I'm creating a new race for the player. This race is a modified version of the Draugr Skeleton fitted to the player skeleton. Naturally, this race uses a completely separate player model, but the model uses the same skeleton as the rest of the race models. Due to this, it is compatible with all old armors. I'm wanting to get those armors on my race without causing any changes to the vanilla armors.

I'd like to briefly point out that the player never starts as this race. He begins as whatever race he chooses, and then I change his race at a later time.

Through much trial and error, I've figured out how to do a few things that I believe a lot of people are still having issues with.
I've learned how to properly change the players race yet still allow him to use menus.
I've learned how to allow the race to be able to wear the same armor as the other standard races.
And I've learned how to do so without modifying any vanilla objects.

My goal with this race is to have all normal equipment show up on him properly having to modify each armor directly (so as to not cause compatibility issues with other mods). Because a skeleton is much...skinnier than a normal race, I understand that most armor models will look a tad..."off", but I'm ok with that as long as there is no clipping or improper meshes. This has proven to be a tad difficult however. Basically, I'm stuck on that last bit.


Here is what I've managed to come up with in game: http://4.imgland.net/uooD1.png
(Ignore the weird looking head. It's using a temporary texture/normal map that I've been using for testing purposes.)

There's a small issue with the body not showing up under the robe (which you can kind of see in the screenshot), but otherwise it's looking like everything is working. Right?

Well...not quite: http://4.imgland.net/EfDI4.png

The armor is showing the arms of my previous race, not the new modified race. I understand that the armors in Skyrim all come with body parts attached, but I'm wondering how to circumvent this.
My first thought is to find a way to "disable" or "hide" the extra body parts, and then merely show the original torso mesh along side the armor mesh.

Is this possible? If so how would I do that? Is there a better solution? Am I screwed?

Any help is appreciated...

the only way around this is to re-do all of the vanilla armors that have exposed skin and create a race specific variant of it. at this point compatibility issues will have to be thrown out the window if you want your race to look right wearing any vanilla armor

you would create a new ARMA record for your race specific armor variant and you would then be forced to edit the vanilla ARMO record to point to this new ARMA record

if i were you, since you created a very specific style of character race, i would not allow vanilla armors at all (since the majority of them would look odd for an undead skeleton body). i would keep all armor sets separate for this race only

That's really inconvenient. Why in gods name did Bethesda have to make it so hard to create new races without messing everything up?

Using the method you mention, that would mean me editing the NIF files of each armor, swapping out the body mesh for my skeleton body mesh, would it not?

unfortunately yes.

that is why all playable races in this game share the same body, even argonian and khajiit all use a "human" body