Armor Compatibility

If you are an armor or clothing mod author, you can give your users out-of-the-box Warmth and Coverage for your gear by following the steps below.

This works on Frostfall 3.3.1 or newer, and works on every version of Skyrim on every platform, including on the Xbox One, and regardless of whether or not the user is using SkyUI or SKSE. It will “just work” and you only have to do it once, ever. There is also no coding involved. Using Frostfall with your mod will still be optional; it will not make your mod dependent on Frostfall.

The general process is:

  1. Do some general housekeeping and make sure you’re using the right default keywords and slots for your gear.
  2. Figure out what the protection of each piece of gear should be, selecting from pre-set categories.
  3. Create the keywords you need in order to set the protection you want.
  4. Inject the keywords using TES5Edit.
  5. Attach the keywords to your armor or clothing.

Tools Required

You will need:

  • Something to write things down on
  • TES5Edit
  • (Optional) The Skyrim Creation Kit (only if not using the Frostfall Warmth Utility)

Using the Frostfall Warmth Utility

Mator has developed the Frostfall Warmth Utility for TES5Edit, which will automate much of this process. It also removes the need to use the Creation Kit, you can do everything in TES5Edit.

If you elect to use this, follow steps 1 and 2 below, and then follow these instructions. Otherwise, complete the entire tutorial steps 1 through 5.


About Mod-Added Equipment and Frostfall

Frostfall already allows users to change the Warmth and Coverage of mod-added gear themselves. However, this option gives modders the ability to design default values that your users will automatically get when they equip your armor using Frostfall. The user will still be able to change the values themselves if they don’t like what you have set.

Default Values

By default, Frostfall assigns Fair warmth and Fair coverage to body, head, hands and feet gear that has no pre-set configuration. If that’s all you need, you don’t need to do anything.

Without following the guide below, Frostfall might not assign protection to cloaks on all supported platforms. If you make cloaks, you will need to follow the steps below.


Step 1: Housekeeping

Update.esm

Verify that your plug-in requires Update.esm as a master. If it does not, open your plug-in in the Creation Kit, tick Update.esm as you are loading it, and re-save the plugin.

This is necessary because the keywords we will be injecting will be injected into Update.esm. If you fail to do this, you will receive an error when injecting the keywords.

Equipment Keywords

Next, please ensure that you have given your mod-added equipment the proper vanilla game keywords used by the rest of the game. Frostfall uses these keywords in order to determine what kind of equipment your armor is. And to be honest, your equipment should be using these keywords anyway.

Body Equipment: MUST use the ClothingBody or ArmorCuirass keyword.

Head Equipment: MUST use the ClothingHead or ArmorHelmet keyword.

Hands Equipment: MUST use the ClothingHands or ArmorGauntlets keyword.

Feet Equipment: MUST use the ClothingFeet or ArmorBoots keyword.

Cloaks: There is no vanilla keyword for cloaks, so there is nothing you need to do other than ensure that it won’t be ignored (see Ignored Equipment, below). You will set the warmth and coverage of this gear in the next steps.

Accessories: There is no vanilla keyword for miscellaneous accessories (such as face masks and scarfs), so there is nothing you need to do other than ensure that it won’t be ignored (see Ignored Equipment, below). You will set the warmth and coverage of this gear in the next steps.

Shields: Just make sure to use the ArmorShield keyword, and your shield will automatically grant 0 Warmth and 20 Coverage, like all other shields. This is all you need to do to support shields. That’s it! You’re done!

Slots

Your equipment must also use the appropriate slot based on its type.

Body Equipment: MUST use slot 32 (Body).

Head Equipment: MUST use slot 30 (Head) or 31 (Hair).

Hands Equipment: MUST use slot 33 (Hands).

Feet Equipment: MUST use slot 37 (Feet).

Cloaks: MUST use slot 46.

Shields: MUST use slot 39 (Shield).

Accessories: Can use any slot not reserved by another kind of equipment above.

Ignored Equipment

If your equipment uses the ArmorJewelry keyword, it will be treated as a circlet / ring / amulet and the system will ignore it, regardless of what kind of gear it actually is. The user will not gain any warmth / coverage benefit from this equipment.

