wip Chaurus Life

[Seijin8]

8 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

or the diseased hunters breeding

I don't disagree with any of the ideas you put forth, but I wanted to focus on this line and discuss the way chaurus breed.

 

(Please keep in mind that I am treating anything the animators make or do as "canon", so some elements of the animation engine play into this.)

 

Clearly, they are ovipositors: They move eggs around between places.  It isn't obvious what is producing the eggs, but we see that eggs are different sizes, and those sizes correspond to the individual implanting them, so it is not unreasonable to assume the eggs are actually theirs, as in the individual performing sex is assumed to the be one creating the eggs; the father in essence.

 

On the other hand, the eggs may be malleable, and get compressed to whatever size the ovipositor requires. (This seems backward, but it isn't out of the question, though a counterpoint would be that the egg piles we see everywhere should then show larger specimens within.  The gray goop they are in may inhibit this process though, acting as a stabilizing agent that keeps the eggs in a suspended state.)

 

If so, that could explain why the eggs entering (or exiting in some cases) in an animation are larger than those we see coming out with EC+.  Maybe that compression -- combined with warmth -- is a needed part of the fertilization process.

 

It is important to note that with the existing animations, chaurus workers are shown to not be particular about whether the eggs stay inside, while reapers are adamant that they do.  This may be linked to actual parentage: the workers are not using their own eggs and lack the instincts required to do anything more than move them into a breeder.  The reapers are protecting the eggs they themselves created, and their biological drive to fight is related to their drive for strong offspring.  Note that in many species, mate selection is related to strength of offspring and is often done by the female, but with ovipositors, rape is somewhat implicit to the approach, and the female selection process may be diminished or entirely absent.  Given that most "mating rituals" seen in the animal kingdom involve complex sensory displays, it may be that any such displays are lost on the would-be breeder, and are instead jettisoned.  Maybe if/when chaurus breed with one another (assuming such is possible), they have more elaborate courtship rituals.  I digress.

 

So in this case, I've never thought that hunters produced or carried their own eggs.  Given my created lore that hunters arise from failed dominance battles, it would seem wrong for them to then be attempting to breed directly.  Instead, I think they are picking up the eggs from somewhere else (and in the process are removing pests from the egg piles -- this is likely where the worms come from, and at present the worms feature much more highly in hunter animations than anywhere else).  This doesn't stop any infection the hunter is carrying from seeping into a procured egg, but as a biological function, I wouldn't think that trait would be desirable.  If a hunter is trying to protect the hive from contagion (acting as a white blood cell), then it shouldn't be infecting eggs, and if its disease if spread enough to do so, they likely wouldn't have the desire to breed, unless they saw disseminating the infected egg as advantageous in some way.  (Or it could be a biological/psychological misfire; but if it happens enough to see it in game play, then it shouldn't be a 1 in a 1000 situation.)

 

It may be that infected hunters are trying to salvage eggs that are still viable, but the one trait we see in hives is that eggs aren't hard to locate, so this sort of K-selection mechanism (http://www.bio.miami.edu/tom/courses/bil160/bil160goods/16_rKselection.html) seems out of place.

 

One story-driven cause may be that these eggs are actually the hunter's own, produced from when they were reapers, and so some element of their biology causes them to still want to produce offspring with those.

 

To return to the origin of this discussion, I've been thinking that the "mind controlling form" should actually be a perfectly normal progression from hatchling to nymph.  If the hatchling finds itself in a hive, surrounded by other chaurus (assumed to be a good and "nurturing" environment for the chaurus), then this capability is never utilized.  But if a breeder escapes the hive, births a clutch of eggs that later hatch in the middle of nowhere, then the mind-controlling function develops as a means of "piggybacking" the young chaurus form to return to a hive, or (failing that) to find and establish a new hive.

 

As a survival strategy, a clutch of chaurus hatchlings finding themselves in a foreign environment might set up an ambush on a target in order to take it over and ride it to safety.  It makes sense that they would target individuals who would also make effective breeders, so that their return isn't a strain on the hive's own resources.  At that point, the hive may opt to utilize the breeder, or treat it as food.  I wouldn't think that the mind control function would last for very long -- by definition these lost chaurus are likely malnourished and under-developed.

 

Anyway, those are my random thoughts on the subject prior to morning coffee.

 

Thanks again for spurring the discussion!

