Animal Mansion 4??? (Dev Thread)

[Khrusaor]

Sorry for asking a dumb question but this won't work on LE right?

[monty359]

9 hours ago, tasairis said:

I was thinking about it in reverse: player finds the merchant/Valga/Bolund, who give some off-hand remark about the lady who is trying to buy from them. Valga in the inn for the people who ask her for a bed, Bolund... well, it made more sense with Lod, so perhaps Bolund's brother Whatshisname (who runs the general goods store and would be the one people buying/selling stuff talk to) might make the remark instead, and then the travelling merchant to get everyone else just running through the area.

 

I was thinking Falkreath only because everything she needs is nearby - she shouldn't have to go out to Whiterun or Markarth for supplies because Valga and Bolund should have everything, if only they would get around to selling to her.

And also because it felt like a bit of a stretch to have someone in Winterhold know about her inn and its troubles. I mean sure, Skyrim is one huge rumor mill, but "oh no, some lady is trying to open an inn somewhere but it isn't working out" is just so banal. Especially compared to wherever the latest dragon sighting was.

 

That said, I bet there's going to be some way or another to have a travelling merchant up in the area of Solitude or so know about it. I mean, they travel, they hear things. Maybe it's more of a rumor thing than a directed and deliberate comment. So that would make the travelling merchant be the primary mechanism, then Valga and Bolund/Theotherguy are bonuses.

 

edit: Solaf

sounds good, whatever you do, i am fine with it. Sofar you did a very good story. 

 

my idea based on two things. it should tie in into the story of animal mansion and the player should get the quest, while progressing in early game. no need for looking for the mansion.

but eventually everyone will visit falkreath and get the quest there.

 

[tasairis]

17 hours ago, Khrusaor said:

Sorry for asking a dumb question but this won't work on LE right?

Apparently Thaena's head is messed up, but other than that the mod seems to function correctly - quests and such.

[tasairis]

17 hours ago, monty359 said:

sounds good, whatever you do, i am fine with it. Sofar you did a very good story. 

 

my idea based on two things. it should tie in into the story of animal mansion and the player should get the quest, while progressing in early game. no need for looking for the mansion.

but eventually everyone will visit falkreath and get the quest there.

Yeah, finding a balance between the concept making sense and it doing what it needs to do. And I'm still thinking through some variations of it too. No rush.

[unwashed biomass]

Idea for radiant quest with some progress.

Lets say some gal contacts PC with request for teaching her how to seduce wolf pack she was keeping eye of. After some time and some rumors those wolfes became more popular and more to be bitches wanted to join pack making them grow in numbers. Finally female PC could attain status of honorary bitch member of a pack.

[jxm]

Speaking of radiant quests: I always liked the little quest in "Lovers Bitch gone wild" in Oblivion. When the main char attended a party of some upper class twits in Leayawin as entertainment...though it might be too close to the actual "parties'" in the Mansion. But such a "house party" could have a slightly different tone to it. With those rich people looking more down on the main char and being hipocrits - an event paying well, but being quite humiliating

[tasairis]

On 12/5/2020 at 5:12 AM, houdini said:

Lets say some gal contacts PC with request for teaching her how to seduce wolf pack she was keeping eye of.

Already accounted for, more or less.

 

On 12/5/2020 at 5:12 AM, houdini said:

After some time and some rumors those wolfes became more popular and more to be bitches wanted to join pack making them grow in numbers. Finally female PC could attain status of honorary bitch member of a pack.

That's getting to be too complicated for a side quest and is a concept more suited to being a standalone mod (one that, by the way, sounds kinda like Beastess).

Remember: the more effort I have to put into those quests, the less effort I can put into the main story and adding more animals and such.

[skyrim482]

Hey good to have you back, im glad your RL work slowed down a bit. Looking forward to the part update. I know you were considering a dog companion for the player so here is an idea if you are thinking of a quest to bring in our 4 pawed friend.

