A Study In D

[dnoah]

View File

---

A personal take on the dwemer dissapearance theme. Linear freeform adventure mod focused on story and puzzles.

 

Teaser.

 

"I have no idea what happened to the Dwemer. I have no sense of them in the timeless divine world outside of mortal time. And, in fact, if I did believe they existed, I would be in no hurry to make contact with them. They may, with some justice, hold the Dunmer race responsible for their fate. My intuition is that they are gone forever -- and that is perfectly fine with me." -- Vivec

 

In late 3E' 4th century, a series of discoveries made by a loose group of like-minded mages and scholars across Tamriel has led them to believe in a possibility of a new insight into the events that led to the disappearance of the ancient Dwemer race. The efforts of that group had resulted in an expedition that had found itself approaching the slopes of the Red Mountain on Vvardenfell in 3E 414 and shortly after, vanished without a trace. While this occurrence along with other large-scale efforts to unravel the great Dwemer conundrum have been all but forgotten and abandoned due to numerous turbulences in modern history and studies on the Dwemer per se have been reduced to isolated and misguided attempts of a few self-centered individuals of dubious skill and intentions, it may well be that it would fall to but a single person, albeit one of unfathomable talent and dedication, a champion, of a kind, to discern the elusive edge between a truthful path and a road leading to inevitable peril, discovering and possibly making use of, the nature of those world-shaping forces behind one of the greatest known mysteries of all time.

 

Design.

 

This mod primarily attempts at two things:

 

- Providing a plausible from a lore point of view explanation to the Dwemer disappearance. The explanation comes mostly in form of text or unvoiced dialogue, uncovered during playthrough.

 

- Increasing variety and challenge of stock gameplay by adding puzzles, that are essentialy fairly basic combinatorics with occasional lateral thinking involved. For puzzle commentary & solutions please refer to this post

 

The structure is basically a series of caverns/ruins with a freeform approach; no displayed quests or quest markers, but a self-evident objective of surviving and finding a way out. As such, the playthrough may have a bit of a no-frills old school feel to it: while attempting to remain as user-friendly as possible, the mod will not tolerate obvious or intentional mistakes (such as jumping into lava or locking oneself behind a magical barrier); hopefully, this will encourage the player to be more aware of his/her actions and their consequences.

 

Beta status.

 

No game-breaking issues have been found during testing, but making a save prior to installing this mod to revert to if something goes terribly wrong, is, as always, highly recommended.

 

Requirements.

 

Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice by shadeMe with its required SKSE, Skyrim with Dawnguard and Dragonborn.

 

In-game soft requirements.

 

As it should be obvious from the mod's location and theme, the player character must be able to handle Blackreach on chosen difficulty/rebalance setting, and should express certain interest in Dwemer lore, in form of having completed most of vanilla Skyrim's Dwemer-related quests. There are no hard checks for those quests' completion, but the story can become somewhat less meaningful from role-playing point of view.

 

Installation.

 

There are no installation flavors. Use whatever method you prefer, as long as mod's files end up in corresponding folders and its .esp is activated.

 

Updating.

 

Uninstall the old version and install the new one, while meeting the requirements for both installation and uninstallation.

 

Beginning.

 

Use a back door in cell "War Quarters" in Blackreach.

 

Uninstallation.

 

The mod should have no active scripts once its main quest (exsd_qmain) stops, which should happen at the end of the mod's storyline. After finishing it, exit any of the mod's cells as well as "War Quarters" cell, save and uninstall. As a general rule though, it is recommended to revert to a save made prior to mod installation.

 

Compatibility.

 

Any mod that overwrites the cell blackreachzcell03 ("War Quarters") is expected to conflict. A possible workaround is 'coc exsd_blackreachpre' at the console. Any mod that overrides this mod's behaviour, like interfering with scenes or substantially modifying stock gameplay, is a potential threat.

 

Known issues.

 

1. Distracting a certain NPC while he's casting a potent spell may get the player char hurt.
Severity: inconsequential. Consider it an immersion feature. May get randomly resolved during upcoming development.

---

• Submitter
  dnoah
• Submitted
  01/06/2017
• Category
  WIP / Beta
• Requires
  Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice by shadeMe with its required SKSE, Skyrim with Dawnguard and Dragonborn.
• Special Edition Compatible

 

[buglover]

Sounds like a fun ride!

 

I'll take two tickets! (bringing Vilja along--she is without a doubt the most brutal mod tester out there).

 

I'll report back with any feedback!

