Skyships!

[paper temple]

Hey guys!

My skyships mod releases today!
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/58245?tab=description

Here is a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsy4yhTtKjM

Features

Purchase your own skyship, or assist the skyship merchant with a quest and earn it!
Customize your skyship with over 50+ furniture items!
Upgrade your skyship with various parts that increase speed and maneuverability.
Use the rope to get into and off of the skyship, or just use mark/recall in the cabin.
Customize the cabin, interior, and lower level of your skyship with furniture or treasures you've found.
Rest in the cabin of your skyship and enjoy the view from high above the mountains.

[marble perch]

AYYYEEEE

Literally just seen this

There’s a present aetherius airships mod I can find it for futher inspiration if your looking to add more if you’d like

[paper temple]

Thank you! Yeah I found out about that mod while I was working on this one and it did offer some inspiration, especially the ability to walk around the ship while its flying 🙂

[daring gate]

This looks awesome ty

[paper temple]

Thank you!

[humble stratus]

This looks sick. From a player with way too much time in heavily modded Daggerfall, this is so cool

[shy turret]

Skyship mod+Teleport mod+Glider mod would be pretty damn cool. Drop down from the ship and glide through the skys and just teleport back after hitting the ground

[dusky sable]

This is awesome! The controls are super intuitive.

That being said, who is the dude living on the ship? lol

[radiant sail]

Yes!
I made these dwemer gliders as equipable helmets, one with a lower magnitude of the fall effect and one with a very high one + fortify speed. switching between them via hotkey when jumping of high places and Skyships of course

Edit: Made a quick showcase video now: https://youtu.be/kFHZ5mI12Pk

[radiant sail]

Very nice attempt, to the skyship theme, probably the best in comparison to others, ecpecially in terms of movement control.
You also implemented the climbable rope, that I missed so much from a skyship I used in Skyrim, becaus it's often tedious to land your huge ship on non flat terrain without clipping issues, so thanks for that too!

Would also be great to have different variations of skyships as base models. I tweaked one from a very old mod that also uses the vanilla ship model, but as a fully mechanical (and slightly magical) dwemer ship. Any ideas how I can use my model for your mod? I saw that you didn't add extra meshfile I could replace.

[daring gate]

this is really nice, does it have mechanics? im just curious because Blurpandra has just put up the early iteration of https://discord.com/channels/260439894298460160/1475723166612455548 and its a fun coincidence

[daring gate]

Yeah, is there a way to apply the script to other models? i've always had a desire to be able to patch the dwemer dirigible in this to fly https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/55073

[radiant sail]

Haha, that's really a coincidence, thanks for the suggestion. Gonna write her in the thread now.
And it doesn't have a script applied currently, but the propeller on the shield plate is spinning and has a magic pulse vfx below 😉

[daring gate]

awesome

[paper temple]

Haha I played with that daggerfall mod too!

[paper temple]

I had this thought while working on the skyships mod, it looks like there are already a few air glider mods out there!

[paper temple]

Haha whaaa! That might be a mod adding someone on the ship, because there shouldn't be anybody on it. It uses the Arrow ship in Dagon Fel for the interior, so maybe there is a mod that adds an npc there?

[paper temple]

Yeah it just uses all native vanilla models, I like to keep the mods super lightweight and dependency free, but I will definitely look into how to add custom models, because this ship look awesome!!

[dusky sable]

Yeah there’s some random nord

[paper temple]

Ahh I probably didn't think this through enough. everything is handled in a global script and basically adds a bunch of activators to the ship and gives them key names, then when you interact with them the global script catches those interactions and handles them (like start flying/ climb rope)

[daring gate]

Fair enough, it looks there's a lot to it haha

[daring gate]

Haha that's hilarious any idea where he came from?

[radiant sail]

Thank you!
And completely understandable about the vanilla approach. Looking forward to updates and maybe even custom ships 😁

[dusky sable]

I’ll have to check

I’m also not sure if the ship is supposed to have a bunch of cargo on it. Like there’s boxes with ebony ore and moon sugar and stuff

[daring gate]

You've been pressed into smuggling. I guess they saw you as an easy mark. "new sky captain, green as grass, by the time he figures out what we're hauling we'll be halfway to Lythodonea"
First chance they get your getting pitched into the sea

[paper temple]

Ah I think that is normal, since it uses the Arrow ship for its interior it has all the stuff that's there by default

[dusky sable]

Makes sense

[candid solar]

This plus #1475723166612455548 is going to be so friggin cool 😎
Maybe I can put in a shortcut for getting the glider from an NPC in your mod. Tie it together a little more 🤔

[radiant sail]

Would be awesome!