[WolfoftheWest1]

13 hours ago, Seijin8 said:

Thanks again for spurring the discussion!

Well I think I have been focusing a bit too far into the later stages of this mod, I do want to think of something that can help your development in the here and now.

Lets say, as you have put, that the Chaurus eat via breaking down materials with their spit. Would this spit say "burn off" equipment (unequipping the item from the appropriate slot and deleting it) to make fighting chaurus more difficult? (maybe an MCM option for later, whether or not they want their hard earned highly enchanted falmer bikini armor burned off XD).

Since you definitely want hives to slowly connect to each other, will certain hives such as Blackreach have more specialized "Digger" chaurus to move quicker than chaurus, maybe more powerful spit that will cause paralyze much quicker or longer? how would they be brought about? Hybrid type chaurus breeding? If not, would the user have the option to increase or decrease dig time in MCM?

Will certain hives have Chaurus Tyrants/Reapers using Dwemer parts as a crude armor? Would the Falmers/Sentients make this for them or would the Tyrant just slap on some pauldrons if they saw the armor deflecting a blow?

For the glow effect of fertility, could you reskin the torso to show the eggs? I personally use UUNP, so would it have to be custom for every body, only for certain ones, or maybe the glow is just an equipped effect fixable via Bodyslide?

I don't have answers for all of these, since again i am very much an amatuer in CK, but since you apparently have figured out a way for the tyrants to increase their armor, perhaps using the same mechanism the dwemer crude armor could be applied but for much larger Tyrants or the "Behemoth/Matron" you have posted in the tree of life of the Chaurus

Just some thoughts with possible solutions, don't want you to spend your time having to answer my questions, I know modding takes a lot of time

In any case, keep up the great work on our underdeveloped horrible critters of the night!

[Seijin8]

2 minutes ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

Would this spit say "burn off" equipment

According to Chaurus Pie (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Chaurus_Pie:_A_Recipe), the answer is "yes".

 

But I won't be making it work that way because I have no way of knowing if the thing being burned away is irreplaceable or important or otherwise not something the mod should touch.  That option is being intentionally left out (for now).

 

4 minutes ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

(maybe an MCM option for later, whether or not they want their hard earned highly enchanted falmer bikini armor burned off XD)

The falmer gear probably would be fine, as might Daedric armor.  Also stands to reason Dwarven gear and bonemold should be okay, too.  Functionally, it would be easy to make armors without the right keywords unequipped/disarmed.

 

If I were to do this, iron gear would evaporate, advanced gear might be damaged or unequipped, steel may fare okay, and the rest depends.

8 minutes ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

specialized "Digger" chaurus

Right now, the plan is that the main "diggers" are chaurus workers (aka, normal chaurus).

 

I am not currently planning specialized diggers, though some amount of burrowing (escape behavior) may be present on some forms.  I may also make it so that chaurus burrow into the walls and set up ambushes (similar to the way Ash Hoppers do it).

10 minutes ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

Will certain hives have Chaurus Tyrants/Reapers using Dwemer parts as a crude armor?

Interesting idea.  Falmer seem not to want the dwemer gear at all, so there may be an inherent reason why they prefer chaurus chitin to the dwarven gear.  It may be that chitin is stronger.

12 minutes ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

For the glow effect of fertility, could you reskin the torso to show the eggs? I personally use UUNP, so would it have to be custom for every body, only for certain ones, or maybe the glow is just an equipped effect fixable via Bodyslide?

Right now, it is an effect shader (which I realized last week had never been packed into the mod, so nobody has seen it yet) and is based on UUNP/vanilla placement, but should still work fine for CBBE.  Unfortunately, there is no universally good way to do this.  Every version comes with significant problems, and blending them seems more hassle than it is worth.

 

Every few weeks I try another way of doing this and so far they all have major issues.

 

I will investigate this later on, when more of the foundation of the mod is done.

15 minutes ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

don't want you to spend your time having to answer my questions

Don't sweat it.  My potato PC takes a long time to load anything, but I can type while I'm waiting

16 minutes ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

I know modding takes a lot of time

Almost 45 hours so far this week, and its only Wednesday...

 

Good odds an update will roll out this week or next, and then I can rest a little.