 

The pound-

A Jarl sends a req to the mansion for someone with special animal experience to help gather a few strays in their city. The player will report to a (city official/ guard/ "Keeper") to find that there are 3-4 stray dogs wondering the city.  The Keeper says that there have been unsuccessful attempts to round up the stubborn dogs and will ask you to find a way to bring them back. They will send you to get them one by one and you will have to mate with them to earn their trust and allow them to follow. On the last stray you find that they are particularly energetic and it takes three sessions with you before the dog is satisfied. As you return to the keeper you ask how they will be able to care for the strays. the keeper tess you they weren't expecting this many strays and they will likely have to put one down if someone doesn't adopt them.  You tell the keeper you are very impressed with the last dog and would like to take them with you. The dog is now your follower.

Theana might make mention of your 4 legged friend if he is... hanging around the mansion. you could make her jealous of his impressive stamina and she might want to take 3 rounds with him as well and ask you on occasion. Even Jala too if she makes a return. Food for thought..

Keep up the good work. Cheers!

[tasairis]

9 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Hey good to have you back, im glad your RL work slowed down a bit. Looking forward to the part update. I know you were considering a dog companion for the player so here is an idea if you are thinking of a quest to bring in our 4 pawed friend.

 

The pound-

A Jarl sends a req to the mansion for someone with special animal experience to help gather a few strays in their city. The player will report to a (city official/ guard/ "Keeper") to find that there are 3-4 stray dogs wondering the city.  The Keeper says that there have been unsuccessful attempts to round up the stubborn dogs and will ask you to find a way to bring them back. They will send you to get them one by one and you will have to mate with them to earn their trust and allow them to follow. On the last stray you find that they are particularly energetic and it takes three sessions with you before the dog is satisfied. As you return to the keeper you ask how they will be able to care for the strays. the keeper tess you they weren't expecting this many strays and they will likely have to put one down if someone doesn't adopt them.  You tell the keeper you are very impressed with the last dog and would like to take them with you. The dog is now your follower.

Theana might make mention of your 4 legged friend if he is... hanging around the mansion. you could make her jealous of his impressive stamina and she might want to take 3 rounds with him as well and ask you on occasion. Even Jala too if she makes a return. Food for thought..

Keep up the good work. Cheers!

I'm not sure about the follower bit, but rounding up stray dogs sounds good.

Problem is it also kinda sounds good for other animals too... Like, a town could have a skeever infestation or be plagued by chaurus. Then, what if instead of picking it up as a follower, you bring it back to the Mansion as an employee? The whole idea works both as a main quest and as a side quest.

 

The follower mechanism I'm leaning towards now is the one where you go to one of the animals you've previously recruited as an employee, do Something, and unlock it as a follower. Going with that, and therefore pulling the follower aspect out of this "The Pound" idea, it leaves something broad and flexible. I'm tempted to use it as the main quest for some other animal, then copy it with some tweaks for use as a couple other side quests...

[skyrim482]

2 hours ago, tasairis said:

I'm not sure about the follower bit, but rounding up stray dogs sounds good.

Problem is it also kinda sounds good for other animals too... Like, a town could have a skeever infestation or be plagued by chaurus. Then, what if instead of picking it up as a follower, you bring it back to the Mansion as an employee? The whole idea works both as a main quest and as a side quest.

 

The follower mechanism I'm leaning towards now is the one where you go to one of the animals you've previously recruited as an employee, do Something, and unlock it as a follower. Going with that, and therefore pulling the follower aspect out of this "The Pound" idea, it leaves something broad and flexible. I'm tempted to use it as the main quest for some other animal, then copy it with some tweaks for use as a couple other side quests...

Well the dog doesn't really have to be a follower In the traditional sense. Companion is a better word. Like Baily is to Theana, who mentions you should get your own dog. They can just wonder around and be kept at the mansion really. I mentioned this before you could have a special interaction if you sleep in your bed at the mansion with your dog who stays in your room at night. You could also invite the dog to parties or special occasions with Jala and Theana. the dog would jut hang out their but be Your Dog in the figurative sense. This was just an idea to acquire a 'personal" dog to the mansion.

