[WIP]Mermaids

[Miauzi]

Vor einer Stunde sagte Renora1976:

Es wird in der Tat eine neue Mod sein, genauso wie die, die Sie testen, eine neue ist im Vergleich zur ersten Veröffentlichung der Meerjungfrau-Mod im letzten Jahr oder so (die mit nur dem Trank und der auf Regen/Schwimmen basierenden Transformation). Ich teste es derzeit weiter und behebe viele Versäumnisse in den Referenzen und der Codierung, und ich gehe davon aus, dass ich in ein paar Tagen oder Wochen vom Alpha-Status zur Beta wechseln und es hier hochladen sollte, wenn auch wahrscheinlich ohne die vollständigen Funktionen wie das Questelemente.

 

Der perfektionierte Trank sollte erscheinen, solange Sie das Mythenbuch gelesen haben und über 100 Alchemie verfügen. Obwohl ich es nicht mit Sicherheit sagen kann, könnte es sich bei dem, den ich letzte Woche hochgeladen habe, um 100 Änderungen handeln. Ich habe es aufgrund der Langeweile, Alchemy zu mahlen, geändert (zumindest kann man es mit Alteration mit Telekinese lösen), also testen Sie es vielleicht stattdessen. Dies ist auch einer der Punkte, an denen die neue Version der Mod voraussichtlich viel besser für das Spielerlebnis sein wird, da die Zauberforschung für einen natürlicheren und kontinuierlicheren Fortschritt sorgt und nicht für einen willkürlichen, diskreten Fortschritt. Mein Magiercharakter konzentrierte sich ausschließlich auf Magicka mit den Hauptfächern Zerstörung/Veränderung und dem Nebenfach Illusion, wobei er Zauberforschung, Verlorenes Grimoire und Apokalypse nutzte: Das sorgte für einen recht interessanten Lauf mit einem immer umfangreicheren Set an magischen Werkzeugen, was für vielfältige Spieloptionen sorgte. Selbst auf Stufe 25 brauchte sie viel Vorbereitung, um den Meisterzauber „Meerjungfrau-Apotheose“ freizuschalten, aber anders als bei der aktuellen Version sind die Vorbereitungen für dieses Ziel gut in das reguläre Gameplay integriert und konzentrieren sich nicht auf die „Zahl steigt“. um eine Funktion freizuschalten.

 

Well, at this point I can stop my test for now.

 

For me personally I can say that mods that use triggers to equip the player with DD devices in the game come into massive conflict with this mod... and both destroy each other.

 

Ultimately, this will also happen with the new mod version... you have to configure your game accordingly beforehand.

[Renora1976]

13 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

 

Well, at this point I can stop my test for now.

 

For me personally I can say that mods that use triggers to equip the player with DD devices in the game come into massive conflict with this mod... and both destroy each other.

 

Ultimately, this will also happen with the new mod version... you have to configure your game accordingly beforehand.

I am unsure what you mean by DD device.

[Miauzi]

Vor 18 Minuten sagte Renora1976:

Ich bin mir nicht sicher, was Sie mit DD-Gerät meinen.

 

 

[Renora1976]

6 hours ago, Miauzi said:

 

 

Ah. Well, I suppose this is to be expected for a mod that changes the morphology itself of the character.

[Renora1976]

Update: still advancing in my test run to find out and remove bugs, the newest version of the mod is moving relatively well in alpha phase. One design decision I am coming to is to remove entirely the shrine mechanic (which currently revert a tailed mermaid to a legged siren at no cost and reliably), since the low-level characters will be mostly stuck with a temporary mermaid form and the permanent one has an "entry cost" higher than the siren metamorphosis spell, therefore a fail-safe of sorts no longer makes much sense. I will still have to learn how to make the functional quest to lead players to the five spell books, however, and the big gameplay question is now on the soul mechanic:

 

In the currently-released version of the mod, a mermaid soul is the result of either a curse or player behaviour associated with a more mermaid than mortal roleplaying, with late-game the option of a potion. Here, the soul status is the final step of the character, almost expected rather than accidental. Therefore, I feel sort of inclined to invert some of the features of the soul mechanic: for instance, the mermaid soul makes the siren metamorphosis spell unstable, potentially failing, but based on the lore books I wrote, it could make more sense to have the perfected mermaid character to have fully mastered her two bodies while the regular one is still learning.

 

This, however, is mainly the consequence, and there is the other side of the coin, the cause, which is the way a character can shift between the situations. I might go for something timed similar to the vampire thirst mechanic in the vanilla game, with the "humanity" parameter evolving naturally over time and being further influenced by character behaviour. It currently is an unbound value, which might make it unfeasible or unfun to reverse previous behaviour, so I am considering a [-100;+100] bound value that will slowly drift towards -100, 0 or +100, whichever is the closest to the current value. At -50 or +50, the thresholds for drift in a direction or another, the character would change soul status: -49 -> -51 if normal leads to mermaid soul, but you would have to move back all the way to +50 to revert things while, below -50, the parameter would drift naturally towards -100.

 

Beyond the spell instability, however, the difference between normal and ensouled mermaids is limited to a higher skill bonus wherever she has such. Any recommendation on the gameplay changes to provide when the mermaid has a soul?

[Renora1976]

So, a bit of a welcome update for many people here:

1) I am moving to the SE version of the game for good after a successful test of the mod with working animations (you will need the Dynamic Animation Replacer mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/33746);

2) I am starting to use the Creation Kit as well and managed to build a quest with pointers towards the books, using tutorials.

