Oh, so many ideas and thoughts while I was absent. Thanks guys!


One thing will limit the possibilities is the guideline "KISS", or "Keep it simple, stupid". Like with Simple Essentials, I feel that mods like this benefits from being simple but dynamic.

This means I wont edit wordspaces, add new locations or touch existing NPCs, add conversations and so on. After all, I don?t even have experience from doing any of that, I?m a scripter and my solutions are based on stuff I can do without editing anything existing.

I know this approach will give less immersion regarding explanitions to stuff like "Why are my things in a chest in the middle of wilderness? How did I get to where I woke up?". But I think the gameplay element makes up for it, and is more important.


After reading through all the suggestions and ideas, the following kind of setup would probably be something that?s both doable and hopefully still offer things people would like in the mod.


Regarding your loot:

-you loose X% of your money, and Y% of random items. (X and Y come from the INI)

-the items are placed in a chest that?s spawned in the location you died at. The chest is more symbolic, I realised the stuff has to be put somewhere safe so they don?t fall through the ground, get deleted from game with a modded NPC etc.


Regarding where you wake up:

-default: the last place you slept in.

-optionally (if I can do this), you can make a Soul Beakon at an altar at a chapel. You press some key while focusing on the altar, you?ll get asked if you want to pay the Church for divine protection, and will receive a special soul gem that you can drop anywhere to have a beakon to retrieve you back.

It could be interpreted that this method offers a "Divine insurance" to save your butt. Your body is called back to the stone when it?s about to die, leaving the assailants no time or less time to loot you. So different multipliers would be offered by the INI for the loot lost.



The idea would be to have a simple solution, that still allows configuration and a way to affect your fate beforehand. A possible default for the settings could offer a following kind of setup:

If you get beaten without "insurance", tough luck. All your money and half your stuff is gone, and you wake up in the last place you slept in.

(let?s just say you Never Die. You lost, you got beaten, humiliated, robbed, and finally crawled back to last save locations you remembered, delirious and no memory of how you got there)

If your wise, you made a deal with the divines, and had a Soul Beakon to save your earthly behind. You lost nothing but your pride. The good thing is that you may be close to where you got your butt kicked, but the bad thing is now you don?t have your "insurance" anymore. Will you take the risk and re-enter that dungeon, or will you treck back to town to lick your wounds, and revisit a chapel?

Honestly, I've always approached the game in the opinion that my character is a minion of the gods. He/she never existed in the world prior to awakening in the cell at the beginning (though he/she has been here before in other forms).

So, it makes perfect sense to me that if you die doing something stupid, you'd find yourself dropped back in the world and told to get on with the task you were sent there for.

Yeah, I also see the whole dying thing like this: you didn?t die, because...you didnt. If you did, the game would be over.

So no matter how you do it - reload a save save and pretend it never happened, or use a mod like this - the explation is secondary, the game continues because you DIDN?T die. Simple as that.



BTW, this is not a huge project, or the whole idea is that I?m just chilling with a small side project before a debugging frenzy and testing with DR6, which is starting this week.

So I?m implementing the ideas I posted in my last post, right now, and will probably have them done today.

I hope this will break me of my "save every ten seconds" habit. It's a bad habit in terms of having fun, really.

One thing to think about: Don't forget to throw in some protection for before you sleep for the first time. IE, in the tutorial dungeon or when you head over to that first Ayleid ruin.

Might be worth sticking in a couple of triggers in their to serve as "sleeping points", or some other function.

Maybe just inform players that it won't work till after your first night's sleep.

Right now the script tags the place where you start using the mod as the first location. Should be fine cause people can choose when to activate the mod. Probably not a good idea in the tutorial dungeon.

I didn't check the comments, but definitely something great for a vampire character.

Heh, you probably should at least glance through my recent comments, basicly I outlined the implementation I?m now working on, it?s not exactly the same as in the first post.

Sounds really cool, Skycaptain, and I can't wait to check it out.

I´m almost done with basic implementation, which means without the Soul Beacon option.


That part shouldn´t be very hard part though - funnily enough the hardest part is to remove only some items from the player to a container, so that the items actually stay as the original ones, and keep their health, enchantment, stolen flag etc.

I should have a good thing going on here, but I´m not fully done with testing method yet. :read:


EDIT: ..and it works. :celebration:

This seems to be coming together very nicely, and in a way that I think will satisfy differing player needs. Hooray for simplicity plus options and INI settings. :clap:

Any chance of an INI setting for the soul gem option that will allow cost to increase (be tied to the player's level)?

