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[Beta] Elemental Magic
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Elemental Magicka is my first real modding project, and is an attempt to give medium/high level spellcasting in Morrowind a more "flashy" feel; there are already plenty of ways to be a powerful Mage, but now, you can look better doing it! Rain fire from the heavens upon your opponent, freeze them into a block of ice, knock them down with boulders wrenched from the earth, or send lightning flying from your hands; check the individual Elemental Book sections below for sample videos of many spells.

I welcome new ideas, suggestions, criticisms, comments, and links to resources that could be used. I can't promise that any particular piece of feedback will be used, but I always at least read through everything. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

For those interested in a sample of the new content, see my compilation video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ect2AyrAOxg.


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Installation
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Simply copy the files from this archive into your Data Files directory, and activate the "[Beta] Elemental Magicka.esp" file in your load order. If you are using MWSE, you may also activate the MWSE patch file so long as it loads after the main plugin. Currently, the patch takes care of starting combat properly with an NPC when they are hit by one of the scripted spells, but it does incur a performance hit, and so you may wish to try with/without the patch and decide if the added functionality is worth it. I hope to optimize the patch in the future.

If you simply wish to test this mod and are not interested in exploring, use the console with the following command:

StartScript NMZ_TestScript

This will add all pages to the player's inventory, but they are meant to be unique. This will interact badly if additional copies of the pages are found, so use good judgment -- it really is meant only to test.


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Playing
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Each of the spells added by this mod have been inscribed upon a page, and scattered across Vvardenfell. Possession of a particular page will allow the caster to use the inscribed spell, but only so long as it remains in inventory. There are over forty such pages scattered across ruins, caves, tombs, Shrines, strongholds, and open land, and so this mod is really meant with the adventurer in mind!

A few are placed for simple discovery, such as in Addamasartus. This is intended to familiarize new users with the mechanics of the mod.


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Credits
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This mod uses the following sound file(s) from Freesound (http://www.freesound.org):
1. "7135_mystiscool_rocks1" from mystiscool

Thanks to:
-- Dirnae, for his transparent Encasing Ice mesh and animation
-- Kalamestari_69, for his Frost Sanctuary mesh and texture
-- Amael, for his elemental particle effects resource
-- razorfett147, for his Frostball Improved resource
-- rocker, Lady Eternity, and Star Boi for the New Elemental Damage Effects resource
-- Ghostnull, for his fantastic particle arrow resource
-- Manauser and Dongle, for the flat transparent mesh from Chalk 3.0
-- C_Mireneye, for his lightning mesh and texture
-- abot, for helping me fix my script errors
-- Everyone else who has commented so far... great ideas everyone!


http://www.4shared.com/file/i-6ApLOo/Beta_Elemental_Magicka_v08.html

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http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1064268-wip-elemental-magic/

This is so awesome, I'm speechless, astounding work!!!

Man I was always looking for a mod that adds the missing Earth type spells to the game.

The rest of the additions are a little more than I was asking for but they all sound really good and I'd be interested to try them out.

Was thinking about this mod abit, noticed how short the Lightning & Earth schools are compared to the other 2.



You should add one of these for every other elemental school, Flame Incarnate, Storm Incarnate, Earth Incarnate .etc

Maybe just a nitpick, but I think you should renamed "Book of Lightning" to "Book of Storm", since a Storm has both Lightning and Wind, which is what alot of my ideas for the school will include.

BTW did you add a new damage type for Earth spells? If not then what are they using right now?

Will NPCs and monsters use these new spells?


Some ideas for the Storm school:


Twister -- Calls about 2-3 (About half as big as a male Bosmer?) dust devils that moves towards your target (So it's not an on-touch type spell) and, even if they are not directly hit by the mini-twisters they will be disoriented (Possibly lowering chances for them to hit, cast spells successfully .etc) by all the krud being thrown around, if they are hit directly(Or VERY close to directly) they will be dragged/spun around slightly by the wind current and possibly even snared abit. More of a lesser crowd control type spell.

Tornado -- Like Twister, but atleast 2.5x as big. Calls one big twister that moves towards your target, even if they are not hit directly they will be disoriented and possible even damaged slightly by the debris being tossed around at high speeds, if they are hit directly (Or close) they will be svcked up into the wind current and thrown around, possibly causing fall damage on impact. More of a crowd control type spell.

