EremiteCampBanner

a "Campfire" add-on for Skyrim Special Edition

for the constant traveler, permanent campsite living, no-armor monk, hunter, or druid




Feedback appreciated on Discord or Nexusmods

Eremite: a recluse relying on natural resources and self-improvement through religion or meditation

version 2.25 - Shelter Warming enabled even when Survival disabled

download

also available at

Contents

Also available, a basic lite version (EremiteCampfireLite) for those only interested in new Campfire features and patch for “Survival Mode” without the perks and gear. Download the alternate file, Eremite Lite for Campfire which is also available on Nexusmods.

Install

Only install one of full version or patch-only lite. If using lite and want the full Eremite keep the lite activated. Use a mode manager or place the files in your game’s data folder. Sort anywhere and activate. If using an alternate-start mod with many (hundreds or thousands) of mods consider starting game first then add/activate Eremite soon after.

main files:

  • EremiteCamping.esp
  • EremiteCamping.bsa
  • EremiteCamping - Textures.bsa

patch-only lite files:

  • EremiteCampfireLite.esp
  • EremiteCampfireLite.bsa

Features

added Campfire features

  • follower removes armor for sleep (lie down) in accordance to Campfire settings
  • cloak undress/redress included with body armor setting on bed-roll sit and lie-down
  • auto-unequip backpack on bed-roll protects player from becoming over-encumbered
  • Stone Axe recipe now requires a stone block (*)
  • Mortar and Pestle may be crafted using Create Item with Eremite Craft 1 perk (*)

new in version 2

  • more weapons: Eremite Dagger made from antler and wood for no-steel purists, Eremite Druid Bow (elven), Eremite Dragon Bow
  • Eremite Meditation Rug to improve combat through daily reflection
  • Eremite Musing Rug to learn arcane abilities devoted to nature and the elements - see Eremite Magic
  • craft more arrows made from natural ingredients using Campfire Create Item
  • create Moonstone Ingot at campfire, Crackling or larger fire
  • create Gold Ingot from gold coins in a cooking pot
  • Eremite Craft Book lists all items and may be used to hide/show items in craft menus

original:

  • Eremite bows - Hunting, Druid (Elven), Orcish, Daedric, Glass, Dragon
  • Eremite bedroll and twin bedrolls (without shelter) for sleeping in caves or outdoors
  • craft portable alchemy station and upgrade to tented station
  • improve your permanent campsite with a touch of Hearthfire - anvil, armor bench, grindstone, horse stable, oven
  • mark your campsites on map - see Eremite Camp map markers below
  • perk system to master unarmed combat, no-armor combat, and improved camping rest
  • new alteration spells
  • designed for “Survival Mode” or “Frostfall” (optional)
  • requires Campfire - Complete Camping System by Chesko and all DLCs

Campfire for Survival Mode patch

  • campfires “Flickering” and larger provide warmth
  • travel cloaks provide warmth
  • remove “Fatigue: Drained” with Eremite Refreshed bonus earned with perk (*)

Fatigue recovery in tent is limited to reasonable circumstances. If too exhausted then may need to sleep in regular bed indoors to fully recover.

(*) - only in full version EremiteCamping

follower undress for sleep

Included in full and lite versions. When selecting lie-down option on bed-roll, followers will remove armor according to the following conditions:

  1. Campfire setting Follower Interact enabled (must sleep)
  2. Campfire setting Camping - Gear In Tents (Followers) enabled
  3. Campfire setting Tents - Armor enabled (player body)
  4. if “Frostfall” enabled then must be warm enough (same as player)

If you don’t want followers removing outfit to sleep then disable #2 or #3.

a note on Campfire “pack up” tent feature

If changing outfit before packing up the tent, be aware that Campfire (as of v1.11) will revert worn gear back to the gear worn when sit or lie-down displays gear. This appears to be an intended feature to double-check after exiting tent. If after exiting tent desire to change armor best practice to pack up the tent first.

character build ideas

Traveling without armor is the eremite way of life, but lightweight leather armor fits well, too.

