At the suggestion of others on this board I'm launching this thread to cover an in-development mod.
You can find the latest development version of the mod here: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32914


Purpose of the mod
I've never really liked how weapon and armor health affect the game experience. As such I'm building a mod that tweaks several gameplay aspects related to armor/weapon health to make Oblivion more immersive and challenging.
I would encourage any comments or feedback!


Implemented (as of current version A3)

• Armor will automatically unequip from the player if it is broken.
  
• The best (highest value) clothing in the player inventory will equip to replace the broken armor.
  
• All armor types are supported, including shields, tail armor, and armor that takes up more than one slot.
  
• The strength of all armor enchantments will vary based on the condition of that armor. For example, a Cuirass enchanted with Resist Magic 20% might only have an effective strength of Resist Magic 4% when it is about to break.
  
• Your next best weapon (according to value) will automatically equip in combat when your current weapon is about to break. The mod will give preference to similar weapons (i.e. it is more likely you will equip a bow if you were already using one.)

Planned but not yet implemented elements

• The strength of weapon enchantments will also vary based on weapon condition. This also adds to the usefulness of the DISINTEGRATE WEAPON spell.
  
• All six of the above will also be applied to NPCs.
  
• It will no longer be possible to repair your weapons or armor to 100%+ while you are out in the wilderness. You will only be able to repair them to 50% (or 75% if you are an Expert or Master Armorer). To repair them fully you will have to find a place that has an anvil or forge (weapon/armor shop, Fighters Guild, etc.).
  
• Since you will not be able to repair your weapons or armor as much while in the field, your Armorer skill will also level up more slowly.
  
• A REPAIR ALL option will be available when you are a Master Armorer (so you will not have to hit REPAIR over and over again when your hammers have no chance of breaking).
  
• The Dwemer Forge (Battlehorn Castle DLC) will allow you to repair weapons or armor to 150%.

Known issues:
B1. Clothing that is 0 value and 0 weight will not automatically equip to the player. This includes the Wrist Irons, Black Robe, and Black Hood, as well as some mod-created clothing.

B2. Multi-slotted clothing (such as robes) will not equip if the Greaves break before the Cuirass does. This is intentional in the current setup but I may change this behavior if there is enough demand.

B3. Clothing that takes up unusual slot combinations (upper body, lower body, hand for example) may not equip. The only known example of this is Sheogorath's Regalia.

B4. Broken weapons may not swap out in combat if the player has recently reassigned their UNSHEATH WEAPON key. (Restarting Oblivion, or reassigning back to the original key, will resolve this.)

B5. A weapon in inventory may not equip if you have a duplicate of that weapon and it is broken.

B6. Weapons will unequip in combat when they have less than 1% health left, not when they have broken. Typically this means you get 1 to 5 hits fewer with the weapon than you otherwise would have. This is to avoid an issue with Oblivion unequipping the broken weapon before the mod has a chance to equip a new one. Additionally, very quick weapons with low health (such as a Rusty Iron Dagger) may not trigger equipping of a new weapon.

Anyone interested in testing, or offering suggestions for this mod? I'm also looking for general feedback, including why you decide not to try out the mod, so I can make it appeal to a broader base.

New version Alpha-4 posted, which adds:
*Scales the enchantment charge cost on magic weapons. The charge cost ranges from 500%(!) at 0 health to 83% at 125% health. (You really get punished for trying to use damaged weapons. ) In other words, a weapon that normally takes 40 charges per hit will need anywhere between 33 and 200.
*Improved efficiency of all scripts. They now run once per second with no ill effects (at least on my machine).
*Numerous bug fixes.

*And several more things planned, including - applying all the above to NPCs; limiting the amount of repairing that can be done in the wilderness; and letting the Dwemer Forge repair to 150%.

New version Beta-1 posted. Now all of the changes apply to NPCs and creatures too!
I also completely rewrote all the scripts to improve efficiency and fix a few more bugs.

