, if 'malachite' is what you use to make 'glass' weapons), does that affect any dialogue, spoken or written?

Second question, if it doesn't, can you change moonstone and quicksilver? I get that in Tamriel, "glass" weapons are not literally silicon dioxide, they are some other magic-fantasy ore, and ebony is not a kind of heartwood, it's also a kind of magic fantasy ore. But Malachite and Moonstone are kinds of gemstone, like amethyst or quartz. You can't "smelt" them, you can't turn them into ingots. In fact, they are both known as gemstones primarily because they have stripes, malachite visible stripes, and moonstone a pearlescent appearance caused by tiny planes of crystal. Smelting either of these would just ruin them. Quicksilver is the common name of Mercury, element Hg, the element most known for being liquid at room temperature in its pure state. While I think you can find mercury salts, i.e. it would be reasonable to find mercury "ore," if you managed to refine it somehow you wouldn't get an ingot, you'd get a puddle. A toxic, heavy-metal poisoning inducing puddle. Has anyone seen any explanation for why moonstone, quicksilver, and malachite, all very well know real things with real properties, clearly are different in-game? Is there lore or is it just... I dunno.

As a suggestion, if you do change the names, malachite to glass, I would suggest mithril or something similarly fantasy-ish for moonstone. Maybe make up a name. The same for quicksilver.

As for smithing daedric weapons and armor, I was under the impression that "daedric" items are simply ebony, into which the soul of a very pissed off daedroth has been stuffed. As in, the reason it looks evil is because you crammed someone's soul into a lump of ebony-- and as a daedroth, they are still alive and conscious.

Daedroth are a particular species of daedra. Which do not exist in Skyrim. I do not believe the Daedroth species is a specific requirement. As far as I know it only requires the essence of a Daedra. Which is why it requires a Daedra heart to create Daedric weapons. Like vanilla Daedric weapon crafting. The heart is a sufficient source of essence.

The item name changes do not affect dialogue, and why should they? The people of Skyrim aren't scholars or forum members. They basically just call it as they see it. Just like they incorrectly refer to the Dwemer as Dwarves. I may have corrected the item's names from the player's perspective. But, this doesn't and shouldn't have any affect on the NPC's perception. The same applies to Malachite. We know Malachite is Morrowind's Glass. The Blood of Lorkhan. The inhabitants of Skyrim came up with their own name for it, and that's Malachite. It looks like Malachite to them so they call it malachite. Even though You & I call it Glass and we both know it isn't real-life's Glass that's what it's called. So, No, I'm not going to change what the inhabitants of Skyrim call Glass. If in Skyrim it's known as Malachite, it will remain known as Malachite. Even if the player and his character knows better. There are a lot of things in real life, even to this day, which are named as something incorrectly based on a misconception. Horse Radish immediately comes to mind. It contains no horses.

Moonstone isn't changing. Moonstone is a very ambiguous term and since Moonstone as gemstone doesn't even exist as far as we know in Skyrim it being called Moonstone has no conflict. It actually does look quite a bit like real life's moonstone, at least in my mod, but that doesn't mean it is moonstone. It is a fantasy metal. Why should we borrow Tolkien's fantasy metals instead of inventing our own? Are his somehow more legitimate? Mithril, also known as True-Silver for example simply means that it isn't false silver, correct? Well, if you follow your own logic then Mithril shouldn't protect hobbits or make sharp swords because real life real silver doesn't do either of those things, and yet it uses the same name as silver because it looks like it. How is that any different than Glass, Malachite or Moonstone? It isn't. It looks like Moonstone, therefor it is called Moonstone even if it behaves like Titanium.

Quicksilver has already been renamed Alchemical Silver. Inspired by Morrowind and D&D. Except for the one unique sample of quicksilver included in a quest in Skyrim.

[Lifee Mccaslin]

I don't think there's any dialogue that refers to glass as malachite or as glass. It's just never mentioned by any of the characters.

Daedroth is the singular of daedra. Even in-universe, it's not really known why it has ALSO come to refer to a specific type of daedroth. The uncertainty is mentioned in the book Varieties of Daedra.

