Opening up Grindstone with TesEdit?

[Aki K]

I have some new weapon mods that came with enchantments.  The enchantments are only visual effects.  I've noticed I can upgrade some of them via the grindstone, and others I cannot.  I don't know if it's the different base pieces that can't be upgraded, or certain enchantments.  (I've only tried to upgrade after enchanting so I'll try again shortly prior to applying enchantments).  I have the necessary perks for upgrading standard enchantments.  So I am assuming some of them are just in a special category.

 

So part one of my question:  How do I use TesEdit (or creationkit if necessary) to open up either the base weapon or enchantment to be something I can upgrade with the grindstone?

 

Part 2: Despite all/most of the weapons being swords of a sort in shape and style, they're all maces in the game.  How do I change that?  I don't want to physically change any meshes/textures or anything.  I just want the drawing and sheathing animation of a sword, not a mace.  (I can't do a blanket animation change because some of the weapons aren't swords or are two handed.)

[Varithina]

This is likely depending on how many weapons there are going to get damn tedious very very quickly.

 

Part 1 -- Load the mod into xedit, when it has all loaded, go onto the constructable objects section for the weapons mod, next scroll down till you find the tempering recipe for the weapon that does not allow upgrading after enchanting.

 

What you should have by default, well if they built the esp in ck anyway, would be two keywords in the conditions section, one would be

 

Subject.EPTemperingItemIsEnchanted <> 1.000000 OR

 

The other one would be

 

Subject.HasPerk(ArcaneBlacksmith "Arcane Blacksmith" [PERK:0005218E], 0) = 1.000000 AND

 

Chances are that the weapons that do not allow tempering after enchanting, have one or both of those conditions missing, if the weapon is supposed to be unique or something like that then they are usually set to not be temperable by the player, it may well have already been included in the stats of the weapon to start with.

 

Pretty much to make them temperable you would need to add both those conditions, might well be easier in the ck to be honest, as you would be able to copy them from one of the vanilla tempering recipes and paste them into the appropriate mod tempering recipes pretty easily.

 

 

Part 2.  Not too sure about this but looking at them, my first thing would be to check in the weapon, DNAM - Data section, the bit you are looking for may well be the animation tag, you may well be able to just change it from what ever it is now to onehandsword or whatever fits the weapon.  And you would of course need to do it to each weapon.

 

I was going to suggest posting the esp here so I can take a look or at least pointing out where to get the mod, but just noticed this is le which I do not at present have an install for, or rather I do but it does not work, I do need to sit down with a good up to date guide and re-build it though, sooner or later that is.

[Aki K]

15 minutes ago, Varithina said:

This is likely depending on how many weapons there are going to get damn tedious very very quickly.

 

Part 1 -- Load the mod into xedit, when it has all loaded, go onto the constructable objects section for the weapons mod, next scroll down till you find the tempering recipe for the weapon that does not allow upgrading after enchanting.

 

What you should have by default, well if they built the esp in ck anyway, would be two keywords in the conditions section, one would be

 

Subject.EPTemperingItemIsEnchanted <> 1.000000 OR

 

The other one would be

 

Subject.HasPerk(ArcaneBlacksmith "Arcane Blacksmith" [PERK:0005218E], 0) = 1.000000 AND

 

Chances are that the weapons that do not allow tempering after enchanting, have one or both of those conditions missing, if the weapon is supposed to be unique or something like that then they are usually set to not be temperable by the player, it may well have already been included in the stats of the weapon to start with.

 

Pretty much to make them temperable you would need to add both those conditions, might well be easier in the ck to be honest, as you would be able to copy them from one of the vanilla tempering recipes and paste them into the appropriate mod tempering recipes pretty easily.

 

 

Part 2.  Not too sure about this but looking at them, my first thing would be to check in the weapon, DNAM - Data section, the bit you are looking for may well be the animation tag, you may well be able to just change it from what ever it is now to onehandsword or whatever fits the weapon.  And you would of course need to do it to each weapon.

 

I was going to suggest posting the esp here so I can take a look or at least pointing out where to get the mod, but just noticed this is le which I do not at present have an install for, or rather I do but it does not work, I do need to sit down with a good up to date guide and re-build it though, sooner or later that is.

It turns out the weapon cannot be tempered prior to enchanting either.  The weapon in question btw, is unique magicka sabers (basically lightsabers of various kinds).  I'm able to construct and build custom ones, such as a purple kylo ren saber, a green maul saber, etc.  But none of them can be upgraded before or after enchanting.  I assume adding either of these will make things easier, but what should I do if there is no tempering recipe?  Can I add one via TesEdit?

 

I know TesEdit is probably going to be tedious, but that's fine with me.  It's easier for me to work with right now.  I have no experience with creation kit and have been led to believe setting it up wrong can cause my game to be less stable.  I don't know how true that is, but nobody has told me otherwise yet.  I'm just not ready/willing to do another full reinstall yet.

[legraf]

15 minutes ago, Aki K said:

but what should I do if there is no tempering recipe?  Can I add one via TesEdit?

TesVEdit is quite convenient for adding recipes.  You do need tempering recipes for the items, and once you open your .esp in that tool, you'll also have many example recipes in its dependencies for comparison.

