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About this mod
On-the-go alchemy with equipment of various qualities, like in Morrowind and Oblivion.
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
This mod adds four types of alchemy apparatus (mortar and pestle, alembic, calcinator, and retort) in five qualities (novice to master). Alchemy equipment can be activated from your inventory to make potions. Only a mortar and pestle is strictly required to do this, but having other equipment, and equipment of higher qualities, improves the potency of created potions. With master-level equipment of all four types, created potions and poisons are as effective as they would be if created at a standard alchemy table.
Portable Alchemy was the inspiration for this mod; check it out as well!
Getting the equipment
Equipment can be bought from apothecaries, acquired as random loot, or in a few specific places in the world. Higher-level equipment is available as you level up (capping out at level 20-30ish, depending on the source). At a given point, you can generally find higher-level equipment from loot than apothecaries; additionally, expert equipment is the highest level sold. Master-level equipment is intended to be rare and difficult to find.
Most spawns are random, but there are a small number of locations with equipment placed in the world from the start of the game, including several mid to high level sets of equipment and a single guaranteed master-level apparatus of each type. If you'd prefer to be surprised, don't expand this spoiler:
It's possible there could be some clipping/havok items getting knocked around if you have another mod that changes or adds to the same places, but there shouldn't be issues beyond that. If there's a place where this is very annoying together with another mod, let me know and I can look at moving the equipment. Alternatively you can safely get rid of equipment in a location by deleting the edits made to that cell in xEdit.
Equipment quality
Equipment types have different effects on potion quality:
Optional additional quality effects
I've created an optional setting to bring the apparatus effects closer to the style of earlier games; these are not the default because they decrease the strength of side effects (positive effects of poisons and negative effects of potions) compared to vanilla, even when using a regular alchemy table. However this change is applied as a perk effect, so it should work together correctly with alchemy mods. With this add-on, in addition to the effects above:
As with the vanilla perk Purity, higher-quality alembics and retorts may actually reduce the value of potions and poisons with side-effects (if the combined effect magnitudes are less). If you want potion value to be higher with weaker side-effects, Better Crafted Potions is one option.
Installation
Add this file via mod manager or directly, however you normally would. The plugin is ESPFE, so it should not take up a plugin slot. Please load it before any plugins you have that edit CELL records (such as lighting overhauls) so that you'll get both the other mod's changes and this mod's items. Additionally, this mod adds equipment to containers and leveled lists; please make sure to generate a bashed patch or merge these changes another way, or it will conflict with other mods that affect those records.
Compatibility
Configuration
Resources
Alchemy equipment uses a combination of repurposed vanilla assets and Oaristys' Modder's Resource Pack; thanks! Vanilla texture paths are used in many places, so this equipment should benefit from other retextures you have.
Portable Alchemy was the inspiration for this mod; check it out as well!
Getting the equipment
Equipment can be bought from apothecaries, acquired as random loot, or in a few specific places in the world. Higher-level equipment is available as you level up (capping out at level 20-30ish, depending on the source). At a given point, you can generally find higher-level equipment from loot than apothecaries; additionally, expert equipment is the highest level sold. Master-level equipment is intended to be rare and difficult to find.
Most spawns are random, but there are a small number of locations with equipment placed in the world from the start of the game, including several mid to high level sets of equipment and a single guaranteed master-level apparatus of each type. If you'd prefer to be surprised, don't expand this spoiler:
Spoiler:
Show
- Alftand ruins (Alftand02), near Valie's body; guaranteed master retort
- Forsaken Cave (ForsakenCave02), in the room with the White Phial; guaranteed master alembic
- Potema's Sanctum (PotemasCatacombs03), directly to the right of the throne with Potema's remains; guaranteed master calcinator
- Darklight Tower (DarklightTowerExterior02), on the table with the beheaded skeever and a copy of Horror of Castle Xyr; guaranteed master mortar
- Frostflow Lighthouse (FrostflowAbyss), near the overlook with several Falmer tents above the area with Sudi's body
- Sinderion's lab in Blackreach (BlackreachSinderionsShack), near the bed to the left
- The room you're assigned at the College of Winterhold (WinterholdCollegeHallofAttainment); full set of lower-level equipment
It's possible there could be some clipping/havok items getting knocked around if you have another mod that changes or adds to the same places, but there shouldn't be issues beyond that. If there's a place where this is very annoying together with another mod, let me know and I can look at moving the equipment. Alternatively you can safely get rid of equipment in a location by deleting the edits made to that cell in xEdit.
Equipment quality
Equipment types have different effects on potion quality:
- Mortar & pestle quality strengthens all effects (0.6 to 1x)
- Calcinator quality strengthens all effects (0.5 to 1x)
- Alembic quality strengthens potions (0.5 to 1x)
- Retort quality strengthens poisons (0.5 to 1x)
Optional additional quality effects
I've created an optional setting to bring the apparatus effects closer to the style of earlier games; these are not the default because they decrease the strength of side effects (positive effects of poisons and negative effects of potions) compared to vanilla, even when using a regular alchemy table. However this change is applied as a perk effect, so it should work together correctly with alchemy mods. With this add-on, in addition to the effects above:
- Alembic quality reduces potion side-effects (1 to 0.25x)
- Retort quality reduces poison side-effects (1 to 0.25x)
- At a vanilla alchemy table, side-effects of both potions and poisons will be 0.25x strength, the same as with master equipment
As with the vanilla perk Purity, higher-quality alembics and retorts may actually reduce the value of potions and poisons with side-effects (if the combined effect magnitudes are less). If you want potion value to be higher with weaker side-effects, Better Crafted Potions is one option.
