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Seijin8

Entry posted by Seijin8

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General outline to get started (to be heavily edited as time goes on).

 

Mod is launched

 

 

Ecology of the Chaurus

  • Chaurus are not natives of Nirn?
  • How much of the chaurus existence that we see is shaped by the Falmer, and how much is natural to them?  Is there any natural behavior remaining, or is it all Falmer-centric now?
  • The only place in vanilla Skyrim where chaurus can be encountered without Falmer nearby is in the swamps north of Morthal.  Are these escaped individuals, or is this near where they originally came to Nirn?  Most likely just best matches their preferred conditions: cold, standing water, cover and plenty of food.
  • Considering the above and the conditions of the largest hive in Skyrim (Frostflow), it appears that chaurus prefer cold and wet areas.
  • Population must be viable to have lasted so long, so how does their breeding cycle actually work?  Did an entire hive come to Nirn, or are they able to breed to large numbers with only a few specimens?
  • Some parallels to xenomorphs
  • Unclear if chaurus are meant to be warm-blooded. Their ability to operate without issue in dark, cold environments could indicate they are warm-blooded, or that their biochemistry is at least well-suited to cold.
  • Probably nocturnal. Update: Non-flyers now have similar sunlight-related debuffs as vampires. 
  • Should be immune or very highly resistant to their own form of acid.  They leak constantly from the mouths and seem not to suffer from it. Update: Improving poison resistance and immunity to other chaurus poisons.  Late-stage forms (Reaper tyrant for instance) gain an additional layer of poison effect that breaks through the immunity.  Instead making it so that lower chaurus forms cannot effect other chaurus with their poison.  This should cut down on hive-related friendly fire deaths when operating as a group.
  • General "rules" of sex in TES Lore - when viable offspring is produced, it is always the same race as the mother
  • Ovipositioning overcomes the TES breeding issue but adds some questions: why so many egg piles, but no hatchlings?  Are eggs constantly produced, but typically infertile?
  • Falmer structures are made from masses of chitin. Are there massive Chaurus that produce so much, or can the chitin be shaped into larger structures?
  • If there are behemoths, where are they found? What form do they take?
  • Our only useful data on the innards of chaurus comes from the in-game book "Chaurus Pie: A Recipe" (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Chaurus_Pie:_A_Recipe), which is useful for telling us that the poisonous bits of chaurus are in the head and legs, but not elsewhere.
  • That is interesting given that the earwig-like forked tail is not poisonous, and may instead be a grasping mechanism or a display device.  If it is for grasping, maybe chaurus normally like to hang from things and ambush prey below.  (That would be a useful tactic combined with the acidic spit, but there are no in-game instances of this that I am aware of, and no way to rig it as a usable mechanism without extensive scripting and something that can handle complex ray-tracing to find suitable anchors.  That would be a modding nightmare and prone to breakage in a number of ways...)

 

Chaurus body types/castes

  • Are Chaurus eusocial insects? (They actually aren't insects at all, but seem to share a lot of traits with them.)  If so, is there a queen?  Assuming for the time being that chaurus are eusocial, then there are several existing or inferred roles:
  • Nymph or neonate "hatchlings" that are not grown yet.  These are seen in Estrus Chaurus, but I've never seen any actually grow to proper size, or even close to it.
  • The "basic" chaurus would fill a generic behavior, unspecialized and likely acting as a soldier and/or drone.  There is a question of whether these are still considered to be adolescents in the overall hive structure, not filling a needed role yet.
  • The Reaper would appear to be just a normal chaurus that has grown large.  Sources seem split on whether this is just a stage before turning into a hunter, or whether not all chaurus exit this stage at all, and simply stay in this state.  From in-game experience (heavily influenced by a large number of mods that may be interfering with normal distributions), Reapers appear to be both uncommon and more solitary.  I've never seen two Reapers sharing an area, so they may be prone to dominance displays.  It may be impractical or impossible for two Reapers to co-exist in the same area.  Large Falmer hives may have multiples, but given that the most prominent hive in the game (Frostflow) has only a single -- very large -- Reaper, I'm inclined to say that Reapers fulfill a queen-like role in the hive.  Update: it actually has a second reaper who is explicitly spawned in dead, reinforcing the idea that reapers don't coexist.
  • Though Sexlab animations have not shown this to be the case, Reapers may be the equivalent to queens.  It is possible that as Reapers grow very large, they become the center of the hive.  In that case, they may be the fertilizing systems for all the egg piles we see, which would seem to be generated by the normal chaurus.
  • If eusocial, are the chaurus locked into a particular form with only some of them transforming later in life, or does every member of a hive transition through different life stages?  It is unclear if all Reapers eventually chrysalis into Hunters.  Maybe only some of them do or the need to do so is environmentally driven.  It also appears that many Reapers perish in the process and fail to complete it.  Do these leftover husks have a role in the chaurus ecology?
  • What role does the Hunter actually play in the life-cycle?  Is it purely predatory? A scout for hive growth/new hives?  Is it intended to bring food or breeders back to a central location?  Its role in a hive may be impossible to discern absent Falmer influence.  It is likely that they are either fertilizing agents, or genuine hunters, roaming far from the main hive to search for food/prey/breeders/other ill-defined opportunities.  Of course, in-game they always hang out near the spawning points and seem to not even patrol meaningfully.  We can infer this to mean their core purpose is disrupted by the Falmer, or that their role is purely as a soldier, and serve to defend the overall nest.  It is curious why they would need to fly for this role, as they are shedding substantial body mass (which in real terms means combat ability) to make this change.  It may be that the mobility is for rapid reaction, rather than any direct combat advantage, and if so seems to indicate that there should be a larger number of hunters so that they can mass strength.
  • It would be very odd for another form to occur after the hunter that then sheds the flight abilities, but if transformation to hunter is driven by local chaurus population, then they may revert once they are far enough away from the origin.
  • Life-cycle: Egg -> Nymph/Larva -> ?? -> chaurus -> (Reaper || Hunter) ? -> ?? -> Behemoths?
  • It may be that there is a distinctive gender/genetic divider that dictates whether a given chaurus can become a Reaper or a Hunter.
  • How do the Skyrim Immersive Creatures variants fit in? The hopper (ash hopper), crawler (spider), and warrior (draugr); These would have to imply that chaurus either naturally produce variant offspring (mechanism undetermined), or that they carry an infection that can spread to other species.
  • Alternately, chaurus may not be singular organisms at all and instead arrange themselves into specific shapes as they grow, sometimes deviating from the norm to attempt to mimic other shapes in their immediate vicinity.
  • All three of these forms could be indicative of another caste of chaurus altogether: the mimic.  The draugr-based version would probably be an attempt at mimicking falmer?  Maybe the hopper is just a juvenile mimic, or is trying to be like a skeever?