Hurricane -- Calls a big Storm to hover over the target area, occasionally striking the ground with lightning, which will travel through the ground (This part doesn't have to be visible, but it would great if it was) and electrocute enemies nearby the strikes even if they aren't struck directly. Also chucks around debris like the Tornado spell except in a much wider radius, which deals damage to any enemies they collide with.

Charged Bolt / Static Discharge -- Releases a bunch of little shockballs that spread out from the caster's hands and move/bounce around a given location until they hit an enemy, they will also attempt to seek out and follow enemies, but it's not 100% missile-lock-on perfect. Does crazy AoE damage underwater, but it can also effect the caster so becareful.

Electric Rope -- Shoots out a strand of lightning at the target, if it hits an enemy it will snag them, causing alot of damage and pulling them from where they stand into melee range. Will not work underwater or on enemies in water.

Battery -- Infuses the caster with a powerful static charge, anybody who strikes the caster (Via any type of attack) will cause an array of Charged Bolts/Static Discharge to spread out from the caster. It will continue to spew shockballs on hit until you have been hit around 10-15 times and then the charge will have been exhausted, ending the effect.

Wind Wall -- Creates a powerful wind current (Looks like a thin wall of cloud) at the target area, creating a "wall" which you can stand behind, projectiles (Both magical and non-magical) who attempt to go through the wall will not be deflected, instead, they will pushed around by the force and will very likely miss the caster. The only exception is other Storm-based spells, which will ignore the effect, non-casted Storm-based projectiles (Shock enchanted arrows .etc) will have an increased chance to resist the effect, but are not immune.

Gust of Wind -- Collects up a compressed gust of air current above the caster's head that releases and violently pushes outwards, knocking down/pushing away all enemies around the caster.

Air Embrace -- Causes an air current to swirl around the caster's body like a second skin, behaving very similar to Wind Wall except that it is not nearly as effective against ranged/magical attacks, but also offers the benefit of resistance versus melee attacks, which have a reduced chance to hit the caster. Note that has the same immunity rules as Wind Wall which also apply to Shock-enchanted melee weapons, which have a resistance to the effect.


Still thinking about the Earth one.

Still looking forward.

Cool stuff.

How will these books be found when this mod is finished? Or will someone sell them?

Is it possible to tweak the strength of the spells ingame for a higher/lower magicka cost, or are those all fixed?

Interesting ideas. Let me address some of your points:

1) Incarnates -- Certainly something I would like to do, but not the way it is currently implemented. I am trying to decode Scripted Spells and see how transformation works, so that the player could transform into elemental Atronachs for an incarnate spell.

2) Earth spells, for actual damage, are using Damage Health.

3) I went with Lightning instead of something like Storm because it was intended originally to be spells within the elements already present within Morrowind -- fire, frost, and lightning. With Earth in the mix, it now looks like Fire, Frost, Lightning, and Earth versus a more traditional fantasy Fire, Frost, Storm, and Earth. I certainly see your point and the opportunity for expansion, but I would almost rather create separate Book of AIr. I'lll have to think about it =)

4) NPCs using these spells: Stay tuned.

5) Your spell ideas:

i. Tornado/Twister: This might be possible using MWSE, if there is a mesh/texture available somewhere for the visuals.

ii. Hurricane: This has given me an idea for a similar spell... but I'll need a cloud mesh (time to hunt).

iii. Charged Bolt: Some parts are easy enough (spreading out from the caster, moving until an NPC is hit) but seeking / underwater AOE might be beyond me.

iv. Electric Rope: Difficult, but possible.

v. Battery: Very possible.

vi. Wind Wall: As far as I know, this is impossible, because I can't affect projectiles in the air except for blocking them with an activator. Would be cool, though.

vii. Gust of Wind: Now this sounds very familiar. Fliggerty has a few YouTube videos of moving NPCs around this way. I wonder if I could figure out a way to emulate that.

viii. Air Embrace: See Wind Wall


Thank you for the ideas, some of these might well see the light of day =).



I still haven't sorted this out in my head yet, but there are three approaches. Option #1 is to write quests that go along with getting the books and learning the spells within one by one. This is least likely to happen, at least initially, as I am not very confident about my abilities to write such quests. Option #2 is to place the complete books each in their own locations, and upon finding a book, the player would have access to all of that element's spells. Option #3, which would require some tedious work but is much better than Option #2, is to split each finished book into pages and scatter them across the island -- an individual page will contain one spell, and if all are found, the player could bind the pages back together :shrug: . I'll have to address the issue eventually, though, and eventually seems like it is getting sooner.

