Skyrim Chain Beasts

[DonQuiWho]

4 hours ago, 2generic said:

A few, hopefully constructive, thoughts, from a fairly contented user ....

 

The concept behind this mod is extremely good, but the player experience is... rough. My experience with this mod:

For the sake of clarity, just how often have you played this mod?  Is this a report from a one time go?  It's much more challenging than the usual 'go to a pointer, stuff the enemy, move to the next pointer' etc

Get caught by a chain beast. Get marched towards some unknown destination.
Me: Cool!
Continue to get marched for what feels like an hour and a half.

Me: Does this ever end or...?

SET a time limit to the walk in MCM that will match your own preferences and level of patience eg do you like sightseeing or are the beauties of Skyrim viewed from knee height not too appealing?

Finally, get put into a device next to a building and chain beast immediately dies to other NPCs.

Me: Was that supposed to happen?

Yes.  (I'm guessing you never played the Oblivion version from which this was inspired?  Well, it's not really equipped to lick the PC's pussy, is it? .... Now there's a thought.  @MTB  Maybe we need a cat and dog theme.  It could be very funny ... LOL

 

later...

I'm trying to kill a chain beast in melee. A few hits and I'm fully restrained.
Me: How the hell do you kill these things..?

They aren't nice little pooches.  But you CAN set the takedown difficulty in the MCM, and the levels at which stripped in the fight, to balance the fight more to your game and PC's abilities

Once the punishment is over. All my gear is gone. I find an axe and try to kill the chain beast in order to get it back. Chain beast hits me one time and all my gear is unequipped. Another hit and I'm fully restrained.
Me: Wtf? How is it possible to win?

Again, to balance the fight more to your game and PC's abilities, you can limit the quantity of gear taken in the MCM.  You don't have to lose it all.  You could spec only 1 item, IIRC.  Start with 10 axes, then you'd maybe have 9 axes, then 8, then 7 and if you still got caught after all that, it would probably serve you right  LOL

Once punishment is over, I try again and after two hits am restrained. Manage to escape but am still restrained. Try to remove or struggle out of the bindings, but there is no option to do so.
Me: How do I get this stuff off?

Depends on the exact circs, but unpicking the lock on the gear container is normally sufficient

I try waiting for hours. Maybe it's time-release? 8 hours later, am still restrained.

Me: ....??

Unable to get restraints off, I reload an earlier save...

Maybe try using the MCM debug options - there's a pretty good range of cheats there - if you really can't succeed ?

later...

Am walking through Windhelm. A guard pulls a bow out and I fall down. The hell? I see a popup saying I need to get the chains off. Huh? Turns out I have ankle chains on. I guess I walked into a trap or something? Well, I'm in town this time, so I go to a blacksmith. There's a dialogue option related to getting the chains off. I press it.
Blacksmith: Yeah I'm not helping you.
Me: ????????

I start looking in debug mcm for something. I spawn a melting book, which will let me melt off the chains. I open the book. It doesn't do anything.
Me: What do I do with this??
I talk to the blacksmith again now that I have the magic book.
Blacksmith: Lmao still not helping.
Me: WTF?

IIRC, there is a chance setting on blacksmith's 'helpfulness' in the MCM.  Sounds like you got unlucky

I look up the mod to see how you are supposed to remove restraints.
Guide: Just kill the chain beast.
Me: In restraints?? I don't even know how it's possible to kill them normally as a melee character, much less when restrained!!
Guide: Or talk to a blacksmith.
Me: omfg. Which one?? Is it random??

They both work

Go to LL, write annoyed POV.

Patience, my friend, patience.  Go and try it again, tweaking your settings until the risk level you want to play at is balanced out  Alternatively, switch it off, pick up your toys, and go home   ? ?

 

Hope some of that helps ?

 

One last thought.  If you do try this again, don't go out anywhere near the stables at Markarth.  It took my PC + 2 followers ages to beat the 3 or 4 beasts that pop out near the bridge and you will see trains of NPCs queuing up to be locked into the furniture.  Almost every NPC will be togged out in SCB restraints, and the place looks like an open punishment prison camp.  The way it sounds like you're playing, you'd probably be trapped there forever ?

 

4 hours ago, 2generic said:

 

 

4 hours ago, 2generic said:

 

 

[Bondage Queen Slaveia]

Well, my point is that a first-time player's experience is not great. The default settings should be tweaked imo. Why are the initial chain beasts so difficult, for example? I can understand some later level ones being that hard, but the starting chain beasts are basically a slap in the face for melee characters (while being probably no issue for ranged characters like archers or mages). The only way I can think to kill these chain beasts on default settings is to pick up a bow and Line of Sight them around a rock while sniping them from a distance.