The Gather fetch for the pound idea would work with anything that's why I think as a rough base it fits with your mod and makes sense. 

Boom_ Another Idea! _-  Stray Room

Lets say you do some radiant quests and Decide you want to keep certain animals and bring them to the mansion. Well if you already have those creatures where would they go? You could have a stray room for different creatures. Clients who want to go down to the basement might have enjoyed the experience so much and they want a creature of their own to take home. If you have strays in the room you could "present" them to the client and they might decide to pay the mansion an (adoption fee or whatever) and take them home with them. Once strays leave the mansion you could go out and find more. Now you have an entirely new re-occurring activity at the mansion.

[Khrusaor]

Quest idea: player hears a rumor that a town suffers from the attacks of the infuriated animal (not sure which animal could be used for this so I'll leave it up to you) and wonders if she could pacify it. Upon the arrival player learns that the animal scares people away from the woods although there are no victims yet. After a bit of investigation player discovers that said animal is controlled by the Spriggan that is angry with townsfolk for cutting down trees or something like that. Townsfolk ask player to deal with the Spriggan and you are left with a choice: to simply kill the creature or somehow persuade it to leave people alone (maybe perform some kind of a ritual which includes having fun with it and the animal). Anyways, once the Spriggan has been dealt with the animal is free from it's control but it doesn't show any signs of agression towards player so she decides to take it to the Mansion.

[Twisted Allegro]

6 hours ago, Khrusaor said:

.

Seconded

[tasairis]

On 12/11/2020 at 3:10 AM, Khrusaor said:

Quest idea: player hears a rumor that a town suffers from the attacks of the infuriated animal (not sure which animal could be used for this so I'll leave it up to you) and wonders if she could pacify it. Upon the arrival player learns that the animal scares people away from the woods although there are no victims yet. After a bit of investigation player discovers that said animal is controlled by the Spriggan that is angry with townsfolk for cutting down trees or something like that. Townsfolk ask player to deal with the Spriggan and you are left with a choice: to simply kill the creature or somehow persuade it to leave people alone (maybe perform some kind of a ritual which includes having fun with it and the animal). Anyways, once the Spriggan has been dealt with the animal is free from it's control but it doesn't show any signs of agression towards player so she decides to take it to the Mansion.

I've been bouncing between a variety of ideas based on this. Note that a spriggan's weapons of choice tend to be bears and sabre cats, both of which are accounted for to some extent.

 

a) As-is and apply it to deer/elk. Going to be a while before those come into play, though. Or apply it to some other unused creature I'm not remembering.

b) Adapt the sabre cat quest with the hunter guy to have the spriggan be controlling the cat, since the two concepts could certainly work together. I did have an intention to flush out that quest quite a bit more, but it would have still revolved around the thing I spoilered-out. (Bear quest is up next and mostly written, and I like what I have.)

c) Make the spriggan be a briefly recurring, minor villain character, ultimately becoming unlocked at the end of its arc. For example, spriggan is pissed, controls creature, creature acquired but spriggan left alive and still upset, repeat once or twice more with gradual modifications, finally acquire spriggan itself.

[tasairis]

On 12/7/2020 at 4:54 PM, skyrim482 said:

Boom_ Another Idea! _-  Stray Room

Lets say you do some radiant quests and Decide you want to keep certain animals and bring them to the mansion. Well if you already have those creatures where would they go? You could have a stray room for different creatures. Clients who want to go down to the basement might have enjoyed the experience so much and they want a creature of their own to take home. If you have strays in the room you could "present" them to the client and they might decide to pay the mansion an (adoption fee or whatever) and take them home with them. Once strays leave the mansion you could go out and find more. Now you have an entirely new re-occurring activity at the mansion.

And having a client adopt an animal strongly suggests that the client might want some help with it in the future.

 

I wrote out a long reply that turned into another brain dump, but I'm deleting it all and just going with something easier.

