Wow, I am very happy to see such a thorough response! My face lit up with a grin ear to ear =D
So! To respond to your response, and add some more stuff...
Meeting the supplier: Hmm... I haven't actually given much thought as to the supplier as a person... So far they're a faceless 'Them' to be complained about. Before I try and fit them into the picture, I'm going to need to tour around the landscape a bit more. Despite working on this mod daily for a month or so now, and being a shadowy fan of Silgrad Tower since Morrowind, I've yet to actually take a look around in game :O
My idea behind this supplier was something sorta shady. Not illegal perse, but the supplier supplied Ebbedin with leftovers from his other deals. Ebbedin's just a way to unload his excess that's not selling at all in their own 'regular' business. As such, I picture a pawn broker with an actual store front, or a successful wandering merchant who's last stop is Ebbedin. I'll ponder this some more, but it might be something to expand into another claim later (after a mold cave or two, as I'm really itching to try my hand there...).
The Big Reward is indicated in the dialogue. Relneth tells the player to only bring scrap, and that there'd be wasted money if one were to buy from a shop hoping Relneth could compensate. Upon finishing a scrap quest, a reward would dispense, and Relneth would apologize for not having more on hand, but promise to try and get something together for later. So, not so much explicit, but mentioned enough that the player should get the hint.
As far as Okan-Shei's backstory, and adding it to other Ebbedin residents... I've not tried my hand at general dialogue editing before ._. All dialogue I've done has been added in the Topic tab of the Quest window/section/editor portion thingy. Are there any particular quests I'd add such backstory to, or should I try and fiddle with the Dialogue window/section/editor portion thingy? Maybe just keep it in Okan-Shei's dialogue quest and set the condition to being in Ebbedin and not being Okan-shei, for example?
Hmm... I hadn't considered the difficulty of aquiring alchemical apparatuses, now that you mention the payoff for Okan-Shei's reward... I always ended up making use of Frostcrag... Your method of how to calculate out the reward based on the type of aparatus is exactly what I had in mind to do (and is the same method I use for the scrap metal quest). There is a reward for giving Okan-Shei apparatuses, beyond him offering the potions, for sure. He'll give a small portion of gold (very small, he is trying to save, after all), and some potions left over from his ingredient quest (a prerequisite for the apparatus quest).
As far as enchanted stuff goes, I dunno... Okan-Shei was broke well before he got stuck in Ebbedin... You'd think he'd have sold off any such thing well before ending up in his current state, and anything he kept would be important enough that he'd not give them up. Maybe he could tell the player of an enchanter somewhere else in the land, and upon the player mentioning Okan's name, have a disposition boost/small prize (I'm very much referring to Fargoth there ^_^)?
As to the exact nature of the reward for the apparatuses, and what he'll offer, I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. He'll not offer anything that can't be found and made by the player from things in Ebbedin (for now, until a future Supply Line quest/claim thing is done as mentioned earlier in the thread). Anyway, your method of showing the reward and all that is fantastic, and I understand just what you mean. As far as Relneth handling his reward, and Okan handling his own reward, separately, that is the case. The 'Big Reward' is on top of these individual reward, and is more of a thank-you for the player helping both of them through some issues. Okan won't contribute to the Big Reward unless he's got the tools to do so, through completion of the apparatus quest. The scrap quest will have its own separate monetary compensation, and the apparatus quest will have its own compensation too. The Big Reward is icing on the cake to keep the player coming back to Ebbedin.
Let me know if I've clarified that point well enough. 4 quests, 4 separate rewards, and a fifth extra reward on top of that to compensate for the 'smallness' of the other 4.
In regards to using two variables, yes, I am. I've got it mostly set up too. The hard part is telling the player how much they've got left. with 6 brackets of possibilities, for each, its thirty-six different lines of dialogue for that part of the quest. I've got it covered though, so don't worry about the complication. Its actually really straight-forward. It just... looks scary. But its not! Works great (famous last words? ._.).
As far as displaying the values upon reading the scrap book thing, I'm sure it will work. I've come across a few other mods that do the exact thing I'm looking to do, and have done it once myself in a personal mod as well. Piece of cake.
As far as the journal entries go... That's probably going to be the very last thing I do. I'll add a single entry with a phrase "This is Stage X" into each stage, and see how things react. I'm not sure what to expect, but until I get to that point I'm not going to really worry about it. There's a few points that don't repeat that I can surely squeeze in any important information, and anything else can be handled by the scrap book and Relneth's dialogue.
As far as dropping and keeping various armor types, and how that's all getting sorted out, I've finalised what I'm doing with it. This will also answer your question about why I wanted/needed to pair armors up. There's 5 armors that Relneth will ask for: Iron, Steel, Chainmail, Leather, and Fur. 1 out of 3 times, when he gives you the quest, he'll ask you for two of those five armors, instead of just one of them (Those matchups being Iron/Steel Steel/Chain, and Leather/Chain). If in the future other armors become available (chitin, and netch in particular), they should be simple enough to add in. It would require a slight tweak of a single variable in my script, a line of If N is X, SetStage to Y, and related dialog. I don't know about Bonemold, though. What is it? Is whatever material it is made of used anywhere else? Is it the same stuff as Relneth's shop, for example? The scrap Relneth gets is used mostly for odds and ends around the village, rather than for armor, as he doesn't get nearly enough customers to warrant the amount of scrap collected otherwise. If bonemold has more uses than as an armor, and if it is available in quantity somewhere in the world (respawning bandits somewhere, for example), let me know and I'll add it in gladly.