[WolfoftheWest1]

ok let me try to think of stuff at the very lowest portions of the tree of life i can.

so far you have gotten the "grown" areas of the chaurus much more mapped out, but what about lower stages of it? you got confirmation that the pregnancy can pop anything out, and EC+ has a hatching feature, so would it be possible to just have your mod modify EC+ to change the tiny chaurus it spawns to a chaurus hatchling?

Once they hatch, what will be the criteria to grow? a certain number of sex acts? time limit? mind controlled sentients if they are in the wild like you suggested? maybe some combination to give you the splitting off of the tree of life, like a Chaurus hatchling who has had about 5 sex acts within a week turns into a worker, where as a Chaurus hatchling that has mind controlled a sentient, had sex once, and did not make it back to the hive it originated from or whichever one was nearby turns into a mimic to better survive and create a new hive in it's environment?

Will caves have certain modifiers added to them for the Chaurus to attempt to move towards those? like idk, (this is the first cave i can think of off the top of my head, i know it does not fit the criteria that you currently have for the perfect hive) Embershard Mine: a chaurus who was dumped from that cave near Whiterun uses a script or unmarked quest to check for nearby usable caves/mines/dungeons/forts (Fort Greenwall with stormcloak army used as breeders? fuck yes) and detects Embershard. The mine is empty due to the PC clearing it out. it has the modifiers that have been attached to it Large_Chamber, Indoor_Water_Pool, Jail_Cells. would the hatchling detect this and move into the cave? what if there were multiple hatchlings, not from the same hive, not born in the same region, etc, would they place nice with eachother and start capturing travellers to use as breeders? if there are more than one usable cave nearby, how would they choose? what signifies they have captured the cave, added Chaurus Mist, egg sacks, webs, breeders hung up from the walls (Arachnophobia mod could help with this, its a framework for having NPCs and PCs hung from spider webs), some sort of totem pole placed outside the cave entrance? could they somehow make Riverwood start sending supplies/offerings/breeders by scaring them into thinking they were a daedra or aedra and needed appeasement (this could happen unintentionally by them walking through town i guess but its a very small and very unlikely event as Skyrim residents aren't all that superstitious)?

if an egg is left in the wilds, and the hatchling is born, how would the factioning work? would it be under Wild_Char_Fac or the faction of the cave it was created in? how would the game tell? if a hatchling enters a falmer cave, would it be accepted into the hive? if that hive is currently at war with the cave it was created in and the original hive was attacking the "new" hive that the hatchling stumbled in, which hive mind would it join to?

[Seijin8]

Regarding EC+ integration, right now the EC+ hatchlings have no connection to Chaurus Life.  That will change in the future, and discussions like this help me figure out how.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

Once they hatch, what will be the criteria to grow? a certain number of sex acts? time limit? mind controlled sentients if they are in the wild like you suggested?

Nutrition and environmental conditions dictate how much time it will take.  Nutrition can be provided (in the form of powdered minerals, which the player can make), and environmental conditions can be adjusted or tailored (also by the player, though this likely requires chaurus intervention and a fair bit of time and alchemy).  Ideally, the breeder looking to make a strong hive will make sure there is already a good ecosystem for them in the hive.

 

There will be no sex acts directly with the new chaurus hatchlings -- there are no animations that support it.  Once they've grown in size, there may be options there depending on form and shape.  A lot of this has to do with animations.

 

EDIT: I may make it so that nearby hatchlings "hop on" and become an attached animobject in a nearby scene, so they would be present in otherwise normal chaurus sex scenes, but they would just be "stuck-on" parts, and not be animated themselves.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

Will caves have certain modifiers added to them for the Chaurus to attempt to move towards those?

Yes, generally they want larger areas with glacial meltwater and nearby minerals.  They also prefer not to have easy surface access.  That is ideal though, and many existing chaurus locations aren't quite like that.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

Embershard Mine

Ticks two of three needed boxes: has minerals, has water.  It is a bit warmer than chaurus like though, so it isn't ideal.  Still, if I were an ambitious hive-maker, maybe the chaurus could tunnel up into the overlooking area (where it is colder) to force some cooler air down.  It would be a project, but Embershard could be made viable as a hive.

 

As a practical matter, this would be a little more difficult for modding.  I would need a way to remove Embershard as a radiant quest location, and make sure it didn't interfere with the Hearthfire quest.

