Customizing Crafting Categories

Introduction

Crafting categories, shown in-game when the player uses a crafting station such as a forge, are a way for the player to identify the material or type of item that will be crafted. Although some aspects of these categories are hard-coded, it is possible to customize them to a large degree.

Background

Categories consist of four components:

Label

This is the text that appears in-game to identify the category. For example: IRON, STEEL, IMPERIAL, JEWELRY. Note that all of the labels in the English version of the game are in uppercase. This is not a requirement. In fact, the Dawnguard DLC adds a custom category label 'Aetherium' spelt with a single capital 'A'.

Game Setting

The Game Setting is a key that provides access to a value. For categories, the value is a String that represents the label of the category. Game settings are part of the game and their keys can not be modified. Which game settings are used as categories is hard-coded in the game as well. This means the number of categories is limited by the game itself and cannot be modified using the Creation Kit.

Default Object

Default Objects are permanent objects that the programs needs to access reliably. Some of the Default Objects are of the type 'keyword', meaning they point to Keyword objects in the Creation Kit. Although the list of Default Objects is determined by the game and cannot be modified, it is possible to modify the Keyword object each Default Object points to. There are a number of Default Object keywords that represent crafting materials/categories.

Keyword

A Keyword is a named object that can be added to most other objects. We can modify the list of Keywords using the Creation Kit. Through the use of Keywords we can make sure items such as armor and weapons appear in the correct category. This only works for Keywords pointed to by a Default Object.

Default category definitions

The game defines the crafting categories through a hard-coded mapping between Default Objects and Game Settings. This mapping cannot be changed. However, we can change the label for each Game Setting and the Keyword for each Default Object. The table below shows the default configuration. The white columns can be modified using the Creation Kit, the grey columns are hard-coded in the game.

Label	Game Setting	Default Object	Keyword	Notes
DAEDRIC	sDaedric	Keyword - Armor Material Daedric	ArmorMaterialDaedric
DRAGON	sDragon	Keyword - Armor Material DragonboneDG Keyword - Armor Material Dragonplate Keyword - Armor Material Dragonscale	DLC1WeapMaterialDragonboneDG ArmorMaterialDragonplate ArmorMaterialDragonscale	new for Dawnguard
DWARVEN	sDwarven	Keyword - Armor Material Dwarven Keyword - Weapon Material Dwarven	ArmorMaterialDwarven WeapMaterialDwarven
EBONY	sEbony	Keyword - Armor Material Ebony Keyword - Weapon Material Ebony	ArmorMaterialEbony WeapMaterialEbony
ELVEN	sElven	Keyword - Armor Material Elven Keyword - Armor Material ElvenSplinted Keyword - Weapon Material Elven	ArmorMaterialElven ArmorMaterialElvenGilded WeapMaterialElven	mismatch: Splinted vs Gilded
GLASS	sGlass	Keyword - Armor Material Glass Keyword - Weapon Material Glass	ArmorMaterialGlass WeapMaterialGlass
HIDE	sHide	Keyword - Armor Material Hide	ArmorMaterialHide
IMPERIAL	sImperial	Keyword - Armor Material Imperial Keyword - Armor Material ImperialHeavy Keyword - Armor Material ImperialReinforced Keyword - Weapon Material Imperial	ArmorMaterialImperialLight ArmorMaterialImperialHeavy ArmorMaterialImperialStudded WeapMaterialImperial	mismatch: Imperial vs ImperialLight mismatch: Reinforced vs Studded
IRON	sIron	Keyword - Armor Material Iron Keyword - Armor Material IronBanded Keyword - Weapon Material Iron	ArmorMaterialIron ArmorMaterialIronBanded WeapMaterialEbony
STUDDED	sStudded	Keyword - Armor Material Studded	ArmorMaterialStudded	only used by one item in the game: Studded Armor