[radiant sail]

Found out the Nord should be from the mod either "Morrowind comes alive" other similar ones that adding NPC with additional animations (like sitting, praying, ect.).

[candid solar]

I think I would need a mwscript local variable on an NPC I could read (check if defined, like nolore) on a dialogue condition. Something like "glider_expert"

[paper temple]

oooo that would be amazing!
Gotcha, yeah I could play around with that and see what I can do! The skyship merchant already gets quite a few items added to his inventory at runtime so it shouldn't be too difficult.
I wonder if I could just check if your recordId (for the glider) exists and if it does, add it to the merchant maybe!

[candid solar]

Ah I wasn't going to make it a real item, and if it was a real item I was going to handle buying it through dialogue. All I need is a local var 😁

[paper temple]

Ahhh okay gotcha!

[radiant sail]

Though you could implement a token item (like an achievement trophy) that can be purchased to enable the ability for the glider. Could also be thrown away afterwards

[candid solar]

A "Glider License" 😆

[radiant sail]

Since I lack the experience of making clean mods to share with the world (mostly due tonot having much free time irl) I'm open to share my two other creations next to my glider models, if you two are interested in those too @candid solar @paper temple

First one would be a ridable dwemer cricket that uses the lower body part slots, so basicly "riding pants". I attached the four legs of the cricket to the upper legs an knees.
The main body is on the groin slot and beside the cricket's torso, I also mimicked the same pants my character is usually wearing. That would need a workaround of course, so that players wouldn't need to stick to a specific style of their characters lower body.
I also had the idea to make it a summon that you can toggle and switch between something like a riding and companion mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UypUCgJQTE

Second one is a Dwemer boat, that currently has a very tedious workaround, since I'm not into scripting. I use the "Animated Levitation" mod and disable the vfx effect. The boat gives me an ability with levitation, water walking (so that I don't accidentally sink into the water while hovering over it) and fortify speed.
The again like with the cricket, I mimicked an immovable lower body and arms to the boat in the style of my characters armor, while leaving out the chest, pauldrons, neck, head and hair slots. This way it still kinda looks immersive when the player is leaning forward, due to the modded animation (would look w´very bad with the vanilla walking animation while in lavitation mode).
Now I saw with your skyship mod you were able to make the player completely immovable while steering the ship, so I guess it would be pretty easy for you to write a scrip for a small boat as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XBVpIYR5ok

[paper temple]

@radiant sail Haha wow those are both amazing! How did you put together the models? I don't have experience with loading custom models, so that's really cool!
Are these assembled in the creation kit?

[dusky sable]

I will say it would be super cool to see similar mechanics applied to normal boats. Stormrider is iconic but steering the ships is kind of a pain and you can’t decorate the ship at all

[radiant sail]

Thanks again!
It's a very fiddly and unclean process to assemble the base models in Nifskope (very old version), since I'm quite new to the programm. After that I load it in the Openmw CS (I'm on a mac and can't use the regular CS) and work out the mod.

Because of the Mac OS or the old Nifskope app, textures are missing by default and I have to manually drag them on the meshes... That's also the reason why I have to make clean versions of the dwemer gilders, so that the textures work for everyone in the end.

[radiant sail]

Also, about the topic of loading custom models into your mod...

I couldn't resist, looked into your code and swapped out the vanilla ship model with my dwemer ship. Seems that it's quite easy to do so as you can see haha

Now I'd need to adjust the position based on the original model, so that the doors, tables and the steering wheel align properly. I wanted to refurbish my ship a bit anyway. When it's finished, I'd gladly share it with you if you want.

[candid solar]

This collab is

[daring gate]

🥲 its beautiful

[shy turret]

It is🥹

[paper temple]

Oh heck yeah that's amazing!!

[dusky sable]

I wonder if there would be a way to tie this into the airship quest somehow. Idek though

[paper temple]

Did you just swap the skyships model path?

Are custom models simply stored in an esp file from the construction set?

[daring gate]

you just need add it as a .nif in a Meshes folder so you can path to it. they can be made in NifScope or Blender if you have the extra plugin

[paper temple]

Gotcha, will openmw detect meshes even if they aren't in the morrowind install directory?
For example, to install mods I just unzip them into my openmw/mods folder, then add them in the launcher by appending the directory to the unzipped mod, will those meshes get seen?
And be accessible via path like "meshes/x/ex_de_ship.nif"

[daring gate]

yep it all gets compiled together

[candid solar]

Just stick them in the appropriate spot in your mod's directory and when you add it with content= it gets merged

[paper temple]

Awesome thats great I didn't realize it was so easy!

