a lot of good ideas here.
here are the workables:
(note that others may be workable - i just don't see an easy way for them.)

• alchemy bonus when at home. alchemy penalty (or simply no bonus) when away.
  with this implementation, alchemy outdoors is still allowed.
  (i usually don't like limiting the player's options in my mods.
  i try to always give the players more choices.
  but for those choices to be meaningful, they need to be differentiated: i.e. bonuses and penalties.)
  
• fire, hour glass, scales = alchemy bonuses that stack when in the vicinity
  
• armoury bonus when at home. armour penalty (or simply no bonus) when away.
  
• anvil, fire, forge, water, etc. in vicinity = armoury bonuses that stack when in the vicinity
  
• reading book at home = intelligence bonus
  
• sleep/eat at home = bonus
  i'll actually incorporate this into my Eat and sleep mod as multipliers for gaining Energy from sleep and Satiation from food.
  but "out of the box", i'll add a fatigue fortify for sleeping at home.
  
• clothing change at home = personaltiy bonus
  i'll also incorporate this into my Clothing matters mod.
  but "out of the box", i'll add a personality fortify if the equipped apparel were donned at home.

most of the bonuses for spending time at home must be long enough and effective enough for them to be useful.
so i'm thinking:

• 1 hour or less of in-game time reading = 24 hours of intelligence bonus
  
• 8 hours of sleep at home = 24 hours of fatigue bonus
  
• personality foritfy for 24 hours WHILE the apparel is worn

but my question is: what would the ideal magnitude of these bonuses be?
there is always a huge penalty by going home: time and distance of having to travel to and from home.
so i think the effects of these bonuses need to balance against that.
i think a large bonus (i.e. +25 for a full day) makes adventuring from home very appealing.
and for the normal vagabond (at home only every so often and only when home is actually "on the way"),
it'll be "business as usual" and they will be "none the wiser": no bonuses (which is as per the normal game).

This got me thinking.
I can see how buying (vanilla) houses would be more appealing if there were bonuses to be gained. (I usually don't buy them because of all the sweat modded houses around). The bonuses could be sort of a "citizen bonus": The people in the town know/like you more so you'll have better chances at persuasion, trading and such. For that to work the bonus has to have a rather short duration though, otherwise you could just acquire a modded house far away and still get the "citizen bonus" for that town/city.
I like all the bonuses suggested except Fortify Alchemy. I've tried playing with an alchemy devoted character who had a daily Power that Fortified Alchemy. The result was that since the potions/poisons made while under the effect of the spell was so much better than the "normal" potions/poisons I would practically never use alchemy except when the spell after 1 day was ready again. This adds nothing to the game in my view. It just made alchemy (which I love) a rare thing to be practicing.

Wheeee! Back from work


It aught to depend on your level. At lv 1-5 a bonus of 5 points is great. 6-11 6-9points; 12-17 10-13points; lv 25 25points and onwards.


More bonuses:
1. Staying at home - just being there for some time should give a bonus, and preferable in real time. What do I mean? I mean you do allot of stuff in your home; decorating, sorting stuff, watching the walls.... Willpower bonus maybe - the bonus is there because you build security and a "will" to better your home through adventuring/trading/gambling what ever.

2. Eh, cant think of a number two. Although Mercer meka have a point in getting known in town - so maybe a total time spent in house vs time owned can make a general impact on people in town. Or just total time spent in house.



I really like fatigue bonuses since when being on the road for a long time you get worn out, getting home to rest and recuperate makes allot of sense.

What can a script check for? Bookcases, wineracks - and wine, chairs and tables, wall hangings? Why I ask is that a big expensive house with bookcases filled with books and wine racks with wine should give a bigger impact - also a reason to get that book stacking and wine stacking mod and fill those empty shelves!
:Reasoning - Having a library lets you crosscheck thing while reading. Wine shows an interest for sophistication (for some, you might just be s drunk...), valuable stuff in the clutter category show an interest for your home (or do you just litter the floor with it :shocking:

Cheers!

Making inns more expensive, and adding penalties (like catching a disease) for using beggar's bedrolls will help motivate someone to purchase a house.