 

The functionalities are not yet perfected but the 3.0 version of the mermaid mod for the Special Edition is coming quite soon. Screenshots of the quest steps:

 

[Renora1976]

The good news is that the quest now works very smoothly, it properly points to the books and triggers the next step when the player casts the spells for the first time.

The less good news is that while I managed to integrate the Spell Research feature, it only works for 2.1.3 and not for 2.2.3 of the mod as I do not know how to get the new injection system to work (if you do not run any version of Spell Research, the spells are learned normally).

 

In any case, this state of things allows me to move from alpha to beta status for this version of the mod. The requirements are as usual:

[COCO] Mermaid outfit: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/33013

DAR: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/33746?tab=description

FNIS to be applied: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3038?tab=files

I use CBBE and XP32, of course.

 

As a recommendation, the mod has been tailored to work with Spell Research in version 2.1.2. Do not get the 2.2.3 or the spells won't be available at all: without Spell Research, reading the lore books unlock the relevant spell as if you read a spell book, while with Spell Research 2.1.2, reading the lore books unlock the possibility to research them using the gameplay features from said mod. In my opinion, it makes for a more involved gameplay as discovering the spells will become an objective in and of itself.

 

I intend to work on further tinkering of the gameplay features, in particular inverting the siren transformation spell effects between the regular and ensouled mermaid so that the final stage of the mermaid progress allows clean and safe transformation to siren form while the normal mermaid gets will checks that can lead to reverting to tail form. In addition, I will have to reintegrate the humanity mechanic to allow for soul modifications through gameplay and not only through the spells.

 

In the meantime, however, enjoy!

 

Mermaid Race 3.0 SE.7z

 

Tagging the two regular testers:

 

@Miauzi@emily1673

 

EDIT, Sept. 22nd: reuploaded the mod to fix a typo in the first lore book.

 

Edited September 22, 2024 by Renora1976

[Renora1976]

Here is an update to the mod, with the will checks now being done on non-soul mermaids only rather than ones with souls. In addition, mermaids can now swim safely in glacial waters in the official survival mode for the game, and I fixed an issue with the third lore book, the latter issue being the most pressing for gameplay purposes. I am currently doing a run with a similar build as with my LE test, and it works quite well, my mage is training near the lake next to Riverwood with abundant food and peace of mind while diving now and then in the Sea of Ghosts to get resources for her studies until the point she can simply pay her dues by writing spellbooks. Going for a dead is dead run too, therefore I will plan for maximum firepower before getting in danger.

 

After swimming from Pilgrim's Trench to Hela's Folly, she simply hitched a ride on one of the boats moving around Dawnstar right in time before her magicka ran out, forcing a transformation back to human form, which, in the glacial waters, would be a death sentence. The fisherman's dog is a bit curious about the catch, but friendly enough. Technically, it would be entirely possible to make a living by catching fishes there and selling them to the humans on their boats, but their prices are way too low.

 

 

The new version of the mod is there, the fixes should work smoothly:

 

Mermaid Race 3.0 SE.7z

Edited September 22, 2024 by Renora1976

[Renora1976]

Just to confirm to Fflowers, who posted a variant of the Mermaid mod on Nexus that I am the one who contacted them from this account: https://next.nexusmods.com/profile/Renora1976/about-me

 

If you read this, do not hesitate to send me a DM so we can start working together and integrate your mermaid NPCs in the main mod. :-)

Edited September 23, 2024 by Renora1976

[Renora1976]

I keep playtesting the mod in SE and fixing minor items. In this case, I have been forced to add another master to the list, in this case Realistic Water 2, due to the mod referring to water elements of Skyrim to trigger the wetness modification when walking in water and RW2 being so useful to see properly when moving underwater. The shift to SE seems to have fixed some animations, in particular for side-swimming and jumping in tailed form. Combining the latter animation with a larger swimming speed boost leads to very spectacular results in rivers and waterfalls:

 

 

 

In addition to this, a pleasant gameplay surprise was that the temporary mermaid spell is actually very practical and useful, providing an alternative to full mermaid transformation that has some strong arguments in its favour as it gives the player character a useful exploration and movement capacity available at low skill level without the drawback of the wetness mechanic.

 

Mermaid Race 3.0 SE.7z

 

Required mod: Realistic Water 2

Highly recommended mods for the gameplay experience:

Spell Research --> More anticipation and player involvement to get the spells.

Depths of Skyrim --> Better underwater environment

Underwater Treasures SSE SoG - Rivers and Lakes --> A lot of treasures and places to explore underwater.

More Underwater Treasures - AIO --> A lot of treasures and places to explore underwater.

Animated Ships --> More activity at sea, plus you get to use your mermaid voice on actual sailors.

Edited September 26, 2024 by Renora1976

[sora_akira24]

Tried installing the mod, so far everything works except that it's not showing in racemenu as well as no animations . I have installed the prerequisite mods needed... Anything I am doing wrong? (Haven't touched mods for a while so I'm relearning)

 

Do I have to fix any conflicts? Vortex is asking which to load first among CBBE, FNIS, Mermaid Race...

 

Also, is there a way to address being frostbitten for tail form underwater?

 

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

Edit: I have managed to get the animations working, but the body gets deformed when in tail form:

 

Any way to address this?

 

 

Edited September 27, 2024 by sora_akira24

[Renora1976]

2 hours ago, sora_akira24 said:

Tried installing the mod, so far everything works except that it's not showing in racemenu as well as no animations . I have installed the prerequisite mods needed... Anything I am doing wrong? (Haven't touched mods for a while so I'm relearning)

 

Do I have to fix any conflicts? Vortex is asking which to load first among CBBE, FNIS, Mermaid Race...

