Content Consumer's Alternate Starts

[Sarge Misfit]

That's cool

 

Anyway, whether you do a Shanghai'd start or not is up to you. Just put it out there as an idea.

[Content Consumer]

v13 is up now.

Not much has changed... basically just fixed up the Soulgem Incubator start, added a Witch start, and a couple of bugfixes.

Note that if you have any mods that drastically alter Anise's cellar, they will now (probably) conflict with both the Enslaved to Anise and the Witch of the Wilds scenarios.

• Added a Witch scenario (under CCAS Only). This required editing Anise's cellar, so any mods that also edit that cell will conflict. As a side-effect, fixed the issue with Anise being hostile to her own slave if the player enters her cellar (when using the SD+ Enslaved to Anise scenario).
• Minor graphical changes to the Succubus starting cell
• Fixed a Surprise Me bug where you were much more likely to get Vampire Larder, Bandit Honeypot, and Forsworn Captive scenarios
• Deleted creature dialogue. It caused too many problems and didn't add enough to justify its existence.
• Minor fix to the waterfalls in the creature den
• Finished up the expansion to the Soulgem Incubator scenario. Now it doesn't kill you dead!

 

[bicobus]

Before v13, did the soulgem incubator killed you so hard, that you'd die to death?

 

I'm tempted by the witch start though

[Content Consumer]

Before v13, did the soulgem incubator killed you so hard, that you'd die to death?

 

I'm tempted by the witch start though

 

It did.

In v11 and previous, there was essentially one thing you could do - run for the exit. Apprentice Haerlon and the Dark Counselor would have some dialogue for you, but basically just trying to escape was the only option you had, in two different ways:

• Turn right outside your room, and run for the exit. Nobody would stop you. After all, you've been a good little slave for years now, so why change? This is the quickest and easiest way to escape the quest.
• Run for the exit, but go the wrong way (left outside your room). The path would be blocked. On your way back through, the Dark Counselor would stop you and speak to you. Then you'd have three choices:
• -1. Agree, and allow him to "soul trap" you. This would make the necromancers there hostile and they'd all kill you until you died from it.
• -2. Disagree, and say you didn't want to die. This would make the necromancers hostile and you'd be charbroiled.
• -3. Ask him for more time to pray to your gods. He'd agree. Then you could run for the exit.

 

In v12, the option to agree no longer made the necromancers hostile. Instead, a little ceremony would take place and you'd get soul-trapped into the Black Star. Malyn Varen there would drain your soul until you died.

 

In v13, Malyn Varen drains your soul, but at the last minute you're saved and teleported out of the star back to the real world. I figured that nobody would want to start the game just to die a few minutes later and have to re-start.

 

NB: I think I might have left a bug in - your quest journal would never update unless you escaped the normal way. Being soul-trapped will probably leave that up permanently. There's no problem with it, you can continue playing the game normally, but it might be irksome to players wanting a clean quest journal.

 

EDIT: The witch start isn't much of anything. It doesn't even have any sexual content. It's pretty much like something you'd find in a normal LAL plugin, with just a couple of staffs and a new weapon or two.

[karlpaws]

It is a nice little cave. The pc isn't an apprentice though(?), so everything in her basement is still theft/stolen flagged.

[Content Consumer]

It is a nice little cave. The pc isn't an apprentice though(?), so everything in her basement is still theft/stolen flagged.

 

It wouldn't be a bad idea to reset ownership of everything in that cell to the player. I'll put it on the list.

[bicobus]

Sometimes, I'd whish for a bit more story in the alternatives starts. For instance, the witch start could have its little story. The lady, to further her knowledge in magic, needs to do some experiments. Nothing too far fetched just something something BDSM related to filling up a soulgem or something. Of course, she fails and get nasty then leave you for dead or passed out in her dungeon (cellar).

 

Of course, if the player try to escape but get defeated by the witch, SD+ might trigger and all. Otherwise, burn the witch!

 

All I'm saying is that sometimes, a start needs a bit of personality.

