Skyrim Special Edition

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KuzakuSara

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KuzakuSara

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About this mod

Dragon combat and difficulty mod that overhaul your vanilla dragon combat experience with new one that makes dragon combat more interesting, intense, challenging and fun.

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  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Mandarin
Changelogs






  • First, please note that this is a scripted mod. If you don’t like those kinds of mods, or you have many other scripted mods already, I recommend that you either don’t use this one, or uninstall some of the other mods first. This is to prevent script lagging.
  • KSDO2 is a dragon combat and difficulty mod that overhauls your vanilla dragon combat experience by adding several new changes that make dragon combat more interesting, intense, challenging, and fun. If you are new to this mod, please read the contents below for an in-depth understanding of what this mod does.
  • Sorry guys, English I, not my native language so if any user kind does not understand about description of this mod, I'm sorry for that, or maybe anyone is welcome to help me with the description correction.


  • Improved AI and Gameplay
  • New Death
  • Timed stagger
  • Type Of Dragon and Shout
  • Difficulty Customization
  • New Dragon Random Encounter
  • Soul Absorb
  • Other
  • Fix and Changes
  • Bugs
  • Compatibility


Injuries Changed (Injured Break):
  • Dragon no longer gets injured at 35% health or below instead now dragon can get injured "Break" when their stamina or magicka reach 0% (Physical break and Magical break) and each break has a different adverse effect on the dragon.

Physical break
  • Attacking with a weapon (except unarmed) will cause stamina damage to the dragon. When they reach 0 stamina, while flying will cause a "Physical break" status effect when they release a shout attack or begin flap thrust/while on the ground will cause a Physical break when they start attacking. 
  • When breaks, the dragon is not allowed to fly. On the ground will make dragon knockdown for 10-15 seconds and while knockdown will receive 100% more damage, reduce animation speed to 0.95 and attack behavior is normalize (Vanilla attack) until stamina is restored.

Magicka break
  • Attacking with a spell (except Concentration type spell) will cause magicka damage to the dragon. When they reach 0 Magicka and start an attack (Shout attack), will trigger the "Magicka break" effect.
  • During the "Magicka break" state, the dragon is not allowed to fly. Additionally, on the ground will reduce stagger resistance by 100%, reduce animation speed to 0.95, and be unable to do a shout attack until magicka is restored.

Combat Changed (AI):
  • Each dragon has its preferred combat style. Sometimes, you will encounter a dragon that prefers to fight more in the air, while other times, you will encounter a dragon that prefers to fight more on the ground (this can be controlled in the MCM).
  • Dragon attack patterns are improved for both flying and ground combat. Dragons will do more tail attacks with a higher priority against NPCs and a lower priority against the Player. This is regardless of the position of targets within the melee range (this can be controlled in the MCM).
  • Dragon ground attacks are now divided into two different types of attacks. First, there is a "Normal Attack”, in which the dragon will land near a target and start attacking. The second is a "Talon Attack", in which the dragon will fly at its enemy, hitting them with its talons (this can be controlled in the MCM).
  • During flight, either when passing by or taking off, the dragon will sometimes suddenly (and somewhat unrealistically) stop and enter its hover state to attack nearby targets (this can be controlled in the MCM).
  • While on the ground, the dragon will check the distance of its enemies. If the enemy is pulling back or retreating, the dragon will start flying again. If the enemy is advancing too close, the dragon will start flying again (this is essential behavior for this mod and cannot be changed in the MCM).
  • The dragon’s head-turning speed is reduced after releasing a shout, whether it’s on the ground or hovering except for a dragon that uses a beam-type breath shout (this can be controlled in the MCM).

Ultimate Dragons - Integration
  • An optional feature that integrates/uses Ultimate Dragons new animation into KS Dragon Overhaul 2 (Making a patch for UD is no longer needed).
  • NOTE 1!!! Please make sure Ultimate Dragons is installed, hide all files and folders from Ultimate Dragons mod (YES, including SKSE plugin and .esp plugin) except for the "Meshes" folder and any inside of it, and overwrite KSDO2 loose files if want to use this feature.
  • NOTE 2!!! If you install/use tools like FNIS or NEMESIS please follow the steps in the sticky post.