 

Also, is there a way to address being frostbitten for tail form underwater?

 

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

Edit: I have managed to get the animations working, but the body gets deformed when in tail form:

 

Any way to address this?

 

 

I had the same issue at some point in tail form, it most likely comes from the skeleton, I use CBBE plus XP32 (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1988) with FNIS, the mermaid mod coming after these. You want XP32 to show this in the MCM:

 

Edited September 27, 2024 by Renora1976

[sora_akira24]

Thanks! But I can't seem to make xp32 show in the MCM (Is this related to me not having anniversary edition?)  However I tried modifying the load order in vortex by loading xp32 after CBBE... As for losing health when under freezing water issue, I tried checking my status and resist freezing water only shows up as waterbreathing... I also get stuck when moving on land but the best fix I can do is get into first-person, walk, and go back to third person...

 

5 hours ago, Renora1976 said:

I had the same issue at some point in tail form, it most likely comes from the skeleton, I use CBBE plus XP32 (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1988) with FNIS, the mermaid mod coming after these. You want XP32 to show this in the MCM:

 

 

Edited September 28, 2024 by sora_akira24

[Renora1976]

3 hours ago, sora_akira24 said:

Thanks! But I can't seem to make xp32 show in the MCM (Is this related to me not having anniversary edition?)  However I tried modifying the load order in vortex by loading xp32 after CBBE... As for losing health when under freezing water issue, I tried checking my status and resist freezing water only shows up as waterbreathing... I also get stuck when moving on land but the best fix I can do is get into first-person, walk, and go back to third person...

 

 

For the issue about being stuck and switching to first person, that I have occasionally as well and have to do the same thing you do. It probably is linked to the idle animations (transitioning from idle to movement) but I have no idea whatsoever how to fix the problem, the animation having been made by other people in the thread years ago. Concerning the screenshot, it is normal, the resist freezing water effect is associated to the waterbreathing:

 

 

Finally, in my load order, XP32 is on position 98, CBBE at 94, FNIS at 100 and the mermaid race at 130. I do use the anniversary edition indeed and have MCM Helper as well.

 

I hope it helps!

Edited September 28, 2024 by Renora1976

[sora_akira24]

Things are finally working (I think), thanks a lot for the load order suggestion @Renora1976!   

Spoiler

still can't seem to make the xp32 appear in MCM... Not a big deal since things are somewhat working still

 

Turned survival mode since resistance to cold doesn't seem to be working (Both leg and tail form)

 

I've done some play testing with the quests and these are what I have experienced so far...

 

Dryness while in tail form:

• Damage over time and regeneration cancel each other out - dryness damage is insignificant so there isn't a rush to get to water when dry (Perhaps damage over time can be increased and perhaps some temporary item to hydrate yourself kinda like drinking hot soup to warm yourself up in cold environments during survival mode)
• Takes too long to dry when very far from water/near a fire source
• After drinking perfected potion, damage when dry doesn't seem to appear at times (Still haven't fully understood how you unlock those as I have only tried teleporting to get the books)
• When taking damage while dry, 'waiting' for at least an hour resets the health bar.

Transformation (Some questions here as well):

• When casting Mermaid apotheosis in tail form, my character returns to leg form. However, when getting wet, no transformation seems to happen. (Is the intent here to always be in tail form and use scrolls/potions to get legs again? If not, what are some ways to get back to leg form after the permanent ones?

Movement:

• Momentum from swimming carries over to land for a few seconds.

Combat:

• Can't cast spells nor swing when swimming (Are there future plans for this? Just curious)
• Using the siren charm, etc. seems to revert my character to leg form

 

======================================

 

Additional gameplay/QoL suggestions:

• Mermaid hunting NPCs that has a chance to force you into tail form on land (ie. throwing water) so they can better attack you on land (Can be added for lore? Hunting mermaids for their flesh, etc.)
• Wetness/Dryness bar aside from the flavour texts
• Disable movement on land on tail form when two-handing spells/attacking (Can't move on land when you have your arms occupied)
• decreased resistance to shock/fire
• After reading all books, lots of spells are left(Was thinking aquatic adaptation, etc. should disappear upon progressing)

 

Well... that's it from me, apologies if there are a lot of questions and comments but I like and appreciate this mod a lot. Thanks again!

 

[Renora1976]

On 9/28/2024 at 11:04 AM, sora_akira24 said:

Things are finally working (I think), thanks a lot for the load order suggestion @Renora1976!   

  Hide contents

still can't seem to make the xp32 appear in MCM... Not a big deal since things are somewhat working still

 

Turned survival mode since resistance to cold doesn't seem to be working (Both leg and tail form)

 

I've done some play testing with the quests and these are what I have experienced so far.
 

======================================

 

 

Well... that's it from me, apologies if there are a lot of questions and comments but I like and appreciate this mod a lot. Thanks again!

 

Thank you for the detailed feedback, this is always important for me to get things to work.

Quote

Dryness while in tail form:

• Damage over time and regeneration cancel each other out - dryness damage is insignificant so there isn't a rush to get to water when dry (Perhaps damage over time can be increased and perhaps some temporary item to hydrate yourself kinda like drinking hot soup to warm yourself up in cold environments during survival mode)
• Takes too long to dry when very far from water/near a fire source
• After drinking perfected potion, damage when dry doesn't seem to appear at times (Still haven't fully understood how you unlock those as I have only tried teleporting to get the books)
• When taking damage while dry, 'waiting' for at least an hour resets the health bar.