[Allison C]

They keywords are already attached to the items. There just aren't any improvement recipes added yet. I'm going to put together a new way of improving them. Right now I think I will go with using grindstones and weight-stones for improving sharp & blunt weapons respectively. With more exotic grindstones required for the higher level items.


I have a Weapons & Armour Encyclopedia" with pictures. Written by Matthey Balent. I've had it for years. When choosing names for item I consider historical accuracy as well as ES lore accuracy. Sometimes I'm torn between the two.



Daedroth are a particular species of daedra. Which do not exist in Skyrim. I do not believe the Daedroth species is a specific requirement. As far as I know it only requires the essence of a Daedra. Which is why it requires a Daedra heart to create Daedric weapons. Like vanilla Daedric weapon crafting. The heart is a sufficient source of essence.

The item name changes do not affect dialogue, and why should they? The people of Skyrim aren't scholars or forum members. They basically just call it as they see it. Just like they incorrectly refer to the Dwemer as Dwarves. I may have corrected the item's names from the player's perspective. But, this doesn't and shouldn't have any affect on the NPC's perception. The same applies to Malachite. We know Malachite is Morrowind's Glass. The Blood of Lorkhan. The inhabitants of Skyrim came up with their own name for it, and that's Malachite. It looks like Malachite to them so they call it malachite. Even though You & I call it Glass and we both know it isn't real-life's Glass that's what it's called. So, No, I'm not going to change what the inhabitants of Skyrim call Glass. If in Skyrim it's known as Malachite, it will remain known as Malachite. Even if the player and his character knows better. There are a lot of things in real life, even to this day, which are named as something incorrectly based on a misconception. Horse Radish immediately comes to mind. It contains no horses.

Moonstone isn't changing. Moonstone is a very ambiguous term and since Moonstone as gemstone doesn't even exist as far as we know in Skyrim it being called Moonstone has no conflict. It actually does look quite a bit like real life's moonstone, at least in my mod, but that doesn't mean it is moonstone. It is a fantasy metal. Why should we borrow Tolkien's fantasy metals instead of inventing our own? Are his somehow more legitimate? Mithril, also known as True-Silver for example simply means that it isn't false silver, correct? Well, if you follow your own logic then Mithril shouldn't protect hobbits or make sharp swords because real life real silver doesn't do either of those things, and yet it uses the same name as silver because it looks like it. How is that any different than Glass, Malachite or Moonstone? It isn't. It looks like Moonstone, therefor it is called Moonstone even if it behaves like Titanium.

Quicksilver has already been renamed Alchemical Silver. Inspired by Morrowind and D&D. Except for the one unique sample of quicksilver included in a quest in Skyrim.

Thanks for explaining that. I find this very interesting and educational.

[Patrick Gordon]

Ah, I had gotten the idea that you had changed "malachite" to "glass"...? Maybe I misread something. My suggestion was meant as, "if you are changing names, why not fix these..." If any of my above post sounded aggressive, that's not what I meant.

Additionally, "mithril" existed in Oblivion. At least, the word was applied to elven-looking armor. But whatever. I simply found it glaring, as I have somewhat of an interest in chemistry and rocks and gemstones, is all. I just had read somewhere that "glass" as it is called in Morrowind is not the same substance they make windows out of. It's somewhat immersion-breaking to see a well-known word for a distinct substance be used "incorrectly," just as irritating as it is to have our "feeling of well-rested-ness bar" be labeled "fatigue" so when you were "full of fatigue" you were well-rested. You restored your fatigue to make yourself have more energy. It's a minor point, however.

(As noted above, "daedroth" is the singular of daedra, but it's not relevant. I mean, you needed to cram the soul of some daedra that had been summoned from another plane into a piece of ebony to make daedric armor. I didn't mean that crocodile thingy from Morrowind.)

This mod looks wonderful and I'm going to download it as soon as it gets a little further. (The computer I play skyrim on is mooched, so I have to wait...)

[Lynne Hinton]

Additionally, "mithril" existed in Oblivion. At least, the word was applied to elven-looking armor. But whatever. I simply found it glaring, as I have somewhat of an interest in chemistry and rocks and gemstones, is all. I just had read somewhere that "glass" as it is called in Morrowind is not the same substance they make windows out of. It's somewhat immersion-breaking to see a well-known word for a distinct substance be used "incorrectly," just as irritating as it is to have our "feeling of well-rested-ness bar" be labeled "fatigue" so when you were "full of fatigue" you were well-rested. You restored your fatigue to make yourself have more energy. It's a minor point, however.