 

Potential life-cycle flow chart (left to right):

Spoiler

Capture.JPG.8e35e09aabedc1aa46ee80d6a7821d5e.JPG

 

Sample of Reaper Tyrant:

 

1564190203_enb2019_05_1908_57_35_61.jpg.10b5da9263c8192a426864f13e20745e.jpg

 

Added a wide crest to the head, multiplied the spikes on the sides, elongated the fork tail, widened the body (but not the ovipositor) by 20% and used a 1.1 scale.  Anything more throws off any Reaper-based animations too much to compensate for.  I will probably make color adjustments to the crest to allow it to glow on the edges (maybe do the same for the extra spikes), but at present there are six colors of them, and that's a bit more texturing work than I want to put in just now.

 

Potential carapace changes for Reaper Tyrants (just ideas right now)

 

Function of eggs in the chaurus life cycle

  • We assume that eggs produce chaurus, but have no direct evidence of this.
  • Estrus Chaurus has the parasitic life cycle of 1) Impregnation to live host, 2) incubation time, 3) Birth/rebirth/final oviposition, 4) Delay prior to potential hatching, 5) Hatching.
  • Is this just the "parasitic" life cycle, or is the parasitic function merely indicating this is how it is done with non-chaurus incubators?
  • Maybe there is a missing chaurus species/life cycle role that is meant for proper breeding?
  • If the chaurus breeding mechanism is inherently parasitic, does it harm the host?  Does it maybe enhance the host in some way to allow them to survive the process and be re-used?  It would seem more reasonable in a host-rich environment for the parasites to hatch inside and eat their way out, gaining sustenance as they go.  This is clearly not the method used in Estrus Chaurus, and it is rare to find carcasses or bones near eggs.  Chillwind Depths may be an exception, but the obvious ritual killing aspects of the final room make it clear that this is something the Falmer are doing, and is not necessarily related to the Chaurus themselves, besides feeding.
  • The chaurus appear to prefer cold and wet environments.  Maybe warmth is needed for incubation?  If this is true, then a chaurus body form dedicated to incubation would have to be a very different type of creature.  This would lead to a more natural parasitic hypothesis.  Alternately, maybe they are able to use internal chemistry to create a "warm bath" within.
  • Note that the eggs glow (especially with https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/95612), as do non-hunter chaurus species.  Maybe there is a correlation between the glow and fertility?  Could also be an inverse correlation (with phosphorescence indicating infertility).  Seems more interesting visually and from gameplay for the degree of glow to be proportional to how "ripe" a chaurus is, with highly aroused specimens glowing the most.

 

Sexlab Chaurus traits (from animations) and other mods

  • Vast majority of animations with heads moving have them moving left.  Like, 90+% of the time.  Only Evac has any that look to the right.  Probably animation oversight, but could reference a physical distinction.  Maybe they are asymmetrically oriented, and their musculature only allows for specific/unilateral movement arcs?  This might make sense if their natural evolution included massive and crowded hives where forced locomotive properties would be an evolutionary advantage.
  • Many chaurus animations include kissing/some type of mandibular attachment to the head.  Is this instinctive? An expected capture condition for unwilling breeding hosts?  Is something additional being passed orally into the recipient?
  • Baka has introduced the concept of the worm/larva in the Chaurus Hunter.  This is also present in parasite mod (Kyne's Gift), though the coloration is different.  Are these parasites that infect the chaurus, or a component of the chaurus themselves?
  • The role of chaurus cum: Creates the grey goop in the egg piles.  Fertilizing agent? Paste for sticking the eggs to something? What function does it have in a live host?
  • Role of the incubator: Why would chaurus stick eggs into someone?  Is it necessary for their life cycle? Instinct related to a non-present pair species from their home world?  Does this function to produce offspring?
  • We see in Estrus Chaurus that "parasite chaurus eggs" are smaller than the normal chaurus eggs.   They can also hatch into very small "hatchlings" that will slowly grow in the presence of food and are potentially hostile to any non-chaurus, including the "birth mother".
  • Are the egg piles found everywhere in Skyrim just masses of unfertilized eggs?  Their layout in some places appears intentional (see FrostFlow hive).  It is possible that the eggs are naturally produced at a fairly high rate, and that fertilized eggs are a rarity.
  • The Falmer seem to have no use for the egg piles, save keeping them near breeding areas.  This may indicate that the falmer are sensitive to which chaurus are ready to produce eggs and when, and corral them at that time.
  • How are eggs fertilized?  Is there a very small chance of any egg being fertile?  Are specific conditions required?
  • All eggs in vanilla Skyrim are found underground, often in cold & wet areas.  There are exceptions though: Gloomreach cave doesn't appear cold.