 

I will see to increase damage over time for dryness, and the temporary hydration item is something on my to-do list for some time. It is unlikely to be a regular food item as these are quite likely to be impacted by other mods and hence mess with them. I will probably set up something such as a refillable bottle for sea water and a towel or a drying spell to accelerate the process.

 

For the potions and the scroll, these are likely to be removed from regular crafting processes as the intended transformation system is now the series of spells. Also, the dry/wet process is started when weather or interior/exterior status is changed for the first time after transformation due to the trigger systems. Finally, the damage system is linked to the spell running a loop rather than in-game time, so waiting can indeed bypass the system by triggering the health regeneration mechanic while the damage does not perceive as many "ticks".

 

Quote

Transformation (Some questions here as well):

• When casting Mermaid apotheosis in tail form, my character returns to leg form. However, when getting wet, no transformation seems to happen. (Is the intent here to always be in tail form and use scrolls/potions to get legs again? If not, what are some ways to get back to leg form after the permanent ones?

The Mermaid Apotheosis spell currently works this way:

Mortal --> Ensouled mermaid.

Regular mermaid --> Ensouled mermaid.

Ensouled mermaid --> Mortal.

 

To turn in a regular mermaid again, you would need to apply the Expert-level spell after becoming a mortal again. I suppose it might make some sense to only allow the spell to work from a to the regular mermaid status, I will probably revise the code to do so for the next update.

 

EDIT: the code has been edited and integrated in my current internal build, the next release will have the following configuration for Mermaid Apotheosis:

Mortal --> Nothing.

Regular mermaid --> Ensouled mermaid.

Ensouled mermaid --> Regular mermaid.

Quote

Movement:

• Momentum from swimming carries over to land for a few seconds.

It does indeed, and it is the time needed for the spells to trigger when no longer swimming. I however consider this bug to be more of a feature when it comes to quality of life as it reduces frustration in areas with a number of shallow water places, in particular a number of rivers.

Quote

Combat:

• Can't cast spells nor swing when swimming (Are there future plans for this? Just curious)
• Using the siren charm, etc. seems to revert my character to leg form

Weapon and spell use when swimming is quite complex to do as it is not currently designed in vanilla Skyrim. Most mods which allow some modicum of underwater spellcasting bypass the issue by using some Power mechanic, but it is quite unwieldy altogether and unlikely to be implemented in the mod. I will however have to check the issue for the Siren Voice power, as it currently only triggers vanilla Area of Effect pacification spells and nothing related to the tail/leg status. Can you provide me with more context for this issue?

Quote

Additional gameplay/QoL suggestions:

• Mermaid hunting NPCs that has a chance to force you into tail form on land (ie. throwing water) so they can better attack you on land (Can be added for lore? Hunting mermaids for their flesh, etc.)
• Wetness/Dryness bar aside from the flavour texts
• Disable movement on land on tail form when two-handing spells/attacking (Can't move on land when you have your arms occupied)
• decreased resistance to shock/fire
• After reading all books, lots of spells are left(Was thinking aquatic adaptation, etc. should disappear upon progressing)

- Such a NPC would be quite interesting indeed, although I am too inexperienced yet to build NPCs, let alone with specific combat behaviour for them, but this is something to consider in the future.

- Having such a bar is something I would very much like to have, but I do not know yet how to manage UI modifications.

- The idea has merit, lore-wise, although I would need to test it to see how it impacts the gameplay.

- Why not, or possibly have Fire/Ice spells impact one's wetness level.

- For the spells, I would argue Aquatic Adaptation is the only one which is somewhat redundant, and even then, it has some use:

 

Even though the mermaid gameplay/roleplay is the major focus of the mod, during my current run with Spell Research, I was somewhat forced to restrict myself to the temporary mermaid spell until I got a high enough Alteration skill to attempt researching the permanent mermaid spell, and my feeling is that this is a perfectly valid form of gameplay altogether, as the temporary mermaid spell provides you with most of the tailed mermaid features when you want to go exploring underwater for a while but without the weaknesses from the siren form. For instance, you can go out under the rain or snow without being afraid to be stuck as a beached half-fish in the forest surrounded by bandits. The Aquatic Adaptation is also a pretty effective "fire and forget" spell to go underwater tactically without having to wait for the mortal to mermaid transformation and to either wait until your magicka is exhausted (bad in a combat situation) or cast the siren metamorphosis spell, which also takes time to act.

 

Spells, especially Alteration ones, are situational tools and even when all spells are learned, I would argue each has a situation in which it is better than the others.

 

Thank you again for this feedback!

 

EDIT: here is an updated version with typos being fixed, the new version of the Mermaid Apotheosis spell from your feedback and disease resistance for true mermaids. The current build allowed a pretty neat run with a number of large mods without issues, the next step will be the redefinition of the "humanity" gameplay mechanic to provide some level of player behaviour based influence on the core mechanics. Once a clean approach works there, I will release a new version on the main thread for the mod and see to also release it on Nexus.

 

Mermaid Race 3.0 SE.7z

Edited September 29, 2024 by Renora1976

[sora_akira24]

Tried testing things again...  found these so far:

 

Dryness:

• Health doesn't drop below 40% to 60%. At this point, regeneration balances out the tick damage,  (Did a test, and left my character in tail form on land up within the 5 to 10 min mark)
• Dryness doesn't seem to work when on survival mode
• When transforming to tail form in rain, random cases where dryness doesn't work once weather clears up

Tail Form:

• Shell bra becomes a bound item (Choice to remove them?)

