'''Honed Metal -NPC Crafting and Enchanting Services- '''


'''V1.07'''

This file emerged out of the constant flow of questions I received either through commentaries or PMs about basic mod functions I considered self-explanatory when I created the mod, but in retrospect, were not so. I have written down the basics, from memory, so forgive me if I'm leaving something out. The file will be updated periodically as new versions get released and the information within changes. This file is not a substitute for the description in the mod's main page. Read both.






'''''Dialogue: '''''

Blacksmiths and enchanters will interact with you through dialog. They will have various responses that will provide meaning to your interactions. Voice lines for the voice types of all the vanilla blacksmiths are included; for both smithing and enchanting dialogue options. However, because the mod gives you the option to make any NPC a blacksmith or enchanter, you may find that an added NPC lacks voice lines. In these cases, it is recommended to turn the “dialog subtitles” option on, in your Skyrim options menu.




'''''Crafting & Tempering:'''''


Requesting crafting services is as simple as walking to a blacksmith and selecting the option “I am in need of your crafting expertise”. The crafting menu will pop up. From here you can select the equipment you want crafted, like you would if you were crafting it yourself. Once you exit the menu you can talk to the blacksmith again to get your items by selecting the option “I'd like to pick up my items”


After you successfully place an order, all other crafting options will disappear and you will be unable to commission more orders from this blacksmith until you pay for the current one. You can obtain crafting services from other blacksmiths though. You can have a maximum of 10 concurrent orders.


Depending on your MCM settings, crafting will take some time. If you ask your smith for your items before your order is finished, they should inform you so. When your order is ready, the blacksmith should send a courier to notify you.


'''''Materials'''''

Blacksmiths will use the materials they have in inventory to fulfill your order, or acquire them through other means; as business men, it is presupposed they have materials providers. However, I have limited the variety of materials they are able to “acquire”.


By default, they can acquire a wide assortment of common materials, including basic metals, fabrics, firewood, charcoal, paper, etc. Things that are easily accessible. This is controlled by the MCM setting: “NPCs have materials” and is enabled when the mod starts. If you disable this option you will have to provide the materials yourself. To avoid making the process gruesome, you don't have to actually give them the materials. Just keep them in your inventory and they will show up when the crafting menu appears.


If you want blacksmiths to be able to obtain rarer materials like ebony and malachite ores, you can activate the option “NPCs Have Rare Materials”. This option is disabled by default.

Materials like dragon bones are unobtainable through proper channels. They are neither scavanged nor commercialized. Because of this, blacksmiths will not be able to acquire them, you will have to provide these yourself. Also, custom armor/weapon mods may require other unconventional materials that the smiths may lack.


'''''Skill'''''

Blacksmiths will only be able to work with equipment if they are skilled enough. Their skill will show up on the lower right corner of the screen, within the respective crafting or tempering menu. If a blacksmith can't work a certain metal, you will need to find a better skilled blacksmith or increase their skill through the MCM menu.


The blacksmith's skill level will not only determine what sort of perks they have and what equipment they can work with, it will directly influence the quality of their work. When a blacksmith crafts an item, their skill level will determine how good the resulting item will be, i.e the item itself will come out slightly tempered. This doesn't mean the blacksmith can't further temper the item, it is just a consequence of their skill. After all, is only natural that a leather armor crafted by a master smith is going to be better than a leather armor crafted by an apprentice.


If you don't like this feature you can deactivate it in the MCM menu by toggling the “Skill Based Smithing” option. You may also want to turn this feature off if you use the mod Loot and Degradation because it causes the health percentage stats to be incorrectly reported by the mod after equipping an NPC-crafted item. Though the stats will correct themselves after you swing your weapon or get hit at least once in case of armor, some folks may prefer to avoid this in the first place.


'''''Enchanting:'''''


Enchanting works similarly to crafting. You request enchanting services by selecting the dialogue option “Can you enchant something for me?” a container window will open where you can deposit all the items you want enchanted. After you close the window the enchanting menu will pop up. From here you select what enchantment to put on what item and which soulgem to use, just as if you were enchanting the item yourself.


By default enchanters will know a basic assortment of enchantments and will have a good supply of soulgems. If you would rather provide them with soulgems yourself, you can deactivate the option “NPCs Have Materials” in the MCM menu.


When “NPCs Have Materials” is active, enchanters will have plenty of soulgems but only lesser, common and greater. If you want them to have grand soulgems as well you can activate the option “NPCs Have Rare Materials”. This option is disabled by default.


If an enchanter doesn't have the enchantment you want, you can always bring a similar item for the NPC to disenchant and learn the enchantment from.


Any NPC belonging to the vanilla Enchanting Training and Job Court Wizard factions will offer enchanting services. That is limited to Hamal in the Temple of Dibela in Markarth and Sergius Terranus in the College of Winterhold for the Enchanting Training faction. As for the Job Court Wizard faction, that includes pretty much all the court wizards in the major holds.