 

Anatomical issues/explanations

  • The long ovipositors used by the chaurus would likely be very painful to a man/mer host, hitting the cervix, and potentially passing deeper into the body, likely fatally so.  This is especially true for the Reaper.
  • One solution to this would be that the ovipositor is more pliant and compresses within the body, not actually passing so deep.  It could form a docking arrangement with the womb or (in the case of oral/anal animations) similar internal chamber, with the "thrusting" actually being a frictional conveyance mechanism for the egg-laying.
  • Another potential solution for this would be that the oral fixation and/or some type of precum causes changes in the host body to make them suitable and allow for massive apparent disruption of internal organs.  Reference as "bugcum".
  • If this is the case, bugcum could also have a pacifying effect.  In the event that they are producing an additional chemical, that makes two distinct fluids being produced for external use: the poison spit and the pacifying saliva.  Combined with the possibility of significant metamorphosis (hunters) or major species differentiation (hopper/crawler/warrior), their ability to generate new materials from themselves is pretty remarkable.
  • If the bugcum actually causes physical changes in the elasticity of the internal organs, how long does this persist?  Might it fade before birth? (probably killing the host).

 

Thoughts on additional forms/mods/integration

  • Rogueshot's skeletons (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/95422 and https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/94874) make significant changes to the shape that will likely throw off animations for Sexlab.  These skeletons could be used for non-fertile forms or stages of the life-cycle.  These would need to be different races with a new skeletal path and likely the "SexlabForbid" keyword.  Update: attempted to make a Baka ABC compatible variant of the RogueShot "Nightmare Chaurus" skeleton and the proportions are so ridiculously off in animations that I doubt it can work unless the base scale of the chaurus is very small. This *could* work if I decided to let later-stage nymphs lose the SexlabForbid keyword.  I would have to experiment with this a bit more.
  • "Chaurus Lights" (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/44966) can be adjusted to detect arousal or animation-in-progress (presence of SexLabActive keyword).  UPDATE: Done with minimal fuss, now strobes the lights while fucking.  See below.
  • Metabolically, the chaurus might have to consume a lot of food to grow while simultaneously producing so many infertile eggs.  Maybe the path to becoming a reaper involves not producing many eggs at all?  Maybe Reapers are inherently infertile most of the time?
  • Maybe the chances of host survival depend on the type of chaurus using them as an incubator?  Reapers would seem to be the least survivable.

 

Elements needed in future mod

  • Direct manipulation of the chaurus life-cycle events through feeding, sex and milking.  For instance: only having sex with a chaurus when it is at peak arousal will push it towards becoming a Reaper while regular milking keeps it at "normal" chaurus scale or pushes it to become a hunter?  Update: See above life-cycle image in spoiler for reference.  My thought at this stage is that Reapers will naturally fight one another, and the losers of these contests will molt into hunters (maybe dying in the process).  As a Reaper gains power and defeats more Reapers, it eventually molts into a Reaper Tyrant, which at present would be the most powerful form they could reach.  Base stats are about 30% higher than normal Reapers, and I was considering giving them a substantial boost to poison and some type of advanced breath weapon.
  • Creation of a new chaurus form that is a Reaper with a multitude of (non-functional) wings, showing a reversion from Hunter to Reaper form at the establishment of the new hive.  Maybe other forms can be coerced into appearing.  Update: Currently calling this the "hybrid", and making it a possible evolution of the SIC mimic caste and Workers (standard chaurus) who temporarily bypass the dominance route.  My thought is that they may eventually challenge Reaper Tyrants, but are otherwise less prone to territorial displays than reapers.
  • When a chaurus changes to a new form in the life cycle, it leaves behind an exoskeletal molt. (Probably just a translucent greenish ragdolled body.)  This would probably be a destructible object (hit it with a mace, flame, whatever to dispose), or maybe creates a new alchemy ingredient.
  • I would like to find a way to make the odds of parasitic infection through EC+ be reliant on race (Reapers more likely, etc) and animation used (any animation with explicit egg laying), if combined with Chaurus Lights, it might be possible to visually detect a chaurus that is "ripe".  Likewise, oral impregnation should not be likely, or should have the effect of inhibiting the use of food.  This could be integrated into survival mods.  Update: Partially complete, see below.
  • Needs to be an in-game mechanism for aborting the parasitic infection.  Update: Looking through the EC+ scripts, it looks like the estrus tentacles will do this.  For the record: I don't use the estrus components at all as I feel they don't mesh well with the chaurus form or themes.  To each their own, but my approach would be to have some type of alchemical concoction that does this (likely using some ingredients from the cast-off molts and maybe other things likely to be found in/around a hive.
  • Egg-laying animations show full-sized eggs being implanted, but EC+ only uses very small ones.  Maybe animations that do not show egg-laying directly would produce the smaller ones (a slurry of bugcum and small eggs), while the more direct animations (BakaHuntingRape, Billyy Reaper Doggy 2, Anub's Egg, etc) would have larger eggs?  Maybe only Reapers implant full-sized eggs?  In this sense, hunters seem to be a step backward, due to scale.  Update: Bane Master has informed me that the birthing process can pop out virtually anything.  I haven't done it yet, but this seems straightforward enough with some tinkering of the base scripts.  Note that the base version of EC+ will only allow pregnancy/implantation with normal chaurus and reapers.  This can be bypassed by editing a formlist, and some modification to the scripts to juggle the chances with various forms.
  • Should be a possibility of becoming addicted to the narcotic/pacifying effects of the saliva/bugcum.
  • Maybe repeated use as an incubator or excessive exposure to the saliva/bugcum starts a "slimegirl" progression, as the elastic nature of the new form doesn't fully return to normal.
  • Would like to see adjustments made to the progression of EC+ that make the body more resilient at earlier stages, but almost useless at later stages.  Maybe needs a certain level of health/stamina to survive the process.  This could include a lot of complications, such as not all the eggs being borne, or a premature hatching causing damage over time.
  • While Untamed has the cleanest and easiest mechanism for controlling a hive, its method of hijacking all AI packages makes it unsuitable for use in many cases, and incompatible with anything that relies on behavioral AI to trigger.  Might need to replicate some of Untamed's features while removing most others.  The UI interface, naming, and general control functions are great though.
  • Mechanism for initiating sex with chaurus, potentially multiple at once.  Update: Note that EC+ pregnancy is determined only by the first chaurus actor in the sequence, and only in the event it is vaginal.  This means that Billyy's 3p Spit-roast Anal animation should not produce infestation, but every other 3p+ animation should have a chance.  The issue here would come with seeing if one of the chaurus was particularly fertile, but that one didn't land in the "actor[1]" position of the array.  May want to have a keyword search for all actors in the array or just skip it and decide if the animation is Vaginal + gangbang, then the chances of infestation go to 100%.
  • A set of traits that allow for further differentiation of individuals, maybe hinting at future nature.
  • Common colorations found in different hives.  Add a Pokemon collection element to them.  
  • Inherent ability to either appease/trade with Falmer or outright attempt to liberate the chaurus in the hive, maybe using varying levels of influence on the chaurus to turn them against their masters?  Maybe collecting eggs from a location can produce offspring of those colors/traits?  For this to work, there would need to be a self-insemination option using the eggs.