Mermaid Song:

• Turning female NPCs to mermaids and taking aggro/scaring them seems to not have any effect on their land movement. Can still run as fast.
• Please ignore previous comment about Siren voice/Mermaid Song transforming you back to human, bad testing on my part....

Transformation (Leg to Tail)

• Rain works as intended
• Snow a bit longer
• Running through shallow water/staying on it doesn't seem to contribute to wetness

=============================================================================

• How many minutes does it take before tail form starts receiving damage when dry? (So far, on my end it takes 3 - 5 min) Perhaps it can be matched to the game's drowning mechanic? (but a bit longer? Also, increasing damage over time seems like a great idea)
• Possible option to remove shell bra?
• Flavour texts for the mermaid is great (drying, transforming, getting into the water, alluring victims, etc.)
• Luring NPCs into the water and consuming them is fun, though accidentally hitting the shore and mermaid song instantly getting dispelled is a bummer

Will do more testing, might be possible some issues are on the mod loading on my end... Will try delving more into checking how stuff works with better load order if ever....

 

Thanks again!

 

On 9/29/2024 at 3:02 AM, Renora1976 said:

Thank you for the detailed feedback, this is always important for me to get things to work.

 

I will see to increase damage over time for dryness, and the temporary hydration item is something on my to-do list for some time. It is unlikely to be a regular food item as these are quite likely to be impacted by other mods and hence mess with them. I will probably set up something such as a refillable bottle for sea water and a towel or a drying spell to accelerate the process.

 

For the potions and the scroll, these are likely to be removed from regular crafting processes as the intended transformation system is now the series of spells. Also, the dry/wet process is started when weather or interior/exterior status is changed for the first time after transformation due to the trigger systems. Finally, the damage system is linked to the spell running a loop rather than in-game time, so waiting can indeed bypass the system by triggering the health regeneration mechanic while the damage does not perceive as many "ticks".

 

The Mermaid Apotheosis spell currently works this way:

Mortal --> Ensouled mermaid.

Regular mermaid --> Ensouled mermaid.

Ensouled mermaid --> Mortal.

 

To turn in a regular mermaid again, you would need to apply the Expert-level spell after becoming a mortal again. I suppose it might make some sense to only allow the spell to work from a to the regular mermaid status, I will probably revise the code to do so for the next update.

 

EDIT: the code has been edited and integrated in my current internal build, the next release will have the following configuration for Mermaid Apotheosis:

Mortal --> Nothing.

Regular mermaid --> Ensouled mermaid.

Ensouled mermaid --> Regular mermaid.

It does indeed, and it is the time needed for the spells to trigger when no longer swimming. I however consider this bug to be more of a feature when it comes to quality of life as it reduces frustration in areas with a number of shallow water places, in particular a number of rivers.

Weapon and spell use when swimming is quite complex to do as it is not currently designed in vanilla Skyrim. Most mods which allow some modicum of underwater spellcasting bypass the issue by using some Power mechanic, but it is quite unwieldy altogether and unlikely to be implemented in the mod. I will however have to check the issue for the Siren Voice power, as it currently only triggers vanilla Area of Effect pacification spells and nothing related to the tail/leg status. Can you provide me with more context for this issue?

- Such a NPC would be quite interesting indeed, although I am too inexperienced yet to build NPCs, let alone with specific combat behaviour for them, but this is something to consider in the future.

- Having such a bar is something I would very much like to have, but I do not know yet how to manage UI modifications.

- The idea has merit, lore-wise, although I would need to test it to see how it impacts the gameplay.

- Why not, or possibly have Fire/Ice spells impact one's wetness level.

- For the spells, I would argue Aquatic Adaptation is the only one which is somewhat redundant, and even then, it has some use:

 

Even though the mermaid gameplay/roleplay is the major focus of the mod, during my current run with Spell Research, I was somewhat forced to restrict myself to the temporary mermaid spell until I got a high enough Alteration skill to attempt researching the permanent mermaid spell, and my feeling is that this is a perfectly valid form of gameplay altogether, as the temporary mermaid spell provides you with most of the tailed mermaid features when you want to go exploring underwater for a while but without the weaknesses from the siren form. For instance, you can go out under the rain or snow without being afraid to be stuck as a beached half-fish in the forest surrounded by bandits. The Aquatic Adaptation is also a pretty effective "fire and forget" spell to go underwater tactically without having to wait for the mortal to mermaid transformation and to either wait until your magicka is exhausted (bad in a combat situation) or cast the siren metamorphosis spell, which also takes time to act.

 

Spells, especially Alteration ones, are situational tools and even when all spells are learned, I would argue each has a situation in which it is better than the others.

 

Thank you again for this feedback!

 

EDIT: here is an updated version with typos being fixed, the new version of the Mermaid Apotheosis spell from your feedback and disease resistance for true mermaids. The current build allowed a pretty neat run with a number of large mods without issues, the next step will be the redefinition of the "humanity" gameplay mechanic to provide some level of player behaviour based influence on the core mechanics. Once a clean approach works there, I will release a new version on the main thread for the mod and see to also release it on Nexus.

 

Mermaid Race 3.0 SE.7z 20.37 MB · 3 downloads

 

[Renora1976]

5 hours ago, sora_akira24 said:

Tried testing things again...  found these so far:

 

Dryness:

• Health doesn't drop below 40% to 60%. At this point, regeneration balances out the tick damage,  (Did a test, and left my character in tail form on land up within the 5 to 10 min mark)
• Dryness doesn't seem to work when on survival mode
• When transforming to tail form in rain, random cases where dryness doesn't work once weather clears up

Tail Form:

• Shell bra becomes a bound item (Choice to remove them?)

