Skyshards
Knowledge Through Absorption
Skyshards v1.6.0

Description
===========

Greetings, Adventurer, and thank you for stopping by! Curious as to what Skyshards is all about? Well then, let's begin shall we?

This mod was born out of the desire to bring about the Skyshard hunting experience that The Elder Scrolls Online brought us.

Never played ESO before? No problem! This mod adds (as of current) 21 (out of 108 planned) Skyshards, which are objects containing a magical essence that can be absorbed, throughout the 9 holds. After 3 (configurable soon) Skyshards absorbed, you will gain a perk point that you can invest as you please.

In ESO the Skyshards would emit a beacon of light as well as emit a specific sound, making finding them somewhat trivial if you had a keen eye/sense of hearing. So with the help from developer videos as a reference, I had new sounds created, along with adding Skyshard beacons based off of in-game assets.

Skyshards now emit an ambience sound when you are near them which increases in volume as you get closer, allowing you to pinpoint them accurately with sound alone. Custom Sound Output Models allow for fine-tuning of the audio to ensure a perfect experience for headphones and standard speakers.

Furthermore, thanks to pointers from DSAMG - Dragon Soul Absorb More Glorious, I have implemented an animation sequence that plays when you absorb a Skyshard, much like the original from ESO.

The result? Hopefully a rather epic Skyshard experience, similar to the original from ESO!

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Requirements
============

None for now, except the base game; Skyrim, of course.

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Installation
============

I thoroughly recommend using Mod Organizer to help installing mods and managing your load order.

For NMM users, simply hit the "Download With Manager" button and enable the mod once the download completes.

For those of you who still prefer a manual approach the instructions are as follows:

Step 1) Download the latest version of Skyshards and extract the archive contents somewhere. Copy the contents of the Data folder into the Data folder in your root directory of Skyrim, overwriting any files if asked. Ensure you don't place the Data folder inside the Data folder of your Skyrim directory.

Step 2) Ensure my plugin is loaded in your mod manager of choice for my changes to take affect. If changes are still not taking affect, either the mod was installed incorrectly, or there is another mod that is overwriting the changes. Please let me know either way and I will do my best to try and help you out.

MO users simply install the archive as a new mod as per normal and enable the mod, ensuring no other mods are overwriting any of my files.

Please do not extract the contents of the BSA file.

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Uninstallation
==============

To uninstall this mod, browse to your Data folder in your Skyrim root directory and remove Skyshards.bsa, Skyshards.esp as well as Skyshards.bsl if you copied that across for some reason.

MO/NMM users simply disable and/or remove the mod as per normal.

If you extracted the BSA file, as asked not to, best of luck in cleaning up your Skyrim install and not breaking any other mods in the process.

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Incompatibility
===============

This mod only adds Activators to the world of Skyrim, so the only possible conflict I could foresee is if another mod changes the landscape around my Skyshards, or places object on top of them.

If you find a mod that somehow clashes with my mod and is overriding changes; please let me know and I can make a patch as necessary.

FAQ
===

Q: Will this be made available for Skyrim Special Edition?
A: Absolutely! I will endeavour to keep the SSE version updated, despite developing for Oldrim.

Q: I don't want Skyshard beacons visible, can I turn them off?
A: Of course! Simply open up the Skyshards Configurator from the "Books" section of your inventory, close it, exit your inventory and follow the menu prompts accordingly to disable Skyshard beacons.

Q: I don't want each Skyshard tracked individually, or want a simple quest system, help?
A: I've got you covered. Simply open up your Skyshards Configurator from the "Books" section of your inventory, close it, exit your inventory and follow the menu prompts accordingly to change the quest system from Full to Lite.

Q: I see this mod uses scripts; what is the performance impact?
A: So first off, we have a config script that runs once on game load, and that handles version checking to see if we need to apply any updates, depending on your existing script versions. The impact of this is minimal. Then we have an absorption script that is only ever fired when you activate a Skyshard. What it does is process the Skyshard counts, update variables, handle the animation sequence, update the quest system, handle the clean-up of absorbed Skyshards, etc. Lastly, we have two quest scripts that handle the tracking of individual Skyshards (if using the full quest system) as well as updating quest progress, and both of these only run when absorbing a Skyshard. The rest of the scripts are helper scripts for these three main scripts I have mentioned. There are zero constantly running/polling scripts, so you will experience next to no performance impact.

Q: Do you have the source files of your scripts? I would like to learn/enhance/scrutinise/mock your code!
A: Of course! My entire project is available here, on Github. Feel free to help yourself, learn from the countless hours I have struggled with Papyrus, and please feel free to share your knowledge/advice with me if you think I can achieve the same results in a neater/faster way. I am all about learning new things; knowledge is power!

Q: The sound is too soft for the Skyshard ambience, it makes finding Skyshards harder!
A: The mod was developed under vanilla Skyrim conditions, as such, first check to see if you haven't changed the Effects slider (found under Settings->Audio) as that affects the Skyshard ambience intensity. Having your Music volume slider too high may also be drowning out other sounds, such as the Skyshard ambience. Lastly, ensure the Master volume slider is at the max and that your headphone/speaker volume is sufficiently turned up.

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Skyshards Supporters
====================

I would like to thank the following users who found my mod useful and decided to donate their hard-earned Gold as a token of their appreciation:

*toxedo7

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Credits & Acknowledgement
=========================

*Mlo - your love, care, and support is what helped begin this wonderful adventure.
*renthal311 - for spending an insane amount of time and effort into creating the Skyshard mesh and original Skyshard textures.
*TerrorFox1234 - for creating the exceptional and immersive Skyshard's ambience and absorb sounds, from scratch!
*Pfuscher - for their assistance in adding parallax and additional effects support to the Skyshard mesh as well as answering tons of question!
*Kajuan - for their assistance in cleaning up the Skyshard textures and offering advice and answering tons of questions.
*johnskyrim - for allowing me the use of their wonderful Santa Hat that my Christmas Addon uses.
*matortheeternal - for MONTHS of Papyrus support; butting heads with my stubbornness. This person is the reason I have an understanding of Papyrus.
*InsaneMatt - for putting up with (no doubt) infuriating questions on a programming language they despise; yet being super helpful and offering solutions.
*hishutup - for their invaluable assistance in Creation Kit troubleshooting, general Papyrus troubleshooting as well as numerous suggestions/advice.
*ZeniMax Online Studios - the developers of Elder Scrolls Online, whose wonderful Skyshards this mod is based off of.
*JonoPhoenix - the creator of the DSAMG - Dragon Soul Absorb More Glorious mod which inspired the animations of this mod.
*Bethesda Softworks - for making several engaging and captivating RPG's to date and bringing players closer as a community through modding!
*Mottis86 - for allowing me the use their wonderful Skyrim map.
*Nexus Mods - of which this community wouldn't exist so well organized and staffed not to mention the plethora of mods hosted!
*You - for taking the time to read through this and/or trying out my mod and that of others thus ensuring the community lives on!

Additional credit and acknowledgement goes out to any and all persons who made the above possible, who without, this mod would not be possible. I am relying on those I have credited to have done the same (on their own respective mod pages or elsewhere) but mistakes and oversights do, unfortunately, happen. So to all you lovely people above, and to anyone I may have missed and not mentioned, THANK YOU! Your work is deeply appreciated and I hope that in releasing this mod, to work alongside other great mods, I am doing you proud and allowing your work to live on and to withstand the test of time that is this modding community! It has been an absolute pleasure being a part of such a wonderful community!