I was wondering about this for a while...but carriages can fast travel you places, which I understand , but I feel like if I wanted to fast travel, I would just go to the map and click the place I wanted to fast travel. I guess the purpose is for places you haven't been yet? Anyway though, do you guys think it would be possible to have a mod that enables the carriages to drive you to and from places that you ask to be taken...you know...like in realtime? I know at the beginning of the game there was a carriage that held multiple people and drove you someplace, so I figure the functionality can't be too far off. Perhaps it also could allow your companion to join on, Or other people hovering nearby who want to take the carriage? Hm actually I'll write out a full set of requested points and maybe someone could pick it up when the CS comes out.

- Carriages take you to places in real time using the roads.
- Because Carriages take you to places using the roads, the destinations are limited to where the carriage can physically travel.
- I think there were 4 people on the opening game's carriage, so I guess there should be 4 seats at max.
- If there are people waiting on the carriage and you have a companion, two people will take the other seats.
- People who ride the carriages (along with your companion) can be talked to.
- I guess until functionality allows it, all carriages and riders will be part of all other factions (meaning they wont be attacked).
- Carriages can be taken by NPCs.
- Depending on the road, up to two carriages can be set. (One going, one coming, or just one carriage if the road it takes is small)
- In order to prevent carriages blocking each other. Each carriage will have its own route that doesn't overlap with any other carriage route. On wider
roads though, up to two carriages can pass by each other. But they still will have their own "routes".
- When a carriage hits the end of it's route, it will state that they need some time to "prepare". So when they player goes inside of an interior, or the cells get unloaded, it will reload the carriage towards the desired direction (this is to prevent carriages from instantly flipping towards the new route). Alternatively, at the end of a route, will be a carriage going in the direction you just came from.

Always enjoyed the very first carriage ride in the game, despite being a prisoner and it being a slow journey. First time I hired one I expected it to be similar, and was disappointed it was merely a form of fast travel.

Would be nice to see this, though probably hard to script in with critters and other encounters.

I plan on doing this fpr myself. If I manage to get it to work well enough to be a qaulity release, I;ll release it.

How would a modder handle creatures on the road? They'd most certainly attack you, the other travelers, the horse or all of the above. If you're stuck in a riding sequence would you be able to get off and defend the carriage? What would happen when the fight was over? Would the ride reset and continue to the destination? What if the driver or horse were killed?

I wonder how it would work if, upon entering the carriage, you and all your fellow travelers, the driver and the horse would be added to a new faction which was friendly with all other known (hostile or potentially hostile) factions, then that faction could be removed upon the completion of the journey.

I'd also like a similar system for just walking to a destination. I don't FT because I like looking around but there have been many times when I'm headed somewhere (usually back to town to sell loot) I wish my character would just walk there on his own without me having to take manual control.

What if you're attacked?

Could run a TCAI command through a script upon entering the ride. Nothing will try to fight then.

Same thing that happens when you're attacked on a horse? You get off and fight or hope that you can outrun whatever's attacking you. Maybe there should be a mechanic for pausing and resuming your journey.

Simply switch to manual control. Then switch back to "auto travel" (not FT) afterwards. I suppose the same could go for carriage travel.

TCAI would break immersion a lot. Seeing bandits, wolves, bears, sabres, etc just watching you pass by...

Gonna be so bold as to say that this was done for Morrowind already, and I hope a similar aspect can be done for Skyrim. as for dealing with creatures and attackers? the carriages would have convoy Guards riding along on horses much like the opening scene no? Its doable, if you've f'd around like and seveal others have you'll notice that the Carriages actually act like carriages in the opening scene.

I would absolutely treasure a mod like this; I hope it comes to fruition. Another useful feature would be that using the wait command skips you ahead how ever many hours (as appropriate) distance.

If it is implemented in the form of a mod, I hope it will allow us to speed up the travel (getting their instantly) and get off the carriage (where you currently are) as well. That way, you could make the entire entity neutral with all creatures in the game and allow the world to keep "turning" as you're riding along (or you could add caravan guards that travel with the carriage on horse and protect it from danger, which would be ideal). If you get bored, instant fast travel. If you see bandits harassing some old man, get off and kill them. It would be awesome, both as a realistic form of travel and a new way to showcase the wonderful world Bethesda has created (even if it severely lacks content).

You could possibly add random encounters that occur while traveling in the carriage too, once the CK is released.

I think if the wagon ride its self can be done as well as the intro ride, then the best way to handle enemy encounters would be a script, which might actually already be in the game, used for some quests and scripted events, where the driver will react to enemy's and say "were under attack" and stop, allowing the player to get off and deal with the enemy then continue the trip. Pretty much every ride would be like an escort mission with you being the "protector", or if you wanted the player to be "locked" into the carriage you could have scripted guard's riding along on horseback that deal with threats. You could have a script that disables "world events' such as thieves attempting to rob you or any other instance where the player is directly interacted with and forced to stop in case these things are seen to cause issues during the ride. Again all these scripts and voiced dialog's could already be in game and used in quests and various scripted NPC interactions and just need some tweaking to work for the mod.

The only problem that I foresee with that is interactions with mobs added by other mods.

Yes but mod-v-mod relations are usually always handled with compatibility patches when possible.

true. I forgot about that for some reason... I don't know, I'm a big fan of KISS and would prefer to just get off the cart when I need to.