 

Current Plans and Progress:

  • Apropos synonym edit for many egg-laying and chaurus-related terms: Ongoing and never fully "finished".  Currently stands at 1800 lines in synonyms.txt and triggers reliably if kept around this number.  (This was once over 3000 lines and would fail miserably most of the time, being just too much for json to contend with.)
  • Apropos rewrites for custom animations: Ongoing, around 30% finished.  These are formatted for use at 15pt font and 400 (max) width.  Even so, they run over the edge from time to time.  Working on getting the descriptions smaller when this happens.
  • Non-hunters now suffer health and stamina debuffs in sunlight, same as vampires (duplicated the effects to avoid compatibility issues with vampire mods).
  • The poison of lesser chaurus (nymphs, workers), no longer effects other chaurus.  Reaper and hunter poisons do still harm other chaurus.
  • New animations: Note that "new" = combination of existing animation assets into a new format.  Currently have three finished, three more in process and four that are tweaked versions of otherwise unchanged animations (main changes are sound/tag adjustments, intro sequences and cumshots).  Due to the multiple assets being used from different animators, I am unsure of how permissions would work on these and if they can be shared.
  • Cumshot: converted two variants of the particle meshes from Cumshot 2.1 for use on chaurus, one for big spray and another for a sprinkling of precum.  At present, these need to be added manually to the animations as AnimObjects, but there isn't anything preventing their potential use as ArtObjects to be attached dynamically through scripting.
  • Currently using five additional colors, based on various retextures found on Nexus, including (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/6962, https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/6737, https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18476).  I did these a long time ago and somehow have five total recolors.  I might've tweaked or created the other two, but I don't remember now.  These colors are presently used randomly, but I will make them location-based.  All colorations are present for all six main chaurus body types (nymph, worker, reaper, tyrant, hunter fledgling and hunter).
  • Finished: Jsons for MNC/Creature Framework to pick up the correct armor and arousal, not losing the colorations in the process.
  • Want to add a layered coloration system similar to The Dragon Engine to give more visual distinction. Something subtle, but noticeable that allows for visual differentiation in a large hive.
  • Another option for this is "armors" that may show slightly different placement of spikes or minor adjustments. Update: The procession from reaper to tyrant is marked by the addition of armored body features.  Working up a script that "awards" a killer a bit of armor if they have the keyword "ChaurusDominance".  This is an Event OnDying script and basically only gives reapers and tyrants a gift.  As it stands, if a Reaper is awarded one of these, the idea is they will trigger a quick molt stage into tyrant (widening, scale to 1.1, equips whatever armors they have).  As time goes on, they collect more and more armors, helping to give them a unique appearance.
  • Chaurus Lights script adjustment for strobing during sex (done, see "chliglowcontrollermescript" below).  Note that this will not automatically update lights on existing chaurus already near you.  It will only work on newly added lights.  You can (potentially) remove the spell effect and restart it in console to make it update.  Still to do: make this sensitive to stage and orgasm, building the strobe effect faster as it reaches climax and spiking at orgasm.
  • Estrus Chaurus Script adjustment to be cognizant of racial subtype and to have a percentage based change of infection instead of guaranteed. Partially done (see "zzestruschaurusae" below).  Gives a 25% chance to be impregnated if it is a normal Chaurus (worker), 50% for Reaper, and guaranteed if the animation is vaginal and has the tags "Eggs", "Oviposition", or "Breeding".  Right now, only Babo's Reaper anim and Billyy's newer ABC-based animations have some/all of these tags, so manually adding them may be needed.

 

chliglowcontrollermescript.psc chliglowcontrollermescript.pex

zzestruschaurusae.psc zzestruschaurusae.pex

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SpyVsPie

SpyVsPie

Posted

Everything you ever wanted to know about Chauruseses (Chauri?) but were afraid to ask ?

1
Guest

Guest

Posted

I can say, we know jackshit about them lore-wise

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

11 minutes ago, Resdayn said:

I can say, we know jackshit about them lore-wise

True enough.  I'm choosing to think of it as benign neglect, and that blank space gives us a lot of options.

 

The only possible source for more lore on them (beyond the next game) would be ESO, which has some indications of chaurus, but none actually present in game (but apparently their meat is an available item somewhere).

