Skyrim Special Edition

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ZXC Mods

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harmlessinsanity

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About this mod

Since we can get ebony ore easily, but gold ore is more difficult to get since the Forsworn respawn in Kolskeggr Mine, I wanted an incentive to keep returning to clear the Forsworn.

Smelter Images are using CleverCharff's Photorealistic Smelter SMIM 4K 2K www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/33366

Permissions and credits
Why did I make this?

I was doing a playthough and had already cleared the Solstheim quest 'The Final Descent', so I already had access to Ebony Ore, which I would usually sell to Dushnamub the Orc for 60 septims each.

I then went to Markarth and spoke to Pavo, and decided to clear Kolskeggr Mine of Forsworn. I know that they will respawn in 30 in game days time, so as my character levels up, so will they. This means Kolskeggr is a persistent challenge as your character levels up, as you can clear it repeatedly at increasing difficulty levels. Raven Rock Mine does also reset in 30 in game days, but I don't plan on going back there. It's just a bit far away from the questlines I'll be doing pre-level 80. So I wanted Kolskeggr to be worth double the value of ebony ore, to justify clearing it while I could easily just camp Raven Rock Mine to get ebony ore without any challenge. To be honest, I didn't realize Raven Rock Mine would reset after 30 in game days, I thought it would stay cleared. I now know that's wrong since I've checked after making the mod.

Still, the mod now exists, and I enjoy using it. So for some unknown reason I decided to share it with other Skyrim players on the Nexus.

I have been playing other games like EVE Online, Elite Dangerous, Black Desert Online and really enjoy the (mining) gathering to make in game money. So I wanted to increase the reward of that type of content in Skyrim. Even with EFF (follower management) and My home Is Your Home, Pavo will return to Kolskeggr Mine after you complete the associated quest, and he will likely die if you haven't used some method to protect him, such as a mod that sets certain npcs to essential, or console commands. That means if you leave Kolskeggr for 30 in game days or more, Pavo won't pay you for clearing it again, but it is quite a fun place to clear, countless vanilla playthroughs I used to clear Kolskeggr with every character I made, regardless of class. I wanted to still get paid for re-clearing Kolskeggr, and at a higher amount than you can get paid for mining Ebony Ore. It's the exact same animation, it's the same difficulty regardless of what type of ore you are mining in Skyrim.

How this mod works:

After clearing Kolskeggr of Forsworn, upstairs inside the mine there is an Ore Compressor, powered by mysterious dwemer technology. You place gold ore that you mine into the Ore Compressor, and it will convert the gold ore into 'Kolskeggr Compressed Ore', and also reduce its weight to 0.01. This is extremely beneficial if you are using a highly symbiotic mod such as 'Unlimited Woodwork and Mining' https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2389

Aside:

Is it boring to mine for hours? Not if you play Skyrim in Fullscreen Borderless Windowed mode (BethINI can do it https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4875) and watch YouTube videos or something else. As long as you are alt-tabbed on Skyrim it will unpause and you can mine the ore while watching something. Makes it much easier. 'TurboTop' is a free piece of software that allows you to keep Skyrim in 'Always On Top' mode, which helps with alt-tabbing away from the game. https://www.savardsoftware.com/turbotop/

Crafting Gold Coins

Once you have the 'Kolskeggr Compressed Ore', you can take it to any smelter (there is one right outside Kolskeggr Mine's entrance) and craft in convenient amounts of 1, 10, 100 or 1000 at a time, and the exchange rate is Kolskeggr Compressed Ore x 1 = 120 Septims.
This is double the amount you can get paid for mining Ebony Ore. Use it if you like it!

Please note:

As with all my mods, make sure you have all the common DLC (Skyrim.esm, Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, HearthFires.esm, Dragonborn.esm) since I like to use parts from all over and re-purpose vanilla things. I'll be getting into custom 3d modelling for skyrim soon though, I hope.