 

Another example of this is the pass-out timer on chain beast travel being -1 by default, and 'fast crawling' being turned off by default. That is just hilariously mean.

 

Reminds me of Deviously Cursed Loot, another mod with great features that has the most brutal default settings for no reason. Obviously the options are there to adjust, but it will take you quite a while to realize which ones need to be adjusted.

 

Markarth stables sounds hilarious though ?

[Randamaster]

Oh, you can also set the levels when the beast should appear in the wilds, this was also a big help for me. I also have my problems with the mod here and there, but I always install it again sometimes...

 

I think there is still this loop-bug, when you walk to the Simple Slavery? You go around Darkwater Crossing to Windhelm, then down the road and... back to Windhelm... and down the road again... Near Dawnstar there was also such a piont where this beast didn't find the right the way.

 

Is it a big deal to made an option where the herder also appears, when you just go to an furniture? So you can never know what will happen and can be a cool feature I think...

[MTB]

22 hours ago, Randamaster said:

I think there is still this loop-bug, when you walk to the Simple Slavery? You go around Darkwater Crossing to Windhelm, then down the road and... back to Windhelm... and down the road again... Near Dawnstar there was also such a piont where this beast didn't find the right the way.

 

Is it a big deal to made an option where the herder also appears, when you just go to an furniture? So you can never know what will happen and can be a cool feature I think...

 

That is certainly possible; path finding is well hmmm...

 

I've added the additional option (and also ones for caged/to jail outcomes) just need to fix some bugs with entertaining but not desirable results...plan to included in next release. Was thinking perhaps the escort(herder) should be different for different outcomes, like a guard if going to jail, etc.  But that would defeat the `never knowing what will happen' purpose.  For now it is a generic escort (the current `herder').

 

Edit: ok think I've fixed it.  I've attached a preview update for those that want to play around with it already.

 

 

On 4/22/2021 at 3:36 PM, 2generic said:

Well, my point is that a first-time player's experience is not great. The default settings should be tweaked imo. Why are the initial chain beasts so difficult

 

That's a fair point I guess, there are many settings that are likely not all that clear to a new user.  The default settings are more of a historical thing; as I added more options I typically use the setting that was closest to the previous version as the default setting.  I want to add suggested settings as a file you can simply import, but don't really know what works well for most.  (Likely depends a lot on play style, magic/ranged vs melee can make a big difference.)

 

Perhaps other users can help here and post their preferred settings for a certain play style and challenge level.

(If anyone has any suggestions: Exporting the MCM settings and editing the created file in a text editor to only keep those settings that are part of your recommendation would allow others to import that file to change only those recommended settings.)

 

SCB-herder+.7z

[MTB]

On 4/22/2021 at 9:42 AM, donkeywho said:

blacksmith.
Me: omfg. Which one?? Is it random??

 

Bye the way, blacksmith willingness to help is not random;

Spoiler

It depends on what type of restraints you wear and also your relationship with the blacksmith; (s)he must like you to help you. Unless you are wearing something made of gold; they all like gold, so will certainly help you get rid of that...but they will keep it...

 

Their success when helping, that can be random (again also depends on what it is made of eg with gold they always succeed because they will keep at it till they get it).

 

[DonQuiWho]

5 hours ago, MTB said:

 

Bye the way, blacksmith willingness to help is not random;

  Hide contents

It depends on what type of restraints you wear and also your relationship with the blacksmith; (s)he must like you to help you. Unless you are wearing something made of gold; they all like gold, so will certainly help you get rid of that...but they will keep it...

 

Their success when helping, that can be random (again also depends on what it is made of eg with gold they always succeed because they will keep at it till they get it).

 

 

LOL

 

You're too clever by half  ?

[Randamaster]

Wow, this was fast, to bad that I run the Special Edition, so I can't test it. You don't have to do it overnight, next version in the cool way is absolutly fine, but thanks a lot.

 

It's like that... the walk with a chainbeast is not very entertaining. So I run it with Sexlab Adventures, to have the option for... some extra fun, the chainbeast will not striped, so it's working very nice, but you have to disable the Override Feature in the ZaZ MCM under Sexlab or you have only the same animations. Defeat will "steal" it, when this option is activated, so there is a conflict, but not Adventures, It's also working with Devious Cursed Loot, but I don't like all the "Story-Stuff" in there, I just want to have the core mechanics. This is working just with the Crawlers of course...