If your equipment uses the word “Circlet” in its display name (the name seen in-game), it may be ignored by the PC version of Frostfall when using SKSE.

To prevent your equipment from being ignored incorrectly, make sure to not use this name or keyword.

Step 2: Determine Warmth and Coverage


Warmth and Coverage Overview

Warmth slows down your rate of exposure at all times. Coverage slows down your rate of exposure in severe weather, and slows down how fast you get wet in the rain.

Gear that looks very padded and lined with furs usually has high warmth.

Gear that looks like it’s made of leather, or some other water-repellent material, usually has high coverage.

Gear that is a mix of materials usually has a mix of warmth and coverage, with neither being very high.

Protection for Body, Head, Hands, and Feet Equipment

With a pen and paper, determine what kind of warmth and coverage you would like each of your equipment to have by choosing a category for both warmth and coverage. These categories are:

Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent, Max Warmth

Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent, Max Coverage

Just pick a warmth and coverage category that sounds right for your gear. If you want your gear to have “a lot” of warmth, maybe pick Good or Excellent warmth. If your equipment shows a lot of skin, maybe pick “Poor” warmth and coverage. And so on.

Examples:

Leather Armor has Fair warmth, but Excellent coverage, since it repels rain.

Fur Armor has Excellent warmth (due to the fur), but Poor coverage. 

Iron Armor has Poor warmth and Poor coverage.

Below is a table of the exact Warmth and Coverage values that each category grants. I cannot emphasize enough that the exact values are not important to know; all you really need to do is pick a category. But it’s available if you want to take a look.

Warmth CategoryBody Warmth ValueHead Warmth ValueHands Warmth ValueFeet Warmth Value
Poor Warmth601597
Fair Warmth110301212
Good Warmth140401515
Excellent Warmth175502121
Max Warmth190552424
Coverage CategoryBody Coverage ValueHead Coverage ValueHands Coverage ValueFeet Coverage Value
Poor Coverage351466
Fair Coverage54291414
Good Coverage72432121
Excellent Coverage91582929
Max Coverage109723535

Protection for Cloaks

With a pen and paper, determine what kind of cloak your cloaks most closely resemble. Your choice will set both the warmth and the coverage. They are:

Cloth Cloak

Leather Cloak

Fur Cloak

Just pick a category that sounds right for your cloak. Fur cloaks have a lot of warmth; leather cloaks have a lot of coverage. Cloth cloaks have a medium amount of both.

 

Below is a table of the exact Warmth and Coverage values that each category grants. Again, the exact values are not important to know; just pick a category from the 3 listed above.

CategoryWarmth ValueCoverage Value
Cloth Cloak2020
Leather Cloak1240
Fur Cloak4012

Protection for Accessories

With a pen and paper, determine what kind of accessory your item is. Your choice will set both the warmth and the coverage. They are:

Warm Accessory

Weatherproof Accessory

Just pick a category that sounds right for your accessory. Perhaps a scarf would be a warm accessory, while a face mask would be a weatherproof accessory.

Below is a table of the exact Warmth and Coverage values that each category grants. Again, the exact values are not important to know; just pick a category from the 2 listed above.

CategoryWarmth ValueCoverage Value
Warm Accessory126
Weatherproof Accessory612

Step 3: Create Keywords

If you are using the Frostfall Warmth Utility, stop here and follow these instructions. Otherwise, read on.

Next, you are going to create some keywords in your mod.

By now, you should have a list of all of the categories that your equipment falls under. You will create a new keyword for each of these categories using the CK.

Start by opening the Creation Kit and open your mod plugin file.

Next, in the Object Window, create a new keyword, named:

FrostfallEnableKeywordProtection

This is a special keyword that tells Frostfall, “Hey, you should give me protection.”  You will attach this to every piece of gear that you want to grant default protection to.

Next, create a new keyword for each of the categories you wrote down. Refer to the list below. You only need to create keywords for the categories you intend to use. You don’t have to create all of them.