 

Ciao!

Bug

[buglover]

Story, puzzles and exploration....

 

The first thing I encountered was nothing of the sort.

 

If this is the sort of mod where I have to die, reload, die, reload, die...ect, until I finally figure out the one thing I've been missing, you should redo your description. Dying over and over again isn't a very fun puzzle. An archer character without Battlecry is totally screwed, as far as I can tell.

 

You might want to mention that followers will not be of any help--none of them follow through the first "entrance" (summoning them didn't help anyway--I still end up dead after about 5 seconds).

[Darkpig]

This is so going to be misunderstood by the people of loverslab.

[dnoah]

This is so going to be misunderstood by the people of loverslab.

 

What exactly do you mean by that?

[myuhinny]

@dnoah

 

Because they are going to read the thread name and mod name and think it's a adult mod.  A Study In D(ick)

[dnoah]

Well... ouch. English is really a hard language, you know. Edit: @Darkpig, @myuhinny: thanks for the tip. Edit2: Wait. That came out wrong.

[Trixxxee]

I think this is a great idea! Gonna keep an eye on this..I hope you keep developing it and dont let the criticism bother you.

[buglover]

Ok.

 

It occurred to me that I would have had a COMPLETELY different outcome had I changed a few of the settings in Sexlab Submit. So, there's that.

 

 

"Sounds like a fun ride!"

 

I should probably take a good look at the driver before I go hopping into strange cars...

 

 

EDIT:

 

"An archer character without Battlecry is totally screwed, as far as I can tell."

 

In hindsight, the moment I typed this was the point I should have figured things out.

 

 

 

[dnoah]

Found another issue. Not sure if I'll bump the download when updating its description, so I'll just post it here.

3. If attempting a second run-through, a barrier blocking passage between Bhhtmrdramz Proper and Testing Site Access becomes impossible to disable. Severity. Medium. As of now, there is no reason whatsoever to revisit. Will be fixed with next update. Solution. Use 'tcl' console command to pass through.

[Amrovich]

Would it be too much to ask for a tutorial on how to solve the puzzles (all of them) .... cause I can't solve shit nothing ... and i really want to know how to solve them.

[dnoah]

To all whom it may concern: warning: major spoilers ahead.

 
1. Hex graph puzzle at Inthf'llthgetsz. There's a note near a dead raider just near the puzzle room with the whole solution practically written down. The answer (the number that you should enter after activating the convector) should be the number of all possible paths along the undirected graph's edges consisting of exactly two edges. For example, for a 2-edge complete graph (shaped "I") there are 2 possible paths: 1-2-1 and 2-1-2, where numbers represent vertices. For an "L"-shaped 3-vertice graph there are 6 possible paths: 1-2-1, 1-2-3, 2-1-2, 2-3-2, 3-2-1, 3-2-3. For a complete 6-vertice graph the number would be 150.
 
The easiest way to obtain the solution is, like the aforementioned in-game hint note says, is to take the graph adjacency matrix, square it, and take the sum of all elements in the resulting matrix. It is also possible to keep randomizing the graph until there are few edges left, with about 5 or 6 edges the answer is easy to obtain visually. If any of the above terminology is unclear, Wikipedia has all the definitions.
 
2. Initial D10 interaction.

D10 "speaks" in binary, which may be unclear since there's no voice files in the mod yet, and for it to begin communicating with the player they must first prove that they are an intelligent being. One of the most prominent features of intelligence is the ability to learn, which in turn can be presented as iteration. That is the idea behind the first exchange with D10. When the first prompt appears, interaction with player char up to that point is something like 1-1-10 binary or 1-1-2 decimal. The correct answer is 11 (binary) which is the sum of player's and D10's last answers, "iterating" on both and continuing the well-known Fibonacci sequence.

 

 

3. D10 "communication fragments" puzzle.

 

 

The major hint to the puzzle is the name the note called "Initial Observations" in Bhhtmrdramz Excavation is signed with: Miro d'Enneaut, which is not a valid Tamriel name, and in fact, not a name at all, but an anagram to a French "denominator". That, along with communication fragments indices listed as fractions in D10 interface, should indicate that the answer (top-level node number) to the puzzle is LCD of the two, i.e. if fragments are labeled "1/12" and "1/14" the answer is 84.

 

 

 

4. Elevator vent puzzle. Pretty straightforward. Turn the vents in a particular order, so that when they are all turned, the pressure is minimal.

