(man I think I need a better name for this...)


Anyway, what is Clothes Don't Always Fit (CDAF) and why make it?

Well this is just something that bothers in me just about any game with armor you can loot. In most other games, there's usually a loot % chance of actually getting loot, which you can assume is finding the armor to actually fit your player-character.

In Skyrim, everything's lootable and wearable immediately. And some ways clothes change from NPC to inventory is bizarre - like the Fine Clothes or other civilian clothes that spontaneously change from a dress to a shirt and pants. The thing is you can wear ANY armor you loot off an NPC; even if that NPC was a different gender and the armor obviously has changed shape to accommodate a new body shape entirely.

So this is my idea of making looting and getting new/different armor not so definite.

CDAF is meant to put in a loot % chance that is based on some relatively obvious factors and improve immersion. Also to give some difficulty into the game by making armor upgrades not as easily obtainable when looting.


How would CDAF work?

Keep in mind this is a draft still, but these are the kind of 'looting rules' I'm considering.

THE RULES

1. If the clothes/armor were originally on someone of the opposite gender, it will not fit you. While some armors look similar on either male or female characters, generally there's obvious differences in the entire model and its scaling on either gender.
   
2. Beast races will have to find head pieces fitted for them exactly. In vanilla most of the helmets already make no sense and squash beast races into the humanshaped helms if they are not open-faced. This mod would at least acknowledge how that's silly and not let the beast race player from equipping it.
   
   They will need to loot them from a beast race NPC wearing it already; or modify it at a forge before being allowed to equip it.
   
   (works best paired with mods that allow open-faced helms + making beastrace shaped head pieces)
   
3. Percentage chance of 'fitting' clothes based on your body weight:
   
   ?- Looting off NPCs: In addition to the above rules, how close your body weight is to the looted NPC would be taken into account.
   
   - Looting from chests/finding it out in the open: Additional calculation based on body weight + randomization according to the following rules...
   
4. Lower body weight favors a higher chance of finding fitting cloth (armorless) and light armors; higher body weight favors a higher chance of finding fitting heavy armors. This is just based on the idea of how a generally bigger and stronger person would naturally wear heavier armor and thus the armor would more likely fit their body type.
   
5. In addition, there may be different degrees of how well the armors you pick up fit you. For example you can wear a set of heavy armor that might be 'too big', and so you get a debuff with being slower, tripping, or making more noise than usual (tentative).
   
6. Any armor crafted at a forge automatically fits you perfectly. There would also likely be a way to modify looted armors at a forge to make them perfectly fit.
   
7. Players can decide if they want the one-of-a-kind unique armors/masks to follow these looting rules or not. Especially the Dragonpriest Masks which vary between being armorless, light armor, or heavy armor based. Beast races may need to 'modify' them first instead of automatically being able to equip them etc.

The 'basing on body weight' idea mostly comes from having played a playthrough with Gopher's Pumping Iron mod. Since there was an immersive way that body weight would change throughout the game, I thought it would be even more interesting if the player found out he/she would get access to different kinds of armors as their body weight changed throughout the game.

IMPLEMENTING IT

I honestly have no idea 8D

Well, I have *yet* to actually start demoing whatever I want to do is even possible. But I do know that:

• I do not want to modify the armors directly, so that it's compatible with any armor mod that someone wants to use. So no Skyproc patching needed either.
  
• It will likely be a Cloak-based spell script from the player, so it affects the armors on NPCs and the player locally. Also when in the process of looting a chest on objects in the world.

Anyway, please leave feedback, it's much appreciated ^^

I would be interested in this - as a way to simulate damaged armor or clothing - I mean you just ran a sword thru someone wearing the armor. You put it on and a) it fits, and it's not damaged?

I'm a pretty fair level designer - but this will take some heavy scripting.

A mod like http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32057/? might be a place to look at for scripting hints if the author has provided the source files.

I remember someone making a Durability mod too.

But one of the problems I think is that Skyrim handles items according to their FormIDs and treats them all the same. So if you have multiple of the same weapon, they are seen as the same 'item' in a multiple stack - so individual durability on each is not really possible without it applying to ALL of the same items with the same FormIDs.

I see that as a problem too - how to make it that individual properties on each piece of armor 'stick' and not clash into a mess in a player's inventory?

Though, the mod author from the mod you suggested, looks like he found a way. I'll definitely have to ask him how he did it, and I can start testing on an alpha.

It seems to me that this will suffer from the same FormID issues as degradation mods.

You could use various techniques to get around that, but they will usually require a lot of compatability patching/SkyProc, which I gather you don't want to try.

I'd be happy with a simple male/female divide with new armour items added, probably only the main body needs changing. Then perhaps a debuff to all armour until you've fitted it at a workbench, or you have a high relevant skill. That ensures that fitted armours are distinct from normal armours, at least in the inventory (does the formID change when you upgrade items? how are they distinguished?) and also as only the player can improve armour, that it is fitted to the player. Of course it does require materials, which is a pain.

I like your ideas, they're well thought out. I'm just concerned that they'll be impossible to implement. Please prove me wrong

Yeh I was just about to mention that particular hurdle

In skyrim, if an item is out in the world it has its own refID, but the moment it is placed in a container/inventory, it no longer persists and loses its refID. If the reference is currently filling an alias though, then it will keep its persistence no matter where it is

From the description of the linked mod, it sounds like this is exactly what he's doing. That's why in that mod you can only have 3 "identified" items of the same type in your inventory and then any others defaulting to "unknown" condition

- Hypno