I was thinking about having a number per level setting. For example, you set the ini value to 1000, it costs playerLevel * 1000 septims.


In addition to that, the current INI looks like this:

set skycaptainsdeathquest.minHealtDivider to 4 ;4 means your health bar wont display values less then maxhealth / 4. Recommended bigger than 2.
set skycaptainsdeathquest.deathCameraSeconds to 1 ;0-> , how long you are displayed "dying"

set skycaptainsdeathquest.percentGoldLost to 100 ;0-100 , how much gold you lose of death
set skycaptainsdeathquest.percentItemsLost to 50 ;0-100 , how much equipment you lose on death

set skycaptainsdeathquest.percentGoldLostBeacon to 0 ;0-100 , how much gold you lose if saved by the beacon
set skycaptainsdeathquest.percentItemsLostBeacon to 0 ;0-100 , how much equipment you lose if saved by the beacon


I have the non-beacon setup now fully working. Now I only need to have some system to remove the equipment chest once you find it and fetch your stuff back. Maybe a message asking for confimation, just incase.

Like master176281, I currently play with kuertee's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23862 I wonder if you could explain how this mod differs from that one?

Sounds perfect for my play style . And plus, my game occasionally crashes when I load up a save so this will help with that.

Hopefully you'll make dieing somewhat fun instead of frustrating

I haven?t even looked into it, so I have no idea.

This is mostly one of those mods one starts making for himself. This thread was about getting ideas I might not come to think of myself, and seeing if there?s public interest, cause it?s a whole other ball game to mod for yourself only, or to actually release the mod.



Heh, well at least you get keep all progress to the point of "death", and at least I personally think it should be fun checking what stuff you lost, and getting it back.

Loading always feels like failing AND cheating, while now you?ll get to try and have a rematch fair and square.

An idea on how to handle the lost money.

Why not distribute portions of it to the surrounding enemies and/or containers?

Example:
Player has 1000 septims, and dies. He loses 500 septims.
Of that 500 septims, 200 goes to the enemy that killed him. Another 200 is divided between surrounding mobs/containers. The last 100 simply disappears.

If the player goes back for revenge before the cell is reloaded, he can get back the vast majority of what he lost. If he doesn't get back in time, that gold simply goes poof. Either way, he'll still lose some gold.

The percentages involved could be customizable. This would allow for stiffer penalties, and provide a nice revenge motive for the player to scour where he died for all the mobs that stole his money. The more time he's willing to look in nearby containers and hunt down nearby mobs, the more he'll recover.

Great stuff man, consider it done!

I shared the concern posted that it could cause too much grief is respawning enemies would run away with your special equipment, but gold is dispensable, so to speak. I?ll add another setting, that controls the average proportion of money that is dispersed on nearby actors and containers.

I have the Soul Beacon functionality almost done now, and this addition is not a biggie, so it?s coming together as planned. :foodndrink:

I suspect I'm an evil man sometimes, because I have the urge to suggest that you put a lock on the chest containing your equipment and give the key to the guy who got the killing blow in on you.

Enforced revenge.

I'm getting more and more excited about the possibilities this mod can offer. Sooooooo.......please excuse me if I'm becoming a pest with all my suggestions.

Given my particular idiosyncratic playing style, my focus is on the soul beacon option.

Being able to acquire one at any chapel (your idea) for an "appropriate" donation is much better than my original idea of only one specific location. Keeping in mind the fact that I am far from a lore expert, I just got through doing a little research on the eight-divines-plus-one who have alters in every chapel. My question being does any particular divine seem more appropriate than any other to be giving out soul beacons? My initial skimming over of their attributes and history didn't seem to indicate an obvious choice. Then I reread this line about Julianos. " Julianos is the Cyrodiilic god of literature, law, history, and contradiction." Contradiction. The yin/yang principle. The idea that the seed or birth of everything is in it's opposite. Life is death. And death is Life providing one happens to have acquired a soul beacon of course.

I'm getting more and more excited about the possibilities this mod can offer. Sooooooo.......please excuse me if I'm becoming a pest with all my suggestions.

Given my particular idiosyncratic playing style, my focus is on the soul beacon option.

Being able to acquire one at any chapel (your idea) for an "appropriate" donation is much better than my original idea of only one specific location. Keeping in mind the fact that I am far from a lore expert, I just got through doing a little research on the eight-divines-plus-one who have alters in every chapel. My question being does any particular divine seem more appropriate than any other to be giving out soul beacons? My initial skimming over of their attributes and history didn't seem to indicate an obvious choice. Then I reread this line about Julianos. " Julianos is the Cyrodiilic god of literature, law, history, and contradiction." Contradiction. The yin/yang principle. The idea that the seed or birth of everything is in it's opposite. Life is death. And death is Life providing one happens to have acquired a soul beacon of course.