(trying to remember which mods add the chance for diseases when using lower class beds)

hi i read the thread for the first time
well im building a house but i want it to be different and with the ideas here i could make a really nice home but i cant script
but i would like to know how you people are about
1. i made it in a city it would be like a cave that is infected and once you clear it you can buy/get the deed and life there
2. if u live there you various bonuses depending on how you got the deed.
3. mabye pay the Mages guild to custom make you an alchemy table (the idea with the different types of tables)
EDIT:
4. mabye pay like agnete (or something) the pickled or any other smith to move in your house or make a anvil for you.
5. pay the thieves guild a lot of money for a personal fence.
6. when the oblivion gates are open that you can make your house a safe haven for everyone that wants to hide in there
EDIT2:
7. once you own more than one house/cave (from the mod im making) you can buy a chest that is a infinite storage and that is the same in every house
8. if your high enough in the DB you can monthly pay a person to provide you with poisons (and mabye in combination with the MG part of my idea) make a better alchemy apparatus thats better in making poisons.
9. if u made a poison before you made a potion the potion will have negative side effects (ie there is are some left overs from the poison left)

(ill update this post if i get more ideas)

This is a punishment-based approach, though, which I am not in favor of. Gameplay that encourages choices (like owning a house) by rewarding that choice can work. Gameplay that encourages choices by punishing alternative choices is not fun.

To be honest, I've never really liked and still don't really like the owning-a-house aspect of games. I find that what I really want is a storage and sorting device for loot/ingredients. If owning a house gives me that device, I'll take it. But I don't spend any time hanging around my house. So, I am just as happy with a shack or a hole in the mud, or even a bus station locker.

Now, a lot of people enjoy decorating their houses, organizing their character's clothes, stocking their pantry, etc. For those many many people, choosing and owning a house is a fulfilling choice on its own. They don't really need extra incentive. But, since they tend to spend actual time in the house, they of course will over time desire extra features (like bathing apparatus, or rocking chairs or curtains...).

Since home-like activities are not my cup of tea, I'm not actually looking for reasons to spend more time at home. I'd be just as happy to find the features I seek in the wild. So, for instance, I use P1D Portable Sorters mod, which allows me to organize potions, scrolls and ingredients in my inventory, by effect. This was the feature I wanted, and I'm just as happy to have it in the field as at home. Possibly not too realistic, but then traveling across half of cyrodiil every time I want to sort my alchemical ingredients isn't realistic either.

What I would find realistic is rentable or ownable storage facilities in cities and villages throughout the land. The guild trunks takes care of most of this need for me. I figure an adventurer needs to be carrying almost all of his/her essential stuff most of the time anyway. Like Bilbo Baggins, whose house went neglected while he was on his adventure, my characters aren't homebodies.

gothemasticator

BUMP some nice ideas are on this thread

Doesn't The Luggage in Cobl do exactly this. Safe storage that crops up all over the place when you sleep. I thought I would hate this bit of Cobl, but I actually really like it. Turning up at some random inn, tired and hungry, and finding The Luggage ready and waiting for you gives me a lovely warm feeling.

Anyway, I love the thinking in this thread. I really hope kuertee, ot one of the other 'immersion' modders can run with this. I agree entirely that there should be incentives for spending time at home and I really like kuertee's suggestions. A couple of minor suggestions:-

How about adding some food that would only be available from the food cupboard in your owned home? I'm thinking of something like the shepherd's pie available from Rosethorn and Battlehorn. The benefits of home cooking!

With houses now being more desirable, this would fit in really well with some form of recurring 'upkeep' cost for your owned homes. This is regularly suggested as a 'moneysink', but so far as I know there is no mod that has instituted the idea completeely successfully.

I have hoped for some time that something would come of a 'quality of life' mod idea from (I think) Duke Patrick. He was proposing a mod that rewarded the player for doing things that would make them feel better, watching a sunset, going out for a nice meal, going to chapel (or visiting daedric shrines). The ideas in this thread have a similar thrust.

My idea for using armorer is when outdoors or in a non player owned cell would be to increase the chance of an enemy hearing you. So if in a ruin and pounding out your armor, the sound should draw the attention of enemies. The same if in the wilderness. Then there is an incentive to wait till you are home or somewhere safe to repair your armor.

As for alchemy, I like the idea that when in combat, there is a chance of breaking the alchemical equipment if it is in your inventory. That way, there is an incentive to keep it home rather than out adventuring, but no penalties to using it regardless of where you are.

There's a mod that disables fast travel except when mounted. That makes horses useful if you don't also have teleportation mods.

The Nice One has just updated Enhanced Economy to include house taxes, which you pay to the city guard of your homes town. Failing to pay will lock the door of the house until you are current. Nice optional touch there for realism, although Tamriel Libertarian Party is rioting in the streets.