Flying:
  • Killing a dragon while it’s flying will no longer force it to land and play its default death animation. Instead, it will now ragdoll in the air when it reaches 0 health. If the "Vanilla Injuries" option in the MCM is enabled, however, then dragons will die as they do in the vanilla game.

Ground:
  • Grounded dragons will randomly play different animations when they die. If the "Random Death Animation" option in MCM is disabled, then dragons will always use their default death animation.



  • This essentially makes dragons completely immune to stagger type attacks or spells, except when the dragon is starting to do an attack or shout. What this is means is that when the dragon is just starting an attack or shout, there is a brief (one second) window in which it can be staggered. Taking advantage of this window of opportunity will allow you stagger the dragon and (hopefully) press your attack (this can be controlled in the MCM)(MCM option will gray out for this feature when Stagger Resistance slider under "Difficulty" page is set to higher than 0%, set all Stagger Resistance for all dragons to 0% will enable this feature back).


Type of Dragon
Dragons are now automatically will be set/categorized into three different “Ranks” when they spawn into the world. The first rank is "Normal", second is "Elite", and third is "Boss".

Normal rank - A dragon without any speciality (will never use additional shout and behavior for some attack is limited if "Ultimate Dragons - Integration" is enabled).
Elite rank - A dragon with speciality (will use additional shout and behavior for some attack is limited but have access "Enrage" mode if "Ultimate Dragons - Integration" is enabled).
Boss rank - A dragon with more speciality (will use additional shout, only spawn in "KS Dragon Attacks", and behavior for some attack not limited, have access "Enrage" mode and "Guard stance" mode and other if "Ultimate Dragons - Integration" is enabled).

Shout
Dragon will have additional shout depend on their rank. If Normal rank, they will never have any additional shout. If Elite rank, they will have additional shouts. If Boss rank, they will have additional shouts but with additional "Power" shout". The type of Shout that that dragon uses depends upon their nature (Force, Soul, or Elemental). additional shouts can only be used when the dragon’s health drops below 82%, while "Power Shouts" can only be used when the dragon enter "Second Phase" (Dragon will start regen its health/stamina/magicka to full and then start using the shout).

Force Nature
Main Shout - Unrelenting Force, Disarm and Mass Disarm.
Power Shout - Rend, Unrelenting Force Area, Phantom Summon and Phantom Form.

Soul Nature
Main Shout - Drain Vitality, Marked for Death and Dismay.
Power Shout - Soul Tear, Become Ethereal, Soul Cairn Summon and Death Resurrect.

Elemental Nature
Main Shout - Flame Wave (Fire) and Ice Form (Frost).
Power Shout - Fire Storm Call (Fire), Flame Storm Call (Fire), Ice Storm Call (Frost), Frost Storm Call (Frost), Shock Storm Call (Shock), and Thunder Storm Call (Shock).


As you’d expect with a dragon combat and difficulty mod, this one also offers MCM settings that allows you to customize the difficulty of dragon fights to your liking. There are two types of difficulty methods that you can use from this mod. One is the "Attributes Modification" and the other is the "Reduction Modification". These features not only adjust regular dragons, but it also allow you to adjust the difficulty of your dragon followers "Durnehviir" and "Odahviing", as well as adjust the difficulty of the mightiest dragon of the game, the final boss "Alduin". It’s up to you to decided how difficult you want dragon combat to be in your game; however, if you can’t decide, then you can use one of several "Preset List" options. There is also an option called "Randomizer" that randomly alters regular dragon stats from the "Preset List" values, or totally randomizes those values without following any preset lists. All named dragons from the vanilla game will be unaffected and still will follow values from the "Regular Dragon" slider. A word of warning, though. Dragons will sometimes be a lot stronger, even when they or you are at a low level, so be careful with this option enabled as you may find yourself in a very difficult (if not outright unwinnable) fight.

Attributes Modification:
Adds bonus attributes to dragons for health, physical damage, magic damage, physical resistance, and magic resistance. This modification essentially adds a 25% bonus to damage reduction for melee weapons, ranged weapons, and magic.