I like the adoption program, but I would rather turn the order of events around: client requests animal, player locates and delivers animal, player assists client. However I don't think I have any strong technical arguments against the locate -> request -> deliver ordering, and at the very least there's no particular reason both couldn't be done as two separate things. Mostly I'm worried about the random nature of locate/request/deliver, but I'm sure some of that could be offloaded off of the player's own decisions and into the mod's own decision making process.

 

So I'm still thinking about it - as with basically every other idea, I don't want to say yea or nay until I've figured out what the implementation and results would look like ahead of time.

[Khrusaor]

38 minutes ago, tasairis said:

I've been bouncing between a variety of ideas based on this. Note that a spriggan's weapons of choice tend to be bears and sabre cats, both of which are accounted for to some extent.

 

a) As-is and apply it to deer/elk. Going to be a while before those come into play, though. Or apply it to some other unused creature I'm not remembering.

b) Adapt the sabre cat quest with the hunter guy to have the spriggan be controlling the cat, since the two concepts could certainly work together. I did have an intention to flush out that quest quite a bit more, but it would have still revolved around the thing I spoilered-out. (Bear quest is up next and mostly written, and I like what I have.)

c) Make the spriggan be a briefly recurring, minor villain character, ultimately becoming unlocked at the end of its arc. For example, spriggan is pissed, controls creature, creature acquired but spriggan left alive and still upset, repeat once or twice more with gradual modifications, finally acquire spriggan itself.

I got a rather funny idea regarding variant A. The animal controlled by the Spriggan could be a goat, for example. A usually peaceful animal terrorizing townsfolk would be hilarious. 

Otherwise, variant B sounds pretty appealing.

[tasairis]

Non-update on v0.4: I'm pulling out the concept of female wolves. It just isn't working well enough. In fact, judging by what I can see with other species, it looks like I'm going to have to turn my "mixed sex by default, single sex if needed" plans backwards into "single sex by default, mixed sex if possible" for nearly all creature races as a whole.

I know I've mentioned female creature support multiple times before, but on a more practical note, 90% of the problem is that SexLab just isn't quite good enough at handling mixed-sex creature races. The unisex "C"  for gender tags is the best example of this, and it's just not reasonable/possible to have AMX scrutinize every animation for validity. I have heard some people say they don't mind FCm animations being applied to male characters so I think I'm going to have to go with that.

 

Ah, if only there was the time and the energy and the knowledge to invest into a SexLab 2.0. I don't know how many times over the last couple months I've toyed with the idea of writing a new interface that keeps the same backend, but it wouldn't be enough. If only I could sit in a room with Ashal for a month and just get it all done at once...

 

Won't change dogs or horses, those are popular enough to be alright, but starting with wolves and going forwards,

1. Most of the time there will be only one creature to bring back to the Mansion, and it will be the "typical" sex for that species - so most will be male

2. In those cases, quests won't impose the gendered player interaction restrictions (ie, the one that says male/female players can only "fuck me" with female/male creatures)

 

Also means some other plans are changing, like nearly all (no doubt adjustable) male clients will only want to watch, and I should probably revisit some aspects of how followers were being handled. Ugh.

 

I don't remember if I mentioned having HCoS-type plans for unlocked animals. If not, there ya go. Still want that to happen. Somehow.

[tasairis]

28 minutes ago, Khrusaor said:

I got a rather funny idea regarding variant A. The animal controlled by the Spriggan could be a goat, for example. A usually peaceful animal terrorizing townsfolk would be hilarious. 

Speaking of the bear quest, goats would be another good way to get some humor back into this mod...

[skyrim482]

9 hours ago, tasairis said:

So I'm still thinking about it - as with basically every other idea, I don't want to say yea or nay until I've figured out what the implementation and results would look like ahead of time.

Im just throwing as many ideas at you as I can come up with so you can tailor them to whatever experience you see fit. 