 

...and oh, I have a german version. I made it for me and I'm sure it's not perfect, but the main parts are done. I don't know how to translate the MCM and in the Scrips files there is much more to find, so when someone want to go on here, feel free to do so, but I try to keep this updated too with the next version. This are just the files I have translated, so copy it over when you like.

 

 

ChainbeastsGerman043beta.zip

[MTB]

7 hours ago, Randamaster said:

don't know how to translate the MCM

Not sure whether you mean technically or what the german text should be.

 

I've converted the interface (MCM, notifications) to use an skse strings translation file.

Its attached for any one up for translating (some of the) ~500 strings used,

in data\interface\translations you will find the SkyrimChainBeasts_ENGLISH.txt.

Format is key tab string (only replace the string).

The keys are mostly just the original text (with $SCB_ in front) allowing me to do this mostly automatically.

Be sure to save your resulting textfile using UTF-16LE encoding (UTF 16 bits with Little Endian and BOM) format, or skyrim will not recognize it and you will see $SCB_ all over.

If using a different language version of skyrim, simply copy the file over to SkyrimChainBeasts_WHATEVERYOURLANGUAGEIS.txt  (or again you will be seeing lots of $SCB_... texts.

 

The included updated script which use the keys instead of the strings should allow you to test. (but backup old ones in case they do not work together with the version you have...)

 

The message boxes unfortunately do not seem to support using keys so I've collected them together they are:
 

Spoiler

 

String property MB_nightmare = "You awake sweating after an especially vivid nightmare. You quickly note down what you can remember about the apocaliptic visions of chainbeasts overrunning Skyrim. It felt so real, so horrible. This must be prevented." autoreadonly

String property MB_mephala = "Mephala appears to you in your dreams in the shape of a giant chain spider. She says she will increase the power your Chain Beast spells.  The first sample is free and will enable you to earn more. (Your summon mine spell now summones ebony mines.)" autoreadonly

String property MB_autoforward = "You loose all sense of your surroundings as the beast seems to march ever onwards.  When you snap out of it your are somewhere else entirely." autoreadonly

 

 

Which leaves the conversation; - not sure if that can be translated in an easy and reusable way.

Maybe by `localizing' the mod somehow, but not sure how to do that (except for the interface which I just did...).

or maybe using xtranslate or some such?

 

 

7 hours ago, Randamaster said:

Wow, this was fast,

Was already planned for using it in different ways, just never got around to thinking of what to do with it, so just a small change needed. 

 

 

 

Translate.7z

[Randamaster]

Uh... sounds complicated, I think I will not touch that...

 

I just used the sseTranslator and load the esp in, but the text from the dreams wasn't in there and so I start searching and find them in the script files. This was working then...

 

The MCM isn't thaaat importend for me. When the Story and the Text is translated, then the main part it's done and it's working fine for me so far.

[DonQuiWho]

The Markarth Train made me laugh ....

[MTB]

On 4/13/2021 at 5:37 PM, MTB said:

 

Here is what can be done quickly with some bodyslide magic. This has a few limitations - addressing those would require more advanced magic and/or changing the outfit (settings) in the mod itself ;  cant promise I'll do those.

 

Limitations:

- The hands will not look like they are in the right place  (the hands mesh is replaced by the DDDCV but not by the SCB outfit).

- Retextures the mesh for different metal variations of the beasts will not work; may simply not show any difference of a few parts of the mesh may have a different color but not the entire mesh/correct parts.

- inventory/ground model will not match the equipped model.

 

 

 

Made a tiny plugin to solve the main limitation; the hands/feet not being in the right place, and added it as a download to the main page.  How to use it:

- Have SCB and DDDCV installed then install the plugin (SkyrimChainBeastsDDCV, activate the esp)

- Build your crawler choice in bodyslide. (Select group SCB_UUNP to easily find.)

- Also build the crawler hands and feet (same group).

Now if captured by the chain beast without the ribcage and soul gem (any metal variation)  the crawler will be a DDCV armor.

Only works for female victims, if male victims enable it will give visual oddities (or maybe worse...) for this crawler...

 

To chance back/remove: 

- deactivate SKyrimChainBeastsDDCV.esp

- Ensure you have the SCB bodyslide files installed (one of the options in the installer).