Reduction Modification:

Adds bonus damage reduction to dragons for melee weapons, ranged weapons, magic spells. This modification essentially adds a 50% health bonus.


  • Dragon random encounters from this mod act differently than the vanilla dragon random encounters, meaning that all encounters from this mod are not tied with vanilla encounters. If you are familiar with “Assault” from the mod “Deadly Dragons", this mod does similar things but without the weather effects, without using unleveled dragons, with a more realistic dragon spawn, and with more options overall.
  • You can customize the settings of this feature in the MCM. It also includes a setting for vanilla dragon random encounters that you can disable or customize to your liking.


Restoration Effect
After you absorb a Dragon Soul from a dead dragon, player will recover Health, Stamina, and Magicka (this can be controlled in the MCM).

Dragon Souls to Perk Points
There is a tool to convert Dragon Souls into useable Perk Points (this can be controlled in the MCM).

Soul Absorb Settings
Delete dead dragon corpses to prevent them from falling out of the sky or suddenly move infront player, prevent the player from absorbing Dragon Souls during combat, keep dragons from becoming skeletons upon absorbing their souls, and increase the soul absorb distance. All these options can be toggled on or off within the MCM.


There are also MCM settings that may be useful to you. You can adjust in-game cell respawn time, dragon bone and scale weight, dragon uniqueness (name, voice dialogue, and shouts), and variants (like the splendor feature). Use what you want and ignore what you don't want, it’s up to you to decide


Dragons Fly Away
  • Fixed bug where dragons will sometimes fly away caused by anything that makes them "not allowed to fly" (game, script, spell, etc.) Whenever dragons try to fly away during combat or while injured, it will come back. Also fixed where whenever a dragon tried to fly away while affected by Dragonrend, the spell effect were be dispelled.

Dragonrend Shout
  • Fixed the shout that dragon will no longer ignore dragonrend when have high magic resistance
  • Will affect on dragon one time only until it wear off, attempting to use the shout again will make them stagger instead of resetting the effect.
  • (Dragon) can deal damage 1.5% of dragon max health but only while they flying.
  • (Spectral Dragon) can deal damage 50% of dragon max health when the user is NPC.
  • (Spectral Dragon) can instantly kill "Spectral Dragon" when user is Player.
  • Adjust effect duration (cooldown will still same) and duration will start counting only while dragon on the ground.

First word > 15s duration, 10s cooldown, damage 1.5% of dragon max health but only while they flying.
Second word > 25s duration, 27s cooldown, damage 1.5% of dragon max health but only while they flying.
Third word > 35s duration, 32s cooldown, damage 1.5% of dragon max health but only while they flying.

Alduin (Sovngarde)
  • Alduin now can able to use differend Elemental shout at any time (Fire, Frost, Shock) and has all nature (Force, Soul, Elemental nature).
  • Alduin Immortality ability change now only be able to damage Alduin when in Dragonrend effect.
  • Alduin now able to resist Dragonrend effect, if user is player atleast 3 times Dragonrend shout will make an effect on Alduin but if user is NPC at least 6 times Dragonrend shout will make an effect on Alduin.
  • Felldir the Old, Gormlaith Golden-Hilt, Hakon One-Eye, and Tsun now able to use Dragonrend shout and (Yes, Tsun now will enter combat in "Second phase" and his immortality flag wil temporary remove until Alduin is defeated).
  • There are now two combat phases when fighting Alduin in Sovngarde.

First phase
  • Alduin combat will never land to the ground and more prefer to fight more in in the air and will not use a Power Shout.
  • Dragonrend is fully important in this phase.
  • Damage Alduin until health reach 40% or below and Alduin will enter "Second" phase (Will regen health to full).

Second phase
  • After Alduin health fully restored, he will start to use Power Shout.
  • Again Dragonrend is fully important in this phase.
  • Damage Alduin until health reach 35% or below, Alduin will weaken and "not allowed to fly".
  • Fight until the end.


Tell me at bugs section.


Any mod that do same edit will totally not compatible or need to make a patch using xEdit.