[radiant sail]

Yeah, basicly what was said above. That's why it's actually not a lot of work to implement different custom ships for future updates hehe

[paper temple]

If you wanna share the .nif file of your custom airship, I can see about getting it implemented in the mod! but up to you!

[radiant sail]

Yes, definitely, as soon as I rearanged it and fixed some postitions! 🫡
Like the staircase leading to the steering cog wouldn't be accessible currently, since in this model the wheel is in the front of the ship.

[paper temple]

Sure no problem! Take your time! Thanks a bunch! 🙂

[candid solar]

Ok, the local mwscript variable should be "eg_glider_expert = 0" on any NPC that you want to make the glider quest available to

[novel quarry]

this looks incredible. Does it work with openmw?

[radiant sail]

Thanks! And yes, both vehicles just have some mwscripts applied, but just for the enchantments, nothing else.

[radiant sail]

About the vanilla interiors you're using for the ship, mine are actually missing.
I play on a german installation and the cells (you are targeting from your script) are translated into german as well. That's why I spawn in an empty space when using either door.

I know that's completely on me for having it installed this way and still playing english mods haha 🙃
But just wanted to point it out, so that you can keep it in mind when other people might ask about it.

[paper temple]

Oh wow I hadn't considered that ( I probably should have haha )
I definitely want it to work for everybody, I wonder how you can address cells using a more generic id

[candid solar]

Are you using a duplicated cell or an existing cell? Cell id should be static, but cell name could change with localization I believe

[paper temple]

It is an existing cell, its the Arrow ship interior, okay so I could probably use the cell id instead

[candid solar]

Yeah try that. Also consider duplicating the cell so you don't have to re-use it

You can duplicate the cell with tes3cmd i believe

(a duplicate cell wouldn't be localized, so the name would not change)

[radiant sail]

Either what blurpanda said or you would need to put in every language varitation of the cell name in your script 🫠

[paper temple]

Yeah I just took a look and didn't find any id associated with the cell
I'll look into duplicating it!

[radiant sail]

I think dublicating might be cleaner in the end anyway.
Technically still vanilla... but without sudden Nord appearances

[paper temple]

@radiant sail I swapped the cell names out for the cell id's, do you mind checking if this fixed it for you?
I think duplicating will have the best result, I'm going to look into this soon, just curious if this worked.

[radiant sail]

Gonna look into it later 🫡

[paper temple]

Sure no rush, Thanks! 🙂

[dusky sable]

I like my nord pal

[radiant sail]

I like our Nord too!
He spawn for me as well…

[candid solar]

It would be cool to hire a first mate to take care of your ship while you're away

Then you could do stuff like give a little fetch quest to get a filled up soulgem to recharge the main engine because the there was a breach in the float core captain

[radiant sail]

This Airship mod by the original author Qwert (who seem to turned away from Morrowind modding many years ago) made a quest similar like this.
First mate NPC, fetchable resource to regularly repair a fragile engine, ect.

It's the mod I basilcy build my current version of an airship from (scraped most of it, especially the baloon which blocks the view all the time while flying).
The controls are not nearly as good and intuitive as in your mod Ben, but still you might wanna check it out to get some inspiriation for possible updates in the future.
Maybe you guys know about this one alredy, though.

[candid solar]

Ooo the first mate could have the eg_glider_expert variable, too

[radiant sail]

Checked the interiors with your new code and sadly I'm still alone in the dark with my Nord buddy, falling 🙃

Also, I can interact with the door to the captians cabin and hear the activation sound, but won't get spwaned into the interior cell a all.

[paper temple]

Ah dang! Well it was worth a shot! I'll look into duplicating the cell!

[paper temple]

I love the first mate idea as well as having quests attached to the skyship!

[marble perch]

Fighters guild quest: adds cannons to fight off cliffracers
Mages quild quest: adds teleport to a specific location
Thief’s guild quest: cloak drive for a stealthy way to avoid enemies

Turn whatever humanoid companion you have into a shipmate they have to stay on the ship, they need a daily payment but also level up as they stay on the ship through training over time, and the keep the condition of the ship up to par as long as you pay them

[radiant sail]

A "calling" device (or spell) for the ship would be pretty great as well!
Could be an amulet you equip that triggers the spawning of the ship, some units in front and high above the player, dropping the rope afterwards.
Comes in handy when playing the Project Tamriel mods, that are far away from Vvardenfell.