 

 

The increase in pressure depends not only on the current valve turned, but on the previous turned valve as well, making it in fact a route inspection problem for a 5-complete undirected graph. I'm not aware if there's an optimal solution to this for a human, but the easiest (takes about a minute) seems to just write down all costs as a matrix (like element (4, 2) is how much pressure rises when valve 2 is turned after valve 4), after that the minimal path becomes distinguishable.

 

 

 

5. Repository puzzle.

 

 

Same principle as the elevator puzzle, only 6-vertice directed graph with some constraints, making it incomplete, and instead of minimizing the pressure, the player must maximize the power.

 

 

 

[fizzybutt]

Holy shit. I love modding, and I love puzzles, but the spoilers made me feel even dumber than math usually makes me feel. 

 

So basically, if math presents any sort of problem for you, this mod is going to frustrate you so much you want to curl up into a ball and cry.

 

When you said a study, you weren't joking!

[dnoah]

@fizzybutt

Well there goes me wondering why I've never seen anywhere what I've been doing in this mod.

[Amrovich]

 

To all whom it may concern: warning: major spoilers ahead.

 

 

1. Hex graph puzzle at Inthf'llthgetsz. There's a note near a dead raider just near the puzzle room with the whole solution practically written down. The answer (the number that you should enter after activating the convector) should be the number of all possible paths along the graph's edges consisting of exactly two edges. For example, for a 2-edge complete graph (shaped "I") there are 2 possible paths: 1-2-1 and 2-1-2, where numbers represent vertices. For an "L"-shaped 3-vertice graph there are 6 possible paths: 1-2-1, 1-2-3, 2-1-2, 2-3-2, 3-2-1, 3-2-3. For a complete 6-vertice graph the number would be 150.

 

The easiest way to obtain the solution is, like the aforementioned in-game hint note says, is to take the graph adjacency matrix, square it, and take the sum of all elements in the resulting matrix. It is also possible to keep randomizing the graph until there are few edges left, with about 5 or 6 edges the answer is easy to obtain visually. If any of the above terminology is unclear, Wikipedia has all the definitions.

 

 

2. Initial D10 interaction.

 

 

D10 "speaks" in binary, which may be unclear since there's no voice files in the mod yet, and for it to begin communicating with the player they must first prove that they are an intelligent being. One of the most prominent features of intelligence is the ability to learn, which in turn can be presented as iteration. That is the idea behind the first exchange with D10. When the first prompt appears, interaction with player char up to that point is something like 1-1-10 binary or 1-1-2 decimal. The correct answer is 11 (binary) which is the sum of player's and D10's last answers, "iterating" on both and continuing the well-known Fibonacci sequence.

 

 

 

3. D10 "communication fragments" puzzle.

 

 

The major hint to the puzzle is the name the note called "Initial Observations" in Bhhtmrdramz Excavation is signed with: Miro d'Enneaut, which is not a valid Tamriel name, and in fact, not a name at all, but an anagram to a French "denominator". That, along with communication fragments indices listed as fractions in D10 interface, should indicate that the answer (top-level node number) to the puzzle is LCD of the two, i.e. if fragments are labeled "1/12" and "1/14" the answer is 84.

 

 

 

4. Elevator vent puzzle. Pretty straightforward. Turn the vents in a particular order, so that when they are all turned, the pressure is minimal.

 

 

The increase in pressure depends not only on the current valve turned, but on the previous turned valve as well, making it in fact a route inspection problem for a 5-complete undirected graph. I'm not aware if there's an optimal solution to this for a human, but the easiest (takes about a minute) seems to just write down all costs as a matrix (like element (4, 2) is how much pressure rises when valve 2 is turned after valve 4), after that the minimal path becomes distinguishable.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks a lot dnoah for theses  solutions ... Here are my thoughts on some of them

 

1- Hex graph puzzle at Inthf'llthgetsz

 

First I missed the note on the ground and I kept trying for some time (I tried the number of edges, number of vertices and the some other stuff ) then I decided to look around some more and found the note But then even though it said 2 steps movements ... I didn't know if the graph was directed or not  ... and the edges look like they are directed because they are not symmetric from both directions. So that confused the hell out of me and my bet was that it was directed. I kept trying to square the adjacency matrix and taking the sum but it resulted in wrong solution because I was making a Directed adjacency matrix.

 

if it is worth mentioning, I was also sometimes trying to calculate the minimum number of 2 step moves to pass along each edge exactly once. 

 

2- Initial D10 interaction.