I could just make it so that Hearthfire's quest has to trigger first.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

Fort Greenwall

Would interfere with Civil War quests, so no to that one.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

would the hatchling detect this and move into the cave?

I could make systems that do that, but it is a lot of work to get it right and a long way off from now.

 

More likely, I would make the hatchling(s) ambush an elk, and then "ride" it to Shimmermist Cave, which is the nearest chaurus hive.  Might be interesting to see if it could run the gauntlet of wolves (and maybe sabrecat) near there, but maybe the hatchlings just transfer from the elk to the wolves in that event.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

would they place nice with eachother

Depends on a lot of factors, but I'd say that hatchlings won't automatically understand hive politics or falmer control structures, so they will seek those places out anyway.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

if there are more than one usable cave nearby, how would they choose?

From a game mechanics point, they'll go for whichever one is closest on a "GetDistance()" call.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

what signifies they have captured the cave, added Chaurus Mist, egg sacks, webs, breeders hung up from the walls...

Depends on what constitutes "captured", but most of what you mention is possible.

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

could they somehow make Riverwood start sending supplies/offerings/breeders by scaring them into thinking they were a daedra or aedra and needed appeasement

These things are where we go off the rails.  I could do stuff like this, but it could start behind-the-scenes battles with any mod that also touched this area, and I would never know if I had broken a quest somewhere, and if breaking that quest had caused some bad scripting or misaligned conditions to start a chain reaction of failures that just make the game unstable and lead to CTDs.  I get hesitant about this stuff as it leads to a tech support nightmare of trying to see how my mod interacted with a dozen others I've never used, and then having to look through all the packages and quests and scripting those use to see where shit broke.

 

I am designing for maximum compatibility, and this is a minefield that IMO isn't worth walking into.

 

Now... that isn't to say I can't do this a different way:  Make new locations that affect new NPCs (that could be "new" residents of the towns, or only show up when needed -- wilderness hunters are a good candidate for this, as are bandits and wounded soldiers), and there should be no problems... except for landscape and mesh mods that might screw with the cave entrances.

 

If I get more ambitious with it, I could also hit small towns with limited quest/story interaction (Stonehills potentially makes for a great locale).

9 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

if an egg is left in the wilds, and the hatchling is born, how would the factioning work?

I would generally say a single hatchling born in the wild has almost no chance of survival.  Some creature will eat it... 

 

... And the mind controlling excretions will make that creature wander towards the nearest chaurus hive.  If the hive is close enough, they will go inside to be consumed by the hive, but if they are far away, they might shake the effects.  I want this to function because a Witcher-styled playthrough should also be viable, and eggs may be captured, fertilized somehow, and then the offspring can be fed to other creatures -- or alchemically rendered into a potion that shows the scent trails -- to find all the chaurus hives in Skyrim in order to wipe them out.

 

(In this playthrough style, the hives would accelerate their remote breeding and evolution rates so that a diverse array of enemies awaited the player character.)

[WolfoftheWest1]

ok so this is more humorous than anything else. I use ALOT of mods, including FMEA, Forgotten Wenches, and Chaurus Life. FMEA is a plugin that affects stuff like enchanting, alchemy, etc and adds in deadlier failures instead of simply just failing and losing the item, such as failing to control the magicka in disenchanting an item and causing creatures to spawn in your enchanting area. Forgotten Wenches spawns in women dressed in the Falmer Bikini Armor and like 2 or 3 Chaurus. Chaurus Life is obviously Seijin's amazing mod. So I'm sitting in Blackreach inside the field lab, disenchanting a bunch of stuff, when I accidentally spawn in an Ash Spawn that was nonhostile. so i leave it there, and sleep because the Enchanting Table was now unstable and would make me black out if i touched it. So i go back to the table, disenchant like 3 more items then a Falmer spawns inside. The Ash Spawn starts fighting it and kills it rather easily. Now, normally that would be the end of it, falmer dead grab the loot, go back to disenchanting. But with Forgotten Wenches, it spawned in like 5 Chaurus, a Forgotten Broodmother, and a extremely hostile Forgotten Sentry. So I am inside of a room smaller than the bedroom of Breezehome with 5 Chaurus, an Ash Spawn, and 2 Wenches. I kill the Wenches, they kill the Ash Spawn, and the Chaurus are none hostile because I am part of their faction. But now, they won't leave the actual room. So the Field lab just became an EXTREMELY small hive with 3 Chaurus Reapers and 2 full grown Hunters. I can only imagine how this will play out

[WolfoftheWest1]

I have a weird "bug" i guess. It seems whenever I am around Chaurus, they start all following me. I am part of their faction through the MCM, and whenever I get near them they just stop what they are doing and just blindly follow me around the cell I am in. It makes is hard to move around in Blackreach currently XD. Would this be a glitch of their faction, or some other mod messing up yours?