No, elven armor was elven armor. Mithril armor was mithril armor. And fatigue is now stamina, so that problem's fixed

[Lil'.KiiDD]

Elven and Mithril are considered seperate materials in Daggerfall as well. I am glad that they moved away from mithril a little with Skyrim however, it always struck me as a little too 'generic fantasy' which is why I think they replaced it with glass as the mandatory super-strong-light-material in Morrowind.

As for glass there is a close real world anologue. Both Glass and Ebony are supposed to be found in/near volcanoes and share a pretty strong resemblance to volcanic glass, which comes in a variety of colours, but primarily black (i.e. Obsidian) and green (Usually just referred to as "Volcanic Glass", clear, green and lighter than obsidian) and has a history of use for weapons.

[Carlitos Avila]

I don't think there's any dialogue that refers to glass as malachite or as glass. It's just never mentioned by any of the characters.

Daedroth is the singular of daedra. Even in-universe, it's not really known why it has ALSO come to refer to a specific type of daedroth. The uncertainty is mentioned in the book Varieties of Daedra.

I didn't know if it was mentioned by any of the characters or not. Even if it was, I wasn't going to change it.

Ah, I had gotten the idea that you had changed "malachite" to "glass"...? Maybe I misread something. My suggestion was meant as, "if you are changing names, why not fix these..." If any of my above post sounded aggressive, that's not what I meant.

Additionally, "mithril" existed in Oblivion. At least, the word was applied to elven-looking armor. But whatever. I simply found it glaring, as I have somewhat of an interest in chemistry and rocks and gemstones, is all. I just had read somewhere that "glass" as it is called in Morrowind is not the same substance they make windows out of. It's somewhat immersion-breaking to see a well-known word for a distinct substance be used "incorrectly," just as irritating as it is to have our "feeling of well-rested-ness bar" be labeled "fatigue" so when you were "full of fatigue" you were well-rested. You restored your fatigue to make yourself have more energy. It's a minor point, however.

(As noted above, "daedroth" is the singular of daedra, but it's not relevant. I mean, you needed to cram the soul of some daedra that had been summoned from another plane into a piece of ebony to make daedric armor. I didn't mean that crocodile thingy from Morrowind.)

This mod looks wonderful and I'm going to download it as soon as it gets a little further. (The computer I play skyrim on is mooched, so I have to wait...)

Malachite items have already been renamed to Glass. I'm not sure where the confusion comes in. Apparently you aren't using the mod anyway. You should be aware that many things in the real world are incorrectly referred to as something they're not. People calling things by the wrong name is an inescapable phenomenon. People without basic firearms knowledge often times incorrectly refer to magazines as 'clips' as if the terms were interchangeable. They're not. They're two totally different distinct objects and yet there are countless people out there who will call magazines clips. This isn't an error on the part of the developer or the modder if the inhabitants of the game use incorrect terms when naming objects.

Elven and Mithril are considered seperate materials in Daggerfall as well. I am glad that they moved away from mithril a little with Skyrim however, it always struck me as a little too 'generic fantasy' which is why I think they replaced it with glass as the mandatory super-strong-light-material in Morrowind.

As for glass there is a close real world anologue. Both Glass and Ebony are supposed to be found in/near volcanoes and share a pretty strong resemblance to volcanic glass, which comes in a variety of colours, but primarily black (i.e. Obsidian) and green (Usually just referred to as "Volcanic Glass", clear, green and lighter than obsidian) and has a history of use for weapons.

Yes. This is true. It's properties are also very similar to the lore description. Additionally, the volcanic flow that creates ES Glass & Ebony is Lorkhan's blood which is a reasonable explanation as to why it's stronger than real-world obsidian and glass.

[jadie kell]

Puma, mountain lion, cougar. That's all I have to say about naming.

[Josh Lozier]

Puma, mountain lion, cougar. That's all I have to say about naming.

Pretty much.

