Don't you feel bad for carriage drivers charging too cheap?


They range from a measly 20 g to 50 g when your typical errand boy tasks net you about 25g to a whopping 1000g (from Klimmeks High Hrothgar delivery quest).


Of course the drivers market it as the "safest way" to get around Skyrim (well, it probably is.) but they're still doing it at great risk especially when traveling to Markarth with all the Forsworn hanging around (not to mention the comfortable STONE BED waiting for him when he gets there.)


I'm actually surprised this game doesn't have a Caravan system the fallouts have when the roads are arguably just as hazardous.


One of the drivers even suggested 2 bottles of mead will make you forget about the long trip. If that were black briar mead that'd cost them 50g immediately granting them a net profit of -30 g for that trip.


You know how you're sometimes willing to sell an item anyway when a vendor has less gold than what the item is worth? Well I wish the game gave you an option to tip the drivers. Possibly even in the form of mead giving you the "My faaav'rite drinking buddy!" line the next time you encounter him.


Thoughts?

Well, yeah, I really have to agree. Truthfully? Carriage from Whiterun to Markarth should run around 1k septims - consider the distance, the dangers, the need to find safe layovers at night, the feed for the horse....

Yeah, I get that it's a game-specific setup for people that don't have money for a horse and don't want to walk (run...) to wherever. But still....

It would actually benefit to have a random encounter (bandit/forsworn raid, dragon, skooma dealer, oddities) in between carriage rides Fallout 1 and 2 caravan style.

(playing vanilla right now and don't know if mods exist for that)

Yah, I'd agree with that. I haven't played FO since.... 2 probably (I grew up in the era when we literally expected a nuclear attack at any moment, and in grade school we had duck and cover drills, and the movies *shudder* - so I just really can't play those games no matter that my experience was 60 years or more in the past) but I think that "free movement" ala the carriages would be better with less "free" and more encounters.

I haven't seen mods that provide encounters while riding the carriages, but there are mods to adjust the prices, usually higher, which would make more sense as stated. Encounters while sleeping outdoors would make sense too, but I haven't seen that since Morrowind.

I agree. I bump up the price in my games. I add an extra zero to the price: a ride that cost 20 gold in vanilla costs 200 in my games; a 50 gold ride costs 500.

I think I'll take the Uber carriage, and avoid paying your price.

I don't use the carriages that much. I never really thought much about the pricing. I suppose it would be more realistic if the prices would reflect the distance traveled, but then again, how realistic is it to shoot fireballs out of your hands? 50 gold is fine with me. (I'll use my magical powers of teleportation)

There is a mod that allows your characters and companions to ride the carriage in real time, and you *will* run into numerous encounters that way. I remember having not only our two horses and a companion dog following, 2 frostbite spiders, a wolf or three, and a bear all trailing behind the carriage. You have the option to just keep going along until they get tired of chasing, or getting out and fighting. I've also had a dragon attacking the carriage a couple of times too.

I just consider it transporting people are not the carriage drivers main source of income.. it was not uncommon in the late middle ages for small merchant caravans transporting goods to make a little extra allowing travelers to hitch a ride on the back of one of their wagons.. or, that there are other people on the carriage we just don't see

I remember that mod. Interestingly enough, that mod was actually an intended feature that didn't make it into the game. It was released on the Nexus by one of the developers shortly after the CK. The driver even had his voice files extended to comment on areas in passing. It had issues with the physics and/or the relation of the carriage object and the navmesh. Often crashing as a result, IIRC.

Alas, it would have been an amazing addition to the game, had it been rectified. While buggy, it was still a fun experience.

There may be an updated version.

Not really because we already know that the in game economy doesn't follow any form of logic and it's there for gameplay reasons.

A hold will pay you 100 gold to kill a giant and at the same time someone else will pay you his week wages of 2000 gold if you just convince his boss to treat him as human instead of ''slave''. And you know what? If the same person continue working for a month, he will be able to buy the biggest house in solitude easily. So again, Skyrim is not the best game to apply real world logic and economy is mostly there for the player.

If I remember correctly I believe the carriage mod being mentioned by Senor Cinco and bekkilyn is "Scenic Carriages", and was used during Gopher's Stiv Lets Play on youtube (may have actually been Richard, I forget)

The main issue I recall seeing with that mod (certainly while turning) was the carriage being a standard solid object, as opposed to the one from the title intro leading to Helgen which has articulated front wheels and would turn better. It's possible there are other issues I don't recall, as I never used it.

My personal preference is the Better Fast Travel mod (possibly a little outdated now) which can be customised to allow carriages and boats at various extra locations as well as alter the cost by distance/whether you can use the carriage while over-encumbered, etc.

