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Rii Old Ways Smithing Plus

Mod Description:

Very similar to my more light version Old Ways Smithing, this mod returns smithing result randomization back into the game, like it had been there on initial release. Under this, weapons can have individual quirks like being more defensive (lots of handling), or focused on certain damage types or speed. Ranged weapons might have much more ammunition, or fly faster and farther; - it all depends on the luck of the roll.

Additionally, the "plus" part of this mod provides that legendary weapons crafted deliver a variable amount of bonus points that continue to increase up to skill level 1000 and beyond. Since the bonus points gotten also underlie a bell-curve randomization, the resulting weapons become even more interesting, since there is always a tiny chance to get some extremely unlikely bonafide 'super-legendaries'. Real skill still stays most important though.
While use for this already manifests between 275-330 of the vanilla maximum skill level, the mod is designed to supply all these legendary results under the aid of other mods that expand the skill scope of the game, like my Visions of Grandeur mod.


// Important //
Although the game does not tell you in any specific way, the vanilla code has it so quality Mastercraft or Legendary can only ever be generated if the combined Tier of smithing components reaches at least 3.5 or 4.5 respectively. That means there will never be a chance to craft a legendary sword unless for example two of the four components are Tier 5 and two Tier 4.
Since the game however also generates various legendary scrapwood bows or legendary wrought iron swords, I added a MCM option to my mod where you can adjust those minimum Tier requirements.


Quality chance adjustment
Chances for all quality results have also been adjusted to shift evermore into the smith's favor the more he exceeds the weapon's difficulty, until at about +500 the chance for legendary crafts essentially reaches 100%. You can refer to the pictured graphs to understand how crafting chances play out after the mod, but some quick points of note:
- Normal grade crafts become most likely outcome (50+%) when difficulty is exactly met, aka +-0
- Fine weapons overtake normal weapons at about +90 over difficulty. (in vanilla they always stayed rare at about 20% + perk)
- Master grade weapons overtake normal weapons at about +120, legendary ones close to +200
- At around +250 you can expect more legendary weapons than of any other quality type. (for thamaskene ingredients, this requires a total skill level of 500 mind you)

There is a .xlsx file deposited in the mod folder that lets you manipulate the graphs in case you want to use the variables that I put into the mod's MCM menu to adjust your own distribution.


Note that the quality providing perks now function differently as well. Instead of giving a flat percentage bonus, the Experienced Smith and Master Smith essentially "establish" the real distribution seen in the graph. Before perks, the actual chances of Fine and Masterwork qualities are at about half of what is seen. The Legendary Smith perk then provides no bonus at all. It simply unlocks the possibility of legendary crafts, which before skill level 275 are actually impossible to get.


Legendary Bonus Progression
The legendary bonus points actually start slightly below the vanilla level, but increase from there in a slightly exponential fashion. To get some feeling for their development, some milestones:

275: When just getting the Legendary Smith perk, there is about a 1/25 chance of the legendary weapon being only minimally better than a mastercrafted one. However, on average a legendary sword at this skill will have only about 4 bonus points less than a vanilla legendary sword, making it still a considerable upgrade over mastercraft grade.

340: Average legendary weapons are as vanilla. 1 in 25 will be about 50% better than vanilla. Extremely rarely they can be even much, much better...

500: An average legendary weapon will have about 50% more points than a vanilla legendary weapon. 1 in 25 will be 150% better. Some extremely rare ones will shake the power balance of whole Calradia...

1000: An average legendary weapon will have 4 times the points than a vanilla one. 1 in 25 will reach 9 times the amount. Some extremely rare ones will offend the gods themselves...



How the mod manipulates items for randomization
The mod generates a custom modifier that is attached to any crafted quality weapon without disturbing vanilla weapon stats or modifiers in any way. Then, when it comes to usage in missions or displaying the statistics, it references the custom modifier instead of the original one.
This is important, because it means all functionality that pertains to the original item modifier is maintained. (e.g. a quest giver recognizing a weapon as "fine" quality, despite randomized stats) It also means that the mod can be freely removed without any of the crafted weapons becoming dysfunctional or impairing the game in any way. The item will simply return to its original quality's stats.


While working on this project, I also noticed that the original game was lacking the animation for crafted quality throwing weapons. For example, "Bent" Javelins would appear fine, but once moving to the actual inventory, you would see they had lower damage and speed than normal ones. I corrected that oversight here, so you see the result directly after crafting.

Hint: The mod goes very well with another much more simple smithing mod I made to expand the crafting scale sliders:
Mountain Blade - It's Sword of Long

Mod Options:
The ingame MCMenu has a couple of setting options that influence the random stat distribution.

Last Modifier Bias: The percentage chance that instead of a random weapon stat, it will instead increases the one that was increased before. This helps to break apart the more even random distribution effect that comes with higher
modifier amounts, and leads to weapons becoming more specialized, quirky, and hence I guess, "full of personality". (delivered with base 0.4 / 40%)

Bias for Damage: The chance that instead of a random (or the last) stat increase, it will instead just increase damage. If there is more than one damage attribute, it will randomly chose between them. I introduced this since all vanilla weapon modifiers weigh more in direction of damage than speed. (delivered with base 0.1 /10%)

Bias for Missile Speed: On missile weapons this will make it so that random increases of "weapon speed", will instead be attributed to "missile speed" with the given likelihood. Since weapon speed only benefits the melee use of the weapon, it seems justified that a smith would focus on the ranged advantages. Also, the vanilla modifiers fall into the same 3:1 split between the two stats, which is remodeled with this accurately. (delivered with base 0.5 / 50%)

Minimum Tier for quality: The vanilla game only allows masterwork weapons if the average component tier is at least 3.5 (so half tier 4, half tier 3), and legendary weapons if it is 4.5 . Weirdly though, you can find legendary scrapwood axes and the like everywhere, indicating the existence of some hidden genius smith Tony Kraft, who can fabricate revolutionizing weaponry in a cave with just a bunch of rocks.
Jokes aside, since I really like some of the lower tier grips and guards, I made this so you can manually adjust the minimum tier requirement down and get great quality from all ingredients.