Skyrim

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Created by

Verteiron

Uploaded by

verteiron

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About this mod

Trap your enemies in stone, holding them in place until you can deal with them. Be careful, though... ranged opponents can still attack you!

Permissions and credits
Changelogs
This spell is being used (with my blessing!) in tonycubed2's excellent Sands of Time mod!


Description
===========
Trap your enemies in stone, holding them in place until you can deal with them. Be careful, though... ranged opponents can still attack you!

Earth Prison has been featured in Saiodin's Skyrim Mods Series!

Thanks Saiodin!

Location
========
If you're familiar with my other spells, you'll know where to look for it... Yeap, it's on Farengar's desk again in Dragonreach.

Tips
=====
This is an actor-targeted spell. Casting it at the ground or inanimate objects will just waste your Magicka. It has a decent range, but you must aim well!

Details
=======
This is a straightforward Alteration spell. When cast on an appropriate target (pretty much anything that isn't a Dragon) it will cause pillars of earth to rise from the ground, trapping the enemy in the middle of them. If they have a ranged attack (bows, magic, etc) they CAN target you and shoot between the bars of their prison. It will last 30 seconds, and duration should go up as you increase your Alteration skills.

Enemies immune to Paralysis are NOT immune to this spell.

Incompatibility
===============
None, as far as I know.

Known Issues or Bugs
====================
THIS SPELL IS VERY SCRIPT-INTENSIVE. That means you need a fast CPU (NOT graphics card!) for it to work right. Slow CPUs will result in casting glitches, particularly if you cast it repeatedly.

Some enemies with large hitboxes (notably wolves, but there are others) will get a much larger wall than needed, with huge gaps between the columns. The spell will still hold them in place, but it looks really stupid. As a counter to this, some enemies get too SMALL a prison, so they are trapped and fly around randomly.

If you cast the spell repeatedly on a single target, it is possible that they will get permanantly stuck in place, even after spell wears off.

It is possible on certain indoor maps that the pillars will not rise, but instead simply teleport into place. This is a purely cosmetic bug and I've only found one place where this happens.

Todo
====
Add a crumbling effect to the spell's breakdown animation. This is actually in place, but for some reason spawning a lot of rock hazards sometimes causes a CTD, so it's turned off. Will implement this when I can figure out a workaround. -- ON INDEFINITE HOLD DUE TO A BETHESDA BUG :(

Fix prison area calculation for enemies with large hitboxes and small models (like wolves).

Technical
=========
This spell uses activators to place and move the pillars about. Since Skyrim has code to keep NPCs from getting stuck (it will eventually teleport pathed NPCs past the barrier) the spell also sets the target's SpeedMult to 0.01 for the duration.

This is less elaborate than some of my other spells (in some ways) but it was a good learning exercise for me. This is the first mod in which I have swapped NIFs around, in this case creating some new activators using MineCPillar NIFs so they can be translated.

Installation
=======

1. Extract this archive to any folder and then copy the contents to Skyrim's Data folder.
2. Start Skyrim, click Data Files, and enable the ElemEarthPrison.esp file.

Or simply use Nexus Mod Manager. ;)

Uninstall
=========


1. Start Skyrim Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck the ElemEarthPrison.esp file(s).
2. Delete the files/folders associated with the mod.

Skyrim\Data\ElemEarthPrison.esp
Skyrim\Data\Scripts\ELEMEarthPrisonScript.pex
Skyrim\Data\Scripts\ELEMEarthPillarActivatorScript.pex

Or just use Nexus Mod Manager.

Upgrade
=======
Just overwrite everything, no problem.

History
=======
0.8b, 2012/04/07 – Initial release to Nexus and Steam.

Contact
=======
[email protected]

Credits
=======
Thanks to Bethesda for creating Skyrim and the Creation Kit.
Thanks to Valve for providing an easy way to take my first baby steps in mod publishing.
Thanks to NexusMods for showing me the RIGHT way to publish mods.

Tools Used
==========
7-Zip
Readme Generator - http://HammondsLegacy.com/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp
Creation Kit

Licensing/Legal
===============

You must contact me and obtain my permission before re-packaging any part of
this mod. If I do not respond within 2 weeks, feel free to do whatever you
like with this mod.