- Build the original option again in bodyslide. (Select group SCB_UUNP to easily find.)

 

[MTB]

 

SKVA synth ( https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/44184 ) was posted beginning of the year and recently added updated models for several Skyrim voice types,  As a few of the demo voices actually sounded decent I decided to try it out. Some lines come out decent and the ability to tweak the result on letter pitch and duration allows for repairing lines a bit in some cases, while other lines simply do not work.

I've added a demo with the results for the SCB_DB plugin;  SCB_DB-synthvoicedemo  to the main page.

(Disclaimer:  These are purely machine synthesized voices and do not represent the work of any voice actor.)

 

INSTALLATION:

Use mod manager or manual install: extract into your skyrim folder.  Uninstall: delete the SkyrimChainBeastDB.esp folder from data\sound\voices.   Should be safe to do mid game, I don't thinks a clean save is required.

Edit:  Should work for both skyrim versions (Oldrim and SSE).

 

I'd say these lines are about average for the quality that I get.  They could likely be improved a bit yet with more extensive tweaking (though that is time intensive and does not always work, too much tweaking often makes the synthesis brake down into a complete unintelligible mess). I'd consider them to approach `poor voice acting' level rather than complete robot speak mess.  What are your opinions?

 

In my other testing some lines work well with some voices, sounding quite natural while other lines or even the same line for another voice type does not work at all. (Perhaps depends on what lines were actually in the game for the voice type so used for training. Not sure.) 

 

To try it out: Head to the Renching Netch Tavern in RavenRock (Solstheim). Talk to the bar keep and ask about work.

There is a second voice set (not counting the one line of the barkeep) you can test out. To do so set your targeted genders setting in MCM>Gameplay to males yes and females no, before asking the barkeep about work.

Spoiler

Note; the hunter's gender depends on these SCB target settings. If males are a target and females are not, the hunter will be male. So, if you want to try out the male hunter, and see a different voice, use those settings. Once the hunter is recruited you can change them to whatever you like again.

 

Worthwhile or just distractedly bad and you would rather just have silence and subtitles ?

 

Why don't you:

TryDemo.mp3

Or else:

DoSomethingUsefule.mp3

(Disclaimer:  These are purely machine synthesized voices and do not represent the work of any voice actor.)

 

[Randamaster]

Oh yeah, the german translation was for the SE...

 

...and I think I figured it out how to translate the MCM now. I played arond a little bit with Estrus Chaurus, it worked and now I just need some motivation to do this here too, but maybe it's better to wait for the next version first.

[MTB]

50 minutes ago, Randamaster said:

Oh yeah, the german translation was for the SE...

 

...and I think I figured it out how to translate the MCM now. I played arond a little bit with Estrus Chaurus, it worked and now I just need some motivation to do this here too, but maybe it's better to wait for the next version first.

 

Yes that is likely easiest as I've tried to improve multi lingual support.  But in case you do want to start I've included the current version of what I have. (Machine translated with minor tweaks. I've included the English strings as well, as some lines use a code instead of the full text as a key.)

 

translations.7z

[Randamaster]

I can only check the german translation, some things wasn't clear to me what this means exactly and it's not testet, Maybe it's working, maybe not, but I try my best an it's better then the mashine translation for sure. 

 

Phew, this was a lot of text... 

SkyrimChainBeasts_German.txt

[MTB]

23 hours ago, Randamaster said:

I can only check the german translation, some things wasn't clear to me what this means exactly and it's not testet, Maybe it's working, maybe not, but I try my best an it's better then the mashine translation for sure. 

 

Phew, this was a lot of text... 

SkyrimChainBeasts_German.txt 74.99 kB · 0 downloads

 

Did a quick test and its working great, just some overlap possible on long texts. 

Will include it in the next version as German UI option.

 

[Randamaster]

German can be... complicated. I check that with the new version, maybe I can correct some things here and there. Let's call this... Alpha 0.1

[Randamaster]

Curious me discovered a new version, so I checked it out, but I only see the old maschine translation in there, so I copy my version over and translate / fix also the rest from the new stuff I see so far, also the overlapping. I didn't find the scripted dreams anymore, so maybe they are still english, but this can't be a gamebreaker I think. I do this in this way, maybe it's easier. It's the full version with the installer, but only german of course, so don't use it when you want the english one.

 

Oh, it's not tested, but not much changed in the Quests, so I don't see any problems, but maybe... they are there. Who knows...