Currently the spells are fixed cost -> fixed power. For some, higher spell "strength" would be more noticeable than others if the option was given. Rather than try to script variable cost for variable power, though, I would take the more traditional route of (for example, with Meteor Shower) Meteor Shower I, Meteor Shower II, Meteor Shower III.... and so forth. This is a low priority issue for me, but when it comes time to balance the costs and effects some spells will likely be favored for this treatment.

Making another whole book for something that should all be in one place is alittle overkill and spreads the spells for that particular element (Air, traditionally) too thin I think. I have the same nitpick over separating say, Ice and Water spells. But it's your choice.

And BTW "Fire, Water (Or Ice), Earth, Air" is usually the traditional fantasy term as far as I've seen, I have yet to see "Storm" or even "Frost" (First for Frost in this thread) used anywhere when in reference to that, but it seems I've missed some places.

Real shame about Wind Wall & Air Embrace, just a bare "x% chance to miss" on attacks would work.

Well, I'll see how it turns out anyway; I'd have to think somewhat about implementation before I worry about classification. And yes, unfortunately, it is a shame that I can't affect projectiles -- maybe in OpenMW =).

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I don't have any new spells yet, I've been too busy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6YV0FTCHuA!

Boulder-hurling Fargoth, I see. O_O

That was excellent to see! Whilst it's always good for the high level mages to have new toys to throw around having an NPC throw them too will add spice to adventuring.

No idea if this is even possible but could a grinding noise be played when those pillars and cages of rock come out of the ground? Seeing those being wrenched from the earth really needs some appropriately epic kind of aural accompaniment.

Or is it just a case that there's the magic cast sound and that's all that's possible?

I should certainly be able to add an appropriate sound to those spells; it's a great point, and it's been made before about other spells, but I suppose it slipped my mind. It's all about style with these so a good sound is definitely important. I'll have to start looking for some good matches, but if you think of anything that would fit particularly well, by all means let me know =).

And yes, if I can work everything out, it will be nice to have these spells distributed in some manner to regular NPCs -- I wasn't comfortable saying it before, but now that I've proven to myself that I can make the scripts work (as per the Fargoth video), this mod will be spicing up the magicka pools of NPCs too. I've updated the OP to reflect this.

I have a collection of sound effects I use for my spells in-game. Esp elemental specific.

Everything but Earth related sound effects, which I'm pretty sure I can scraqe together in a few minutes... Sound effects is something I do all the time.


I wouldn't stop at sounds, I'd also add a unique particle set for Earth based spells (The rest are already there) I can probably make something for that, too.

Updated OP:


-- Thunderstorm - Expulsion : Electrical energy is expelled from the caster's body, arcing through the air to strike all points in a circle around the caster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMfSVjOMyfc

Wow, it's like your own portable magick Faraday cage! :shocking: :rolleyes:

-- Earth - Entangling Vines : The caster sends tendrils of magicka deep into the soil, rapidly growing dormant seeds into bittergreen vines! The magic lasts a short time, but before returning to the earth, the vines will slow snared victims. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5uUuPKssrE


I've lost a lot of my early ambition with this mod, but I've also gotten much further than I thought I would with Morrowind's quirky and limited script engine. I would like to create a few more Earth and Lightning spells, hopefully, to even out the numbers and then focus on sounds.

The MWSE component allowing NPC casting is coming along. It seems to work well enough, but I need to make it more efficient (framerate drop is rather high at the moment, and it need not be).

To be honest, my inability to get rid of certain instabilities has been rather frustrating. You can cast the same spell at the same location with the same NPCs around moving in the same way a number of times, but at some random point, your next cast might just crash the game. I've been back and forth over my scripts; they're not the best, but I haven't found anything that I think would crash it. And it's certainly not reproducible, at least by me. It's just one of those things. To be fair, I suppose, the spells probably won't be spammed like I tend to do during testing. Higher mana costs in a later version will help with that. But you never know.