[Stryke Force]

just want to say thank you for such an awesome mod. really digging the new items and decoupling of material and style. i can't wait for the CK to come out. i suppose when it does you are going to add these weapons to the leveled lists? i hope so. that would really make these weapons feel like part of this world.

[Unstoppable Judge]

just want to say thank you for such an awesome mod. really digging the new items and decoupling of material and style. i can't wait for the CK to come out. i suppose when it does you are going to add these weapons to the leveled lists? i hope so. that would really make these weapons feel like part of this world.

I was going to wait until I finished them all. But, what do you guys think? Should I add them to leveled lists as I add them to crafting or wait until I'm all done and do them all at once?

[Vahpie]

I was going to wait until I finished them all. But, what do you guys think? Should I add them to leveled lists as I add them to crafting or wait until I'm all done and do them all at once?

If it were me I'd add them as I go.

[El Goose]

----------------------------------------------------------------
Armoury of Tamriel, 0.6.3

New crafting recipes
-All material varieties of http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/2933-1-1326817292.jpg added to crafting.
-Battleaxes require 4 total ingots to craft.

----------------------------------------------------------------

[Steve Fallon]

Back to leveled lists. Lets start with Blacksmith leveled lists.
At which level should the different materials appear?
Should blacksmiths only sell basic & Nordic style weapons?

[koumba]

Back to leveled lists. Lets start with Blacksmith leveled lists.
At which level should the different materials appear?
Should blacksmiths only sell basic & Nordic style weapons?

Honestly, I'm in the "All Items should be available at all levels" camp, mostly because it just makes sense. As for the styles available, I think that is good, though http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Ghorza_gra-Bagol should know the Orcish style, and Adrienne and the Solitude smith should know Imperial Style.

[Ann Church]

Honestly, I'm in the "All Items should be available at all levels" camp, mostly because it just makes sense. As for the styles available, I think that is good, though http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Ghorza_gra-Bagol should know the Orcish style, and Adrienne and the Solitude smith should know Imperial Style.

It may make sense from an RP perspective, but it never makes sense from a gameplay perspective. If everything was available form the beginning you'd buy an Ebony sword from the Blacksmith in Riverwood and never use another weapon throughout the entire game. Itemization is important for good gameplay even if it doesn't make much sense from an in-character perspective.

Location & cost are not prohibitive. Level is prohibitive.

[Euan]

It may make sense from an RP perspective, but it never makes sense from a gameplay perspective. If everything was available form the beginning you'd buy an Ebony sword from the Blacksmith in Riverwood and never use another weapon throughout the entire game. Itemization is important for good gameplay even if it doesn't make much sense from an in-character perspective.

If I remember correctly, Plutoman's P.I.S.E mod has quite a good way of presenting this: The levelled lists for merchants are 'de-levelled' but the chance of an ebony weapon (for example) is much rarer. This is tied to a second component which inflates the base price of items. So whilst an 'end-game' item is potentially available from the start of the game, your chance of acquiring one is pretty slim.
^{*Again, this may be the product of my faulty memory.}

I think that is good, though http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Ghorza_gra-Bagol should know the Orcish style, and Adrienne and the Solitude smith should know Imperial Style.

I also liked the concept of blacksmith stock of ore and ingots being tied to what sort of mines you found in that Holding, silver and dwemer-metal in Markarth for instance. Though currently I think the merchants all draw stock from the same list so this would be a nice-to-have once the CK is available.

Back to leveled lists. Lets start with Blacksmith leveled lists.
At which level should the different materials appear?
Should blacksmiths only sell basic & Nordic style weapons?

Back to the original question... I'll get my notepad, UESP and SkyEdit and post back later.

[JAY]

If I remember correctly, Plutoman's P.I.S.E mod has quite a good way of presenting this: The levelled lists for merchants are 'de-levelled' but the chance of an ebony weapon (for example) is much rarer. This is tied to a second component which inflates the base price of items. So whilst an 'end-game' item is potentially available from the start of the game, your chance of acquiring one is pretty slim.
^{*Again, this may be the product of my faulty memory.}

I also liked the concept of blacksmith stock of ore and ingots being tied to what sort of mines you found in that Holding, silver and dwemer-metal in Markarth for instance. Though currently I think the merchants all draw stock from the same list so this would be a nice-to-have once the CK is available.