8 hours ago, tasairis said:

It looks like I'm going to have to turn my "mixed sex by default, single sex if needed" plans backwards into "single sex by default, mixed sex if possible" for nearly all creature races as a whole.

I will say modding for female creature support seems like a nightmare and likely would not see much use even if hypothetically fully implemented. Ive seen little to no animation support for males on female creatures. Personally I think the story with Theana being your partner and trusting you fits better with a female player in mind. If your a male player the story will end up Theana asking you to do something then you just asking your female follower to do it in most situations( because of lack of female creature support in SL) It doesn't really make alot of sense.  While you certainly dont need to go rewriting anything a toggle option to simply remove the female creatures from spawning would be nice. In my own game SL creature framework doesn't register them properly and they just act like aroused males and its just messy with mods like aroused creatures.  Thanks for your work!

[tasairis]

19 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Im just throwing as many ideas at you as I can come up with so you can tailor them to whatever experience you see fit. 

Which is exactly what I want ?

 

19 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

I will say modding for female creature support seems like a nightmare and likely would not see much use even if hypothetically fully implemented. Ive seen little to no animation support for males on female creatures.

...
In my own game SL creature framework doesn't register them properly and they just act like aroused males and its just messy with mods like aroused creatures.

Yup. Supporting female creatures wasn't "too much" extra work, but even now it's still spotty: asking SexLab for animations would get back animations for both sexes, and I can't necessarily require an MC/FC tag because that wouldn't always be accurate (back to the unisex 'C' problem). I think there's probably a little more I can do to filter animations, but that makes the process take even longer and thus is more suited for identifying animations in advance (which some places are doing).

 

CF was another problem, but one that could be solved fairly easily by patching the relevant race's MNC data. Noticed that myself really quickly when I discovered one of my quest wolves was apparently futa.

 

Side note: Aroused Creatures definitely makes things get messy. I'm adding support to "pause" it as needed - such as during the Companions' party, when having AC running in the background would cause a bit of confusion.

 

19 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Personally I think the story with Theana being your partner and trusting you fits better with a female player in mind. If your a male player the story will end up Theana asking you to do something then you just asking your female follower to do it in most situations( because of lack of female creature support in SL) It doesn't really make alot of sense.  While you certainly dont need to go rewriting anything a toggle option to simply remove the female creatures from spawning would be nice.

I'm still going to put in all the groundwork support for females - quest aliases, NPC data, stuff like that - but not use it. I'm kinda hoping this is one of those "if you build it, they will come" moments; if in the future some female creature from a completed quest becomes supported, that's totally possible to deal with retroactively. But for now, I expect that most people are playing Animal Mansion with a female PC or a female follower in tow, and those that don't are probably already used to the current state of things.

 

Besides followers, I am looking for more opportunities to get female NPCs involved in the main quests. In fact a prime example of that is coming up with Temba and the bear. Thaena herself? Probably not, since someone's gotta stay behind to watch the Mansion. "Jesper could watch the Mansion." Him? Ha! "Could you introduce Jala for this?" Actually...

[Guest]

I'm really loving the mod so far, especially the writing. It had me laughing way more than I expected. One idea I had that I would like to see is some signs/posters for the mansion. Once the mansion is ready for business, I'd love to see a sign be placed out front or by the road. I'd prefer it to be simple but suggestive enough to hint the viewer of what to expect in the mansion. I'd also like to see some posters or scrolls advertising the mansion in some of the cities, much like the wanted poster of the grey fox and the arena posters in the Imperial City in Oblivion. Though the posters could be a compatibility issue with city mods, so maybe make them toggleable in the mcm perhaps?

[iamknotsatisfied]

I was going to suggest follower support but since that has been accepted already. Imma wait for this to be a feature.