Mermaid Song:

• Turning female NPCs to mermaids and taking aggro/scaring them seems to not have any effect on their land movement. Can still run as fast.
• Please ignore previous comment about Siren voice/Mermaid Song transforming you back to human, bad testing on my part....

Transformation (Leg to Tail)

• Rain works as intended
• Snow a bit longer
• Running through shallow water/staying on it doesn't seem to contribute to wetness

=============================================================================

• How many minutes does it take before tail form starts receiving damage when dry? (So far, on my end it takes 3 - 5 min) Perhaps it can be matched to the game's drowning mechanic? (but a bit longer? Also, increasing damage over time seems like a great idea)
• Possible option to remove shell bra?
• Flavour texts for the mermaid is great (drying, transforming, getting into the water, alluring victims, etc.)
• Luring NPCs into the water and consuming them is fun, though accidentally hitting the shore and mermaid song instantly getting dispelled is a bummer

Will do more testing, might be possible some issues are on the mod loading on my end... Will try delving more into checking how stuff works with better load order if ever....

 

Thanks again!

 

 

For health, I have yet to rebalance it, but dryness should work in survival mode, my entire run has been done with it activated. Do you see the flavour messages appearing when weather changes (try using the "fw 0010a7a6" console command to change it quickly to a rainy weather and "fw 0010a7a7" back to a non-rain one)?

 

For the shell bra, it currently is designed to be bound to avoid too many exploits and as part of the upcoming Nexus upload. I will see whether to have an optional bra setup for LL.

 

NPC mermaids are very much a prototype at the moment, the code is not designed to apply to NPCs, just to the player character. There is a separate fork of this uploaded by someone else on Nexus with functional NPC mermaids, I will possibly see with its author to better implement them.

 

When you get in shallow water, you should see a flavour message. However, for this to be triggered, the mod needs to tinker with the water files to make them behave like poisoned water or lava surface (with zero damage). This is why I added the realistic waters 2 mod as a master, because it already changes the water files and if it was not linked, then either RW2 or Mermaids would do their changes but not both. What most likely happens in your case is that you are using a mod further in the loading order that modifies water files.

 

Normally, the damage should start as soon as wetness reaches 0. For the shell bra, I might make it removable. Concerning flavour texts, do not forget to check the lore books as well. Finally, for the Mermaid Voice elements, the dispel component is a bit of a failsafe as well to provide a very reliable interruption to the script and avoid it piling up indefinitely if something goes wrong in the gameplay sequence.

Edited October 1, 2024 by Renora1976

[Renora1976]

I have a bit of a question considering something Fflower's work and suggestion could potentially make possible, and while I am going to think about it more in detail over the following hours and weeks, I am welcome to ideas regarding it: they have integrated various tail colours in their mod, and the way it was done, it is by having a number of predefined textures in the mod itself. This means there is no way at the moment to change tail colour via something like the race menu (I would be delighted if someone pointed me towards a solution for this, by the way), but some Papyrus function could make it possible to trigger a texture change through in-game conditions, therefore what could trigger such changes? There is obviously the possibility of having each "type" of mermaid (temporary, permanent, ensouled) associated with a tail colour, however at the moment, my idea would be to allow forging new versions of the bra (which would no longer be bound, which should please @sora_akira24) using custom forge recipes such as "Mermaid bra + flawless ruby --> Crimson Mermaid bra" and wearing the crimson bra would turn the tail to a red texture.

 

EDIT: another option I am considering is to set up during the full mermaid transformation a choice between three options that lead to different tail colours as well as possibly different specific mermaid powers, although I am not sure at the moment what said powers could be. Ideas?

Edited October 3, 2024 by Renora1976

[Renora1976]

I am playing around with the texture and still working on getting the tail switch to work properly, but here are the planned tails for the various bra variants:

 

Emerald:

Spoiler

Sapphire:

Spoiler

Ruby:

Spoiler

Amethyst:

Spoiler

Garnet:

Spoiler

Diamond:

Spoiler

 

EDIT: the custom bras are being tested and are switching the tail colour successfully now.

Edited October 4, 2024 by Renora1976

[sora_akira24]

Finally got things working! Followed your advice and did a full redo in mod load order.

 

On 10/2/2024 at 1:44 AM, Renora1976 said:

For health, I have yet to rebalance it, but dryness should work in survival mode, my entire run has been done with it activated. Do you see the flavour messages appearing when weather changes (try using the "fw 0010a7a6" console command to change it quickly to a rainy weather and "fw 0010a7a7" back to a non-rain one)?

 

When you get in shallow water, you should see a flavour message. However, for this to be triggered, the mod needs to tinker with the water files to make them behave like poisoned water or lava surface (with zero damage). This is why I added the realistic waters 2 mod as a master, because it already changes the water files and if it was not linked, then either RW2 or Mermaids would do their changes but not both. What most likely happens in your case is that you are using a mod further in the loading order that modifies water files.

 

Currently trying Spell Research right now (your recommended version) with the mod, and redid the quest from part 1 (New character and all with alternative start). Flavour text says I got the aquatic adaptation spell but it didn't appear in my spells... Is it supposed to be researched before unlocking? Basing it on the lore book... (Never tried spell research yet so this is a question and not testing...)

