Ald-ruhn Expansion
Version 1.76
By Crankgorilla

Link - http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6957

Description

Ald-ruhn has undergone an economic boon and new contruction is taking place. Farming has now become a feasable way to earn coin. Tomatoes and corn have become the leading choice of crops and you are being asked to help harvest. Mining operations have developed in what was formerly The Crystal Emporium. It seems a secret that big could not be kept for long. A story is unfolding there now. Mining will also provide extra coin. Work goes on deep beneath the city. Industrious. Exploration has only just begun, deep below the surface, and it is apparent that the new mining operations has stumbled on a labyrynth of unknown perils.

New travellers and merchants have decided to call Ald-ruhn home and it is there you will find access to many of the tools you will need to survive. Weapons, armour, enchanted items, furniture, clothing, plants, food and much more is on sale, each merchant working hard to gain your loyalty as a customer.

Overview

Firstly, this mod introduces all new items and alters none of the vanilla content.

This mod is clean and will run well. All speech and dialog is cleaned. Weapon balance has been carefully constructed to a formula. No more random grabs at statistics, the formula provides a new dimension to combat in Morrowind. Armour is also reworked. In all this, only stuff added by this mod is altered. No regular weapon or armour stats were altered in any way. This mod will run well with any other.

Many scripts have been added. Scripts for mining. Scripts for farming. Scripts for drinking. Scripts for cooking. After experimenting with scripts in earlier mods, I've just gone script crazy in this mod. I had to reel it in a bit, so as to provide good quality playtesting. Having to run to each location repeatedly in testing was tiresome. Playtesting. It will wear you down. That said, I got all the bugs. The dialog in this mod has been reviewed. I normally make the mistake of leaving the dialog till last, or at least close too, and it always feels rushed, or tacked on. This time I have built the dialog with the mod and it seems to be a bit more organic, in that it references the goings on of the environment, or instructions on things to do, rather than being random drivel. Each NPC has a greeting they will say on first meeting you then a random comment selection of at least five comments they can draw from. Most NPC in this mod will offer some useful information. I judge the content of what they have to say not really worth having journal entries for, most are just directions to something you might find interesting. Maybe a way to earn some extra coin. I tested the mod with a new character and early in the game it makes Ald-ruhn a useful destination for getting coin and equipment.

Expect balance and a unique experience. Each weapon is supremely balanced. Using the formula. Here are some examples.

Chop 5 - 8
Slash 3 - 10
Stab 1 - 12

Chop 10 - 15
Slash 5- 20
Stab 1 - 25

Chop 3- 16
Slash 2- 17
Stab 1 - 18

Expect scimitar type weapons to be more slash orientated, whereas straight bladed weapons have a better stabbing chance and axes are good for chopping at an enemy. The stab is the equivelent of a deathblow and will have the lower chance of biggest damage. Different weapons types will have different characteristics. It should be noted that bows sold in this mod are now better balanced with their range going from 1 damage now. They become too uber if you start ranging them from anything more, it seems. New crossbow weapons are also balanced within the original ranges of the game.

Axes will be a little slower than swords, and swords will have a basic damage range of below ten to rarely more than thirty in damage unless they are two handed. Knives will have a lower overall damage, but a tighter knit spread of damage. They are also likely to be faster to swing with. Sometimes weapons with a higher cost for no apparent reason have high enchantment values. Hopefully each weapon will be interesting in some way.

Armour is interesting. A few new concepts are on show. Shields for example, now have bonuses. An enchantment is on them depending on their weight category.

Light Shields
+5 to Block
-5 to Agility

Medium Shields
+10 to Block
-10 to Agility

Also, there are duel weild options at Kolanos. He sells daedric tanto shields. the stats for these are slightly different.

Duel Wield
+5 to agility
-5 to block

This makes it beneficial to use some armour over others, yet does not make one naturally better than another. Each is good in it's own ways, much like the weapons. It also becomes beneficial to put your shields away when not in prolonged combat and adds a new dimension to two handed weapons in that they become a more attractive alternative. Also figuring which weight of shield you want to use for missions, the heavy armour shields really do make sense in that their weight will slow you down, but the blocking power increases accordingly, like it would if you use a heavy tower shield versus a small light wood shield.

Armour you wear, such as boots pauldrons etc, is balanced on the backbone of weight. Your cuirass is likely to be the heaviest piece in your armour set so most values of armour in a set are divides on the cuirass values. I mean, your right bracer will not weigh the same as your briastplate/cuirass, as has been the case in past. Mixing and matching becomes a little more interesting. Hopefully I have the latest formula for armour built into this mod, I'm working on a few different mods at present (gets confusing) and the formula keeps getting better. Anyways, check it out and see what you think. I'm not sure it's a bullseye, but I think I'm on to something at least.

No original items, armour or weapons were altered in the making of this mod and remain as standard.

Decor is pushed pretty hard, on older PC's it may lag a bit but if you use FPS optimizer it's a non issue. I did leave some areas where the opportunity for future development is to be an option in modular additions. For example, I want to build under the lip of the main building some more but that can be done in a separate mod. Maybe some others would like to make some shops for that area and it could be a mix n' match option. The main focus is to provide some more life and movement to Ald-ruhn and give a more bustling market appeal. Also I suppose with the palms and water it could be considered an oasis in a harsh desert, like one of those typical desert oasis setups.

I initially had more scripted items outside, but ran into issues with the scripts failing when FPS dropped. I had to redesign the quest layout a bit and move the activators to an inside cell. So that's why Milly's quest box is in the potters shack and the orange juicer is in the craftsmans shop etc.