  • Druid mage (Illusion or Alteration are good choices) and use Musing Rug to learn nature-related magic abilities
  • no-magic, no-armor warrior monk or archer (see my character)
  • conjuration or restoration mage without alteration magic
  • basic mage - instead of Lord Stone obtain 2 Eremite No-armor perks
  • unarmed fighter / brawler

better sleep

Earn perk points and bonuses by sleeping warm and comfortable in tent or bed-roll.

  • camp near fire of medium size (“Flickering”) or larger
  • when entering tent or lie down on bed-roll wait for “Shelter warming” or “Bed-roll warming” notification
  • default base-game tents included for warming, but don’t count as owned for perk bonuses
  • (optional) Survival Mode: wait for sun icon and warm up as needed
  • remove armor before sleeping (see Campfire’s options to auto-remove gear)
  • sleep 7-12 hours uninterrupted

Your tent may be placed within the fire’s warmth radius to warm up. If using “Frostfall” then all fires have the same radius, otherwise the larger the fire the bigger the radius. Upon entering a tent, look for “Shelter warming” message. If needed, wait for your character to warm fully before sleeping to stay warm. Sleep 7-12 hours to earn perk points, and with perks, Restful Sleep or Survival Sleep, gain refreshed bonuses including removal of Survival Mode’s “Fatigued: Drained” penalty. If too fatigued then may need to sleep in regular bed indoors to recover.

“Refreshed” improves stamina recovery for 8 hours and provides more bonuses depending on your mods.

If using Survival Mode and when disabling it using game settings then the tent warmth detection will also disable for your convenience. After re-enabling Survival Mode, allow up to five minutes for tent warming to re-enable. Same is true if using “Frostfall” in-game enable and disable feature.

Having trouble getting perk progression from sleep? Here are the conditions:

  • “Shelter warming”
  • has been 17+ hours since last tent/bed-roll sleep (stop-time to stop-time)
  • sleep 7-12 hours without interruption including player stopping timer
  • no armor (including spells) equipped; items having keywords: ArmorLight, ArmorHeavy, or spells with keyword: MagicArmorSpell

Eremite Meditation

version 2

Use Eremite Meditation Rug for 6 seconds or more to improve stamina, no-armor, and choice of magicka, weapon, or brawl skills for limited time. Stamina increase always granted, but no-armor and combat bonuses limited to after 8 hours and only when meditating without armor. Unlock Survival Sleep and Meditation perk to further improve skills during meditation. Using the rug without armor increases Eremite perk progress once per calendar (game) day.

When using the rug your character will remove footwear and primary weapon according to Campfire tent remove-equipment settings. The type of weapon placed determines the combat skill damage improvement where no weapon place improves brawl/unarmed damage. Rugs conform to terrain, but your character remains vertical so best using reasonable flat ground and area without grass. The rug floats above ground to help avoid clipping with rugged terrain, but grass stands too tall. If “Frostfall” enabled, too much cold exposure may prevent learning skills. Keep warm near your campfire!

bonuses stack with others:

  • +25 stamina - may use repeatedly like blessing; does not remove other blessings
  • +15/30/60 no-armor based on Survival Sleep and Meditation perk rank
  • +6/12/24 unarmed/brawl damage bonus based on Survival Sleep and Meditation perk rank
  • +8/16/32 (or +7 with armor) weapon damage bonus based on Survival Sleep and Meditation perk rank

Choose from 4 rug styles using Campifire’s Create Item. The fur rug requires fur plate, and 3 of each style for a different color mountain flower. To help keep crafting menu slim, flower-based styles remain hidden without required mountain flowers within inventory. The same rug in inventory also hides from crafting menu. Appearance of rugs may vary based on mods such as using a rug texture-replacement mod.

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Meditation Rug with Eremite Druid Longow - winter color

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Meditation Rug with sword - outfit from “Blades Hakama”

Eremite Musing Rug

Crafting the mage’s rug requires the basic meditation rug, Craft 1 perk, and at least one magic skill at adept (50) or better. Requires Eremite Incense to consume for magic musing. After about 6 seconds, choose a school of magic to ponder. Only those schools at adept or better level will be available, and you may decline. Meditating on a magic skill results in learning 1 or more spells or an ability depending on skill level. See Eremite Magic below for a list of available spells. Each spell forgotten after use. Meditate again to relearn or study a different school.