Guest

Guest

Posted

4 hours ago, Seijin8 said:

True enough.  I'm choosing to think of it as benign neglect, and that blank space gives us a lot of options.

 

The only possible source for more lore on them (beyond the next game) would be ESO, which has some indications of chaurus, but none actually present in game (but apparently their meat is an available item somewhere).

From what I played ESO, there no Falmer or Chaurus.

SpyVsPie

SpyVsPie

Posted

20 hours ago, Seijin8 said:

True enough.  I'm choosing to think of it as benign neglect, and that blank space gives us a lot of options.

 

The only possible source for more lore on them (beyond the next game) would be ESO, which has some indications of chaurus, but none actually present in game (but apparently their meat is an available item somewhere).

I thought you needed LL mods for a chaurus to give you his meat ?

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

3 minutes ago, SpyVsPie said:

I thought you needed LL mods for a chaurus to give you his meat ?

That is the preferred way, but I'm more concerned that I don't even know if it is a "him" giving the meat.  For all we know, all chaurus are futa.

SpyVsPie

SpyVsPie

Posted

2 hours ago, Seijin8 said:

That is the preferred way, but I'm more concerned that I don't even know if it is a "him" giving the meat.  For all we know, all chaurus are futa.

200w.gif?cid=790b76115ce15e595449574259a

 

1
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Multiple updates, added a chart of morphology, example of a new form I am using in game and a progress/goal list at the end.

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Could use some input on physical characteristics of "armor" for Reaper Tyrants.  See new section below spoiler.

Reesewow

Reesewow

Posted

On the assumption reaper tyrants will functionally be chaurus reapers for the purposes of Sexlab animations/functionality (size/shape/skeleton ect), I wouldn't go super crazy with changing the overall size/profile of the ovipositor just for animation compatibility.  Same with the idea of extra ovipositors. 

 

I think the idea the ovipositor being made up of multiple smaller ovipositors could be a cool twist however.

 

Other than that, most other changes would be cosmetic, so the IMO go wherever your vision takes you!  Other than trying to avoid features that cause problems with the more common sexlab animations (don't want the player visually being cut in half), I think whatever fits them in your lore could look good.

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

45 minutes ago, Reesewow said:

On the assumption reaper tyrants will functionally be chaurus reapers for the purposes of Sexlab animations/functionality (size/shape/skeleton ect), I wouldn't go super crazy with changing the overall size/profile of the ovipositor just for animation compatibility.  Same with the idea of extra ovipositors. 

 

I think the idea the ovipositor being made up of multiple smaller ovipositors could be a cool twist however.

 

Other than that, most other changes would be cosmetic, so the IMO go wherever your vision takes you!  Other than trying to avoid features that cause problems with the more common sexlab animations (don't want the player visually being cut in half), I think whatever fits them in your lore could look good.

Tyrants are still ChaurusReaperRace (mainly because I didn't want to have to modify MNC to get them to register as their own race), but this does leave the issue that any alignment changes made to accomodate the size will throw off the normal alignments.  I may just change them back to their own race to avoid this (IMO bigger) issue. (EDIT: Contacted MadMansGun to add them to future MNC versions.)

 

As far as the Tyrants misaligning, the scale changes have been 1.1 (which as far as I can tell does maintain the needed connection points without much fuss), and I widened them (the only direction I could go that wouldn't further disrupt animations).  Its a fine line here between making them visually more distinctive and impressive, but not go so far that it breaks animations.

 

The ovipositors on the Tyrant are the same size as the base mesh (though still subject to the 1.1 scale adjustment).  I have done multi-penetrators on other mods before to generate double penetration where none previously existed.  With careful positioning I think I could do that with this as well.  The idea of multiple smaller ones could also work if the skeletal nodes Baka added don't cause warping.  Not sure what will happen with that yet.

 

I've been considering making the ovipositor translucent as well, adding an animobject to it in later animation stages that shows eggs starting to fill the tube, but I would need to contact BakaFactory/Babo/FactoryClose before redistributing his assets with such changes.  While I'm at it, I might try adding ENB lighting billboards to the eggs (last time I tried it, the whole thing crashed, but it was a ways back and I might've done it wrong).  I think that would look cool in dark environments, with a glowing ovipositor strobing out as it goes.  Would best be coordinated with a belly strobing effect, but coordinating those would be nightmarish, and I haven't figured out how to do that on a female body without it also affecting her throat and hands (due to the shader placement).

 

Anyway, working on the life cycle scripting now...

1
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

End of day report:

  • All (non SIC) races implemented and working with Sexlab and Creature Framework
  • Split Tyrant into its own race to avoid alignment issues.  May reduce its scale from 1.1 to 1.05 to better align, but all animations tested so far do work at 1.1.
  • Molt function partially working.  It currently instantly changes race and does not drop a molt form behind.  Will work on creating an update loop for it tomorrow so the transformation begins with a greenish shader effect and many hours later "pops/splats" into the new form, leaving the old skin behind.
  • Dominance battle effects between reapers and tyrants partially working.  Right now the Tyrant receives its armor reward instantly upon killing the foe.  Will make this part of the molt feature tomorrow so that it is not instantaneous.
  • Will add combat-sensitive loops for dominance so that defeat doesn't always = death (else hunters will never happen).  Tried using bleedout for this, but the results were scattershot.  It doesn't seem that chaurus have a normal bleedout stage.  (may tinker with that tomorrow to see if one can be added - there may not be animations for it).
  • May also have the results of the battles shift internal faction numbers so that a single defeat doesn't automatically consign a reaper to death or transformation.  Maybe they will gain "experience" against one another, adding random "style" perks to indicate lessons learned from the encounter.  Could also create custom classes that they naturally adopt as time goes on, and have bonuses and debuffs when certain styles meet up.  (Might also be too complicated for too little visible effect.)
  • Likewise, winning a single battle against another reaper won't automatically create a tyrant.  There will need to be a progression for this.
  • Will investigate if a powerful (non chaurus) foe being defeated might also push a reaper into becoming a tyrant.  If your pet reaper smokes a dragon, that should count for something.  Might have this tied to health level, where the reaper has to almost be killed (very low health), but still lands the killing blow on its opponent.
  • May allow reapers to also accumulate armors as a show of progression toward tyrant status.  I would have to re-scale the existing ones to match reaper bodies, but that should be straightforward enough.
  • Would love to have an exile option, but this would be incompatible with Untamed and any follower mods that were attempting to control the creatures.
  • Can't find a good way to get glowing/strobing to be in sync with Sexlab animation stages.  I think it will be too script intensive to do this by normal means.  Need to think on it some more.
  • Base mod and required scripts (2) is ready to roll.  Want to get the above mentioned options in and up to snuff before committing to a proper mod release.
  • Many permissions requested, waiting on answers.  Even if denied, none are showstoppers, they would just require some reworking.  The mods I hinged this on are all open permission.