 

Well I guess you mean  when I first find D10 after following the spider.  I didn't get the 1-1-10 small puzzle at all. All I got was him telling me Beep and I responded with Bup (or something like that) then I asked him what he was trying to say ... and holy shit he said a long ass line of segmented binary. 

 

The first thing that popped into my mind is that these are binary. BUT

 - I didn't know if I should respond in binary or decimals

 - I tried to calculate the value of all the binary and sum it all up 

 - I tried to respond in segmented decimals representing the values of each binary segment

 - I tried to count the number of Tens (10) in the long string that he said (since hi name was D10 XD )

 

3- D10 "communication fragments" puzzle.

 

I reached a sealed door and when I talked to it I had something like "Miro d'Enneaut" in the choices ... but I don't even know if that is the same thing that you are explaining here. Anyways I didn't understand what I was supposed to do and retreated

 

4- Elevator vent puzzle

 

Haven't  reached that part yet.

 

 

[dnoah]

 

 

 

To all whom it may concern: warning: major spoilers ahead.

 

 

1. Hex graph puzzle at Inthf'llthgetsz. There's a note near a dead raider just near the puzzle room with the whole solution practically written down. The answer (the number that you should enter after activating the convector) should be the number of all possible paths along the graph's edges consisting of exactly two edges. For example, for a 2-edge complete graph (shaped "I") there are 2 possible paths: 1-2-1 and 2-1-2, where numbers represent vertices. For an "L"-shaped 3-vertice graph there are 6 possible paths: 1-2-1, 1-2-3, 2-1-2, 2-3-2, 3-2-1, 3-2-3. For a complete 6-vertice graph the number would be 150.

 

The easiest way to obtain the solution is, like the aforementioned in-game hint note says, is to take the graph adjacency matrix, square it, and take the sum of all elements in the resulting matrix. It is also possible to keep randomizing the graph until there are few edges left, with about 5 or 6 edges the answer is easy to obtain visually. If any of the above terminology is unclear, Wikipedia has all the definitions.

 

 

2. Initial D10 interaction.

 

 

D10 "speaks" in binary, which may be unclear since there's no voice files in the mod yet, and for it to begin communicating with the player they must first prove that they are an intelligent being. One of the most prominent features of intelligence is the ability to learn, which in turn can be presented as iteration. That is the idea behind the first exchange with D10. When the first prompt appears, interaction with player char up to that point is something like 1-1-10 binary or 1-1-2 decimal. The correct answer is 11 (binary) which is the sum of player's and D10's last answers, "iterating" on both and continuing the well-known Fibonacci sequence.

 

 

 

3. D10 "communication fragments" puzzle.

 

 

The major hint to the puzzle is the name the note called "Initial Observations" in Bhhtmrdramz Excavation is signed with: Miro d'Enneaut, which is not a valid Tamriel name, and in fact, not a name at all, but an anagram to a French "denominator". That, along with communication fragments indices listed as fractions in D10 interface, should indicate that the answer (top-level node number) to the puzzle is LCD of the two, i.e. if fragments are labeled "1/12" and "1/14" the answer is 84.

 

 

 

4. Elevator vent puzzle. Pretty straightforward. Turn the vents in a particular order, so that when they are all turned, the pressure is minimal.

 

 

The increase in pressure depends not only on the current valve turned, but on the previous turned valve as well, making it in fact a route inspection problem for a 5-complete undirected graph. I'm not aware if there's an optimal solution to this for a human, but the easiest (takes about a minute) seems to just write down all costs as a matrix (like element (4, 2) is how much pressure rises when valve 2 is turned after valve 4), after that the minimal path becomes distinguishable.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks a lot dnoah for theses  solutions ... Here are my thoughts on some of them

 

1- Hex graph puzzle at Inthf'llthgetsz

 

First I missed the note on the ground and I kept trying for some time (I tried the number of edges, number of vertices and the some other stuff ) then I decided to look around some more and found the note But then even though it said 2 steps movements ... I didn't know if the graph was directed or not  ... and the edges look like they are directed because they are not symmetric from both directions. So that confused the hell out of me and my bet was that it was directed. I kept trying to square the adjacency matrix and taking the sum but it resulted in wrong solution because I was making a Directed adjacency matrix.

 

if it is worth mentioning, I was also sometimes trying to calculate the minimum number of 2 step moves to pass along each edge exactly once. 

 

2- Initial D10 interaction.