[Sarge Misfit]

Dammit, that witch start is starting to sound interesting, wasn't wanting to start over

[Content Consumer]

Sometimes, I'd whish for a bit more story in the alternatives starts. For instance, the witch start could have its little story. The lady, to further her knowledge in magic, needs to do some experiments. Nothing too far fetched just something something BDSM related to filling up a soulgem or something. Of course, she fails and get nasty then leave you for dead or passed out in her dungeon (cellar).

 

Of course, if the player try to escape but get defeated by the witch, SD+ might trigger and all. Otherwise, burn the witch!

 

All I'm saying is that sometimes, a start needs a bit of personality.

I can't say I disagree. I'm not sure that Anise turning you into a witch, through any sort of failed experiment, is necessarily a great idea - storywise, that is. How would that work? Something like she tries to soultrap you only her own soul gets sucked in and invades yours, maybe?

 

But yeah, the Witch start in particular is pretty bare, like pretty much everything in the CCAS header.

 

Dammit, that witch start is starting to sound interesting, wasn't wanting to start over

It's really not much for now, honestly.

 

 

You just start out in a cave underground full of dead spriggans. There are a couple of items, using vanilla Forsworn gear, altered:

• Three staves, each one with a different enchantment, firing Spriggan bug swarms (poison damage). They drain magicka pretty fast, but they do plenty of damage too.
• A sword, that does less damage but swings faster than a normal Forsworn sword
• A bow that does a bit more damage than normal. I think I used Elven stats for that.
• A bunch of arrows, Reikling arrows that have been altered so they're not quite so derpy.

 

 

And that's it. It's about on par with the Forsworn Captive scenario for complexity so far.

 

Bear in mind that this mod is a WIP, and I'll probably fix it up sometime.

[bicobus]

No soultrap here, just filling a soulgem with the power of love! Or the power of the orgasm. I also don't know why the player should turn into a witch...

[Content Consumer]

No soultrap here, just filling a soulgem with the power of love! Or the power of the orgasm. I also don't know why the player should turn into a witch...

 

I think I misunderstood... I thought you suggested that Anise would turn the player into a witch via soul trapping or something. My bad. 

[Sofian]

this is a downgrade i still only have 5 options from 12 betta i want all the options v11 gave us

[karlpaws]

The witch start could be used for a really newbie start, since you have everything.. or nearly, what you would need.  Much better than being drug around an ambush damaged, war rocked new-ruin of an imperial fort.

 

You've got the sprigans, so harvest some taproot. Glowing mushrooms, pick 2 of those. Couple other mushrooms. Use (this) and (that) at the alchemy station and make 5 potions. Hang onto those.

 

Now, as far as Alvor knows, we're just a couple herbal hermits living over here, but he should have the pick axe sharpened so go get that (quest marker on him). Dialog. Come back with pick axe. New quest to go mine some iron (I think there's one not far away... but not the one up the hill near the tower). Haul that over and smelt a couple bars (I think a smelter was the only thing you're missing). Come back and make .... something. New iron dagger maybe, sharpen it for rabbit skinning, dunno.

 

Read this book (soul trapping 101), take a staff and a fox in a cage/pen (where that skeleton is), here's a soul gem. Enchant the dagger (give a dagger with something to disenchant).

 

Now use the spell on the wolves across the river, or down the hill. Take 2-3 lesser gems. Use those to recharge the staff, make some leather out of the wolf hides, make some boots, sell them to Lucan (new quest marker). Find out about the thieves, ("So that's what all that noise and new camp fires up the hill is about" ). Do that dungeon, get stone, claw. Take claw back to Lucan, ask him about the stone. He sends you to the innkeeper, they deal with rumors and such. She sends you to the local jarl's wizard.

 

Housecarl then asks if you're willing to make and carry some potions out to the watch tower guards. Might even get the wizard to sell you a Healing Hands spell if you're more magic than potions. They send you to Arcadia for ingredients and recipes. When you get to the watch tower, dragon ambush, and story goes from there.