Using the Musing Rug for magic costs one Eremite Incense (Craft Item - Misc).

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Musing Rug

Eremite Magic - all nature-related

version 2

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Barkflesh - outfit from DX Druid Armor

Magic spells based on nature and the elements, most of which obtained through meditation using Eremite Musing Rug. Spell learned through musing limited to single use or limited time. Meditate again to relearn or study another school of magic. For repeated use, some spells may be added to a staff using a staff enchanter.

spells learned from reading spell tomes

  • Eremite Ice Shell (adept alteration): injured targets that fail to resist frozen solid (similar to the shout) - purchase spell tome from Tolfdir if Alteration over 50

spells and abilities obtained by musing

Alteration - limited use up to 8 game-hours

  • Eremite Barkflesh (adept): less armor than Ironflesh, but 50% longer duration - visually different from Oakflesh
  • Eremite Stoneflesh (expert): less armor than Ebonyflesh, but 50% longer duration - visually different from Stoneflesh
  • Eremite Water Walking (expert): concentrate (hold magic button) to walk on water

Conjuration - single use

  • Eremite Familiar Amethyst (adept): longer duration, more powerful familiar (similar health as Frost Atronach)
  • Eremite Familiar Emerald (adept): even longer duration, but weaker than Amethyst

Destruction - single use

  • Eremite Poison Cloak (expert): similar to Boethia’s reward, but without sneak feature - altered visual effect
  • Eremite Storm Cloak (adept): combination frost and lightning cloak - altered visual effect

Illusion - limited time varies by skill

  • Eremite Wildlife Ally (ability): for limited time, bears, sabre cat, and wolves ignore caster

Restoration - single use

  • Eremite Heal All (expert): heal all in the area, including foes!
  • Eremite Warmth (adept): warms your character for “Frostfall” (30) and Survival Mode (25)

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Storm Cloak spell - outfit from DX Druid Armor

Eremite Camp map markers

Create up to 4 markers and use quest log to enable or disable the map markers to find the campsites. Each campsite identified by gem/color: Eremite Amethyst Camp, Eremite Emerald Camp, Eremite Ruby Camp, and Eremite Sapphire Camp. Use Campfire’s Resourcefulness - Create Item to craft Eremite Map book for desired gem/color. Eremite Map books may be stored away for later. Map markers do no provide fast-travel target.

Requires Craft 1 perk

To mark a campsite:

  1. enter tent or sit on bed-roll
  2. read Eremite Map book of desired gem/color - 2nd and 3rd pages review these steps
  3. close book to start map quest
  4. see quest log, Miscellaneous to toggle map marker on/off

You may freely reposition tent, change tents, and the marker will stay put. To remove quest and marker, read book again (from anywhere) and answer the prompt to confirm.

Why books to mark campsites? For simplicity and compatibility, I decided against overriding Campfire tents with added menu control. The book provides instructions and colors make it easy to identify. One book for all camps would mean adding more menus which reduces immersion further. Simply stand or sit inside tent, open a book, and done!

installation / load order

Backup your save-game files in case you change your mind. Do not remove plugin mid-game! Load order matters if you have another plugin modifying Campfire travel cloaks. In general sort this mod after other Campfire add-ons.

EremiteCamping (full version)

Character starting Eremite at level 19+ receive a free perk in Craft 1. If level 41+ then receive another free perk to spend as you choose.

EremiteCampfireLite (no perks or gear; only new Campfire features and “Survival Mode” patch)

If later on same character you wish to switch to full version, keep this “lite” plug-in activated.

disable Eremite

Disabling Eremite using the Eremite Ring stops active scripts turning the mod into a basic craft-only Campfire add-on. You’ll keep your Eremite perks, but lose abilities. Enable again by equipping the Eremite Ring. Do not use console to stop main quest! You may use console command, set DTEC_SettingEnabled to 0.

Eremite Perks

EremitePerksCamp

full mod only

Use your Campfire to access the perk constellation. Perks are arranged to help keep them optional so you can acquire just the perks best fit for your character. The right-side perks offer improved sleep and more benefits for “Survival Mode” play, and the left-side and top perks offer combat bonuses.