Installation
Add this file via mod manager or directly, however you normally would. The plugin is ESPFE, so it should not take up a plugin slot. Please load it before any plugins you have that edit CELL records (such as lighting overhauls) so that you'll get both the other mod's changes and this mod's items. Additionally, this mod adds equipment to containers and leveled lists; please make sure to generate a bashed patch or merge these changes another way, or it will conflict with other mods that affect those records.
Compatibility
Spoiler:
Show
This mod should be compatible with mods that alter alchemy ingredients or perks. If another mod changes alchemy by modifying the vanilla alchemy table itself, a patch may be required to get that mod's features when using this mod's alchemy equipment.
Alchemy Requires Bottles Redux should work without a patch from a look at the scripts. This does appear to function correctly from a quick test I did, but please let me know if you see any issues.
Other mods that add portable alchemy in some form can be used together safely without a patch. For mods that simply open a vanilla-strength alchemy table, I can make a patch to bring alchemy strengths into line with this mod's progression. Consistency patches are available for:
Some mods that add alchemy equipment have their own setup for equipment quality or do something entirely different with the items; I've elected not to make a patch for these mods because I think it would require overwriting some content or mess up progression. They can be used safely together with this mod, but the two alchemy systems will be entirely separate. These mods include:
Alchemy Requires Bottles Redux should work without a patch from a look at the scripts. This does appear to function correctly from a quick test I did, but please let me know if you see any issues.
Other mods that add portable alchemy in some form can be used together safely without a patch. For mods that simply open a vanilla-strength alchemy table, I can make a patch to bring alchemy strengths into line with this mod's progression. Consistency patches are available for:
- Campfire - the mortar now uses this mod's system and works as a novice mortar and pestle
- Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul - two patches are available. The mortars patch converts CACO mortars to use this mod's scaling and adds an additional multiplier of 2/3 effectiveness without the Field Alchemy Perk. The retorts patch lets this mod's retorts work as CACO retorts, and lets the default CACO retort work as a novice retort from this mod if you don't have a higher-quality one in your inventory. You can use both, either, or neither; if you don't use one of these patches, there'll be inconsistencies between this mod and CACO's alchemy equipment, but no functional issues.
- Crafting Requires Tools Redone - the mortar and pestle item will work as a novice mortar and pestle for this mod's portable alchemy, and this mod's mortars will let you use a regular alchemy table.
- Spell Research - this mod's alembics can be activated from the inventory to dissolve and analyze Spell Research materials and Spell Research's alembic will be counted as a novice alembic for portable alchemy. This mod's alembics won't work with the Spell Research hotkey, unfortunately; I couldn't find a good way to do so without creating compatibility issues with any future updates.
- Let me know if you'd like a patch for another mod!
Some mods that add alchemy equipment have their own setup for equipment quality or do something entirely different with the items; I've elected not to make a patch for these mods because I think it would require overwriting some content or mess up progression. They can be used safely together with this mod, but the two alchemy systems will be entirely separate. These mods include:
- Hunting in Skyrim - mortar and pestle items have limited uses and field alchemy potions have their own strength progression
- Alchemy Redone - alembic, retort, mortar, and calcinator have entirely separate functions
Configuration
Spoiler:
Show
To turn on the optional extra alembic & retort effects, you can use the optional file or run:
set __AlchVarUseComplexCalc to 1
You can also modify spawn chances from loot and vendors with __AlchVarLItemChanceNone (default 0, applies to loot) and __AlchVarLItemChanceNoneVendor (default 40, applies to vendors). These are the percent chance of an item not spawning where it's possible. For example, if you want to never see alchemy equipment at vendors, run:
set __AlchVarLItemChanceNoneVendor to 100
All of the multipliers to alchemy quality are applied in the perks added by this mod, using the entry point Modify Alchemy Effectiveness. Changing the default strength multipliers requires a patch plugin. There's an example in the optional files; please open this with xEdit, doing so in the CK will break the link to the main file. This file edits the strength multipliers for master-quality equipment (e.g. __AlchLevelMortar == 4); if you'd like to edit the others, the conditions for the alembic quality, for example, are:
set __AlchVarUseComplexCalc to 1
You can also modify spawn chances from loot and vendors with __AlchVarLItemChanceNone (default 0, applies to loot) and __AlchVarLItemChanceNoneVendor (default 40, applies to vendors). These are the percent chance of an item not spawning where it's possible. For example, if you want to never see alchemy equipment at vendors, run:
set __AlchVarLItemChanceNoneVendor to 100
All of the multipliers to alchemy quality are applied in the perks added by this mod, using the entry point Modify Alchemy Effectiveness. Changing the default strength multipliers requires a patch plugin. There's an example in the optional files; please open this with xEdit, doing so in the CK will break the link to the main file. This file edits the strength multipliers for master-quality equipment (e.g. __AlchLevelMortar == 4); if you'd like to edit the others, the conditions for the alembic quality, for example, are:
- __AlchLevelAlembic == -1 : no equipment (this one is not possible for the mortar and pestle, as it is always required)
- __AlchLevelAlembic == 0 : novice
- __AlchLevelAlembic == 1 : apprentice
- __AlchLevelAlembic == 2 : adept
- __AlchLevelAlembic == 3 : expert
- __AlchLevelAlembic == 4 : master
Resources
Alchemy equipment uses a combination of repurposed vanilla assets and Oaristys' Modder's Resource Pack; thanks! Vanilla texture paths are used in many places, so this equipment should benefit from other retextures you have.