 

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Update:

  • Baka has given permission and even offered to make new animations (what a guy!)
  • verteiron (author of Chaurus Lights) gave full permission and also offered up his other mod that summons smaller chaurus (The Noble Chaurus).  Not sure yet if I will try to incorporate that, but he indicated he added some lore for it, so its worth checking out.
  • Off to work on improving dominance behaviors and setting up proper molting.
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Update:

  • Molts in progress: now shows a green shader and requires some time to change form.  Right now this is a very short script-controlled timer, but I will add adjustable timing via global once I know this is working right.
  • Problem: Reapers that change into hunters do not shed their old bodies.  Working on this now.

Dominance Behaviors

  • Reapers & Tyrants that reach an arousal of 80 will swap factions to from "ChaurusFaction" to "ChaurusDominanceFac" (which preserves all faction relations except to other chaurus, which are neutral, and actively hostile to any other member of "ChaurusDominanceFac").  When this happens, the two (or potentially more) will fight.
  • So long as the player is not involved in the battle (!PlayerRef.IsInCombat() ; best way for me to spot if this is just an intra-hive rivalry, or an active battle between hives), then the two participants will gain protected status (currently guaranteed, later I will have there be a random chance that it is a fight to the death) and battle each other until one of them enters bleedout.
  • Once a Reaper enters bleedout, the victor gains faction rank ("ChaurusChallengesFac", higher scores promote more significant body changes as a Tyrant), and the loser gains a special faction ("ChaurusDefeatedFac", temporary status to remove them from combat) as well as losing a rank in ChaurusChallengesFac.
  • If a reaper ever has a negative rank in ChaurusChallengesFac, they molt into Hunter Fledglings.
  • Tyrants do not gain the protected benefit; if they are defeated, they die. (They have so many advantages that they shouldn't need any protection anyway.)
  • By design, all Reapers enter play with a "1" in ChaurusChallengesFac, allowing for two consecutive failed bids.
  • Transformation into Tyrant presently requires a minimum of rank 5 in ChaurusChallengesFac, though I will be randomizing this to a degree later.

 

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Update:

 

Running into some annoying issues.  Main problem is that when the creatures change race after molting, they are not consistently adopting the new body type or traits.  This is easily overcome if I replace the old creature with a new one of the correct type, but this loses continuity with mods like Untamed, where the (potentially named) individual is now gone.  Even if I explicitly pull the old name and apply it to the new creature, they aren't really the same.  The new version can be re-added through normal means, but it is less than ideal.

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

End of Day Update:

  • Molting now reliably produces the correct form and coloration, emerging from the corpse of the previous version. (That took way longer than it should've).
  • Tomorrow I will experiment with transferring some attributes and maybe the name from the original (checking to see if the name is not standard before doing so - because of the way aliases function with name changes, this may not be a great thing to do, but I can try).
  • Also want the transformation to produce a "splat" like the Hunter Fledgling emerging from its chrysalis.
  • On target for alpha release before the weekend.
1
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

New day, new problems...

  • I cannot get the hive roles and reactions to trigger reliably with the present method.  Two potential rivals will chill out, dicks swinging in the air, and never come into conflict.  Mechanisms to force this have to tamper with the vanilla Chaurus Faction, and more often than not, this leads to a single dominant individual pissing off the entire hive.  The Skyrim Faction system is not adequately granular for my needs.

Solution(s):

  • Build a hive behaviors quest and associated aliases to control/influence/direct each creature.
  • If the quest switches on and off with location changes to control multiple hives, that can work if factions are used to build residual relationships the quest can latch back onto when re-entering a location, but this will fail when two hives are supposed to come to blows.
  • A quest that controls two hives, and always has a "home team" and "visitors"(invaders) layout might work so long as no more than two hives fight at one time. (Dashing my hopes of a full-on bugpocalypse)
  • For this to work, I need to determine what (if any) lasting relations are formed between bugs of different hives.  Simplest would be: all workers will obey the current leader.  Period.  All bugs stand back when rivals go at it (no loyalty in such contests).  The rulership is absolute until toppled (fatally).
  • On the upside, this is giving a more industrialized hive behavior, with workers leaving the area to forage, the potential for a ruler to have a champion, allows for a "queen" to rule with challengers fighting each other for breeding rights, but not fighting the queen directly, some Reapers settling into beta roles where they don't have to molt into hunters, but also don't challenge others for position, etc.
  • This does allow for an exile mechanic.
  • Overall I think it will be a better setup, and if placed low-priority shouldn't interfere with other mods (every element will be "optional").
  • Unclear on how long this will take, might mean having to push release for a week.