  • Craft 1 and 2: weapons for the eremite traveler and workbenches for the permanent campsite
  • Restful Sleep: gain Refreshed after sleeping without armor and in owned, warm shelter for 7+ hours
  • Survival Sleep: gain Refreshed in any warm tent or bed-roll with or without armor
  • No-Armor 1-5: freedom movement defensive skill - sleep in a shelter to begin
  • Unarmed 1-5: unarmed damage - sleep in shelter to begin

Earn perk points by sleeping 7+ hours in warm shelter, surviving combat without armor, or fighting unarmed. If no damage taken then combat round must last at least 18 minutes game-time (about a minute). Points for combat is a flat rate no matter how many times your character lands a hit or takes damage, but double points for fighting unarmed and without armor. Double points may also be given for very long combat duration.

Points gain from sleep is limited to once per day and no more than once per hour for combat.

Earning all 15 perks expected to take 6 game-months at a rate of a new perk every 10 to 16 game-days for character sleeping in warm shelter nearly each night. Starting with zero perks, the first perk earned at double rate. So new character should earn Craft 1 perk between day 7 and day 10. For armored characters only earning points for sleep, it takes 14 days per perk (7 for the first).

craft - no perk (Basic)

  • Eremite Crafting book - lists available items - craft using Create Item, Misc
  • standard pick-axe - create at forge with wood and iron ingot
  • Eremite bed-roll and twin bed-rolls - for camping in caves or outdoors with Survival Sleep
  • Eremite Meditation Rug - Create Item, Misc to choose 4 styles – have purple, red, or blue mountain flowers in inventory to see more styles
  • Eremite Ring - craft at forge - equip to toggle main feature (shelter warming and perk progress) enable/disable
  • Forsworn arrows - Create Item, Wood

Equipping the Eremite Ring disables shelter detection, combat detection, and perk point gain. You’ll keep current perks and points and will be able to craft gear. Equip again to start.

The Eremite Crafting Book lists these items to review in game, and allows hiding Eremite gear from crafting menus. To hide Eremite gear, sit on a Campfire bed-roll and read the book. A message confirms gear hidden or shown. Repeat to toggle back.

Craft 1 (Intermediate)

These items are listed in game within the Eremite Crafting book.

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create using Resourcefulness, Create Item

  • Eremite Dagger (Wood) - made from antlers and wood to support no-steel characters
  • Eremite Hunting Bow (Wood)
  • Eremite Musing Rug for mage - requires meditation rug and at least one magic skill at adept (50) or better
  • Eremite Incense - required to use Musing Rug to learn magic
  • Eremite Map Books (4 by gem/color)
  • Eremite Druid Longbow (Elven) - 3 colors Wood, Forest, Winter
  • Eremite Orcish Bow
  • Eremite Dragon Bow - 4 handle colors Blue, Brown, Green, Red
  • Mortar and Pestle

create at campfire (the fire itself)

  • Refined Moonstone - fire must be Crackling or Roaring to make stone brick

create at an anvil/forge

  • Eremite Axe
  • Eremite Hunting Bow (Wood)
  • Eremite Orcish Bow
  • Eremite Glass Bow in colors: amethyst, emerald, ruby, saphire
  • Eremite Daedric Bow
  • Eremite Daedric Long Bow

create at Staff Enchanter (see Neloth)

  • Staff of Ice Shell - Unenchanted Alteration Staff and learned spell
  • Staff of Familiar Amethyst - Unenchanted Conjuration Staff and learned spell
  • Staff of Familiar Emerald

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EremiteDruidBows

Eremite Bows are re-colored “Real Bows” by DecimusMaximus used with permission

Craft 2 (Advanced)

These items for your permanent campsite are heavy! Light enough to carry using only your character in Survival Mode. Also consider “Convenient Horses” or ask Lydia very nicely. You may find this list in game within the Eremite Crafting Book.

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create using Resourcefulness, Create Item (misc)

  • Eremite Grindstone
  • Eremite Oven - includes storage chest
  • Eremite Alchemy Set - includes storage chest
  • Eremite Armor Workbench
  • Eremite Stable - includes a cot–because, um… some like sleeping with a horse

create at anvil/forge (misc)

  • Eremite Anvil - includes storage chest
  • Alchemy Retort for the Alchemy Set

create at Tanning Rack

  • Eremite Alchemy Set Tented - an upgraded Alchemy Set

Tip: build a large campsite at a Hearthfire land plot and an anvil comes with purchase

Storage chests have limited capacity, but each chest links to the same chest at another campsite. So you get three independent chests shared between sites for convenience.