'''''Make an NPC a blacksmith or enchanter:'''''


The mod offers the possibility to turn any NPC into a blacksmith or enchanter. With one caveat for blacksmiths: the NPC must offer services. Selling merchandise of any kind, trading, or even singing in case of bards is considered as offering services. If your companions are following you they might be considered to be offering services.


To make an NPC a blacksmith or enchanter simply go to the MCM menu and select either “Add NPC to Smithing Faction” or “Add NPC to Enchanting Faction” depending on whether you want to make them blacksmiths or enchanters, or both...






'''''Prices: '''''


Prices will depend on several factors, the most important being: the skill level of the NPC, the base cost of the item, your speech/barter capabilities and whether or not the NPC provided the materials.


The exact way the price is determined varies for each discipline. For crafting, it involves the crafting multiplier, which can be configured in the MCM, multiplied by the base10 logarithm of the NPC's skill level and the base cost of the item.


For example, lets say you have a crafting multiplier of 0.75 set in the MCM and you are crafting an orcish armor with a base cost of 1000 gold, and the blacksmith has a smithing skill level of 100.


0.75 * log10(100) * 1000 = 1500


Now, say you were a new character with no perks in spechcraft. And you were playing with the default vanilla bartering settings. That price would be multiplied by fBarteringMax which is 3.3 in vanilla, that would make the final cost:


1500 * 3.3 = 4950 gold. Vs 3300 gold for a regular store purchased orcish armor.


The cost would end up being 0.5 times higher than a regular orcish armor. That is without counting the cost of the materials, which would be added on top of that price. However, the NPC crafted armor will have significantly better stats because of the high skill level of the blacksmith.


In contrast, an NPC with a skill level of 35 will craft a much more cheap alternative but it will not have as high a protection rating.


0.75 * log10(35) * 1000 = ~1160 * 3.3 = 3828


The price of enchanted items is calculated a bit different. It still involves the log10 of the NPC's skill level times the multiplier set in the MCM, but this time we multiply this by the square root of twice the base cost of the item. Also there is a hardcoded minimal base cost, below which the mod re-assigns a new base cost to the item. This is to avoid having extremely cheap jewelry items carry powerful enchantments and costing next to nothing.


The cost of Recharging items will depend on the current charge of the item in comparison to its max charge plus the cost of however many common soul gems are needed, which is what is used as a base for recharge. This then is modified directly by the respective MCM multiplier. The skill of the NPC does not play a role in this case.






'''''Please bear in mind that:'''''

* When you get your items from a blacksmith or enchanter, you are actually '''buying '''them back. All the gold will go straight to the NPCs inventory.


* The price will be governed by the game economic settings. Improving your barter skill, drinking a potion, getting speechcraft perks, etc, will all affect the price.


* Some popular mods increase the buying prices when you talk to a vendor while being naked. If you give your chest armor for tempering or enchanting, you will be naked. Remember to equip something else when buying it back.




'''''NPCs and materials.'''''


When the “NPCs have common/rare materials” options are active in the MCM, the materials in the NPCs inventory will be used to fulfill your order. And, they will acquire any materials that are not in their possession. How much time this process takes, if any, can be configured on the MCM menu.


Regardless of whether or not the NPCs had to acquire the materials, their cost will be added to the final price of your order. Materials already in their possession will not incur a time delay. If you provide the materials yourself you will not be charged for their cost and there will be no extra delay in the order.


To provide the materials yourself, simply keep them in your inventory when you request crafting or enchanting services. Any materials in your inventory will be used. If you didn't have enough or had an insufficient amount, the NPC will provide the rest, either by using their personal supply or acquiring them. Either way you will only be charged for the materials they provided.


If you don't want the materials in your inventory to be used, you must put them somewhere else before requesting services. At the moment there is no MCM option to avoid this.


If you don't want NPCs to provide any materials, regardless if they have it in their inventories. Or materials' cost to be added to the final cost of your order, simply disable both “NPCs have common/rare materials” options in the MCM menu.


'''''Courier Notifications.'''''


Since version 1.05 NPCs will send a courier to notify you when your order is completed. When implementing this feature I was faced with a few technical roadblocks due to the fact that you can have multiple orders open with multiple NPCs at the same time and they might all need to send notifications at any point.


I wanted to avoid creating multiple timers and constantly polling which would not be optimal performance wise. Or have to create an undetermined number of quests to track each open order. So I chose to make a single courier quest with multiple queue lines.


Every time you place and order with an NPC, the quest is notified and the order completion time is put on the queue. The time the request was placed on the queue is recorded and if there are no other elements on the queue the quest is registered for single update for the time specified in the mail request. When the quest is updated, a courier is sent.


If you place another order before the queue is flushed, the incoming order completion time is compared to the one being processed. If it is less than the current order, then it takes precedence and the quest is registered for update for this order's time. Once the quest is updated a courier is sent, the previous order in queue resumes and the time elapsed is deducted.


The system works great. It isn't perfect however. There will be inaccuracies. If you wait, sleep or fast travel just before the quest is supposed to be updated, the quest will not be updated until after. So say the quest is due for update in one game hour, but you go to sleep for eight. The courier will not be sent until after you wake up, which is seven hours late.