» Wed May 30, 2012 1:23 am While I was on vacation over the weekend I thought this would be fun to work on at some point. Basically, I hate "hammerspace"; the space behind a player's back from which he pulls all manner of items from seemingly nowhere (in cartoons, it's usually a giant hammer, hence the name). While such a thing can never be eliminated in a game such as this, I can do my best to minimize it and add features that can draw you deeper into the world without adding a lot of tedium, and possibly make combat more tactical as well.
Just to get it out of the way, yes, I am aware of http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1371668-relwip-limiteditems/page__hl__limiteditems. I think he's doing great work, and Frostfall's version of Sabre Gear Backpacks will even support it. But as always, I mod for fun, regardless of what's currently in the community or being worked on, and this sounds like fun. And if you want a game mechanic similar to what I detail below right now, I suggest you give LimitedItems a spin.
Here are some of my thoughts:
- Get rid of the "general inventory". Normal item storage will no longer happen here. Things that are worn, like weapons and armor, cloaks, backpacks, etc, will go here, including a very small amount of space for items considered to be "at the ready". A few potions, maybe a scroll or two, a few lockpicks. These are items that can be accessed while in combat.
- Most item storage will be done via worn packs. These would come from sources like Sabre Gear Backpacks (either the stand-alone version or the Frostfall version), and of course, Bandoliers. In fact, I would say that this mod's development is intrinsically tied to Bandoliers being receptive to supporting this, as well as other worn bag creators.
- "Using" a backpack in the player's general inventory will bring up a separate inventory just for that backpack, and allow you to move things in and out of it, use things from it, equip items from it, etc. You would not be able to move items from a backpack to the "at the ready" general inventory while in combat. Rooting through a giant pack to look for that healing potion is not something you should be doing when an axe is headed toward your face. You should have thought of that before! I hope this system, if balanced properly, will encourage some tactical forethought as to what should be in your "combat loadout".
- Since "using" a backpack will open the inventory (there will be another method to unequip it), this means you could hotkey individual backpacks (and their inventories) just like you would any other piece of equipment. You won't lose your inventory button.
- Since items in your pack aren't in your regular inventory, they can't be hotkeyed. Only items considered "at the ready" would be hotkey-able, which I think makes sense. If you want quick access to that stamina potion or fireball scroll, it must be within hand's reach.
- All items in the game will be broken up into simple size categories; small, medium, large (and possibly huge). Potions and most ingredients, and lockpicks would be small. Books, daggers, and items of that nature would be medium. Most weapons, armor, and clothing would be large. Huge might be relegated to things that the player should never really be able to carry on their persons, such as a giant cauldron, and have no functional use anyway.
- All items in the game will be given size values. This will be whatever units of space I deem the most appropriate. To avoid getting too technical (such as cubic centimeters), I may just call these "units of space". A potion would consume 1 unit. A dagger or book (medium items) may consume 5. And so forth. There will be a direct relationship between the category and the space consumed.
- Each bag worn (Sabre Gear, Bandoliers) will have a size category and maximum space. Example: the small pockets on the chest bandolier may have a category of small and a maximum space of 8 or 10. This means that a book or a dagger won't fit in the bandolier, even though it has more than enough units of space to hold it, because it can only hold small items. It could, however, hold 8 or 10 potions. Conversely, a large backpack may have a category of large and a space of 100, which may carry, say, 5 sets of clothes, or 3 sets of clothes and a suit of armor (assuming clothing consumes 20 space and armor consumes 40). Or, you could carry one set of armor, 20 potions, and 8 books.
- Ditch the binary, on/off "You are too encumbered and cannot run" system for something more gradual.
- Zoom the camera around to the backpack in question when the player opens it. I think this would add a lot of immersion. This is a pie-in-the-sky goal and may not happen, but I think it's possible because camera pathing exists in the game (as evidenced by the character creation screen, where the camera zooms out to 3rd person and shows the player's face. Perhaps editing the parameters of that path will allow me to do interesting things.) I think this would really lend itself to the feeling of rooting around your packs, wondering "Where did I put that spell tome?"
- Hopefully by virtue of the size category system, things won't get too tedious when looking for items. You will know that a suit of armor can't fit into a side satchel or a chest bandolier, so that cuts down on the possibilities you should look in.
- Looting items: when looting items, the system should attempt to place the looted item in an appropriate backpack according to some rule. I would need some feedback on how this should be handled. Should items always go to the largest backpack? The pack with the most available space (assuming it meets the size category requirement)? The least amount of space? Example: Should a potion get dumped into your giant backpack first, or a side satchel or bandolier? Perhaps this should be configurable?
- Configurable options. Perhaps you don't like the "at the ready" mechanic and want access to all of your items in combat. I should provide options to allow you to do this.
- SKSE required. Due to the nature of what I'm trying to accomplish, SKSE will most likely be necessary. I have done my best to avoid the dependency in the past, but here I may need the extra power SKSE affords me.
I'd love to hear your feedback, because that means I'll already have a rich set of suggestions and a good starting point when the time does come to work on this. Thanks for reading.