It?s a good idea, but I wonder if the lock can still be picked?

I don?t really know, I?m asking. Cause it wouldn?t be nice if it can?t be, cause it would hold a big chance of simply having the key gone AWOL.

If I can put hard-to-pick lock AND have the key option, it would be great. But then everyone simply picks the lock. :shrug:



That?s a really good find, thank you!

I mean, my way of doing this involves pressing L-cntrl + R-cntrl while facing the altar. Now it can be just as well Julianos?s altar!

I tend to spout before I think. Setting a lock with a high difficulty would be easy enough. The player would either have to retrieve the key, or have the skill to pick the lock, or acquire a spell, or bash the chest if they have that option.

Biggest problems would be choosing the difficulty for the lock, and that after the first death the player would possess a key to the chest. You'd have to remove the key the next time they died.

Silly idea, really. Chances are the chest is already in the middle of the killer's lair and you're gonna have to kill them all to retrieve your stuff anyway.

I seem to be ready...though I still have to test some parts. But I don?t expect any problems.

It sounds pretty interesting, obviously it's better than re-loading a savegame for those who like to believe their character never dies, and it's something I've wanted for long, but I'd do it somehow different. I like your approach, I think it's very clever, but that 'bad trip' while unconscious to the last used bed seems to feel quite unrealistic, at least for me.

Could it be possible instead to render the PC paralyzed, tag it as friendly to everyone so foes stop attacking the unconscious player, and then make everyone react according to who they are? So for example bandits and marauders would steal from you as much as they could carry, animals and beasts that were wandering will soon loose interest and leave you, and those really evil beings and hungry animals that were on hunting would kill you defenitively just for pleasure or rather to eat you, while travellers and guards would aid you, etc.

The idea I'm trying to bring here is to make the player able to see what happens when s/he falls unconscious. It may take a minute until bandits loot your body and leave to their encampment wearing your gear, or until the animals you were trying to hunt down "decide" they're already safe and leave, etc, and after that it could take half or one minute more at a very accelerated time rate, kinda you get a flash of all the hours passing by while you still unconscious and until you can get up by yourself or someone meets you (a raw skip time would be ok as well), but for me that would be a well-deserved time, if in exchange I can continue playing, without pause, so I know and I feel I haven't died. And to make it funny, when you finally get up, you'd be exactly where you fell down! This probably would have a lot of exceptions, but it could be funny to have to escape from the bandit encampment where you were defeated (considering they don't mind you anymore while unconscious) or rather take revenge by surprise, make your way out of a dungeon when you don't know where they went, etc.

The major inconvenient I see is that sometimes you may want to die, specially if you get up and fall again close to an enemy that you can't defeat and doesn't want to kill you completely, but that's what invisibility potions were made for.

That's an idea I was thinking for some time but I'm quite busy and barely able to attend my mod/s, so if you'd want to take some ideas or take it entirely please do not hesitate. I know it differs a little bit from your project, but I'm not making it at least in the next four-six months and you were starting a new "don't die" mod so I thought I should post it here.

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PS: wow you're too fast.. Heh, it seems I'm coming late...anyway, good luck with your mod, I'm sure I'll try it when it's done. Btw, if you ever want to give a try at this you'll have my eternal gratitude

Ok, the mod is ready with all the stuff I said I would implement.


This means the features mentioned in my first post today, including the Soul Beacon with configurable level-tied price, as well as configurable amount of loot dispersed in containers and actors.

The disperse system is intentionally fussy, it can just as well decide to disperse everything on one actor or container, or in few, or then none. But it wont go over the percentage configured in the ini. Anyways, it may get hard to find your stuff if beaten by guards in a city...so many takers...you may not find a dime until you find just the right guy.


But again, not any of the gold is dispersed, if you set the percentage to 0.


I?ll post a beta later today (Wednesday). After all I think it?s better a mod like this sees some testing, even though I personally tested all the features by killing myself over and over (I had a kill button!)

Since there's been a lot of ideas for different implementations, any thoughts on releasing your "death tracking" code to the public so that people can release customized versions to suit their preferences.

There's been a lot of interesting ideas in this thread, and while some of them may be hard to implement, the "death tracking" system is the most important part since it eliminates the loss of progress and screwed up quests/scripts.