[WolfoftheWest1]

Also, a mod you might be able to borrow ideas and techniques from is Things In the Dark. it focuses more on the Falmer and a hybrid Falmer/Mer race, but it does things similar for the whole take over of areas

[Seijin8]

2 hours ago, Hawkhunter347 said:

I have a weird "bug" i guess. It seems whenever I am around Chaurus, they start all following me. I am part of their faction through the MCM, and whenever I get near them they just stop what they are doing and just blindly follow me around the cell I am in. It makes is hard to move around in Blackreach currently XD. Would this be a glitch of their faction, or some other mod messing up yours?

That isn't this mod.  Sounds like behaviors from Wild World.

[wren888]

On 8/30/2019 at 1:23 AM, Seijin8 said:

If I get more ambitious with it, I could also hit small towns with limited quest/story interaction (Stonehills potentially makes for a great locale).

I would generally say a single hatchling born in the wild has almost no chance of survival.  Some creature will eat it... 

 

... And the mind controlling excretions will make that creature wander towards the nearest chaurus hive.  If the hive is close enough, they will go inside to be consumed by the hive, but if they are far away, they might shake the effects.  I want this to function because a Witcher-styled playthrough should also be viable, and eggs may be captured, fertilized somehow, and then the offspring can be fed to other creatures -- or alchemically rendered into a potion that shows the scent trails -- to find all the chaurus hives in Skyrim in order to wipe them out.

 

(In this playthrough style, the hives would accelerate their remote breeding and evolution rates so that a diverse array of enemies awaited the player character.)

I like the idea of above-ground confrontations with a lot of chauruses. In fact, this was my hope when I first spotted your mod. Namely, that it would result in, first of all, the growth of Estrus Chaurus+ hatchlings. I know you've planned this. What I don't believe you've planned is what I also hoped for. That the maturing chauruses would proliferate above ground as they would in EC+, and potentially your mod as well, and become a danger to all Skyrim. The Dragonborn would have to face that danger, putting herself at risk in the process. However, you make an excellent point that this could interfere with quests. You could prohibit chauruses from entering cells with cities, from the standpoint of them considering those areas dangerous to themselves. However, some quest-related NPCs leave cities. I expect all quest NPCs are essential, but I don't know for sure. On the other hand, where is it written that the player must be able to complete every minor quest on every playthrough? And if chauruses fill the area around, for example, Swindler's Den, making the Saadia quest difficult, in my opinion, that's just tough. I think a little variety that makes things more difficult is good. The main quests, of course, should be preserved. The Mages College, the Dark Brother, the Companions, etc., at least, up to a point. More about that below. I know little about modding, but I should think adjustments to avoid wrecking the main quests would be more manageable.

 

Despite the potential interferences with at least minor quests, I contend that surface chaurus infestation and proliferation would be interesting and challenging. Potentially, proliferation to the point of the player losing the game, which of course, never happens in Skyrim at present. That the player will in time always beats Alduin and Harkon and Miraak robs the game of the element of risk. I envision losing the game might play out in this way: chauruses avoid cities until they reach critical mass -- an overwhelming superiority in numbers throughout Skyrim. Then the prohibition against their entering city cells would be lifted, they'd flood in, and win the game. Unlike losing a fight with the other nemeses, the player might have to reload from a save so much earlier that (s)he might think, "I may as well admit defeat and start over." Of course, the degree of difficult could be controlled by the player in the MSM using a slider with fertility rates, thus limiting the speed of proliferation. It could be set so low that know real risk to Skyrim ever develops, if that's what the player prefers. Estrus Chaurus+ has a fertility slider, though as far as I can tell, it doesn't work. --edit: you could even have two separate sliders. One for subterranean and one for surface. Chauruses apparently prefer living underground. It may be due to a difference in fertility and offspring viability.