 

Well I guess you mean  when I first find D10 after following the spider.  I didn't get the 1-1-10 small puzzle at all. All I got was him telling me Beep and I responded with Bup (or something like that) then I asked him what he was trying to say ... and holy shit he said a long ass line of segmented binary. 

20170116_013606.png

 

The first thing that popped into my mind is that these are binary. BUT

 - I didn't know if I should respond in binary or decimals

 - I tried to calculate the value of all the binary and sum it all up 

 - I tried to respond in segmented decimals representing the values of each binary segment

 - I tried to count the number of Tens (10) in the long string that he said (since hi name was D10 XD )

 

3- D10 "communication fragments" puzzle.

 

I reached a sealed door and when I talked to it I had something like "Miro d'Enneaut" in the choices ... but I don't even know if that is the same thing that you are explaining here. Anyways I didn't understand what I was supposed to do and retreated

 

4- Elevator vent puzzle

 

Haven't  reached that part yet.

 

 

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

1. Good call. I will add 'indirected graph' to the hint note. I should probably replace the light beam 3d model with a symmetrical one, but since I've absolutely no clue about 3D modeling, it might not happen for quite a while.

 

2. From the point where you start initial conversation with D10, to a point where the first prompt appears, the dialogue looks like this:

D10: BEEP! [let's call that "Signal 1" for clarity]

Dragonborn: BEEP! [signal 1, if the player chooses anything else]

D10: BEEP! Bup. [signal 1 Signal 2, 10 in binary]

The third dialogue line is the sum of the first two. In the next line which leads to the prompt the Dragonborn "guesses" that it's a "ten". I'll remove the long binary line to reduce confusion.

 

3. Most of this mod's plot is plain text (notes, "recordings", unvoiced dialogue), this kinda implies that the player should be willing to take a look at anything readable (s)he encounters. I've made the note at Bhhtmrdramz Excavation (that is signed with that name) as visible as possible, and if the player char doesn't find it, or doesn't want to study "Miro's Notes" that the main D10 puzzle unlocks, the mod's plot, as well is the mod itself, will make little sense at all. What I want to say, there's really no way around reading stuff here, and if that's not desirable this mod will have a lot less value for its user than any non-story mod, and the playthrough will indeed become frustrating.

 

Naturally, I will add some dialogue checks to try and reduce possible confusion here.

 

EDIT. Hmm, based on this exchange, I think I'll add a toggle to entirely disable all puzzle content. Of course, there will be a risk of story incoherence when the user doesn't read everything (s)he should have, but better to have it and... you know.

[Amrovich]

hey dnoah, Just completed my play through of the mod and finally managed to escape yay

 

here are some of my thoughts

 

1- Regarding D10 : Yup, I totally agree on removing the long binary line. Maybe then people would be able to focus on the real meaning of the conversation. 

 

2- Regarding the importance of reading notes  . Although I agree with your intentions, I would suggest trying to reduce the amount of text in single notes especially the  "Initial Observations" one.  

I usually read notes and stuff while playing but when I found a note (not even a book) with a huge wall of tiny text.... that really discouraged me to read it.

(Also keep in mind that tiny text is very hard to read in-game)

I suggest

- trying to split the lore in multiple small notes along the journey.

- add more emphasis on the notes with clues and place them near the place where they will be needed. (like next to D10 for example)

 

3- The mod in its current state is really hard to solve  maybe add some more hints here and there to keep it challenging while not frustrating.

 

4- I was really excited when I got D10 to open the barrier .. cool stuff

 

5- The couple of  fights with the falmer are SUPER hard     I had to turn on GOD mode to be able to go through them. Consider making them easier.  

 

A couple of questions.

 

1- what about the room with multi levels and thousands of doors (exaggerating )  ?  I got lost in it for a bit then went back to D10 and completed the journey and never returned to it.

 

2- Will Miro really be coming as a follower ?

 

Finally, thanks a lot for sharing this mod. It got me pulling my hair off sometimes but overall I think it was worth it and I enjoyed my self. 

 

[dnoah]

1. The multi-room complex is called Frctlbdrmz, which should be read "Fractal Bedrooms". It's one of the references to a game called "Dwarf Fortress". Its size (~300 beds) is about the size of a bedroom complex in that game. The fortress itself is named after a fortress "Boatmurdered" from the same game.

2. I honestly don't know, but judjing by Miro's arrogance, he will not trot along with the player char while (s)he's shopping or doing something otherwise uninteresting. It might be the other way around: Miro himself might offer the player char to follow.