 

[Content Consumer]

this is a downgrade i still only have 5 options from 12 betta i want all the options v11 gave us

Male characters have very few options (most mods on LL are generally targeted toward female characters). Also, many options are hidden under submenus - look for (multiple) in the option and check that.

Assuming that's not your problem:

Have you tried using EZ2C Dialogue Menu? If you don't want to use that, people have reported that using arrow keys work.

I cannot reproduce this problem because I'm using EZ2C. Everything shows up fine for me.

 

The witch start could be used for a really newbie start, since you have everything.. or nearly, what you would need.  Much better than being drug around an ambush damaged, war rocked new-ruin of an imperial fort.

 

You've got the sprigans, so harvest some taproot. Glowing mushrooms, pick 2 of those. Couple other mushrooms. Use (this) and (that) at the alchemy station and make 5 potions. Hang onto those.

 

Now, as far as Alvor knows, we're just a couple herbal hermits living over here, but he should have the pick axe sharpened so go get that (quest marker on him). Dialog. Come back with pick axe. New quest to go mine some iron (I think there's one not far away... but not the one up the hill near the tower). Haul that over and smelt a couple bars (I think a smelter was the only thing you're missing). Come back and make .... something. New iron dagger maybe, sharpen it for rabbit skinning, dunno.

 

Read this book (soul trapping 101), take a staff and a fox in a cage/pen (where that skeleton is), here's a soul gem. Enchant the dagger (give a dagger with something to disenchant).

 

Now use the spell on the wolves across the river, or down the hill. Take 2-3 lesser gems. Use those to recharge the staff, make some leather out of the wolf hides, make some boots, sell them to Lucan (new quest marker). Find out about the thieves, ("So that's what all that noise and new camp fires up the hill is about" ). Do that dungeon, get stone, claw. Take claw back to Lucan, ask him about the stone. He sends you to the innkeeper, they deal with rumors and such. She sends you to the local jarl's wizard.

 

Housecarl then asks if you're willing to make and carry some potions out to the watch tower guards. Might even get the wizard to sell you a Healing Hands spell if you're more magic than potions. They send you to Arcadia for ingredients and recipes. When you get to the watch tower, dragon ambush, and story goes from there.

 

That's not really something this mod is meant to do...

Honestly, extending things beyond a simple "alternate start" is a bit outside of this mod's purview. Mostly CCAS just provides entry points into other mod's content. The few scenarios that I've created are already bigger and more complex than what you'd generally find in LAL. I do intend to flesh some of them out more (Forsworn Captive possibly, Witch probably), but even then it's probably not going to be too much more added to those. Except the Bandit Honeypot scenario, that one I'm planning on eventually redoing entirely.

I'm not saying a multistage quest like the one you've suggested is a bad idea - far from it - but that's really for a different mod. For example, I don't know if skyrimll has any plans to add that sort of "Become a Mage" style content into Dialogues like he did with the Blacksmith quest, but it wouldn't surprise me. 

As for the Witch scenario, I'd like to start out with only one staff, and add the ability to craft more at some custom furniture using taproot and firewood. Same for those arrows, the bow, and the sword. Add in some dialogue

 

 

Here are my current plans for modding in the remainder of 2016. This is a tentative list, and subject to change. Also subject to whatever free time I have available that I don't spend playing XCOM2.

• Flesh out some scenarios in CCAS. As of now, I'm considering this mod mostly finished. I'll keep working on it and add more scenarios if any authors want, and fix bugs when they crop up. There's a sizable to-do list, but most of it is speculative "wouldn't it be nice if..." kind of stuff.
• Add some content to DYKWIA, IS4WH, and Elrindir. Continue to add DYKWIA content as I get suggestions.
• And content to Reward Your Followers. Specifically, I plan to tackle Reward Your Horses. Honestly. I swear! Also fix some MCM bugs. Continue to add nonvanilla followers as I get suggestions/requests. Like CCAS, the to-do list is pretty big, but most of it is "far down the road" to "probably never get around to" stuff.
• Start work on the Ponygirl Farm mod I've been meaning to get around to making for quite a while now.
• ?
• Profit

All this is just to explain that right now I'm considering CCAS mostly done, if you can ever call any mod "mostly done." I mean I'm slowing down additions to it and going to start getting back into other things. I've neglected my other mods for too long. They cry out to me, their maker, their mother, in hunger and fear, for I have been spoiling this newest child too much. I want to get back to them before they start resenting me and plotting revenge.