 

On 10/3/2024 at 1:09 AM, Renora1976 said:

I have a bit of a question considering something Fflower's work and suggestion could potentially make possible, and while I am going to think about it more in detail over the following hours and weeks, I am welcome to ideas regarding it: they have integrated various tail colours in their mod, and the way it was done, it is by having a number of predefined textures in the mod itself. This means there is no way at the moment to change tail colour via something like the race menu (I would be delighted if someone pointed me towards a solution for this, by the way), but some Papyrus function could make it possible to trigger a texture change through in-game conditions, therefore what could trigger such changes? There is obviously the possibility of having each "type" of mermaid (temporary, permanent, ensouled) associated with a tail colour, however at the moment, my idea would be to allow forging new versions of the bra (which would no longer be bound, which should please @sora_akira24) using custom forge recipes such as "Mermaid bra + flawless ruby --> Crimson Mermaid bra" and wearing the crimson bra would turn the tail to a red texture.

 

EDIT: another option I am considering is to set up during the full mermaid transformation a choice between three options that lead to different tail colours as well as possibly different specific mermaid powers, although I am not sure at the moment what said powers could be. Ideas?

 

 

Something perhaps divided into: Conjuration, Destruction, and restoration spells?

 

• Conjuration - so you can stay back in tail form while your summons fight enemies (Summon ghost tentacles, etc.)
• Destruction - Water/Ice (Wave of water that pushes enemies, etc.)
• Illusion - Full-blown siren combat, make NPCs fight for you and then die (Either quickly or slowly after)

 

On 10/4/2024 at 2:47 AM, Renora1976 said:

I am playing around with the texture and still working on getting the tail switch to work properly, but here are the planned tails for the various bra variants:

 

Emerald:

  Reveal hidden contents

Sapphire:

  Reveal hidden contents

Ruby:

  Reveal hidden contents

Amethyst:

  Reveal hidden contents

Garnet:

  Reveal hidden contents

Diamond:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

EDIT: the custom bras are being tested and are switching the tail colour successfully now.

 

Looks great! Thanks again!  

 

[Renora1976]

5 hours ago, sora_akira24 said:

Currently trying Spell Research right now (your recommended version) with the mod, and redid the quest from part 1 (New character and all with alternative start). Flavour text says I got the aquatic adaptation spell but it didn't appear in my spells... Is it supposed to be researched before unlocking? Basing it on the lore book... (Never tried spell research yet so this is a question and not testing...)

Indeed it is. Normally, if Spell Research is not detected, the spell is added directly while if it is, the mod will only add the "recipe" of the spell to the library. I personally enjoy Spell Research a lot because it makes for a more involved mage gameplay and creates a natural progression curve. For the mermaid mod, it feels especially appropriate to me as it participates in the roleplay of having a goal, longing for it and working towards it over time rather than being given outright. The process to discover spells with SR is the following:

You need a research notebook, easily crafted or bought from most mages, then when you have a spell equipped, you can study your known spells, which will unlock what the mod calls "archetypes", the fundamental characteristics of the spell. Some spells are targeting the caster, some others are aimed, some are alteration, some are illusion, some inflict area of effect, some are linked to the fire element, etc. The more you study or use spells with given archetypes, the more knowledgeable your character is with them. You can then take time to write some theses on specific archetypes and of a specific skill level, and if you try to research a spell using the right combination of theses, you will unlock it for good and can even later write spell books to sell to merchants. The trick is that the more difficult a spell is (Novice->Apprentice->Adept->Expert->Master), the more theses you will need even with the right combination or the more experience in the related archetypes.

 

For instance, Aquatic Adaptation uses the Alteration, Self-targeting, Water and Flesh archetypes (which can be deduced logically and are hinted in the relevant lore book) and is a Novice-level spell, so you would need to write a novice-level thesis in each of the four themes and research spells using these four to unlock the spell for your use. Each subsequent spell for the mod is more advanced, so in terms of emergent storytelling and roleplay, it means that your character can learn relatively quickly with Alteration around 20-30 how to become a mermaid on a temporary fashion and will focus on using this spell for a reasonably long time even if the permanent mermaid book has been found, because the latter component will be a *goal* for you: you know it is a complex spell that will need higher alteration skill and more experience in the likely archetypes you identified for it, so you will do your character development with this goal, making the final spell discovery all that sweeter while at the same time learning to appreciate all the pros and cons of the intermediate spells.

 

On the other hand, for those not desiring to go for a roleplayed self-discovery journey that can take a few hours, Spell Research is entirely optional and the spells can be unlocked instantly if the mod is not present.

 

5 hours ago, sora_akira24 said:

Something perhaps divided into: Conjuration, Destruction, and restoration spells?

 

• Conjuration - so you can stay back in tail form while your summons fight enemies (Summon ghost tentacles, etc.)
• Destruction - Water/Ice (Wave of water that pushes enemies, etc.)
• Illusion - Full-blown siren combat, make NPCs fight for you and then die (Either quickly or slowly after)

That can be explored indeed, I am currently getting the finishing touches on the custom bra system and I will see afterwards what can be added next.

 

5 hours ago, sora_akira24 said:

Looks great! Thanks again!  

Glad you like it. By the way, the custom tail colour will be the final reward for the player, made available only to an ensouled mermaid/siren. It feels like a good progression system to me:

 

Without SR:

Book 1: Practical waterbreathing and fast swimming spell with no drawback.

Book 2: Temporary mermaid transformation with faster swimming and immunity to freezing water damage.

Book 3: Reversion to siren form.

Book 4: Permanent mermaid/siren mechanics, song/voice powers.