Extra:

  • As an aside: I'm considering (later on) building some extra dungeon areas to link the major hives together through narrow passages.
  • I have some ideas about what a perfect bug palace/lair would look like, and nothing in the game yet quite gets me there.
  • In addition to allowing for a fully underground playstyle that isn't (terribly) location-limited, it lets hives more naturally interact and has the residual effect of letting falmer groups interact.  It makes no sense that each dungeon is fully isolated, especially when looking at Frostflow: it was fully inaccessible until they broke through the wall.
  • This would be pretty basic, but my general thinking is just a few tunnels linking hives into a network (also linking to Blackreach), and maybe a few small hidden locations that might have hostile occupants to clear out in order to settle into.
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

(Almost) end of day update:

  • Challenge quest works, causing rivals to go to battle with each other without effecting the rest of the hive or causing incidental combats to break out.  The victor gets credit towards a future molt, the loser loses credit, and if it is reduced below 0, they will molt into a hunter fledgling.  (This took a truly ridiculous amount of time.)
  • Combatants may gain additional effects in these fights that will help the survivors in similar battles later.  These traits will also guide future development.
  • Still to do: dial in the lethality of these fights.  They were initially extremely fatal with very rare instances of a loser surviving.  I've applied a spell to the participants that lessens the effect of poison, so when they are "defeated" (in bleedout), they aren't just going to have a slow, lingering death.  I am aiming for roughly 20% fatality in these contests.
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Start of day task list:

  • Dial in the lethality of the contests.  I could easily do this with a behind-the-scenes die roll that has nothing to do with health or damage received, but I want to allow the player to have a role in this, potentially healing a favorite bug following a defeat.
  • (On that line of thinking, later on I want the competitors to be sensitive to receiving outside help.  They shouldn't ignore it, and if it is egregious, it might start a wider battle.)
  • Separate the "LifeCycleController" script into discrete versions for each species type.  Right now it is a single (overly large) script that controls all non-flyer species, and it should be four scripts that are dialed into whatever the specific chaurus type is.  Should be simple (but tedious).
  • Assess a minimum viable release candidate, and determine if I am going to shoot for it this weekend (unlikely) or next.
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

End of day results:

  • Contest lethality is... pretty good.  Easily adjusted in the script and will later be adjustable via global value.  The contest halting when a challenger is between 20% and 25% remaining health seems good.  I have it at 22% and still get situations where a random group of five all survive their contests, and a different group of five leave only a single reaper remaining.  A tyrant, beta and two flyers is the mean average result.  One to two reapers and two flyers is next most common.
  • Life cycle controller is still a single piece.  Wanted to make sure it is fully working before the split, and that required...
  • Molt functions now work as desired*.  Upon starting a molt, the chaurus gets a greenish shader, and upon "popping", their old carcass is left behind in a splat as the new form emerges.  The old carcass is ghost-like right now (need to dial in the visuals), but it removes the classic death items.
  • The dominance battles can produce multiple outcomes, some of them ultimately beneficial for both combatants:
  • If a reaper kills a challenger, or if they have a very close battle, they may gain the "Brawler" faction which gives them health advantages in future contests.  Basically, they like to fight, and this allows for something to come of the now dead reaper, reinvesting some strength into the hive.
  • If it is a particularly hard-fought battle between a tyrant and a reaper, the tyrant may nominate the reaper as a "champion", which gives the champion a small health boost.  In the future, if the leader is challenged directly, the champion will intervene in their place.
  • If a reaper is soundly beaten by a tyrant, and their track record in challenges isn't good (ie, not a brawler, not a champion, on the verge of going hunter), they may opt-out and become a beta.  As a beta they relinquish any breeding rights, but are immune to the dominance system.  This was mainly done so that there could actually be some reapers around in large hives.

* Hunterborn recognizes the corpse as... well, a corpse, and allows you to get meat from it, etc.  I want to make it excluded from detection by Hunterborn, but I'm not sure how to do that and it isn't a priority.

 

Next up (over the weekend): develop AI packages for each role of the hive:

  • Nymphs and most "standard" chaurus are workers, and will perform a variety of tasks around a hive, mainly tending eggs and securing against intrusion.
  • Nymphs and betas will also perform "grooming" tasks for higher-level reapers (like champions) and tyrants.
  • Challengers and aggressive/highly aroused reapers should strut around the hive, looking for rivals.  Right now the combat is on/off, but I want there to be some tension and build-up in behaviors, displays and visual cues that a fight is coming.
  • When a fight is about to break out, other chaurus should clear the area, watching from a safe distance and giving the combatants the space they need.
  • In the absence of falmer: Some standard chaurus and all reapers without a hive role will form raiding parties to find food and prey for the hive.  These are always nocturnal or underground raids to areas outside the main hives.  (This will require quests and aliases and a smattering of markers for them to travel to placed all around the world, so this will be time-consuming and likely not done this weekend.)

Additional tasks that I thought up while watching reapers kick each other's asses for hours upon hours:

  • The collision/reach mechanics for chaurus reapers suck ass.  They miss each other by substantial amounts (sometimes a sword-length) but the game registers it as a hit.  Their leap attacks conversely go farther than they need to and often land mid-body on another reaper.
  • I can fix the reach, but am not sure how this will effect them versus other (unmodified) creatures.  If it gives them too short of a threat range and the game doesn't compensate naturally, then they may need a buff to be contenders again, and that starts shitting in the combat balance mechanics... blech.
  • I want to introduce some additional display behaviors, such as peacocking around, and specific sounds/challenge calls.
  • On this line of thinking, you can already tell if there are chaurus in an area by the chirps, but if I can alter the base chirps by race, then the astute listener may be able to determine exactly what kinds of chaurus are in an area just by sound.
  • A set of script-triggered special combat behaviors could make the contests more dramatic, using some ideas from TK's mods for how to force an animation to play.  This could also make the battles more dangerous to onlookers, as in the entirety of my time watching reapers fight in a small area infested with other reapers, there was only one instance where a bystander was struck.  I know you can trigger specific attack animations that do hit everything in their path, so maybe using methods like Dragon Combat Overhaul does (hijack the animation event system at times) would work for this.
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Ahhhh, progress.