Made to be compatable with Ald-ruhn Temple Expansion by Xeth-Ban. At the time we were both modding the same area and I said I'd make my next version tailored to be compatable. The only issue is that he's used gound adjustments so a couple of placed crates near the temple are half in the ground. The only way around it is to tailor my mod to that particular height adjustment and I'm not going to do it. It looks fine anyway really. I'm just going to go with it.

No height adjustments were made to the landscape in this mod. This is important as only one mod can get the landscape adjustments per cell. So this mod having no landscape adjustments makes it compatable with any other mod. Unless the mod occupies the same spot sort of thing.

No vanilla content was shifted in the making of this mod. No vanilla interiors altered. I tried that on my last mod and it turned into a mod in itself. I left all the vanilla content alone. This mod only adds things. It does not change anything that was already there. Makes for better compatability.

That said, pathgrids are redefined for Ald-ruhn exterior. This determines where the NPC walk. These have been set to ensure the characters wandering do not bump into statics and stay where they are supposed to. Any mod that also alters pathgrids in Ald-ruhn may conflict if it loads after this mod in the load order, so ensure this mod loads as close to last in the list as possible.

The dungeons are a last minute addition when I had time to tinker around. The dungeons are GENMOD dungeons. I've not used a GENMOD before, but I think the idea of them is to do the hard yards on building interior cells. There will be a couple of 50 level dungeons and in this version along with a couple of level 20 dungeons. I've tweaked them a little bit and added some custom creatures and worked the leveled list a touch. Think of them as a bonus. And it is true when they say that nobody knows what's down there. This is for me as much as you. To test some new concepts. The dungeons have different settings and are not really lore correct (yet). We'll test what the Genmod program can do. Could be interesting to deck them out fully in future updates. As it stands, I added some suitable creatures from Beasts of Vvardenfell, another of my mods. The dungeons are just for fun at present and do not, by creature, fit into any sort of lore scenario. I tested it with a starter LV 8 character and it was fun to dodge around the creatures I couldn't kill. I made it down several levels before I was slain. But slain I was. Making this dungeon is a first for me and will be expanded upon in future.

- How deep dare you go? Rumour says the mines go deep into the earth. A standard tomb raid. Grab and sell the loot. Survive. Make use of mark and recall potions. Try the long lasting effects of the bakehouse goods. It stocks alchemic foods now. As ingredients, it didn't make sense because you don't mix a pie with another pie. So as alchemy the foods are instantly ingested, Foods sold will deliver slow restorative effects.

For example, an apple pie -

Restore Health - Duration 180 Magnitude 1
Restore fatigue - Duration 180 Magnitude 1
Drain Speed - Duration 300 Magnitude 10

The drain speed effect works well to prevent stacking the effects. If you eat too many you'll be too fat to move fast.

There are many new potions available and each has its own custom jar. There are some new ingredients as well, such as the Corprus Mushroom and the Fire Mushroom.

I should mention the dialog. The dialog works on a random 100 and set it to a 20% chance of popping up. Characters also have an initial greeting. One they will say only once when you first meet them. This provides a good chance to figure out if they have any important information. After that, they go on the random 100 each time you greet them. Some characters say a little more depending on circumstance and how much I was getting into writing for the character. That, and of course, how much time I could squeeze from the day.

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Spoilers

I'm hoping the dialog within the mod will guide the player into these "quests". But to get a feel for how it's set up, here's a few examples of some new ways to make coin.

- If you speak to Mara in one of the new market stall setups, she may tell you how she lost some stones. Once off the strider, look for pink gemstones on the ground. To collect a reward you should find ten of the stones and take them to the Potters Shack and look for a box that will let you claim the reward.

- The orange saleswoman, Freda, tells you that juicing your oranges then selling them back to her can make you profit and help her out in the process. Juice the oranges at Palius Splendor's store using a small juicing device by the hearth.

- Corn is set up as a new plant. The cobb will respawn at the same rate as other plants and use a leveled random. Take the corn harvested to the new dock area near the silt strider and package them in the crates to be paid.

- Harvest flowers and plants at the potters shack. Sell the plants you do not want. The plants will regrow in time. Then you can harvest again. These plants are deco-design and have a script to be accurately placed. You will need some shears to harvest from the seedling boxes.

- Enter the mines via the mining headquarters. Buy a mining lease from Fistandantilus and this will allow you to enter all the locked doors within the mines. The doors will relock so a mining lease is essential for free movement. But beware what lies within.

There is so much more I could talk about, but best to explore the mod for yourself. Hopefully there is enough there to provide new and interesting encounters for quite some time.

There is much that is new to see in Ald-ruhn.

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Make a duplicate save of your character when testing this or any large mod. Then you can revert back to it if you need or want to. If your character is named "Joe" for example, when you go to save, save him as "Joe 01" or something like. then you can just flick back to the original "Joe" if you want to. I expect no issues with this mod as I tested it over a long period but it's best to be safe.

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Many thanks to the entire credits folder. Anyone missed, let me know. I got my E-mail here somewhere if you need me for anything.

For permissions and on where you can get the resources showcased, check the credits folder included with this mod. All original Readme files of resources trialed are included.

Thankyou for downloading the Ald-ruhn Expansion version 1.76

Crankgorilla

Inquiries - xxdawwxx@hotmail.com

Link - http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6957

oooooh. Interesting! Great job!