[radiant sail]

Their backstory could be, that they got tired of their guilds and rather go on an adventure with the player, becoming part of the crew.
If implementing those uprades you mentioned is too much of a workload, they could at least provide services (especially the mage could be a guild guide, which gives you a more vanilla teleporting experience).

[paper temple]

Ohhhh I like that! The skyship merchant could tell you he heard about a mysterious amulet that has such powers and you have to go on a quest to find it!
Yeah I don't think this would be too hard to set up!

[paper temple]

I love the idea about having a guild guide on board that could be really handy!

[radiant sail]

Nice!
Either what you said or since he is the builder of the ship that already uses a dwemer cog, he could send you on a fetch quest into a ruin for different materials (scrap metal, gems, ect.), so he could craft the amulet himself for you.

[paper temple]

Ohhhh I like that!
That could result in a multipart quest where you have to go to multiple dungeons/caves/ruins

[radiant sail]

Yes, that teleportation needs to be earned haha
You could choose the locations in a specific order and a bit off from usual traveling services so they become a route to fly along with your new obtained ship. It could be suggested by Julius himself to the player for example.

[candid solar]

Oooo I got one.
Hack into the propylon network

Those dunmer fortresses never get enough use

Attune your ship to each index and you could teleport to and from the attached fortress

[radiant sail]

Good idea! Though I think out of convenience it could be implemented alongside the guild guide NPC and the amulet, not instead. Gives you more freedom when using the ship away from Vvardenfell and less dependent on the network.
But this way you'll get three different quest directions and three styles of teleportation.

[paper temple]

I've duplicated the cabin successfully! Its now called SkyshipInterior, which is great cuz now I can safely make changes to it!

Now we've got a hammock instead of a stinky rolled mat on the floor 😆

[candid solar]

Yay first mate is possible now

Maybe the first mate can be a little scamp

[dusky sable]

Creeper

[paper temple]

@radiant sail Absolutely no pressure at all, but if you get a chance to test this sometime, just lemme know if you can now enter the cabin. Hoping it is fixed since duping the cell! 🤞

I haven't done the interior yet, just the cabin so far

[daring gate]

I was just thinking the same, that would be dope

[radiant sail]

Works like a charm, thank you 🙏

[paper temple]

WOOHOOOO!!!! 🎉

onto the interior!

[paper temple]

Thanks for testing that! 🙂

[marble perch]

How are you praying?

[radiant sail]

It's from "Dynamic Actors" by Max Yari. You can switch between different idle poses through a special free camera mode. A bit awkward to navigate at the moment though.

[marble perch]

Ohh yeaa

[daring gate]

its my favourite feature of that mod and its totally hidden

[mental stag]

Max yari did dynamic actors? 0.o

[daring gate]

taitecnic

[radiant sail]

No sorry, I mixed the mods up with the "Dynamic Camera Effects" and "Dynamic Reticle" ones 😅

[dusky sable]

Wait what

[paper temple]

I got the interiors finished! Everything should be working now localization free 🙂
Also pimped out the interiors a bit and made them unique!

The upper floor now has two bookshelves and 4 chests and some rugs

And the lower floor has been turned into a nice little living space with some plants you can harvest and some storage and dresser

[daring gate]

yeah you got to press the hotkey to enter pose mode (numpad 0 for me) then press spacebar to pick an anim using A/D to scroll and choos with spacebar again, then hit the hotkey to exit pose mode and when you pose again it will be your chosen anim 😅 its not too bad once you get used to it but its pretty convoluted and concealed for such a cool feature

[candid solar]

Ah a cute little herb garden

[dusky sable]

Whaaat

[daring gate]

ikr it could be its own mod

[radiant sail]

In my case it's even more tedious, since I'm having a bug since the recent version, that when I'm in the camera mode and pressing jump, the moment I use the A/D keys, my character moves, exiting the the mode on its own and only sometimes saving to the next animation 😢

[radiant sail]

This will be the vibe, when we made all our wishes for the skyship-glider-collab come true ✨ https://klipy.com/gifs/treasure-planet-treasure

[marble perch]

God one piece that’s what was on my mind what if there’s a quest for some long lost artifact and you find key members to fill your treasure hunting crew, kinda ambitious but:
zoro/three-scars - redguard swordsman/merc
nami/sevyrne of house hlaalu - Dunmer navigator/arcanist
Franky/salt-bone - nord enchanter/engineer
nico robin/tiras dren- Brenton archeologists/mage
chopper/Farys The Gentle - Scamp Healer/multi-forms
Brook/ j’darri Waves-Tail - khajiit illusionist/bard
usopp/Daros velyn - marksman/scout
sanji/Hraldi Sea-Kettle - nord hand to and brawler/cook
As you adventure you meet each member and add them to your crew as luffy would in one piece

[daring gate]

Yes please

[daring gate]

Ludicrous speed?!!