Living Economy's tax feature will probably be my most loved and hated aspect of LE. I'm going to set a very low sell-to-buy ratio, meaning I'll have to scraqe every coin I can get ahold of to eat for a night.

Honestly, an incentive for being at home, for me, is being able to hide things. I like to find the nooks and crannies of a house, and poke little valuables in them. I'm all for the intelligence bonus, and personality bonuses, as well.


Maybe a good idea for owning a home could simply be favour from the townspeoples. I think that was mentioned up above, but I'm not terribly sure they meant it as I do. You're probably less suspicious of your neighbor walking the streets, rather than some person you've never seen snooping up and down the lane. By buying a house, you become more friendly with the locals, in turn getting you deals with merchants, better dispositions with the townspeoples and guards, and by being a "good" (by karma/reputation, anyways) citizen these bonuses are further cumulative.

Of course, these bonus types would vary by town. Citizens of Bravil would be a lot more suspicious of a goody-goody white knight who just bought that rickety hovel across the puddle. And Chorrolians would be highly suspicious of that ragged looking (low rep/karma) ruffian who just moved into that nice house near 'round the Oak. These situations might encourage players to start looking to certain homes and towns to settle in. While not forcing them to turn their course from a certain house, it would highly influence them.

If you were a shiny knight, why would you live in Bravil? Or if you were a cutpurse, why even set foot in Chorral (except to steal)? You have friends in high places, right? Live near them. A thief would live in Bravil, where a fence might reside. Living there not only gives them good access to that fence, but that potential bonus they'd get from being a citizen.


Of course, these are the tired ravings of a guy who sleeps in hallowed trees because his bounty is too damn high to get into the city. xD

:EDIT: I did not notice how long ago the last post was - I'm terribly sorry if I resurrected something best left dead.

fixed

This is the best idea I've heard!

Of course housemod builders can cater their creations to any and all desires of people who like having houses just because they're neat! But what could entice a guy like me to buy a house? I use Tejon's Roughin' It mod, for Pete's sake! I sleep behind rocks in the rain! The only penalty is that if I'm spotted, npcs' disposition toward me falls. (because I'm a dirt dirty vagrant, don't you see).

So, of course, owning a house should raise your standing in the community! Brilliant brilliant brilliant! Get the key to the city ready, Ma, the mountain man is comin' home!

gothemasticator

I would love a mod like this (at least if my ideas are used). Am I correct in my understanding that kuertee plans to make this mod?

If so, here's my view:


Agreed. I would strongly prefer the penalty outside version, as I think alchemy is already too strong in the game. But this can easily be solved by using (at least) two ini settings: bonusInside and penaltyOutside.

The bonus/penalty can probably best be implemented by lowering/increasing the player's alchemy skill dynamically, but remember that the perk levels must be adjusted with it.


What I really would like, was buyable alchemy furniture for your home, to provide some of the "Houses made more useful" effect.


As above, I prefer a penalty, but again, this could be an ini setting. A simple implementation would be to disable the activation button in the repair menu whenever your mouse points at an item that has less damage than an ini setting. I.e. if repairOutsidePenalty is 10, you can disable the button whenever you point at an item that has less than 10% damage. This way, you must be inside to repair your items completely.


As above, I would prefer a buyable furniture for full bonus (or no penalty).

A relatively simple bonus would be to lower the perks, but reduce their effect. This way, a journeyman could repair equipment up to 110% when inside.


I don't know why I haven't added this to Real Sleep Extended yet. But I will do.


So kuertee, will you be doing anything like this? I'll be happy to help with the stuff mentioned above, but will try to avoid starting on such a mod project myself, as I rather want some time to play too now

Thanks, Sir Masticator, you can now tell just how tired I am.


I'm glad to think that I made some sense, let alone that somebody liked my idea. Hehe, maybe this day's already better than I thought. Thank you.


Maybe I should make a coffee mod...*rambles off muttering*

This makes good sense to me. The penalty/reward is not a drain/buff to your skill, but a limit on how completely you can repair your items. Very realistic, as well as being good for gameplay.

Alchemy could be handled similarly by disabling all apparatus except the mortar&pestle when in the field, thus limiting the effectiveness of potions brewed outside the home.

Sleeping in a house should definitely get a bonus.

