» Sun Dec 08, 2013 2:13 pm Festive Flight
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48591
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mLfxLbZ62g
A fully controllable flying mount, in the spirit of the holidays! Land on the rooftops of your neighbors to deliver Saturalia joy, or in the midst of your foes to deliver some festive PAIN!
Getting Started
The courier should track you down near any major city. He'll deliver a note and the Golden Bell. The note will tell you what to do, but basically go somewhere and ring the bell. You will gain a new Power called Happy Thoughts, and automatically use it. After that, just use Happy Thoughts to summon Rudolph wherever you are.
Flying on Rudolph
Flight controls are similar the swimming controls. Point the camera where you want to go, and your new mount will do his best to take you there, whether it's on the ground or in the air.
If you have SKSE (and you really, really should!) you can hold down the Jump button (spacebar by default) to gain altitude no matter where the camera is pointed. This is the easiest way to get airborne.
If you want to get down quickly, you can stop in mid-air and aim the camera STRAIGHT down. After a couple of seconds (this interval can be adjusted in MCM) you will land VERY quickly immediately where you are standing.
Compatibility
This mod is compatible with everything, as far as I know. It has been specifically tested with Convenient Horses though you may want to hold off on flying until after the faction registration is complete.
It does place a fair load on the scripting engine, but all the scripts are self-limiting and will not bloat your save game. I'm a careful scripter, and whatever other faults my mods have, my scripts are safe.
Also tested as compatible with these other festive mods:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48498/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28093/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27845/?
Troubleshooting
Problem: Rudolph keeps falling to the ground while flying.
Fix: This is probably due to some other mod placing a heavy load on your script engine or your system is having trouble keeping up with the load speed as you rapidly change cells. Try reducing the speed multiplier in the MCM menu: 80% is a good starting point. This both reduces the memory load and allows the script engine more time to catch up. If that doesn't do it, try disabling the sparkling hoofprint effect in MCM.
Problem: I keep bouncing high into the air while I'm trying to fly straight.
Fix: This is a collision problem and happens most often while flying downward at a very shallow angle. Increasing the “Flight Smoothing” in the MCM may help. It's pretty rare; if you find it happening to you a lot, let me know.
Problem: The “emergency landing” engages randomly or throws me at weird angles.
Fix: I haven't tracked this one down yet, but you can avoid it 100% by not looking straight down (angles are ok). You can also just disable the Emergency Landing altogether or increase the delay to 5 seconds.
Problem: The mod is crashing my game!
Fix: It's probably not my mod, but the load caused by rapidly changing cells. If you used the console to speed up the player and ran around you'd probably encounter the same problem. Skyrim just does not handle heavy memory usage very well. Reduce the speed multiplier, or fly higher: if you're high enough most objects don't get loaded and you may have an easier time.
Other problems? Let me know about them!
Known Bugs
Like most (all?) mount mods, there are some animation bugs that occur when climbing on the mount, and if you take Rudolph swimming. These are due to a lack of animation files for climbing onto a reindeer (as opposed to a horse). For the same reason, the player's posture is very stiff while riding and looks rather comical when viewed from the side. Unfortunately, there's little I can do about this.
Notes
The visual effects, including the glowing nose, can be disabled in the MCM panel. So if you want a flying reindeer mount but aren't digging the red nose, I've got you covered.
History
12/07/2013 - Initial release.