[tasairis]

26 minutes ago, Shadow Lurker said:

I'm really loving the mod so far, especially the writing. It had me laughing way more than I expected. One idea I had that I would like to see is some signs/posters for the mansion. Once the mansion is ready for business, I'd love to see a sign be placed out front or by the road. I'd prefer it to be simple but suggestive enough to hint the viewer of what to expect in the mansion. I'd also like to see some posters or scrolls advertising the mansion in some of the cities, much like the wanted poster of the grey fox and the arena posters in the Imperial City in Oblivion. Though the posters could be a compatibility issue with city mods, so maybe make them toggleable in the mcm perhaps?

A sign here or there would be okay, but the kind of compatibility issues that creates can't quite be solved by the MCM. All a menu can do is toggle whether the posters are visible in the world - plugin conflicts will happen one way or another, as each one means a cell edit.

 

Are you thinking about there being indications that the Mansion exists in a sort of general way? What if various containers here and there had a "poster", like if someone found one and brought it home. Talking mostly about containers like dressers, but the occasional NPC could be carrying one too. Naturally they're not visible - have to go picking pockets or looting containers/bodies to come across them. Would be only a minor "immersion" thing if done that way.

Another thing is adding a rumor for innkeepers. Not one that triggers a quest, just some comment they make.

[tasairis]

24 minutes ago, /bash boy said:

I was going to suggest follower support but since that has been accepted already. Imma wait for this to be a feature.

Already exists. There isn't a whole lot in the mod so far, but all three quests available now completely support followers.

[skyrim482]

1 hour ago, /bash boy said:

I was going to suggest follower support but since that has been accepted already. Imma wait for this to be a feature.

t already has that, talk to your follower and ask them to do this for you. Might be iffy as stated with a male follower.

 

2 hours ago, tasairis said:

Besides followers, I am looking for more opportunities to get female NPCs involved in the main quests. In fact a prime example of that is coming up with Temba and the bear. Thaena herself? Probably not, since someone's gotta stay behind to watch the Mansion. "Jesper could watch the Mansion." Him? Ha! "Could you introduce Jala for this?" Actually...

I think Jala is a need honestly. You can use her for "backgroud" activities that just adds some more depth. I think you have to start with a bit of corruption and convening to get her on the creature bandwagon. She might need your help in some training practice sessions and then eventually entertain clients. Here is some activity examples.

Jala-

1. Passively entertain clients

2. Request further practice sessions to handle different creatures

3. Participate in parties.

4. Send her on house calls or shows when she gets enough experience.

5-Possible main Quest using Jala" Theana sent Jala to find a special herb for the animals that might increase their endurance, however she has not returned to the mansion. Theana sends you to the spot she sent her and you arrive to find nothing but Giant tracks on the ground. You go to nearby giant camp where Jala is being "held" You approach their leader who has a newfound mating interest in humans(or whatever) . You make a deal to free Jala and bring her back to the mansion. Occasionally you might get a giant camp request. They might offer you a "protector" in return who is a friendly giant who stays outside the mansion and can be used for activities.

 

Another npc integration Basement Caretaker- With all those creatures, someone needs to look after them.. I know you were considering a vet but it doesn't have to be that complicated.

You could invite an npc of your own choosing who is maybe a returning customer or whatever. You ask them if they would consider working at the mansion since they like the animails so much. They could be a caretaker in the basement and "relax" the creatures as much as they wanted to. most of the time they would be just sweeping and doing ambient things though. Party invites are optional, possibly employees only Special party night? 

[tasairis]

Oh, PSA:

v0.4 is going to be a major compatibility break. Clean saves are possible - no lingering edits to non-AMX data - except for the next paragraph. Will still support quest skipping but slightly differently than now, which is fine because the quest skipping before was buggy. Yeah, going to be a bigger release than first planned.

 

Also, discovered that Skyrim does not clean up spawned NPCs for you after their owning quests finish. That means the dog seller and most of his dogs are still there, and the horse sellers and a couple of their horses are still there. Even worse, I can't clean them up retroactively. It's only minor save bloat, and you can clean them up yourself with the console (go to NPC, click to select, "disable" and "markfordelete"), but a fresh save will be best. Because you don't have this installed on a save you're playing normally, right?