It appears impossible to create or duplicate existing actor values. Was this intentional or is there a work around?

I'm attempting to create a new perk tree.



EDIT: I see that AV's are hardcoded. Are there any methods for "faking" a skill tree; using the already existing AVs to create a new tree that would be just as polished as the in game perk trees?

You'd need to search on here and/or the MODS Board.

Early doors, after release of the CK, there were numerous posts about Perk Trees. I'm pretty sure many were made to work, but my memory is that you could only replace existing ones, not make up additional versions.

And yes, AVs are hard-coded, just be careful not to replace some of the more necessary ones if you do try that route (the wiki has a decent description of what they are used for)

For float values: not really. But for integers you could use hidden weightless inventory items or faction ranks. If you go for the first one, be careful of stuff that removes the actor's entire inventory. So the faction one is probably the best option, but you'll have to add the ranks yourself, and that's somewhat annoying. It's also annoying if you want to make a perk that affects stuff based on it, since you need an entry for every rank.

If you use one of the "unused" but existing actor values, these things are solved, but other mods might be using the same ones. Of course, if your mod significantly changes gameplay in a lot of areas, you shouldn't worry about what other mods use. If it's "lightweight" and meant to be used with other mods, then maybe you should try the faction thing.

You can also add spells to the player that are invisible to the UI, like NewPerk1, NewPerk2, etc. You can check for these with CK Conditions or via Papyrus with HasSpell. If you need to store and processes persistent Float values, though, you're pretty much limited to Globals, unless...

I know there is a way to make a script's properties accessible to other scripts, though I've never done this myself. If you created a Quest with the player as an Alias, and attached a script to that alias that contained a bunch of public Float properties, it might be possible to use that as a storage repository for Float values. Someone who as actually done public properties would know better about that, though, I'm just speculating.

I'm not sure that would have any advantages over just using Globals, anyway, and it couldn't be used with CK Conditions.