Spell Charging

Spell Charging

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Spell Charging gives you the ability to make your spells stronger and last longer by holding down the spell key.

SPELL CHARGING
Overview:
Spell Charging gives you the ability to make your spells stronger and last longer by holding down the spell key.

The thing about Skyrim’s spell-casting is that it teases you with a charging mechanic that never really goes anywhere outside of delaying it. So this mod aims to overhaul the spell-casting experience by simply making the activity more worthwhile.

This is also something for modders like myself. You are free to use this as a framework or use it as a base for your own mods. It works well enough on its own though.

How It Works:
Basically, you hold the spell button. If you check the spell, you’ll notice its magnitude and duration increase. At certain points, your character would also play a certain animation to show its charge level (which can be used in other mods like Spell Chaining).

Charge time is dependent on your skill in that particular school of magic as well as the magicka cost. Higher magicka cost means lesser time to charge. If you think charging is important to your play, then perhaps invest in magicka regen enchantments over the magicka cost.

Features:
Increase spell strength and duration by holding down the charge button
Makes magicka regen more appealing
A book that details this mechanic is available once you open up the game with the mod installed (NOTE: Don’t forget to open the book at least once so that you learn the ability)
Works as a framework for other mods to use

Check Out:
Spell Chaining – one way Spell Charging powers a completely different mod; gives you the ability to trigger devastating effects based on the combination of charged destruction spells you throw at your target
golem09’s Spell Charging – Requiem Fix and New Balancing – a modified Spell Charging mod based on v1.0096’s code; doesn’t require the original Spell Charging, has better integration with Requiem, has better integration with certain PerMa features (like sneaking), and includes a bunch of new balancing options

Known Issues
Currently, mods that add controlmap.txt to data/interface/controls/pc blocks activation of the mod – that is currently being addressed; many, many, many thanks to SwagothUr for finding the likely root cause of the issue
Confirmed to be the More Hotkeys Please mod
Fixed as of v1.009
Staffs cause unpredictable behavior; nothing game breaking, but certainly outside the intentions of the mod

Requirements:
SKSE v1.7.1 and up
SkyUI (for MCM options)
Skyrim v1.9 and up (at least I tested this mod with that version)

Installation:
Just place all the files into the data folder

Compatibility:
It’s pretty much script-based, and I made no edits to vanilla objects, so it should work with any mod (though you could always do a TesVEdit clean just to be safe?)
For its visualization, it uses keywords (MagicDamageFire, MagicDamage, etc) and the school of magic – this means any unique custom spells might not have any indicator that you’re charging

According to ielmg, the mod is compatible with the following:
Skyre
Apoc
Forgotten Magic Redone
Colorful Magic
Spectraverse

And according to ryogaa, the mod is compatible with:
Apocalypse – Magic of Skyrim

According to ghussak, the mod is compatible with:

Requiem (in his case, it’s at the bottom of his mod list)

Also, Alexmancer says that the mod is compatible with:

Nature Spell Pack

According to Al99, the mod is compatible with:

Vampiric Thirst
Vampire Lord DLC Spells

Obliviotter says the mod is compatible with:

Autodidact Wizard
Dynamic Spells

Many thanks to these players who informed me that those mods are indeed compatible!

Known Issues:
Immediately charging a spell after firing one (less than 0.5 seconds) will not charge it; player has to wait for about half a second after firing to get a proper charge cycle going
Sometimes, the charge level indicator would still play immediately after firing a charged spell
I actually never tested this with voice powers, but I doubt it’d work
Since this is script-based, performance will vary depending on whether or not you tinkered with your .ini files and if you have other script-heavy mods installed; I can’t help you much there, but this might help (many thanks to falador wiz1 for helping me out)

Modability:
There are three global variables that change the balancing of the mod and can be manipulated via the CK:

_SChChargeLimitGlobal – determines the maximum charges (default is 5)
_SChChargeMultGlobal – affects charge strength accumulation (default is 0.025, higher is better)
_SChChargeTimerGlobal – affects charging speed (default is 0.015, higher means faster charge)

There are two global variables that can be used in-conjunction with other mods

_SCChargeLevelGlobal – tracks the current charge level
_SCChargeElementID – tracks the element of the current spell (though it’s unused at the moment)

Usage:
I always release my stuff open and free (script sources, ahoy!), but please attribute my work properly if you show it off to others. You may use this mod however you see fit, and maybe even release your own variant (again, attribution please).