[paper temple]

YESSS! Been waiting for someone to see that 😆 You are the winner!

[eager iron]

Feature idea: adding a kind of magic/levitate vfx around or under the Skyship to resemble it's ability to... fly 😄

[radiant sail]

@paper temple Our powers combined
||Obviously still work in progress||

[paper temple]

Oh wow this looks amazing! 😃

Can't wait to see it in the game! Lemme know if you are able get a .nif I can play around with!

I'll definitely give you all the credit of course for this awesome work! 🙏

[radiant sail]

Thanks! And sure I‘ll gladly send you the file as soon as I worked a bit more on the ship in general. Align it to the original one you currently use so it matches the doors is probably the easiest step. 😅

[candid solar]

Might want to make the sail optional or something so it doesn't block view

[radiant sail]

I‘ll get rid of the original sail, but want to put something similar there like I already have. Might put it more to the side or at least make anything that’s like a sail fabric a bit transparent.
There so many different approaches to skyships to be inspired from anyway 👍

[marble perch]

Any chance for controller support? Everthing else works perfect

[shy turret]

controller support 🙏

[marble perch]

Actually the setting you have half work forward and turning left works?

[hexed bane]

It seems my ship has some debris attached to it

And the debris has started to fly

I'll send screenshots once I get back

[paper temple]

Ah yes I'd love to look at adding controller support!

[paper temple]

Ahh that is interesting! What kind of debris?
When furniture/items gets placed on the deck it adds them to a list so they follow the ship, the debris must have been added to the list

I can probably add more filters to the code so it ignores things that aren't furniture/items

[hexed bane]

It was a few paper lamps
I parked my airship near the top of Tel Aruhn and it snagged a few of them

Still there
I'll show the item ids once I hope on

Can't disable them with console commands

[hexed bane]

Ah I see
Very cool mod
Though NPCs keep disappearing
Tried to put Creeper and Mudcrab down the deck

[candid solar]

If you type "ori" in the console while it is selected, we get more useful info

[candid solar]

ah yeah looks like vanilla stuff got dragged along

[hexed bane]

Yeah looks like furniture scripts infected the lamps

[radiant sail]

Infected by the ship’s gravitational magic field

[paper temple]

I should be able to fix it fairly easily, there is only a script on the ship, I just need to add some filters to make sure only the correct items follow the ship

[paper temple]

You put the merchants inside the ship and they are disappearing? Hmm, the inside of the ship is a custom cell, I wonder if that would create a problem

[hexed bane]

I put some mannequins from another mod and they worked fine

It might be because I set their AI to wander in the console commands

[hexed bane]

(The mannequins are basically npcs that wear what you give them)

[hexed bane]

Could become a feature
Ship incorporates parts like Davy Jones Ship

[paper temple]

Gotcha! yeah it could be that they are set to wander, I believe npcs in indoor cells don't usually get set to wander

@hexed bane Also quick question where did you pick up those lamps exactly?

[hexed bane]

Tel Aruhn I think

I parked it at the top

Then teleported out to finish the quest without taking the airship back for some time

So the ship kinda settled there for some time

Definitely saved a few times in between

[paper temple]

Gotcha! Thanks that is very useful!

[hexed bane]

Huh
Wait no
I've set some other npcs to wander to make my bases more lively
I have the Shock Centurion Guard from Baladas set to wander in Tel Urivith

Maybe because of the radius
Or because Creeper or Mudcrab Merchant are generally stationary on their own

[paper temple]

Ahhh gotcha, I do remember reading that they are not npcs, they are creatures, which is why spells like command humanoid dont work on them
As a creature rather than a humanoid NPC, Creeper is one of the few merchants who will purchase skooma from the wiki

maybe that is causing a problem

[candid solar]

There are plenty of wander NPCs and creatures in interior cells

[paper temple]

Ah okay gotcha, I thought I'd read that somewhere!

[hexed bane]

I brought them in using command creature then mark and recall

So no clue

[dusky sable]

Okay wait how do you do the prayer pose

[marble perch]

Dynamic animations

It’s in the anim selector but you have to prepress the button you have for dynamic animations again