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Restful Sleep / Survival Sleep and Meditation

Sleep without armor in owned, warm shelter for 7+ hours to gain Refreshed bonus. If playing “Survival Mode” then this also removes Fatigue: Drained. With Survival Sleep, your character becomes Refreshed sleeping in any warm shelter, with or without armor, and even in a warm bed-roll.

Remove armor manually or set Campfire options to auto-unequip on lie-down. After entering a shelter wait for the “Shelter warming” message and if needed wait for your character to fully warm up before sleeping.

The Survival Sleep and Meditation improves meditation by increasing no-armor and unarmed skills. A second rank further increases skills.

No-armor

With this perk your character will gain +25 Armor Rating per rank when not wearing any armor (shield and diadem of the savant okay) including mage armor. To learn this skill rest 7+ hours in a warm tent shelter. Note that Frostfall’s -skin spells (Foxskin, Wolfskin) count as magical armor. Be aware that having Telekinesis spell in hand may interrupt perk progress. For some reason Telekinesis flagged as mage armor.

allowed armor:

  • shield
  • walking stick
  • Diadem of the Savant
  • Lord Stone

Unarmed (Brawl)

Bonus +7 unarmed damage per rank when not wearing any armor including mage armor. May be combined with enchanted pugilist on clothing. To learn this skill rest 7+ hours in a warm tent shelter. Allowed armor is the same as above.

perk progress rate

Eremite perk progression designed to take most of the adventure, or about 6 game months to obtain all perks. For this reason, when starting Eremite at higher levels the character may be granted one or two starting perk points. Expect a new perk every 7-16 game days assuming warm tent sleep nearly each night. My armored archer character, occasionally fighting without armor, obtained first perk on the 10th day and by level 22 had 3 perks. My no-armor mage, without using meditation, obtained 7 perks by level 42.

percent gain:

  • warm sleep: 7.1
  • meditation: 3.0
  • combat: 1.1 or 2.2 (for double)

For example, let’s say your character sleeps in warm tent each night, meditates once each day, and averages 3 combat increases per day. That results in a new perk after 8 days (100 / 13.4 = 7.5). Characters wearing armor should expect a new perk every two game weeks, or 10 days if meditating each day.

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mod settings

disable/enable main feature: shelter warming and perk progress

There are two methods to toggle the main mod feature:

  • disable/enable “Frostfall” using Options: Frostfall
  • equip Eremite Ring

hide/display Eremite items in crafting menus

You may hide Eremite items from crafting menus to reduce clutter, and display them again later.

  1. Create Item, Eremite Crafting Book
  2. sit on a Campfire-compatible bed-roll and read Eremite Crafting Book

Eremite Crafting Book lists all craft-able items for in-game review, so the seated requirement keeps from accidentally hiding gear from the menus.

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Eremite Crafting book lists all items and can be used to hide or show items in craft menus

compatibility

Other Campfire patches for “Survival Mode” - most should be compatible. To avoid interfering with other mods updating “Survival Mode” heat source list, this mod uses a script to add any missing Campfire fire-lights and without removing heat sources added by other mods.

Follower overhauls to customize armor: if your follower exiting the tent dresses in the wrong armor pieces, you may disable this feature using your Campfire settings as noted above in follower undress for sleep.

Combat overhauls should work well with Eremite Camping, but please let me know if you find one that may need attention. For a strong character build, the bonus values for No-armor and Unarmed make default combat too easy, so they should fit well with a mod increasing combat challenge. I could be wrong.

If another plugin overrides Campfire travel cloaks then sort plugin you want last.

Eremite uses SSE-only features so will not work correctly in classic 32-bit Skyrim.

If you see a notification, “Eremite: outfit appears like armor” the outfit may not be fully compatible. Custom outfit mods with total zero armor rating with armor keywords will allow perk progress, but not work correctly with the no-armor perk.