Back to the original question... I'll get my notepad, UESP and SkyEdit and post back later.

This isn't going to become PISE. Balance isn't going to depend entirely on random chance. In world controlled by random chance, balance is also going to be dependent on random chance and that's not something I want. I want a clear item progression that the player feels incremental amounts of improvement throughout the experience akin to classic RPGs and D&D based games. In real life I can go to the store and buy an AR-15 despite being level 1. But I admit, that's pretty OP. In video games, more specifically, in RPGs a great portion of the game's fun comes from it's challenge and that challenge is created by limiting the player in what he can do and slowly increase what they can do while also increasing what challenges they face. If it was real-life anyone could kill anyone in one hit from an iron dagger.

I draw my inspiration from many things. Including Diablo, Final Fantasy Tactics, Morrowind, Dungeons and Dragons and games I've created myself over the years. All of those things depend on and benefit greatly from a clear level progression and itemization.

[Chrissie Pillinger]

If I want to keep some meshes/textures for vanilla weapons that I have changed already can I swap some of them out for your weapons. For instance if I want to keep my daedric sword can I change the name to dremorasword and input my old files into your mod and have it work correctly?

Another mod I have is 'glowing arrow projectiles', which is just a mesh replacement that adds a glow effect. Can I rename these to each of the appropriate arrow to get the effect?

Essentially, do I want to delete all non-esp related, simple mesh and texture replacements for the vanilla weapons mods that I have, and input them into your weapons300 files instead? Should that work? Ordinarily I would trial and error my way through this but it's a pretty extensive list, lol.

[joeK]

I would still consider lowering the level at which Malachite, Quicksilver and Ebony ingots / ores become available. If I had raised my Smithing skill / perks to a sufficient point earlier than level 20 - 30, I think butting against material availability would prove rather frustrating.

[carla]

If I want to keep some meshes/textures for vanilla weapons that I have changed already can I swap some of them out for your weapons. For instance if I want to keep my daedric sword can I change the name to dremorasword and input my old files into your mod and have it work correctly?

Another mod I have is 'glowing arrow projectiles', which is just a mesh replacement that adds a glow effect. Can I rename these to each of the appropriate arrow to get the effect?

Essentially, do I want to delete all non-esp related, simple mesh and texture replacements for the vanilla weapons mods that I have, and input them into your weapons300 files instead? Should that work? Ordinarily I would trial and error my way through this but it's a pretty extensive list, lol.

That won't work. The .esp changes where the game looks for the meshes to use. In order to use someone else meshes you need to rename them to what my meshes are named and put them in their folders.

I would still consider lowering the level at which Malachite, Quicksilver and Ebony ingots / ores become available. If I had raised my Smithing skill / perks to a sufficient point earlier than level 20 - 30, I think butting against material availability would prove rather frustrating.

Eventually the ores will be available at the level where the smithing skill unlocks. I'd also like to make sure that smithing the material is unlocked a few levels before weapons are available from that material.

[Lynne Hinton]

I think totally unleveling things would require a tremendous amount of attention to detail to really get right, everything would have to be hand placed and carefully restricted to retain the kind of progression that makes RPGs interesting. Unleveling is also ill suited for a mod that adds tons of progressive gear to the game, I want a reason to actually use all the cool, intermediate materials that this mod adds, skipping straight to daedric would waste a lot of content.

One thing though, there are a lot of avenues for progression in this game - combat skill, combat perks, enchanting skill, enchanting perks, weapons found, weapons smithed, improvements from smithing skill, improvements from smithing perks. Given all these progressive elements, you could make all the materials and styles a lot closer together in terms of overall damage, differentiate between them via more subtle attributes, like weight, critical damage, improve-ability, durability if you could add degradation back in, etc., and you'd still have plenty of progression from things like the grinding wheel being tied to smithing skill.

[Avril Churchill]

As for which styles of items blacksmiths should sell, I guess it would depend on whether you imagine the Blacksmith trading only weapons they themselves have crafted or whether they would also have a limited stock of items they had bought from travelling merchants / adventurers. A mild point for the latter would certainly be that all the blacksmiths will buy your arms and armour. In which case adding Breton, Ancient or Dunmeri items to something like BlacksmithSpecialLoot10 might make sense.