A lot of people have viewed the mod but very few have installed it. If you're one of those people, I would appreciate some feedback on how I can make the mod more interesting to you!

I'll try to install it, bg, and hopefully provide feedback. The mod sounds great; I've always thought enchanted items should degrade their enchantments overtime.

I hope you get more people interested in this. The zero replies and few downloads so far are surprising given that the mod itself sounds good.

This looks quite promising. I too am a bit surprised by the lack of response. I am downloading now. Am I correct in my understanding that your armor will get replaced during combat? You should consider having an option where armors will be unequipped during combat, but not replaced. Some may find it unrealistic/disturbing for their enemy to change their wardrobe mid-fight.

I wonder if all these views are people expecting a mod that adds weapons and armor like Armamentarium. That's what I thought before I clicked on the thread.

Thanks guys! I appreciate the feedback and will be interested in what you find. A word of warning, however--it looks like I cut a few too many corners when I rewrote the scripts in Beta-1; I just posted a version Beta-2 that fixes 4 particularly nasty issues. I'd recommend installing it right away, and if you can, backing up to a savegame that was saved before you installed Beta-1.

Space Oden - To answer your question, yes the armor does get replaced with clothing during combat. The main reason for this is that it's supposed to give the illusion that that clothing was being worn underneath the whole time. If I get a lot of feedback requesting that feature be removed (or be made optional), then I'll do so, but for now I plan to leave it!

Good point on the "Armamentium" comment - I do wonder if the mod is just suffering from a poor name. That would also help explain why a similar mod - that's only 3 weeks older and only replaces broken armor with clothing - has 750 more downloads, 35 more comments, and 12 more endorsemants than mine. Any suggestions for a better name?

Finally, please let me know if you encounter any issues. I have most of the major errors I've encountered resolved, but scaling enchantments and weapon charges has turned out to be very tricky (that's probably why no one has attempted it before now!), and the mod needs more testing before it's ready for a full release.

BFG

I'm interested in trying it out. Might not be today, say, but yeah, soon. I'll let you know if it destroys my computer, ends my life (no, wait...) or something.

Sounds neat, anyway. :thumbsup:

At the suggestion of other players, I have renamed this mod because "Enhanced Armory" just wasn't very descriptive, and too many people thought it was related to Armamentium.
It is now called "BFG's Magic Weapon and Armor Condition Matter; Can't Wear Broken Equipment". Unwieldy name but at least it's descriptive! If others have a better suggestion I would be interested.

Moderators--is there a way to rename this thread to reflect this change?

Version Beta-3 posted. It fixes all remaining major bugs (that I'm aware of!). As usual, suggestions or bug reports are welcome!

Please also note the name has changed to the much less elegant but more descriptive "Armor and Weapon Health Affect Enchantments".

I'm curious, have any of you had a chance to try it out yet? Any thoughts or feedback?
No problem if not, I was just planning to work on it more this weekend and thought I'd incorporate any suggestions you had!

Hmm, it seems there's very little interest in this mod. Nearly 3000 views but only 40 unique downloads.
I really thought I'd have some feedback, be it positive or negative, by now...

To reiterate, the mod:
--Scales the strength of armor and weapon enchantments according to their health. The more beat up the item, the weaker the enchantment.
--Broken armor automatically unequips and is replaced with the best clothing in inventory.
--Broken equipped weapons are automatically replaced with the best "similar" weapon.
--Applies to player and NPCs

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32914

New version posted - 1.0 (first full release)!

All settings are now fully customizable! You can turn on/off mod settings as you see fit, and also control the strength of the armor or weapon enchantment scaling.

You can get it here: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32914

Exactly what I was waiting for. Downloaded; I'll report any bugs I find.

Totally missed this, but most probably due ti the fact that the thread's topic is not very descriptive of what's inside - on the surface, this felt like another Armamentarium-like compilation of weapons and armor, and that is why i peeped in here.

But this is even better. I hope all the gameplay tweaks will apply to mod-added equipment/armor as well...