Book 5: Increased mermaid/siren bonus, custom tail colour.

 

With SR, expected skill requirements:

Book 1: Just find out what kind of archetypes the spell could need, minimum training needed to unlock it.

Book 2: Alteration around 20-30 recommended, training using some Apprentice-level skills or studying a lot the initial spell to have more experience in related archetypes (there is some archetype overlap between the five spells, but not entirely).

Book 3: Alteration around 40-50 recommended.

Book 4: Alteration around 70-80 recommended.

Book 5: Alteration above 90 recommended.

 

As I said, this is a personal philosophy of gameplay mechanics to create some sort of progression need to magnify the feeling when the spells are finally unlocked, and SR provides a lore-friendly and reasonably difficult process for it. It is up to you to see whether you want the mermaid spells to be an addition to the gameplay for a regular run or if you want to follow the emergent storytelling behind the mage who stumbles on an opportunity and dedicates herself to become a true mermaid (if you see my posts in this thread since I arrived, building a gameplay experience that focuses on telling a story through the game mechanics is my core focus and guideline with this mod).

 

By the way, an important notice for you since you seem to be arrived recently in the thread: when a new version is uploaded, if you update it in the middle of a run and your character is already a permanent mermaid or siren, I highly recommend that you cast the spell to revert to being a mortal and wait a few minutes, ideally entering and leaving a building as well, before casting the spell again to revert to mermaid/siren. This mostly to purge the weather management spell which runs constantly for these races and which would not update correctly if not finished.

 

The custom bras are ready, by the way. They require the special bra an ensouled mermaid gets by default and are forged using it and two flawless gems of the associated colour. Any gem bra can be reforged in the "blank" bra (without recovering the gems), and the gems will appear on the arm section, the rubies in this one being visible in the picture:

 

 

If you lose the bra from your inventory for any reason, the next time you transform in a mermaid, it should appear again, and the tail colour only requires having it in the inventory, not wearing it.

 

EDIT: I have found an issue to try and solve now, in that the custom tail colour does not appear properly when being underwater and looked at from the air. For instance, if there is a green tail and the mermaid is near the surface, the tail will show properly if looked at from underwater but will look like the vanilla tail if looked from abovewater.

Edited October 5, 2024 by Renora1976

[Renora1976]

The abovewater view issue has been fixed, so here is the newest release for the beta, with its main new feature being the possibility to have custom scale colours using special shell bra. I have also buffed a bit the damage inflicted by being too dry. There were a lot of modifications to the weather script system, so if you intend to load this new version on an existing save and your character is in mermaid or siren status, please get them back to mortal first, wait a minute or so and only then revert to the mermaid or siren status otherwise a lot of bugs are to be expected. Have a nice weekend under the waves!

 

... or over them:

 

 

There is also quite a reveal, in that even though the ocean has a lot of treasures, not all of them are useful for a mermaid:

 

Spoiler

 

 

EDIT: replaced the release version after being informed that a number of unnecessary and potentially conflicting files were included in it.

Mermaid Race 3.0.1 SE.7z

Edited October 6, 2024 by Renora1976

[sora_akira24]

Thanks again for the update , tried testing again and these are what I found so far:

 

• Tail form's animations won't work properly until mermaid transformation (After siren transformation) is unlocked. Basically you get tail form and become slow on land/fast when swimming as intended. But leg form animation remains (Probably mod installment on my end but I already did follow changing back to mortal etc. before updating the mod)
• Dryness damage starts slowing down at 10 health, although once 0 health mermaid still lives
• Since tail form is already immune to freezing when swimming, might as well do the same on land? since there's dryness

Will try testing final spell soon once unlocked

 

 

On 10/5/2024 at 6:15 PM, Renora1976 said:

The abovewater view issue has been fixed, so here is the newest release for the beta, with its main new feature being the possibility to have custom scale colours using special shell bra. I have also buffed a bit the damage inflicted by being too dry. There were a lot of modifications to the weather script system, so if you intend to load this new version on an existing save and your character is in mermaid or siren status, please get them back to mortal first, wait a minute or so and only then revert to the mermaid or siren status otherwise a lot of bugs are to be expected. Have a nice weekend under the waves!

 

... or over them:

 

 

There is also quite a reveal, in that even though the ocean has a lot of treasures, not all of them are useful for a mermaid:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

EDIT: replaced the release version after being informed that a number of unnecessary and potentially conflicting files were included in it.

Mermaid Race 3.0.1 SE.7z 19.72 MB · 2 downloads

 

[Renora1976]

16 minutes ago, sora_akira24 said:

Thanks again for the update , tried testing again and these are what I found so far:

 

• Tail form's animations won't work properly until mermaid transformation (After siren transformation) is unlocked. Basically you get tail form and become slow on land/fast when swimming as intended. But leg form animation remains (Probably mod installment on my end but I already did follow changing back to mortal etc. before updating the mod)
• Dryness damage starts slowing down at 10 health, although once 0 health mermaid still lives
• Since tail form is already immune to freezing when swimming, might as well do the same on land? since there's dryness

Will try testing final spell soon once unlocked

 

 

 

For the damage, I am starting to think that the system I coded does damage as a fraction of current health and not, as planned, as a fraction of max health. I will see if I can fix this. For the freezing element, it is a bit more complicated, in that freezing water damage is a different mechanic in Skyrim compared to body temperature, and I used a vanilla magic effect that makes the character immune to freezing water damage.

 

I am not sure what you mean by "leg form animation", however. Can you clarify this a bit? Thank you!