 

This idea of a potential large proliferation brings to mind when I, using a mod, unleveled dragon appearances from the beginning of a game. I was level 11 and in the process of building Lakeview Lodge about the time I accompanied Irileth and her city guards to Whiterun's western watchtower. Dragons began appearing. As I spent a lot of time building Lakeview, dragons appeared there. I had to run away from the tougher ones. In time, a number of high level dragons circled my house such that it was hard to get in and out, let alone build it and harvest vegetables. That game was a challenge. Chauruses are weaker than high level dragons, but as they reproduce, they can potentially be a bigger problem than I encountered at Lakeview Lodge.

 

However, if I read you correctly, big trouble above ground is not what you're interested in. Which is fine, of course. After all, it's your mod to develop as you like. Speaking of which, I appreciate the depth of planning and the believable implementation you've accomplished. That your work is excellent is why I think about Chaurus Life and respond here. I thought you might like to read a possibility you may or may not have seriously considered.

 

An invasion of Stonehills by chauruses would be a nice consolation for me. As you say, it's a great location. There are no quests there, and it's on a major road where it would menace the player as she passes by. Travelers as well. As you know, Skyrim has one surface area where one can always find chauruses: the swamp between Morthal and Solitude. And they live there without falmer masters. Therefore, surface proliferation of chauruses is consistent with Skyrim lore.

 

Again, as I know little about modding, I understand that not only may my interests be different from your interests, but my ideas may not be practicable.

 

Thanks again for your excellent work, Seijin.

[Seijin8]

9 hours ago, wren888 said:

However, if I read you correctly, big trouble above ground is not what you're interested in.

You read me right, wren888.

 

It isn't that your idea isn't a good one.  It would be cool, and honestly that kind of above ground invasion is fairly easily engineered.

 

The two main problems as I see them (and there may be more):

 

1) Quest interference:  Part of my personal approach to modding is to try and never do something that makes someone need to remove the mod.  This is where quest breakage comes in.

 

2) AI issue: At default, Skyrim only uses a maximum of 20 "active" actors at a time.  This is why the civil war quests are always 10 v 10, and why fighting "hordes" of enemies always takes a wave-based approach.  There are ways to circumvent this, but even cranking that up isn't always satisfying.  Large numbers of hostiles just get in each other's way, and the derpification gets magnified greatly.  This is mitigated if they are ranged attackers (to a degree), so chaurus don't suffer from this quite as badly as some things, but the AI factor does place a practical limit on how many chaurus could reasonably be confronted at once.  Too many, and some of them will simply stand there, doing nothing.

 

This is compounded if you have followers in tow, or there are townspeople around.

 

It isn't insurmountable (though doing so requires multiple mods and settings that would be difficult for some players to make use of).  An excellent way to observe this issue is the mod Draugnarok.  Highly recommended as a taste of all the things the Skyrim engine can't handle in "overwhelming above ground invasion" mods.

 

The solution to many of these issues is to limit the number of hostiles, and just make them uber-powerful.  Like Dragons.  Then the hostile(s) always have AI functioning, and they don't fall down so quickly (or at least they shouldn't.  Mods can adjust this easily enough.)

9 hours ago, wren888 said:

Skyrim has one surface area where one can always find chauruses: the swamp between Morthal and Solitude. And they live there without falmer masters. Therefore, surface proliferation of chauruses is consistent with Skyrim lore.

Three things needed for chaurus to thrive: cold water, food sources, cover.  The fogs in the swamps provide a measure of cover and food/water are plentiful.  That explains why they would want to be there, but not why they are there.  There is no clear place they originated from.  My best guess was always that the Ustengrav excavations had generated a cave-in somewhere and closed their entryway to another cave system.  They're stuck above ground, and are looking for a way to get back.

 

If the entryway were below water now, they may not be able to dig it out themselves.  That's my headcanon anyway.

 

Thanks as always for the kind words.  I'm looking forward to getting to a point where the mod could provide the things you are speaking of in some capacity.

 

[Seijin8]

Okay folks, new version is up and absolutely requires a clean save or new game.

 

A straight update will not work (the challenge quest will be broken)

[VaeVictus]

Apropos patch;

 

FemaleActor_B_Chaurus_B_PileD_Stage2.txt

 

"I cough is surprise when the shaft quickly pulls free of my mouth, only to be rolled backward as it {FUCKS} my {WTVAGINAL} cunt.",

 

Needs a grammar correction.