Compatible - No patch needed -
Spoiler:  
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Ultimate Dragons SE 
Diverse Dragons Collection SE 
Splendor - Dragon Variants SE 
Durnehviir Resurrected SE 
Bellyaches New Dragon Species SSE 
Skyrim Immersive Creatures Special Edition 
Chaos Dragons SSE 
Durnehviir God of Death 
Serio's Enhanced Dragons 
Elemental Dragons Special Edition 
Zim's Dragon Improvements (LIGHT)
Talkative Dragons - Make sure to disable "Combat Dialogue" option at MCM of KSDO2 if you prefer this mod for dragon talking during combat.
SkyTEST - Harder Creatures - Make sure load this mod before KSDO2.
Mortal Enemies SE - Make sure load this mod before KSDO2.
Serio's Enhanced Dragons - Make sure load this mod before KSDO2.


Compatible - patch needed -
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Skyrim Unbound Reborn (Alternate Start) - Patch ready.
Thunderchild - Epic Shouts and Immersion - Patch ready.
Timing is Everything SE - Patch ready.
GoT Dragons (A Game of Thrones) - Patch ready (See Sticky post at "Post" for patch).
Zim's Dragon Improvements (FULL & HEAVY) - No patch for now.
Deadly Dragons - No patch for now.
Serio's Enhanced Dragons Redone
- No patch for now.
Advanced Adversary Encounters - Ultimate SSE - No patch for now.
Enhanced Slightly Mighty Dragons V4 - No patch for now.
Enhanced Mighty Dragons V4 - No patch for now.


Not Compatible or Not Recommended
Spoiler:  
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Fores New Idles in Skyrim SE – FNIS SE - FNIS is good to go but not the Creature Pack, please do not install Creature Pack.
Simply Stronger Dragons (SSD) SE
KS Dragon Overhaul - mod obsolete.
Dragon Combat Overhaul SSE
 
Dragon Combat Overhaul UPGRADED BABY YEAH 
Infinite Dragon Variants
 - Not needed/already included in KSDO2.
Dragon Stalking Fix - Not needed/already included in KSDO2.
Fixed Dragon Stalking Fix - Not needed/already included in KSDO2
Not Another Dragon Stalking Fix - Not needed/already included in KSDO2
Dragonactorscript infinite loop fix - Not needed/already included in KSDO2

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Skyrim Upscaler - DLSS FSR2 XeSS
 gain more performance while maintaining visual clarity for your game.
Immersive Dragons to increase your dragon immersion to 101%.
Dragon Ragdoll Sounds adds sounds to dragon dead bodies when hitting the floor.
Dragon Animation Replace in Special Edition to replace new animation of dragon.
D13 Faster GET UP STAND UP animation vanilla friendly SSE to make you stand up more faster than normal.
SSE Engine Fixes Prevent "Double Perk Apply" to all NPC and also including other fixes. KSDO2 used perk to scale difficulty of dragons so probably need this in your game.


SSE 1.5.3 or higher
SKSE64 2.0.4 or higher
SkyUI 5.2SE or higher
powerofthree's Papyrus Extender 5.4.0 or higher
Spell Perk Item Distributor (SPID) 6.3.0 or higher
Behavior Data Injector (SE v0.13 or higher/AE v0.13 or higher)
PAPER 1.0.0 or higher
Papyrus Tweaks NG 4.1.0 or higher (Optional but recommanded)(set bSpeedUpNativeCalls = true)
Ultimate Dragons SE 2.53 or higher (Optional)
Combat Pathing Revolution v1.1.6 or higher (Optional)
FileAccess Interface for Skyrim SE Scripts 1.3.7 or higher (Optional)


Bethesda for making Skyrim, Creation Kit and allowing us to mod Skyrim.
The Skyrim Script Extender team for SKSE.
Apollodown (DCO) 3jiou and Redshift  (Deadly Dragon) for Inspiration and referencing for development of this mod.
Al99 for supporting and encourage to develop this mod.
pietro0games1 & tarlazo for helping me to fix suspended stacks dragonActorSCRIPT for StalkingFix
StudioBlueGames for helpling with mod description correction.