 

So any big expansion or medium-long quest-based start? Probably not going to happen unless I get really inspired or energetic. And it's really not what the mod was intended to do in the first place anyway.

[karlpaws]

Yeah, I mostly wasted some time typing out an idea as it came to me, as anyone who needed that much help getting into Skyrim wouldn't have all these mods installed.

[DeepBlueFrog]

@CC -  Iwould like to eventually do a 'Become an alchemist/enchanter' like my blacksmith quest but that will have to wait until I am done with SD+, and Stories, and Hormones, and Parasites, and Alicia and the Sisterhood and Mind Control... so, it probably won't happen unless maybe it takes another 3 years before we get the next TES game

[asjemenou]

I'm testing some multiple mods and I found something interesting, if I activate dcc-soulgem-oven-000.esm plugin it will break the whole ccas into not working. When I deactivate it everything works fine. 

 

Maybe you should look into this because it is conflicting with your mod.

I'm still testing more mods because after weeks I want to look into which mod is conflicting which.

 

[Content Consumer]

@CC -  Iwould like to eventually do a 'Become an alchemist/enchanter' like my blacksmith quest but that will have to wait until I am done with SD+, and Stories, and Hormones, and Parasites, and Alicia and the Sisterhood and Mind Control... so, it probably won't happen unless maybe it takes another 3 years before we get the next TES game

Oh, it'll probably be about that long. If not longer. I think (no real evidence for this, tbh) Bethesda is planning on making the next game for super-advanced hardware. It would fit with the direction they've been going in so far...

 

I'm testing some multiple mods and I found something interesting, if I activate dcc-soulgem-oven-000.esm plugin it will break the whole ccas into not working. When I deactivate it everything works fine. 

 

Maybe you should look into this because it is conflicting with your mod.

I'm still testing more mods because after weeks I want to look into which mod is conflicting which.

That's highly unlikely. I'm using both at the same time, as are many other users. There is a CCAS scenario that requires Soulgem Oven in fact. If you're having a crash that goes away when Soulgem Oven is disabled, I'd say it's conflicting with some other mod you're using. Possibly a skeleton issue?

How exactly does it break? Crash after Bethesda logo, or when selecting "I am a character in a dark tale," or when selecting the "Soulgem Incubator" scenario? Can you upload a papyrus log?

[DeepBlueFrog]

 

@CC -  Iwould like to eventually do a 'Become an alchemist/enchanter' like my blacksmith quest but that will have to wait until I am done with SD+, and Stories, and Hormones, and Parasites, and Alicia and the Sisterhood and Mind Control... so, it probably won't happen unless maybe it takes another 3 years before we get the next TES game

Oh, it'll probably be about that long. If not longer. I think (no real evidence for this, tbh) Bethesda is planning on making the next game for super-advanced hardware. It would fit with the direction they've been going in so far...

 

And yet... the game will be so dumbed down that it could have ran on a commodore 64 if not for the graphics.

[bicobus]

Yeah, well, we'll get a xbox1/PS4 game at best. With minimal user interface because console people only have two fingers, for some reason.

[Content Consumer]

 

 

@CC -  Iwould like to eventually do a 'Become an alchemist/enchanter' like my blacksmith quest but that will have to wait until I am done with SD+, and Stories, and Hormones, and Parasites, and Alicia and the Sisterhood and Mind Control... so, it probably won't happen unless maybe it takes another 3 years before we get the next TES game

Oh, it'll probably be about that long. If not longer. I think (no real evidence for this, tbh) Bethesda is planning on making the next game for super-advanced hardware. It would fit with the direction they've been going in so far...