Keep up the good work :foodndrink:

Thanks! Yes, I think it's time to change the thread's title, I'll ask the mods to do so.
But anyway, the mod does apply to all equipment, Vanilla, SI or mod-added. The only exception is a few articles of clothing not supported by OBSE 18 - two Tunics and Sheogorath's Regalia are all I'm aware of at this time.

Version 1.01 released, fixing a couple of additional issues (bringing the total issues list down to 4 ):
1. Weapons' gold value no longer changes when charge scaling is applied to them. (In truth, I had to "cheat" to do this - every enchanted weapon's value is base weapon value + enchantment value, and I'm having to modify the base value to compensate for changes in the enchantment value. I don't like this approach but haven't found a better one.)
2. Weapon auto-equipping works better. Now, your weapon truly does have to break before it's replaced in combat. (Before, it would be replaced when it still had a couple hits left.)
3. Fixed a bug that could cause Oblivion to crash when your weapon charge scaling was set to 100%, and you tried to equip a broken weapon. (Darn division by zero...)
4. Various other minor improvements and optimizations.

Well, hopefully the new thread title is more descriptive, even if it is wordy. Anyway, still looking for suggestions on improvements, bug reports, etc. I'd like to wrap this mod up (barring any major issues) in the next four weeks so I can start working on the next project, completion of the Amber and Madness Weapon sets (Amber claymore, Madness dagger, etc.)

To reiterate, the mod:
--Scales the strength of armor and weapon enchantments according to their health. The more beat up the item, the weaker the enchantment (armor) or the more charges the enchantment needs to srike (weapon).
--Broken armor automatically unequips and is replaced with the best clothing in inventory.
--Broken equipped weapons are automatically replaced with the best "similar" weapon.
--Applies to player and NPCs
--Coming in the near future, limitations on how much you can repair armor & weapons out in the wild/dungeons (i.e. only to 50 or 75% if you're not in town)

http://www.tesnexus....le.php?id=32914

Sounds like a great mod. One of those things that seems really obvious once you see it described, so I'm surprised no one has done it before!

Just back to the game after a 2 year break so adding mods slowly to make sure I don't break anything. I've added this to my 'watched' list and will probably DL once I'm happy that my current setup is stable.

Until then, keep up the good work.

Thanks! I hope you enjoy it, I certainly have as I've gotten back into Oblivion over the past few weeks
The mod was fairly complicated to develop too - there's over 700 lines of script and counting. That may be why no one tried it before!



I'd like to get some feedback on this mod, from the players. Currently, I consider it incomplete, in that I was also planning to limit the amount of repairing you can do to your weapons or armor while out in the wilderness:
--Limited to 25% repair (50% if you're expert/master) if you're in the wilderness/a dungeon
--Bonus of 25% max if you're familiar with the armor/weapon (ie have repaired it a lot already)
--Bonus of 25% max if you're using the Dwemer Forge from Fighter's Stronghold (max repair at 150%)
--Repairing uses Fatigue, meaning you're limited in how many swings of the Repair Hammer you can make at once
--Vanilla limits apply if you're in town near an anvil or forge
--Customizable


Only a handful of people have expressed interest in this mod though so I'm thinking I should just move on to my next project. Thoughts?
Currently, the mod:
--Unequips broken armor and replaces it with the "best" clothing in inventory
--Automatically replaces a broken weapon while in combat, with the next best weapon in inventory
--Scales armor enchantment strength and weapon enchantment charge requirements according to that armor's/weapon's damage
--Applies to player and all NPCs, supports all armor types including multi-slotted armor/clothing such as robes
--Fully customizable

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32914

There seemed to be some confusion on how to enable or disable the mod's primary three behaviors (unequip broken armor and replace it with clothing in inventory, automatically replace broken weapons in combat, scale armor or weapon enchantment strength according to their condition).

To help out, I've posted modified versions of the mod that only enable one of the three behaviors - see the descriptions with each file for details. The original version (which does all of the above by default, and can be customized as you see fit) is also still available.

Link to the mod:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32914