 

See also this brief thread.

[Aki K]

3 hours ago, legraf said:

TesVEdit is quite convenient for adding recipes.  You do need tempering recipes for the items, and once you open your .esp in that tool, you'll also have many example recipes in its dependencies for comparison.

 

See also this brief thread.

Cool.  Gonna give it all a shot, with any luck I'll have some kickass lightsabers.

 

 

EDIT:  Okay.  So in TesEdit the weapons I want to edit don't have tempering ids under "constructable object", just regular crafting IDs. How do I make a new ID that doesn't conflict with anything, but keeps the same necessary data?

[legraf]

2 hours ago, Aki K said:

EDIT:  Okay.  So in TesEdit the weapons I want to edit don't have tempering ids under "constructable object", just regular crafting IDs. How do I make a new ID that doesn't conflict with anything, but keeps the same necessary data?

The easiest, perhaps, is to right-click on one of the existing crafting recipes, choose "copy as new record into", give it a new "Editor ID" name (like TemperingCoolLightsabre), and choose your mod (that's what it's "copying into".  Accept the default Form ID that is provided.  That Form ID will be unique.  You then need to change the crafting bench used (presumably from forge to grindstone), and change any other requirements you wish.  So long as the EditorID is descriptive and relates to your lighsabre, it's bound to be unique.  You might consider starting the name with your initials or some similar pattern you'll use for all your modding, so you can easily find them in alphabetical listings in the future.

 

Or you can start with a tempering recipe from Skyrim.esm, copy that as a new record into your mod, and change the CNAM - Created Object to match your item.  Do whichever requires less fussing on your part - you might then want to add perk "conditions" (existing Tempering recipes are good for understanding that).

 

Once you've made your first tempering recipe, always copy that one as a new record, it will be closest to what you want.  You might not have to change anything but the Editor ID and CNAM.  The first one is by far the hardest!

 

Mainly, experiment with changes in your mod, and compare your records to those of existing Constructible Objects in skyrim.esm.  You'll soon understand all the intricacies!

[Aki K]

13 hours ago, legraf said:

The easiest, perhaps, is to right-click on one of the existing crafting recipes, choose "copy as new record into", give it a new "Editor ID" name (like TemperingCoolLightsabre), and choose your mod (that's what it's "copying into".  Accept the default Form ID that is provided.  That Form ID will be unique.  You then need to change the crafting bench used (presumably from forge to grindstone), and change any other requirements you wish.  So long as the EditorID is descriptive and relates to your lighsabre, it's bound to be unique.  You might consider starting the name with your initials or some similar pattern you'll use for all your modding, so you can easily find them in alphabetical listings in the future.

 

Or you can start with a tempering recipe from Skyrim.esm, copy that as a new record into your mod, and change the CNAM - Created Object to match your item.  Do whichever requires less fussing on your part - you might then want to add perk "conditions" (existing Tempering recipes are good for understanding that).

 

Once you've made your first tempering recipe, always copy that one as a new record, it will be closest to what you want.  You might not have to change anything but the Editor ID and CNAM.  The first one is by far the hardest!

 

Mainly, experiment with changes in your mod, and compare your records to those of existing Constructible Objects in skyrim.esm.  You'll soon understand all the intricacies!

I'll give this a try.  I've been trying to do something similar but TesEdit kept freezing.  Which is a new issue for me.  Ever hear of TesEdit freezing?

 

My machine is quite powerful and for the most part I have a strong setup for everything.  Maybe I did something wrong in my attempts.

[legraf]

1 hour ago, Aki K said:

I'll give this a try.  I've been trying to do something similar but TesEdit kept freezing.  Which is a new issue for me.  Ever hear of TesEdit freezing?

I'm afraid not - it's hasn't frozen even once for me.

[Aki K]

2 hours ago, legraf said:

I'm afraid not - it's hasn't frozen even once for me.

Just want to let everyone know, it worked!  I'm so happy.

 

In regards to the freezing, I was trying to edit something I wasn't supposed to edit apparently.  Certain values should be left alone.

 

Final question.  I'm using MO so it stores the files for each mod in a separate area.  If I make a copy and archive them from that area, will it save the changes I've made so I don't have to do this tedious work on the next install cycle?

[legraf]

Congratulations!  It's great when things work, and we don't hear that enough, here.

 

I think I have your final question right, in which case: yes, exactly, save all the modified files.  Ideally you will have saved them as a new mod of your own, and you can just archive the whole mod folder.

[Aki K]

3 hours ago, legraf said:

Congratulations!  It's great when things work, and we don't hear that enough, here.

 

I think I have your final question right, in which case: yes, exactly, save all the modified files.  Ideally you will have saved them as a new mod of your own, and you can just archive the whole mod folder.

I didn't save them as a new mod of my own as I didn't have plans to upload it.  I only altered about half of the items, maybe less.  If I was planning to upload (with original author permission of course) perfectionist Aki would kick in.  I would want all the files to have uniform names in line with the original setup, everything perfectly labeled, etc.  But at least I have a starting point.  And I might be able to make something of my own with this knowledge in the future.