[wren888]

20 hours ago, Seijin8 said:

My best guess was always that the Ustengrav excavations had generated a cave-in somewhere and closed their entryway to another cave system.  They're stuck above ground, and are looking for a way to get back.

 

If the entryway were below water now, they may not be able to dig it out themselves.  That's my headcanon anyway.

 

Thanks as always for the kind words.  I'm looking forward to getting to a point where the mod could provide the things you are speaking of in some capacity.

 

"Some capacity" would be great. I look forward to the day that happens.

 

Thanks for clarifying the limitations imposed by Skyrim and its quests. I understand better now. From a viewpoint of personal experience, what I've been doing in my games is going back a couple weeks later to places where my character laid eggs. I chase down and kill the hatchlings, then go into the console and type "placeatme ________ ##," where "________" is the eight digit chaurus code and "##" is the number of eggs my character laid, usually around 25. That always provides some excitement.

 

You say, "They're stuck above ground, and are looking for a way to get back." If chauruses are lithovores, they could burrow through a door or wall by an entrance into Ustengrav or another subterranean area if they really wanted to. That being said, until I hear M'aiq talk about chauruses in Elsweyr, I will concur that they prefer a cold, moist, dim environment.

 

I can't find it right now, but you said previously that chaurus hatchlings on the surface would get eaten. I expect some would, but from my experience with at least EC+ hatchlings, they're the toughest, fastest things on six legs I've ever seen. Some would survive and mature, especially considering the quick maturation period I believe we're dealing with here.

 

Again I'm amazed by the depth and precision of your design. I'm speaking of Version 1.4, of course. Thanks much, Seijin.

[Seijin8]

4 hours ago, VaeVictus said:

Apropos patch;

 

FemaleActor_B_Chaurus_B_PileD_Stage2.txt

 

"I cough is surprise when the shaft quickly pulls free of my mouth, only to be rolled backward as it {FUCKS} my {WTVAGINAL} cunt.",

 

Needs a grammar correction.

Good catch.  Fixed.  (Honestly that whole set is not so well done.  Needs a pretty thorough rewrite.)

[Seijin8]

Both points to follow are entirely my own form of lore, so take with a grain of salt.

7 hours ago, wren888 said:

If chauruses are lithovores, they could burrow through a door or wall by an entrance into Ustengrav or another subterranean area if they really wanted to.

A few issues they may have in this instance (pure speculation):

 

1) Chaurus can't dig while under water (call it a lore explanation for engine issues).

2) They have an instinct for not tunnel digging in a way that might flood the hive.

3) The shallow nature of the hills and mounds in the swamp give them no clear path to generate a new tunnel.  They may be able to do so by moving out of the swamp either north or east, but then they are quite far from the hive.

 

7 hours ago, wren888 said:

I can't find it right now, but you said previously that chaurus hatchlings on the surface would get eaten. I expect some would, but from my experience with at least EC+ hatchlings, they're the toughest, fastest things on six legs I've ever seen.

EC's hatchlings are tough, aggressive and very quick.  None of which makes any sense to me.

 

Toughness makes little sense in this context.  They ought to be fairly soft, having just exited the egg.  Even if they were tough comparative to their size, that still isn't as tough as we see.

 

Aggression could make sense in certain instances, but their form of aggression seems far out of balance with any survival intent.  Murdering everything you come across is not a great long-term strategy.

 

Their speed is partly illusionary.  They aren't much faster than a normal chaurus, but the extreme scale change makes it look like they are.  While I could understand them being quick, I think the speed we see is a bit much.

 

Under the hood, the EC's hatchlings are barely different from normal chaurus except for their apparent size, and limited behavioral abilities.  The volume of food they visibly consume is several times their own body mass yet produces almost no growth.

 

In terms of biology, chaurus spawn appear to be r-Type: they are meant to over-produce offspring in order for some fraction of them to make it to adulthood.  The behavior of the EC hatchlings seems inconsistent with this.

 

To be clear: I do intend to replace the EC hatchlings in the near future (maybe by 0.2).  The replacements will be slower and a little larger, probably based on ash hopper morphology (mesh that looks chaurus-like, but animation taken from ash hoppers, permissions on existing assets for this are tight, so I will have to make my own mesh for it -- probably just a reshaped chaurus over the ash hopper skeleton, nothing too fancy), and will have the priority of finding a chaurus hive or safe place, and latching on to a larger creature for protection and transport.  (Some discussion on this with Hawkhunter347 a page back).

