So I was thinking about the way repairing items works and I wanted to pass along the idea I came up with. Rather than having a penalty for not repairing in a house or faction area give them bonuses instead, but use a default value for repairing items based on your Armourer skill. For example, I set my default repair ability to be 1% per point in my Armourer skill. If my skill level is 20 points, then that means I can only repair an item up to 20% of it's health. But repairing my items in a house provides a .5 bonus modifier, so then I'd be able to repair the item up to 30% of it's health. I was thinking it might be kind of interesting if my actual Armourer score would be the main factor in how well I can repair an item, which would work fine out in the field with the mod as it is now. But it would kind of fall apart if I were in a home.

This is a fantastic mod TNO - it indeed gives house ownership a new dimension and use!

I had one suggestion:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Battlehorn_Castle_%28place%29 adds a Dwemer Forge that temporarily increases the Player character's armorer skill by +15 when standing near it. It is located outside the castle itself in the fortified area (outdoors). Trying to repair in that location but Useful Houses restricts me from fully repairing as it considers it outdoor. Could this area be tagged indoor for Useful Houses to make it fully work as there is no better way to repair than with your own forge, Dwemer style!

I think such a way of doing it makes it way too hard for low-level characters, and think the current way of doing it work well enough.



Thanks

I agree that this should be treated as indoors for repairing. Unfortunately, I don't own Battlehorn Castle myself (I own 2 copies of the GOTY DVD which includes SI and KotN, but no other DLC) so I need help. I see (at least two possibilities), that I check for the name of the cell, but then I need someone to give me that - or propably better, that I check for being near the special forge itself. But for the latter, I need the forge's formId. So if you (or anyone else) can open the console, click on the forge, and report its formId, I can do a check for being within 1000 units or so from it.

Quickly looked it up in the cs, should be the correct formID: XY00A69F. Cheers.

Thanks Do you happen to see how close one must be to receive the bonus (I guess there is a script on the forge that checks distance to player)?

Yup, 300 units.

Here's the actual script:

scn BattlehornDwemerForgeScriptshort BuffedOnbegin gamemode	if getdisabled == 1		return	endif	if Player.GetDistance BattlehornFurnishingsForge <= 300 && BuffedOn == 0		Set BuffedOn to 1		Player.Addspell AbBattlehornArmorerBuff		Message "Your Armorer skill has temporarily increased by 15"	endif	if Player.GetDistance BattlehornFurnishingsForge > 300 && BuffedOn == 1		Set BuffedOn to 0		Player.Removespell AbBattlehornArmorerBuff		Message "Your Armorer skill has returned to normal"	endifend

Also, the editor ID is BattlehornDwemerForge. Isn't there a problem using form ID's? Anyway BattlehornFurnishingsForge is the Ref. Editor ID used by the DLC. Btw, the forge is an activator - not sure if that matters or not.

kyoma and andalaybay: thanks. I'll add support for this, and will check for the 300 distance myself. OBSEv19's inventory ref feature makes it possible to improve the repair functionality a bit, so I was planning on an upgrade soon anyway, now that OBSEv19 is final.

Not if you do it right:

let myRef := GetFormFromMod "" ""

After that, myRef can be used just as references for objects from your own mod, among them in a GetDistance check.

The Editor ID on the other hand, is only usable from within the mod, or if having the mod as master.

Good tip. Thanks. Learning every day

Just realized I gave you the formID of the base object so in case you prefer the actual reference I though I'd post it too: XY00A6A0.

TNO: Did you get a chance to incorporate the Battlehorn DLC fix? I am sure you might be busy with your other awesome mods, but htis needs some love too

Version 2.0 of this mod is my current focus, so yes, but it will wait until I get in the other improvements for repair - among them a "Repair All" button that is enabled whenever you have more repair hammers than the expected number of broken hammers.

Useful Houses 2.0 is now available :foodndrink:

From the changelog
* Rewrote repair feature to be much more accurate.
By using OBSEv19's inventory ref feature, I am now able to know exactly how many health points each item needs.

* Made hammer destruction deterministic instead of random.
When I played Oblivion, I hated how I sometimes broke several of my precious repair hammers on consecutive repair attempts, so when getting short on repair hammers I sometimes saved before repairing, and reloaded if I broke the hammmers. No more! With Useful Houses, the destruction of repair hammers is deterministic. If a repair hammer has 20% chance of breaking (according to vanilla rules), it will always last for 5 repair swings and then break, and reloading doesn't matter.

* Added a general hammer breakdown modifier, allowing you to make all hammers last a little longer/shorter - or never break!
If you generally think hammers last too short, set hammer_breakdown_rate to a number below 1. Set it to 0.5 and hammers will last twice as long. Set it to 0, and no hammer will break!

* Added "Repair All" button.
The "Repair All" button is enabled whenever you have enough hammers to repair all equipment up to repair health limit. Click it, and all items will be repaired up to their current repair health limit. This will cost you the same number of hammers, and giving you the same Armorer skill experience as if you had clicked enough times to repair the items normally.