// Every piece of armor needs this keyword!
FrostfallEnableKeywordProtection

// Keywords for body, head, hands, and feet gear
FrostfallWarmthPoor
FrostfallWarmthFair
FrostfallWarmthGood
FrostfallWarmthExcellent
FrostfallWarmthMax
FrostfallCoveragePoor
FrostfallCoverageFair
FrostfallCoverageGood
FrostfallCoverageExcellent
FrostfallCoverageMax

// Keywords for cloaks and accessories
FrostfallIsCloakCloth
FrostfallIsCloakLeather
FrostfallIsCloakFur
FrostfallIsWeatherproofAccessory
FrostfallIsWarmAccessory

// Some additional keywords that we'll cover later in the tutorial
FrostfallExtraHeadCloth
FrostfallExtraHeadWeatherproof
FrostfallExtraHeadWarm
FrostfallExtraCloakCloth
FrostfallExtraCloakLeather
FrostfallExtraCloakFur

After creating the keywords that you need, save your plug-in and close the Creation Kit. Don’t worry about attaching your keywords to your armor yet; you’ll do that later.

Example: I have an armor mod with a single piece of body armor that should have Fair warmth and Good coverage. I create 3 keywords in my mod: FrostfallEnableKeywordProtection, FrostfallWarmthFair, and FrostfallCoverageGood.

Step 4: Inject Keywords

Frostfall uses a technique called keyword injection in order to recognize the keywords you just created.

Open your plug-in in TES5Edit. Navigate to the keywords list.

Next, right-click FrostfallEnableKeywordProtection and select Change FormID. Set its Form ID to 01CC0E28.

After you do this, you should see the FormID update, and in the right pane, the text should read,

<Note: FrostfallEnableKeywordProtection [KYWD:01CC0E28] was injected into Update.esm>

If you see this, you’ve done it correctly.

Change the FormIDs of the remaining keyword FormIDs using the table below. They must be these exact FormIDs, or Frostfall will not recognize them.

When you’re finished, exit TES5Edit to save your plug-in.

KeywordFormID
FrostfallEnableKeywordProtection01CC0E28
FrostfallWarmthPoor01CC0E0F
FrostfallWarmthFair01CC0E11
FrostfallWarmthGood01CC0E12
FrostfallWarmthExcellent01CC0E13
FrostfallWarmthMax01CC0E14
FrostfallCoveragePoor01CC0E15
FrostfallCoverageFair01CC0E17
FrostfallCoverageGood01CC0E18
FrostfallCoverageExcellent01CC0E19
FrostfallCoverageMax01CC0E1A
FrostfallIsCloakCloth01CC0E1B
FrostfallIsCloakLeather01CC0E1D
FrostfallIsCloakFur01CC0E1E
FrostfallIsWeatherproofAccessory01CC0E1F
FrostfallIsWarmAccessory01CC0E20
FrostfallExtraHeadCloth01CC0E21
FrostfallExtraHeadWeatherproof01CC0E23
FrostfallExtraHeadWarm01CC0E24
FrostfallExtraCloakCloth01CC0E25
FrostfallExtraCloakLeather01CC0E26
FrostfallExtraCloakFur01CC0E27
FrostfallIgnore01CC0E0E

In our example, our finished keyword injection would look like this:

Step 5: Attach Keywords

We are now ready to attach the new keywords to our armor. Back to the Creation Kit! This is fairly straight-forward; just attach the keywords you created to the armor that it should go on. Make sure to include the FrostfallEnableKeywordProtection on each one.

And that’s it. Save your armor mod and test it in-game. Frostfall should pick it up as expected.

Bonus: Extra Parts

Sometimes, gear has extra pieces attached to it. You can tell Frostfall to recognize these pieces correctly and apply the appropriate protection bonuses.

Body gear: Body gear can have an attached cloak AND / OR an attached piece of head gear. Nightingale Armor is an example of body armor with an attached cloak.

Head gear: Head gear can have an attached cloak.

To note that a piece of body or head gear has an attached cloak, use the FrostfallExtraCloak* keywords, listed in the tables above. Inject them and attach them to your body or head gear.

If your body gear has an attached hood or other head covering, use the FrostfallExtraHead* keywords, listed in the tables above. Inject them and attach them to your body gear.

Bonus: Ignoring Gear

If your equipment should be completely ignored by Frostfall, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to attach the ArmorJewelry keyword to your gear, inject and attach the FrostfallIgnore keyword. The gear will then provide no protection.