And, if you couldn't tell from my above post, I really favor the disposition increase idea for owning a house in a town/city.

gothemasticator

Glad you agree. The player's Armorer skill is of close to no importance, except for the perks, so just increasing/decreasing the skill by a few levels wouldn't be noticeable at all.

I think the 125% expert limit is hardcoded (no game setting like many other perks), so it will be impossible to increase the repair level above that. But it will be relatively easy (I think) to have a repairOusidePenalty and a repairInsideBonus. If both were set to 5, you would be able to repair up to 95% outside, and up to 105% inside.


Good idea.

True. Real Sleep Extended already give a bonus for sleeping in beds (or rather penalty for not doing so), but it doesn't differ between player-owned and other beds.

I do too. But again, it should have two settings: a penalty when not owning a house and a bonus when owning it. That way people can decide. I would probably choose a bigger penalty before buying the house than a bonus after.

I second Ashven's idea. I tend to install certains house mods to suit my character, I currently spend most of my time in Dexwoods hideout but I still have Castle Seaview installed for the view. I sort of force myself into this play style and I like the idea of a mod that rewards me for doing so.

As for me, I usually end up buying a couple portables, and sleeping in ditches, hallow logs, and sewers. I never really have a use for a house, as a thief, but given some incentive, I'd be willing to scraqe up for a house. What's the difference between a vanilla house, and a portable bedroll? More convenience - you can't pack up a vanilla house.

Aside from convenience, you'd have to be able to focus the houses to play styles. It seems to me that Leyawiin, Bravil, and IC suit shadier characters. Skingrad, either a vampire or Dark Brotherhood type. (to me, anyways) Anvil as a kind of middle ground. Chorrol and Bruma seem to be upper class/noble syle, with Cheydinhal following up as maybe Dark Brotherhood as well.

I mean, can you see a mage wallowing about in the IC shack? Or a fighter living in Bravil or Leyawiin? Play style greatly influences house choice, and incentives based on that would probably the way to go.

hey theNiceOne!
you're welcome to it.
at the moment, i'm not really sure when i can start this.
and you seem to have a very good handle on the MenuMode system.
so, feel free to start the mod.
i'd definitely add it to my load-order.

I took a look at the repair menu system yesterday, and unfortunately found several problems

1. The Armorer expert perk is hardcoded (both the 75 skill requirements and the 125% repair limit). For some reason, some skills have hardcoded perk limits while others correctly use the iSkillExpertMin game setting. This means that it is impossible to have a positive bonus when inside that allows repair above 100% for non-experts without actually increasing the armorer skill to above 75.

2. When the player has more than one damaged item of the same type, OBSE cannot distinguish between them when trying to read their attributes - it always picks the attributes of the first of them that is found. So if your outside repair penalty is 10 (allowing you to repair items that are more than 90% damaged) and you have two "Iron Shield" one with 85% and one 92% health, OBSE will give the 92 value (if that is found first) even when pointing at the one with 85% health.

I can probably discover if I get the attributes of the one I'm pointing at. But even if the script then discovers that it gets the attributes for the wrong item it has no way of getting the right attributes.

So the best workaround will be to check if correct attributes are received, and if not, always allow repair. This means that if you have two or more damaged items of the same type, you may be allowed to repair all but one of them even when you should not. That's not real show-stopper though.

Finally, what such a script can do, is to prevent you from clicking on an object if its health is above the limit. If it is just below you will be able to click, and may well get its health all the way up to 100 from this one click. Once again, that's nothing I can do about, but not a big problem either.

What about a different approach to repair bonus/penalty? (Just brainstorming here.)

A scripted limit on the number of repair hammers you can carry in the field. Say, 10. If you try to pick up (or craft with MMM) an 11th hammer, you fail with a message, "You are already carrying your maximum amount of repair hammers." This would effectively limit repair in the field, and the limit could simply be lifted when at home.

Alchemy:

I wonder if, in addition to prohibiting the use of any apparatus except the mortar and pestle in the field, you could also limit the available ingredient effects to just the first one (or two). This would mean that in the field only a rudimentary set of potions is brewable (damage health/fatigue and restore health/fatigue would be available). While at home, you would have the full set of effects available. So, to brew the more esoteric potions (invisibility, fire damage, etc.), you would have to be at home. This would certainly encourage planning ahead of adventuring.