* Added repair info text to repair menu.
See image here. If using Darn or DarkUId Darn, it will list current repair health limit for normal and enchanted weapons, and the hammer durability (the number of swings before breaking a hammer). If using other UI mods, only the hammer durability is displayed due to space.

* Made alchemy penalty propotional to Alchemy skill, so being at home is more important when creating the really effective potions.
As requested. So an experienced alchemist is more in need of a good house to brew his advanced potions, but also normally has much easier access to safe houses. This is mostly a way to not completely nerf the alchemy of new characters that doesn't have access to owned houses.

* Added support for the Battlehorm Dwemer Forge. Using it is treated as being in an owned house when doing repairs (in addition to the skill increase using it gives you).
This is untested since I don't own the DLC, so please report back.

* Added a "Useful Houses - Locations.ini" file, where (vanilla or mod-added) cells that should be treated as player-owned can be added.
So now it is easy to make mod-added houses being treated as owned, if the modder forgot to set cell ownership properly.


A final note: This mod is made with relatively hardcoe immersionist players in mind, but can also be used simply as a mod to improve the repair functionality. By setting all penalty settings to 0, you get a mod with no penalties, but where you can repair enchanted weapons (a bit) when i a player-owned house, has a "Repair All" button and deterministic repair hammer durability.

Enjoy

Aha! The much awaited update Thanks for this TNO. :celebration:

Any requirements for clean saving while upgrading?

Thanks. I am pretty happy about how the new repair functionality works, with the Repair All button and non-random hammer destruction. The Repair All functionality didn't work correctly until OBSE 19b, so that's why it had to wait a bit.

No, it should not be necessary.

This works just fine, FYI



There are some player-ownable houses in Better Cities that don't have cell ownership set properly - hopefully I'll figure out how to add these houses properly.

Glad to hear that.

Should be quite easy, and I can help you with that. I "just" need the house's cellId, or its mod name and formId. Ask in the BC thread or look it up in TES4Edit (I can probably do it too if you tell me which houses).

Hey!

I love the idea behind this mod. I haven't had a chance to test it yet as I don't currently wear weapons and armor and I'm homeless, but I really look forward to it.

Would you consider adding an extra bonus for forges and anvils? I read in the thread that you've added support for the Battlehorn forge but I'm not sure you've added it for them all. And I would second the idea with the full bonus for Fighter's Guild members and Mage's Guild members. But I do think having an anvil should give a bit more than just being in an owned cell and having a forge should give a little more than an anvil would.

I would even go further and keep the bonus for anvils and forges separate so that it would work outside of player owned cells too. Of course, this is just me thinking out loud, so I'm looking forward to your comments.

For Alchemy, I'm not sure what would be similar. Seeing as you can't rightly know how many people use At Home Alchemy, checking for the presence of apparatuses might or might not be a good idea. It makes sense alright, but you'd have to have one set in the inventory and another on the table - which doesn't make sense. Having a fire could provide a bonus and I love the sitting down idea.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

cc

I love this mod!

I think adding a bonus for repairing at a forge or anvil is a good idea, and one I have been thinking of. I'm not sure how to actually do it though, as player houses generally don't have forges and it would go against the idea of the mod if it were more advantageous to repair items elsewhere than the player houses.

I have been thinking of adding small buyable forges to the player homes that isn't placed there until you buy it, and maybe I'll look further into that, but not sure since it involves some modding skills I don't (yet) have.

As I've taken a break from Oblivion and played most of the way through Gothic3 - I really appreciate the crafting and upgrading of weapons in that game.

Of course far beyond the scope of this mod, but one Oblivion mechanic I detest is constantly breaking repair hammers. I understand that it is a game mechanic - contrived as it is.

In real life with low skill you are more apt to break your weapon than a forging hammer. I try and in my head replace the hammer for a repair kit - a universal set of scraps and tools that can be used to mend armor and weapons.

Anyway Gothic has anvils and whetstones for either creating or sharpening. A forge might be overkill for anything less than a castle, but an anvil and sharpening stone/rock/whatever might be more fitting.

Then if purchased one clicks on the anvil to bring up the repair and maybe get also a reduction in hammer breakage.

With Useful Houses you are free to set the breakdown rate of repair hammer to any multiplier of the vanilla breakdown rate, so if you want hammers to last longer (or even never break) you can do so by adjusting one setting in the ini. But doing that without adding any risk of breaking the weapon you try to repair will offset the balance. It would be easy to add an optional feature of having a chance of actually breaking the weapon, but that may be a bit too hardcoe...

I agree with this, and will consider it, but I have no experience with decorating interiors so I'm not sure it will be done though.

Has anyone tested this with companions who need to repair their enchanted armor but do not have the skill level required? I just found this mod (great idead TNO) and am using Vilja with companion master. Her skill never rises very high (she will never be a Journeyman in armorer so wonder if this mod would let her fix her magic armor and weapons. Also, since she is a 7 armorer, she goes through hammers like a hot knife through butter

Sorry, but Useful Houses only affect the player, not any companions. To affect them I guess one would need to edit the companion script that makes them repair items.

So.....will you add something like with EE for local prices? Or like Oblivion XP which has the ability for mod makers to add some script lines to make support for it? It seems like you can DO ANYTHING