 

And yet... the game will be so dumbed down that it could have ran on a commodore 64 if not for the graphics.

 

 

Oh, absolutely.

Reminds me of a picture I saw recently, can't remember where. It showed dialogue from Morrowind, then Oblivion, then Fallout 3, then Skyrim, then Fallout 4. Detailing the continual simplification over time. Extrapolating into the next ES or Fallout game - "Press YES to accept quest, press NO to decline quest" is all the interaction you'd ever get with any NPC.

Yeah, well, we'll get a xbox1/PS4 game at best. With minimal user interface because console people only have two fingers, for some reason.

 

Don't forget the thumbs!

[cecik]

 

Oh, absolutely.

Reminds me of a picture I saw recently, can't remember where. It showed dialogue from Morrowind, then Oblivion, then Fallout 3, then Skyrim, then Fallout 4. Detailing the continual simplification over time. Extrapolating into the next ES or Fallout game - "Press YES to accept quest, press NO to decline quest" is all the interaction you'd ever get with any NPC.

 

That's quite optimistic ....

 

It probably ends at: Press YES to accept quest

[Guest LogicFoxX]

Out of curiosity, how much time would it take to remove LAL from the equation and just make a separate independent alternate start plugin? With let's say a Molag Bal Statue?

 

 

*edit* Also, is getting a bunch of errors at the end of papyrus log for .esp's not installed common for this? I'm currently trying new starts out of interest, some work, some don't, some don't register. Currently trying the SL Stories Dwemer start, it loads into it fine, but right after the popup, it crashes every time (despite script latency settings).

[Content Consumer]

Out of curiosity, how much time would it take to remove LAL from the equation and just make a separate independent alternate start plugin? With let's say a Molag Bal Statue?

 

 

*edit* Also, is getting a bunch of errors at the end of papyrus log for .esp's not installed common for this? I'm currently trying new starts out of interest, some work, some don't, some don't register. Currently trying the SL Stories Dwemer start, it loads into it fine, but right after the popup, it crashes every time (despite script latency settings).

 

If all you want is a Molag Bal statue instead of Mara, probably not too long - you'd just need the statue mesh (IIRC there isn't one in the game, unless you're talking about that blood fountain thing), and then you'd need to switch over the dialogue conditions for all the scenarios. Since CCAS is single-header menu based, switching that dialogue option would take maybe ten seconds, and maybe a few minutes to switch all the vanilla LAL options. Importing the mesh and setting up a speaking activator would take a few more.

Half an hour, maybe?

EDIT: Maybe a lot shorter, now that I think about it. If you've got the statue mesh, all you might need to do is swap it out for the mara one. A few minutes, tops. I'm just guessing here, mind...

EDIT: A few minutes. Basically just a mesh swap and rename, and then rotate the model in the prison cell.

Replace MARA with MOLAG BAL.7z

 

If you want to redo the entire mod, I have no idea how long it would take. I haven't looked that deeply into the code. Could be quick, could take days, and then more days of testing. Honestly though, you'd just be duplicating the mod exactly at that point, so why bother?

 

About your errors - could you post your log? I can check to see if those are from CCAS or something else.

And what does your skse.ini file look like? You'll have real trouble getting anything in the game to run right if you don't have one.

At any rate, the Dwemer Sexbot start is still a WIP - expect some problems.

[Guest LogicFoxX]

Thanks, I was only asking because there a few things to improve on, imho, for LAL. Like, starting in a 2x2 cell rather than a cell with lots of objects/npcs/other scripts running (like interesting NPCs). Also, not being forced to save right after you make a character, causing the game to crash with a heavy script load. Also, it'd be interesting just to have a LL independent start, perhaps also compatible with ME.

 

NVM, I figured out at least why the scenario wasn't loading (apparently HDT High Heels was causing an issue). I still only have like 5 options though...

 

So yea, anyway great job, looking forward to updates, I'll continue sifting through stuff to find out what else is causing issues.