In a modded game like mine (FCOM, nGCD+Progress and built from there), I could see these changes (along with raised disposition of neighbors and a sleep bonus) giving a new and not-unwelcome shape to the game. I'm already creeping about slowly, staying close to "home" (IC at the moment) for fear of dangers further out. I could now see gaining wealth in order to acquire a home with benefits as a goal. And when I move out toward other areas (say, Chorrol), I have a reason to stick around long enough to loot enough locations to make enough money to get another home there! This would encourage a very geographical-based exploration method as an overall shape to the big-picture game plan.

gothemasticator

I think such a limit becomes too gamey and instead of immersive. Besides, when I have only one repair hammer left and are in the middle of an Oblivion realm, I fear I will not be able to keep myself from quick-saving just before I repair things and then reload if I break the last hammer.

Another possibility is of course to actually increase/decrease the armorer skill directly. This is even the easiest solution to accomplish.


I think this is a good idea. It can be done in one of two ways: By increasing the perk limits above the player's skill, or to lower the player's skill below the perk limits. The latter definately has the side effect of not being able to use the alchemy equipment that suddenly is above your level, which is too harsh, IMHO. The former may or may not have the same side effect (depending on the usability of the alchemy equipment is tied to the per limit settings or not).

A third possibility which has no side effects (that I know of) is to automatically adjust the game settings that is important for the potion's strengt, like fPotionMortPestleMult. There are a lot of those game settings, so it may require a bit of work to get it right, but there is an extensive wiki article for help.


I fully agree

If putting a penalty on repair in field, I would say 1 or 2 hammers you could carry. I have TIE, and it actually adds significant weight to repair hammers.

But what about an item you can buy for your house that would be a bonus? At your furniture store you could buy an 'anvil' that will always have a hammer on it. Perhaps not one that you can actually pick up, so that it doesnt become a cash cow...but click on the anvil and the repair screen comes up with one hammer in the inventory. When it breaks, just leave the screen and click on anvil again. (just a little something to make having low armorer skill more annoying). This way you can always repair stuff at home, but you have to buy it.

*****************

What about a home prayer shrine? A small shrine you can buy for your house that would mimic the blessings you can get at a chapel? Click on the shrine and you get a menu of the available prayers.

*************

I dont know if its been discussed already, but the Bathing mod is a great example of how to make a house more useful. I suggest whatever you add into thye house, please consider making it compatible with the bathing mod locations, and cobl too. Cobl luggage is a great house addon, and

**************

Some basemant mods have teleporters to any of your other houses. What if this teleporter was a buyable house addon?

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Speaking of basemants...Ive tried a few, but have yet to find the perfect basemant. It should have a trapdoor, and be cobl-ready.

Hi,

I created a small mock-up mod to test a couple of the ideas here. This is what I have done:

Repair:
Created two repair limit penalty settings, armorerPenaltyHigh and armorerPenaltyLow, where the actual penalty is "(armorerPenaltyHigh - armorerPenaltyLow) * armorer skill / 100 + armorerPenaltyLow", i.e. a player with low armorer skill uses the penalty close to armorerPenaltyLow, and a player with high armorer skill uses the penalty close to armorerPenaltyHigh. The resulting penalty is subtracted from your max repair limit (100 or 125). I guess values around armorerPenaltyLow=20, armorerPenaltyHigh=10 is ok - which means that a player with armorer skill of 50 cannot repair equipment that have more than 85% health.

Created another setting too, repairEffectiveness (set it to 0.5 by default), which means that repair attempts outside will only be about half as effective as inside - which in effect means that you'll need more hammers to repair damaged equipment.


Alcemy:
Created two settings: alchemyPenaltyOutside and alchemyBonusInside. Both tell how much your effective alchemy skill changes (without affecting which alchemy equipment you can use or how many effects you see per ingredients), and I tested with -50 and +10, which seemed ok. It made potions created outside much less effective (lower duration and magnitude - and thus lower price), and potions created inside slightly more effective.


But for this to become a real mod, I need something better to distinguish between the (at least) three states:
1. Most places
2. Inside in owned/faction-owned houses
3. Inside, in owned house, with recommended stationary repair equipment / alchemy equipment available.

The idea is that all penalties apply for 1., some penalties apply for 2., and no penalties and all bonuses apply for 3. But for this we would need some repair and alchemy furniture that could be placed in player-owned houses, and this is not at all my area of modding, so I would need help here to move it forward. If anyone can find/create the models and place them where appropriate, I can make the buyable furniture and add necessary scripts for the penalties/bonuses to work correctly.