 

EDIT: More likely to be using spider assets since it fits with the Dragonborn zombie spider part.

 

(Also to be clear: as this mod moves away from EC+, there will be an option for integration in the MCM so you can pick which parts to use from each mod where they cross-over.  I owe that mod a lot for inspiring this one, so I will never shut it out.  That said, I do intend to functionally replace EC+'s impregnation, birth and hatching functions at some point: different hatchlings (varied based on specifics of impregnation), more pregnancy complications and variations, Sexlab awareness so that birth doesn't start in the middle of a Sexlab scene and fuck up the animation engine, hatchlings with more options and less/more targeted aggression, a variety of birth animations, etc.)

 

Anyway, back to work...

 

[Seijin8]

Hotfix deployed for MCM loading/reloading issues.

 

If you already have v0.1.4, just grab the hotfix file.

 

Main archive was updated to include this fix.

[VaeVictus]

15 hours ago, Seijin8 said:

Good catch.  Fixed.  (Honestly that whole set is not so well done.  Needs a pretty thorough rewrite.)

Don't go hard on yourself buddy, I have a whole set of my own apropos descriptions (for personal use and personal likings quite frankly) alongside its own synonyms files. I probably wrote thousands of lines for over 50 animations (mainly Billyy's) and I know how difficult it is to come up with new ideas and get inspiration and then find the willpower to double-check the script.

 

All in due time, keep up the good work. If you need new ideas about potential new synonyms additional, I am more than welcome to share my ideas.

[Seijin8]

10 hours ago, VaeVictus said:

Don't go hard on yourself buddy, I have a whole set of my own apropos descriptions (for personal use and personal likings quite frankly) alongside its own synonyms files. I probably wrote thousands of lines for over 50 animations (mainly Billyy's) and I know how difficult it is to come up with new ideas and get inspiration and then find the willpower to double-check the script.

 

All in due time, keep up the good work. If you need new ideas about potential new synonyms additional, I am more than welcome to share my ideas.

Would love to see them.  Thanks for the offer.

[danta]

So all the chaurus in the game have disappeared when I installed this mod

 

The add victim quest spell says its been added but I don't get it. When I try to add it to my pc via console it says it cant  

[Seijin8]

32 minutes ago, danta said:

So all the chaurus in the game have disappeared when I installed this mod

This mod doesn't remove chaurus from the world, only adds more of them and some specific ones.

 

The only way that the existing chaurus could have disappeared with this mod is if you had this mod installed, then uninstalled it (as might happen with a clean save).

32 minutes ago, danta said:

The add victim quest spell says its been added but I don't get it. When I try to add it to my pc via console it says it cant

The main reason it would say you can't add it is because you already have it.  If in doubt, reset the mod through the MCM and it will remove the old copy and replace it.  (But that happens automatically on version updates anyway.)

 

EDIT: The "Victim Spell" will not show up as a spell effect on you or one that you can cast.  It is a background spell that manages the mod's effects.  You can verify that you have it through the console effects list.

[danta]

well I don't know what to tell you but its your mod that's doing it. 

 

I have all the mods needed  installed and there are still chaurus .  To put it to the test I saved a game with a chaurus in front of me. Exited the game installed the mod . Re entered the game chaurus gone

[Seijin8]

2 minutes ago, danta said:

well I don't know what to tell you but its your mod that's doing it. 

 

I have all the mods needed  installed and there are still chaurus .  To put it to the test I saved a game with a chaurus in front of me. Exited the game installed the mod . Re entered the game chaurus gone

If you want me to pursue this, then I'm going to need something to work with.

 

Papyrus log, load order (in a spoiler or txt file, not blasted out here), and the formIDs on the chaurus that are disappearing.

[bobmarley24]

problem im having is the patches and scripts folder is too huge so i cant download it into the game  Im gonna have to wait for a new update with a smaller file size or somthing. 

[Seijin8]

17 minutes ago, bobmarley24 said:

problem im having is the patches and scripts folder is too huge so i cant download it into the game  Im gonna have to wait for a new update with a smaller file size or somthing. 

The entire package is 65MB.