 

When I see something, then I will fix it and re-upload the file, but this are just minor translation things, nothing special...

 

(Last Update 19.06.21)

 

 

SkyrimChainBeasts-v050SSE.zip

Edited June 19, 2021 by Randamaster

[MTB]

9 hours ago, Randamaster said:

Curious me discovered a new version, so I checked it out, but I only see the old maschine translation in there, so I copy my version over and translate / fix also the rest from the new stuff I see so far, also the overlapping. I didn't find the scripted dreams anymore, so maybe they are still english, but this can't be a gamebreaker I think. I do this in this way, maybe it's easier. It's the full version with the installer, but only german of course, so don't use it when you want the english one.

 

Oh, it's not tested, but not much changed in the Quests, so I don't see any problems, but maybe... they are there. Who knows...

 

 

SkyrimChainBeastsGerman-v050SSE.zip 84.88 MB · 0 downloads

 

Hmm, yes looks like I copied in the wrong file.  Copied the correct one to my build directory so hopefully will not happen again, but German speakers may prefer your version that translates more than only the UI anyway.

 

The dream texts are now in properties on the `translatable Strings Quest'; SCB_SQ of SkyrimChainBeasts.esm.

It also contains base strings (in array property translations) for dynamically created strings like `10 Items', `20 per half sec' etc,

You can see and change them eg in xEdit, and I assume with tools like xTranslate.

 

[Randamaster]

Hmm... I didn't find it. I see something like 'Translatable Strings' in the esm, but when I open it, then nothing is in there to translate. Most times it's a seperate thing somewhere in the list... or did I have to open it somewhere else with the sseTranslator?

 

The MCM is looking fine now for me, no overlapping anymore, but I'm sure I find some new stuff when I start a new game now. I already see some minor things, but that's nothing special. I will correct that and re-upload the file sometimes.

[MTB]

On 5/16/2021 at 8:59 PM, Randamaster said:

Hmm... I didn't find it. I see something like 'Translatable Strings' in the esm, but when I open it, then nothing is in there to translate. Most times it's a seperate thing somewhere in the list... or did I have to open it somewhere else with the sseTranslator?

 

The MCM is looking fine now for me, no overlapping anymore, but I'm sure I find some new stuff when I start a new game now. I already see some minor things, but that's nothing special. I will correct that and re-upload the file sometimes.

 

Looks like I made some incorrect assumptions about xtranslate...I've updated the SCB_SQ script (and dependent scripts) to be xtranslate translatable by loading the pex.

 

Scripts.7z

[Randamaster]

Got it and I updated it. Looks like, that they are all now in the SCB_Strings.pex, this makes things easier...

 

Oh, when you have plans to change the MCM... Can you just add/change the lines in the german text-file? My motivation to do this again it not... on a top level. The rest is easy with the Translator, because I just have to translate the new stuff.

[Lacrima Telvanni]

Hey guys. Whats the correct loadorder for the plugins? Since i updated to 0.5 my plugins got a little scrambled. And now the DB option doesnt show up on the MCMs plugin page. Has it been removed? If not then i probably just sorted the plugins the wrong way.

[MTB]

16 hours ago, Best Poppy said:

Hey guys. Whats the correct loadorder for the plugins? Since i updated to 0.5 my plugins got a little scrambled. And now the DB option doesnt show up on the MCMs plugin page. Has it been removed? If not then i probably just sorted the plugins the wrong way.

 

Note that the DB plugin initializes a bit later (~30sec) than the main mod. So first try again a bit later.

 

You can check DB is installed by typing help SCB_DB in the console to see if anything shows up (or looking for mines along the ravenrock wall).

 

I don't think the order could make the MCM options disappear.  You could for example use:

SCB

SCB_int

SCB_DB

SCB_PAHE

SCB_BAD(noDB)

SCB_WMPx(BAD)

SCB_DDVC

SCB_SLUTS(resume) patch

 

But only things I think really matter are  the esm first, but that happens automatically, BAD after  int & DB (or its changed may not take effect). WMPx after BAD (or its changes may not take effect). If I remember correctly, those are the only ones that may share records so for which the order can make a difference.

 

 

[A Hobbit]

When I try to install v050 LE version with Vortex I get an issue saying "Failed to install.  Data at the root level is invalid.  Line 1, position 1"

 

Edit: In the FOMOD folder there is a file called .ModuleConfig.XML.un that wasn't in the previous version.  I deleted it and it seems to have installed normally.