If any script geniuses out there see something horribly wrong with my general script structure that is causing this, I can offer you a pretend cookie :shrug:

-- Earth - Overgrowth : The caster conjures vines from the earth, rooting an opponent in place! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkigIiEg-zE

Simply amazing!!!!!!!!!!

These two spells are so exceptionally exciting. :touched:

Nice ambitious project here! :goodjob:

Uhm, wait, this is mostly MWSE stuff ... (rubbing Fliggerty's lamp )
Some things you could try...
- refine your syntax until MWEdit compiles in Strong Warning Level mode without these glitches

- try waiting a few seconds instead of a few frames between disable and setdelete, you have to be sure there are no more spell effects animation/sound playing
- use statements as simple as possible ( max 2 operators per asiignment )
example:
before

set zangle to ( zangle * 3.1415 / 180 );MessageBox "zangle %0.00f xpos %0.00f ypos %0.00f px %0.00f py %0.00f", zangle, xpos, ypos, px, py	set xtemp to ( zangle - ( zangle * zangle * zangle / 6 ) + ( zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle / 120 ) )set ytemp to ( 1 - ( zangle * zangle / 2 ) + ( zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle / 24 ) )set xtemp to ( xtemp - ( zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle / 5040 ) )set ytemp to ( ytemp - ( zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle * zangle / 720 ) ); ...set dx1 to ( ( GetSecondsPassed * vx ) + xpos )

after

set zangle to ( zangle * 0,0174533 );MessageBox "zangle %0.00f xpos %0.00f ypos %0.00f px %0.00f py %0.00f", zangle, xpos, ypos, px, py	float zangle2set zangle2 to ( zangle * zangle )float zangle3set zangle3 to ( zangle2 * zangle )float zangle4set zangle4 to ( zangle3 * zangle )float zangle5set zangle5 to ( zangle4 * zangle )float zangle6set zangle6 to ( zangle5 * zangle )float zangle7set zangle7 to ( zangle6 * zangle )set xtemp to ( zangle + ( zangle5 / 120 ) )set xtemp to ( xtemp  - ( zangle3 / 6 ) )set ytemp to ( 1 +  ( zangle4 / 24 ) )set ytemp to ( ytemp - ( zangle2 / 2 ) )set xtemp to ( xtemp - ( zangle7 / 5040 ) )set ytemp to ( ytemp - ( zangle6 / 720 ) ); ....set dx1 to ( vx * GetSecondsPassed )set dx1 to ( dx1 + xpos )

I'm not sure these things may help (I suspect you are simply trying to spawn/move too much for the engine), but maybe they are worth a try.
Good luck and hold on, this is really a great project !

I concur with abot. The general consensus is to never do more than three operations per line.

Thanks for the advice. I will have to implement these changes and see if the behavior changes.

On the matter of SetDelete after a Disable, though: From what I'd read, it was suggested to wait several frames before the SetDelete command is issued. But you're saying that it is better to do a time-based wait rather than frame-based wait?


Edit: Well, I cleaned up all of the warnings and errors that MWedit caught when set to the "strong" level. That was humbling, to say the least, because all but two of them were the same missing space from one of my first scripts that I'd copied countless times without realizing it. :dead:

It does not matter, as long as you are sure the sound/animation played by the object is over before setdelete. Using a frame counter is hardware dependent though (for instance a 3 seconds sound would mean 30 frames at 10 FPS, 90 frames at 30FPS) , maybe using GetSecondsPassed is safer/easier to test.
Also, if you need to spawn an object which is spawning children objects, better verify to not delete the father before any of the the spawned children.
[EDIT]rephrase

You, sir, are a genius.


After finally getting around to editing all of my scripts, and setting the Disable -> Setdelete delay to be much larger (I went with 200 frames), I sat down and entered Morrowind to test. After slaughtering Moonmoth Legion Fort, Balmora, Mournhold, and Vivec by spamming wave upon wave of my spells, I eventually tired and hadn't managed to crash the game even once. If the issue is truly gone, then I can't thank you enough for your help.

Glad it helped . By the way, if you have to do many similar changes to many similar scripts and, like myself, you are not a Perl guru, I found this procedure handy:
- Mash (version >=80) export scripts
- edit with your preferred text editor
- Mash import scripts
- reload mod in TESCS (if not dependant on both Tribunal.esm and Bloodmoon.esm, remember to load GMST Vaccine.esp also)
- recompile all