If we're going to have actual travelling carriages I also would like to see them leave on regular schedules (so the player could encounter them along the way and ride to the destination). That way, we could have even more travelling encounters and make the world that much more alive. Then whoever will make a more-travelling-NPCs mod can use that system to have them ride carriages as well.

Agreed. Seems like this would be possible to implement, given the schedules all the NPC's have. Another thing that might be interesting, or utter crap: have the carriages for each city only take you to the currently-allied cities and back, i.e. You can hitch a ride to pretty much anywhere from Whiterun, but you can't get a ride from, say, Windhelm to Solitude. They ARE in the middle of a civil war, after all. So it'd be like:

PLAYER: Salutations, Mr. Solitude Carriage Driver! I'd like to board your carriage!
DRIVER: All right; where ya headed?
PLAYER: WINDHELM, my good man!
DRIVER: Woah, now, that's Stormcloak territory! I'll take ya as far as Whiterun, but I can't promise anything more!

Though, this would have to be scripted so the Carriage Drivers changed allegiance with the cities during the Civil War Questline, I suppose. And while, admittedly, it is possible that there is some kind of (possibly unspoken) agreement amongst the Imperials and Stormcloaks to not attack caravans, it would (to me, at least,) help emphasize exactly how sharply divided Skyrim really is.

I'm kind of surprised everyone jumped on this idea so quickly. Most of the ideas people wrote in here are things I thought up as well.

I think one way to have carriages handle mobs would be to (as people suggested) have guards that ride with the carts. However I had an idea that might work.

Have a guard lead the carriage and have the carriage set with a follow package for the guard's horse. The guard will run a set route with waypoints to specific
areas in the world based on where the current destination is. If an enemy is encountered, the guard will get off the horse and the horse will stop moving. The guard
will then attack the enemy until it's killed, then resume traveling. If the guard is killed, you can man the horse and lead the carriage in the same way. Or you can make
both the horse and the guard invincible. Once the combat is done, the carriage guy can give you up to 30 seconds to get back on the carriage before they resume
travelling. This way carriages don't get stuck in the wild if you decide to not jump back on.

Edit: (Quest Oppurtunity maybe? Become a Carriage Guard while travelling the road)

I think the main problem in this mod though is testing various routes and finding out what's actually possible to travel to. I was testing in game, and I found out that a lot of routes are
not areas you can travel by the roads in an immersive way. There are a lot of things blocking caravan paths: trapped spots, ambush areas, fallen trees, etc. From
Solitude for example, I didn't find any routes that would lead me to Markarth...or the general "center" of the map. But I didn't search too long, so I just might not have seen it.

I think for carriages to work in a fun and believable way, as a rule the carriage should only travel on the roads. Very rarely it might take a stab off the beaten path, but only to link
to another nearby road. From my testing I got this so far:

Solitude could do:


Didn't test anywhere else yet since I walked by foot.

One thing I found though while testing though was as I travelled the roads and looked at the scenery passing by imagining I was in a carriage, it was really fun and
immersive and I saw lots of Points of Interests and offbeaten paths that would entice me (as a player) to go check it out in the future once I got off the carriage.

I think this idea could work really good guys!

Just wanted to jump on this and say this is a great idea. I would like to see this done.

Since the roads have been mapped out, http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4929 I think this carriage mod has become a lot more doable.

I've been playing about with this idea just now.

It seems that the carriages, or at least the horses for the non-intro carriages are not the same; they aren't 'proper' horses (you can't kill them for example, and if you set a path for them they don't walk, they hover. They also aren't actually connected to the carts). Hopefully it shouldn't be difficult to find and rectify these differences once we have the CK.

I've managed to re-path the carriage from the intro cutscene (messily, using the console/Script Dragon) and the horses pull the carts along fine, though the pathfinding isn't exactly fantastic and the cart tends to tip over... I haven't tested over long distances though, I'm not sure if it would be better or worse, the AI have a tendency to cut corners on the roads which with a cart isn't going to be so good.

EDIT: I went on a slightly longer journey, ran into bandits. Apparently you can die despite not having an actual body at that point in the game.

The opening scene is fully scripted, that is the path of the horse and carriage are forced, the carriage system is also one I'm looking at and the only way currently I see of getting them to stick to a path is have markers set up along the way.

I am curios about them tipping over, could mean they are weighted incorrectly, or you had them moving too fast

I support the idea of having actual carriages move you around the world. But I don't know how I feel about highwaymen or just being attacked by random things. Maybe there could be two versions of this mod: one where you get attacked by things and the other where the carriage has the TCAI thing going on.

This is the single most-anticipated mod for me. I never fast travel because I love to enjoy the scenery of the game and get to know the landscape, but the carriages were such a disappointment when I tried them for the first time. It just felt like a cheap alternative to fast traveling.

To be able to sit in the carriage, maybe read a book... watch the world pass me by... That's what a carriage ride should be like.

However, I would quite dislike if I could be attacked on the carriage. I'm paying for a safe and easy way between towns, not being paid to guard a caravan. Dragons appearing would be permissible.

Speaking of payment though, I think the carriages should be more expensive.

Anyway, that's the end of my thoughts about it. I'm looking forward to when one surfaces! I'd do it myself, but I have zero experience with modding, and this one seems out of a beginner's league.