As far as how Relneth could use fur... Well... He's the village Handy-Man, I'm sure he has his ways
I expect he salvages the leathery bits from it (at least, that's his reason he gives the player). I pretend it is treated differently than leather armor, making it less firm, but better suited for the elements, or somesuch.
And yeah, reward-wise for the scrap quest, the player will be rewarded for each individual scrap quest, and also given an Extra reward every fifth one of these. So the fifth cycle will have 2 rewards, basically, but every cycle will have at least 1 reward. As far as timeframe for the quest, a static 7 days it is, though dialogue simplicity isn't really a concern for me anymore (All of Okan-Shei's greetings are disposition based, for example... It took 20 minutes for my best friend to persuade me from making it also racially based. That's on top of it already being based on the time of day). Let me know if that changes your opinion as to variable availability for the quest.
As far as scripting in some sort of functionality, and requiring the script extender, and whatnot, I'm not sure what you are referring to... If it is detecting item value, it is just a hard number I've added in based on the values in the construction set. The scrap value for the items is that way too. So, I think we're ok on that front, unless you are referring to something else...
As to how I'm handling the repeatable rewards, this is what I've got in mind. Every time the player completes a scrap quest, a check is made against a variable BigPrize. If that >= 5, the stage is set to 115. Else, BigPrize is incremented by 1, and the stage is set to 15 (resetting the quest, selecting a new material and a new material amount). If the stage is 115, it checks a variable BigTime, which tracks which award is being offered. If it is 1 the player gets this, if it is two the player gets that, etc, up to whatever the upper limit on my creativity with it goes. It'll cap eventually, and sit at somewhere (we'll say 10). There it will simply no longer increment, and the player will get whatever's at 10 repeatably. That one will likely be a random list, but all the ones before it will be a set thing, themed somehow. Such as first you get a sword, then a shield, then some armor, then some poisons, etc. Stuff that builds off eachother and makes it feel personalized. Ideally it'll be based on player skills. A check will run seeing the player's weapon skills and offer an axe or sword based on that, for example.
Once the reward is dispensed, BigTime is incremented (unless its at 10), BigPrize is reset to 0, and the stage returns to 15, restarting the quest, selecting a new material and quantity, etc etc, and the wheel begins a new turn. As far as the contents of the random list at the end, expect money, potions/poisons (based on the stage of Okan-Shei's apparatus quest), and spare weapons and armor from Relneth (I'm envisioning excess that's not selling, or that he simply can't fix. The items will have reduced stats, or lowered health for some, to be sold by the player elsewhere, or will have better stats, but simply not have a market in Ebbedin, and be gifted to the player to do with as they will). Enchantable stuff might (and that's a big might) appear in the leveled list, but with reduced item health (as in it starts damaged, and can be repaired), as Relneth won't have the tools to work with such things.
I'll look into safeguards for the item removal, though I'm not sure how to go about it... The items are removed in a dialog result script, as a response to a question from Relneth ('do you have iron?' 'Yes! I've got boots made of iron' 'hurray!' Removeitem boot). If I add a dialog condition for the player having it equipped, I'm not sure if that's going to make me double the amount of related dialog I've got there, if it is even doable (is there a GetEquipped for dialog? I'll look... Yes, ok), etc.
My main concern is if the player DOES have it equipped... then what? I see having two different lines of dialog for these possibilities. One runs if they've got more than 1 piece of that armor, bypassing the safeguard, and another running if it is just one, checking if it is equipped, and then offering another choice about wanting to give up what you've got equiped. That's a bunch more dialog if that's the route it goes. I can do it, for sure, but its going to get cluttered quick. When I say cluttered, I'd like to point out I've already got more than 45 topics for this one quest, not including variations within those topics. So, it is already cluttered in that sense, but this would add another layer of complexity, whereas the current 45+ topics are laid out somewhat flat.
Your thoughts?
As a final note, how do you make those nifty quote blocks? It'd really help in these big long posts of mine where I constantly refer to your referral of something I previously referred to... :eek:
edit:
Gya, I got so caught up in responding, I forgot to add new stuff to my reply...
Progress-wise, I've got the dialog for telling the player how much scrap they still need left to do, as well as the dialog for turning in all the materials, except iron, which is already done. I also still need to implement the Big Prize, but everything is set up for it. I just need to pick the prize, and add the dialog for the occasion. Then there's Okan-Shei's apparatus quest which I've yet to even start.
In related news, another bit of feature-creep I'm interested is one of these repeatable quests for Okan-Shei, for ingredients after the apparatus quest. This would expand Okan-Shei's selection of poisons and potions to possibilities beyond Ebbedin's flora. I'm hesitant to start planning such a quest, as it'd overlap with my future Supply Line idea, and also would keep this mod from review for another number of weeks beyond when I already thought it'd be long done -.- So, do you think such a thing would be nice to have, or should I save such a quest for a later broader claim down the road?