Yes, the Scenic Carriages was buggy but fun, when it worked for me. I also tried the Better Fast Travel. Unfortunately, but caused me so many issues that I no longer use either one. Now I have so many mods I'm afraid to try either again! LOL

I may look at them again, and I think I will most definitely look for the mod that changes the prices. For the most part, I rarely use the carriages, (or any fast travel) but they sometimes work into my rp.

Like most video game economies, Skyrim's money system is broken. You find 'treasure' containing 17 gold and a pair of hide bracers, meet some farmers who lost everything in a dragon attack and help them start a whole life with 5 gold, pay 2500 for a necklace you can't sell for 300 even if you enchant it, and pay either 50 gold to take a carriage from one end of Skyrim to the other, or pay 500 gold to take a small boat to one of two locations you could've swam to. You get paid more for delivering alchemy ingredients for an old lady living in a shack than you do slaying a dangerous group of bandits for a jarl. Dragons literally puke gold, and 90% of the time when you're hunting, elk have gold or gems or jewelry in their tummies. Still trying to understand that one. So you end up with more money than you can ever spend, and start looking for new creative ways to blow your loot. For these reasons, I don't mind the fees for carriage rides. It would've been nice if the money system had been more logical.

That makes sense. Animals tend to eat shiny or colourful things, which is why discarded plastic is such a hazard to them. Wolves could have eaten a traveller and their gold remained undigested.


What I want to know is where the skeletons are keeping their coins.

In the bone channels where the marrow used to be? In the cranium?

In ancient cultures people used to put coins on the eyelids of people before burying them. I'd understand if 2 gold coins could be found in 1 skeleton but 8 gold coins? XD

Well, this is Skyrim, not Bronze Age Northern Europe.

I've been a hunter my entire life, and I've never found gold or jewelry inside an animal. Very few animals will eat something non organic, unless there's a medical issue with the animal. Like dogs swallowing rocks to aid in digestion. I will admit though, I've never hunted a dragon in real life.

Well, I've been a hunter myself for 40 years of my 68 (since I married this man). And.... we've found some really strange things in the innards of the elk and deer and birds we've taken over those years.

There was the spike bull elk who had a kid's sock in his stomach. And the REALLY nice 4 point muley buck (the rack is up on the wall over the fireplace) who had not only a quarter, but a bullet, in his stomach - but there wasn't a bullet hole (so obviously, he ate the quarter AND the bullet). And the goose which had in addition to a fair sufficiency of fat, a huge fishhook (the size you'd use for a marlin....) and about 40 feet of heavy marlin line in his craw.

Of course, if you don't actually dig around in the innards.... We always have, because we've always reported stuff like that to Fish and Wildlife.... Hmm.... what else? Oh, the coyote we had to kill because it seemed to be rabid - and then it turned out the poor thing had swallowed a hunk of soap, but at least we got the bounty for it. Oh! And the massive barn owl that landed on the deck a few years back, and keeled over dead - we did a sort of autopsy on it, and found a set of Toyota car keys in its craw.

Animals aren't any smarter than people, really.

I guess it depends on what the animal has access to. I grew up out in the middle of nowhere, the only things I ever found in the stomachs were bones and berries. I suppose if an animal is forced to feed near human habitation, then anything's possible. (Like fish feeding near the giant garbage island in the Pacific) But at 44, and hunting for the good majority of those years, I've never found anything that leads me to believe that animals seek out and ingest shinny things on purpose. Animals are smarter than humans give them credit for. And some would beg to differ than they're no smarter than humans. Humans are pretty stupid in general terms. Animals do more with smaller brains. Don't let our articulated thumbs and ability to deforest entire continents fool you.

We're not exactly the middle of nowhere (well, it's the middle of nowhere if you want "real broadband"....) 40 miles from the nearest small city (or 70 miles to the one the other direction) with a little town 20 miles either direction in between. We have a lot of summer folk.... and of course that makes things different from "really out in the boonies".

Unfortunately no matter where in the world you go, you just can't seem to get away from human waste. Mostly plastic. That's one of the things I like about Skyrim, it's lack of trash everywhere.

SKYRIM MORNING HERALD

Carriage Rides Price Hike Scandal

Carriage Rides are too cheap was the general reply when asked the question by our Reporter Sah as she interviewed people from all across Skyrim.

The article was enough to swing the Department of Carriage Rides & Transportation of Skyrim into taking drastic measures & even action!

Prompting a quick reply from the Minister Jeremy Olarkson who said and I quote "all Carriage Rides prices across Skyrim will increase by 50% on the 1st February 2016"

he continued "what can we do, people want the increase so our hands are tied, either that or we have a full scaled revolution on our hands"

so who is to blame? we will keep you updated with all the developments as new information comes to hand