Survival Mode

Campfires “flickering” and larger provide warmth and travel cloaks provide warmth.

Frostfall - Hypothermia Survival

When disabling “Frostfall” in game then Eremite Shelter Warmth detection also disables for your convenience. After enabling “Frostfall” again, Eremite Shelter Warmth will re-enable within five minutes. Since Frostfall detects existing base-game tents and fires, Eremite uses FrostUtil API to avoid duplicating same features.

suggested mods

designed to avoid game bugs

“Eremite Camping and Combat” avoids the stuck-ability-conditions bug (after 4096 cell loads ability values become stuck regardless of conditions) by re-applying the Eremite No-armor and Unarmed abilities after sleeping in tent or bed-roll. This bug reported by Enai Siaion on Patreon and Sacremas on reddit.

Eremite limits using search functions (for heat sources) to safe periods (ie: not in combat, not riding a horse) and avoids duplicating functionality. If “Frostfall” enabled then Eremite never searches and instead asks for results using FrostUtil API (Frostfall keeps track of character warmth and if close to a heat source).

theme and original design

Originally created for my no-armor monk-like character for hermit-like lifestyle which became the theme for Eremite. Fighting without armor is a skill most likely learned by hunters or others not normally joining armies or looking for battles. I don’t see a no-armor skill fitting with traditional combat training, but no-armor goes nicely with the Eremite lifestyle. Archery is a common skill for hunters, druids, and monks devoted to living alone or constantly traveling. Bows primarily made from common natural materials such as wood, bone, antler, and animal sinew, crafted away from town is the Eremite way. Building a permanent campsite helps make living easier, and travel lighter carrying only a simple bed-roll until returning to the main camp.

To learn how the mod works, see the design page.

why the Campfire requirement?

The mod could have been made to take advantage of Campfire features without making Campfire a requirement. That would allow more players interested in bows, no-armor, and brawling to use the mod. However, without Campfire’s place-able furniture, perk system, and crafting there would be nothing left without redesign. To keep with the Eremite theme, I would need to create alternate means replacing the furniture and perk system to allow learning and skill progression. That’s quite a bit of work for just two skills. The Eremite theme relies on Campfire features and better suits a recluse-type character. Campfire is small and light-weight, ideal for players interested in having multiple mods adding perks for new skills.

Without Campfire, there is no Eremite.

design notes for version 2

Since posting the original in 2018 I wanted another method to earn Eremite perk points, and I also had interest in a furniture item similar to Chesko’s portable enchanter for Campfire which costs a consumable. I realized meditation fits the theme very well. Since late 2019 I have been testing and modifying the Meditation Rug for usefulness and balance which allows the player alternate means to improve no-armor, brawl, and other weapon-sytle bonuses. For mages I felt needed more than just a simple magicka bonus, so why not obtain special abilities and spells? The musing rug only consumes Eremite Incense when musing on magic so may be used to meditate on combat without the consumable requirement. Magic abilities limited only to those fitting the theme: elemental or nature-related magic. Obtaining limited-use magic through medition better suits the Eremite mage than does traditional college study or book reading.

The visual effects for Barkflesh and Stoneflesh use tweaked effects never used in the base game. For whatever reason (perhaps for visibility), the game uses bright colored glow instead of the material flesh effects. I decided I like the unused effects better, so tweaked them a bit for my flesh spells. I have tried my best to balance these special spells giving them slightly more power (due to limited use) than similar spells found within the base game. Balancing Water Walk spell may be the most challenging since the closest similar spell is Telekinesis, and may be over-powered, but for limited use should be good enough.

Placing the footwear and weapon onto the meditation rug turned out to be a bit of work. Chesko’s Campfire Dev Kit makes it easy to place gear inside tents, but there is no such convenience for placing items on custom furniture. The mod places the weapon by arithmetic to match angle of the rug relative to the world, but since the rug aligns itself with the terrain this meant working rotation functions. For Skyrim this means knowing the angle order of operations which I tested to confirm. See the source script, DTEC_CommonF, for several rotation functions, and see the rug script, DTEC_RugScript, in function, PlaceMainWeapon, to see how it works. Feel free to use these functions in your mod. It’s only arithmetic.

Credits

Tools used:

Some screen captures include mods


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