  • Got the racial variants of the life cycle effect split off and tested.  Seems to be working right.
  • Every chaurus now has a random progression in their life cycle at the time the effect is generated.
  • All life cycle changes can be throttled through a global variable "ChaurusTransformRate" which is a float value.  It defaults to 1.0, but can be whatever the user sets it as. (Untested)
  • Nymphs progress just through actions; The more active they are (combat and package changes), the faster they progress.
  • Chaurus workers (standard bugs) progress similarly, but gain significant boosts through sexual activity. (Note that I am considering reversing this to make it hinder progression.)
  • Reapers progress through dominance challenges only.  These challenges are triggered by higher arousal levels and only occur when there is another chaurus reaper (or tyrant) around to fight.  A lone reaper has no path to progression.  Their number of challenges (0 to 4) are generated at creation, so it may only take a single battle for a reaper to become a tyrant, or it may take only a single loss to head into hunter fledgling territory.
  • Tyrants progress by defeating challengers, and every 3 challengers defeated grants them a piece of armor.
  • Right now, every newly generated chaurus has a random progression, but I would like that to only be for existing chaurus and not for those newly risen to the next role.  Still thinking through how to control that.
  • The Hunterborn issue can be solved by disabling the original corpse and dropping a specific item on transformation, similar to how ash piles work.  (On the to-do list).
  • Hunter fledglings progress similarly to nymphs and workers; they exist and slowly grow into full hunters.
  • In the process of making the racial scripts, I decided to toy with sensitivity to animation states, so that appropriate sounds can be played during the act of egglaying in an animation.  Sounds right now are sensitive to animation tags, and will differentiate between oral and "other" (right now I don't know of any oral egglaying animations, but I will mess round with this to make sure it can actually trigger).
  • Sounds are coming from a variety of sources and I don't know their origin points.  Hopefully not stealing anything.
  • Currently aiming for six total 2.5 second sounds that will play "onOrgasm".  This unfortunately won't align quite right with some egglaying animations, so tag adjustments may need to be made.  If so, I will create a script to do this automatically and will use unique tags to avoid screwing anything up for anyone else's work.
1
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Small update

  • Got the lighting effect from chaurus lights to detect egglaying events.  The sounds go through a ramp-up and -down sequence, and so do the strobing effect on the lights.
  • Found the sources for the sounds; they're all Pornhub videos using trademarked characters I'm sure they didn't have rights to, so it shouldn't be an issue to repurpose these sound effects.  These sounds play in addition to whatever effects/voices might be playing through Sexlab, and will use the soundFX volume setting established in Sexlab.
Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

Today's quest

  • I worked up a unique voice set for chaurus to use in Sexlab that isn't just their other sounds repurposed.  Bethesda gave Chaurus specific taunt and alert sounds, and those shouldn't be happening in consensual animations.
  • The voice set currently has 18 pieces of sounds taken from a mixture of default chaurus chittering, crow "rattle calls", and highly sped-up Predator sounds.  The idea was to create something like a chittering sound that was intense, but not necessarily hostile.  Sample sounds below.
  • Turns out Reapers (and by extension, I assume Tyrants) will not use these sounds... or any voice sounds.  This is probably due to the way Sexlab by default lumps all chaurus as a single species, and the way MNC has to throw a prybar into that to get Reapers to be their own thing, so...
  • Goal for today is to have every chaurus have their own voice set for sex, and for those voice sets to be sensitive to consensual or aggressive animations, morphing as needed to convey each.
  • The tone will shift from the usual high-treble chitters to a more throaty rumble as the chaurus' size increases.
  • The sound set currently works fine for worker chaurus, but doesn't work at all for any others.

Ch00.wav Ch14.wav

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

So far...

  • Reaper now has proper unique sounds (samples below)
  • I haven't figured out how to give reapers proper sexlab voices (seems an internal technical issue), so instead I linked the voice playing to the strobe effect.  This gave me the additional option of decreasing the volume during the egglaying so those sounds aren't lost, but means there is a small delay before the voice starts playing.
  • I may rework the egglaying sounds as with everything else happening (squirting sexlab noises, chaurus chirps, female voice, latex sounds, etc) the all-important egg-plops can be hard to hear.

Ch15.wav Ch04.wav

Seijin8

Seijin8

Posted

(Nearly) end of day results

  • Mainly worked on sound effects today.
  • All non-flyer/non-nymph races have their own SexLab "voices"
  • Egg-laying sound effects improved and are more distinct.  I did this by switching them to stereo and making sure the "wet/squelching" sounds are biased left speaker while the "plop/insertion/injection" sounds are biased right speaker.  Essentially the "noisier" effects are left-only with the "meatier event" effects being more right-biased.
  • In the process of generating "oral" sound effects for use in gangbang egglaying animations (which would presumably be all of thereleased 2+ chaurus animations except for Billy's Double Pen). Because these use a female vocal sound in them -- and that sound may not match a character's voice or may irritate the end-user -- this is removable through the console. ("set ChaurusOralSounds to 0")
  • I will be altering the visual effect of Estrus Chaurus' impregnation, which currently uses the restoration effect.  I will be using something that makes a strobing belly-glow with the appearance of eggs within.  Unfortunately this will also show a bit of a glow on the throat and hands, but it is not very noticeable.  (Looking into solutions for this now, but it is an old problem...)

 

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