Just some guesses - can anyone confirm these?


It appears that Skyrim uses areas designated as "Encounter Zones" to spawn random events and NPCs.


Encounter Zones: the quick explanation

In-game geographic regions that "listen" for the player character's presence. On entering an encounter zone, an event may occur. Events can have in-game time ranges where they can occur and perhaps other conditions (such as quest completion or random number generation). Encounter zones may have multiple possible events, allowing them to randomly spawn any of a set of events. Events are usually NPCs spawning with preset behaviors, or random hostile monsters/bandit spawns.


According to the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP) wiki, vampire attacks in a city can only happen 9 PM to 5 AM. Does this mean that it's possible to avoid vampire attacks in a city completely by going indoors (in town) at 8 PM, then waiting or sleeping until 6 AM before exiting your chosen vampire apocalypse shelter? Vampire attacks always seem to happen on arriving in a city, which means their encounter zones would be right on the city gates. I have yet to find one of those encounter zones indoors.


Another guess: Are vampire attacks impossible in Solstheim (Dragonborn expansion)? I have yet to see a town or city get a vampire attack in Solstheim - presumably it would be impossible to build the Dawnguard-specific vampire attack encounter zones into Solstheim because that would make Dragonborn dependent on Dawnguard (screwing up Dragonborn for people who lack Dawnguard).

They should be, at least without considering mods, since Bethesda really could not have two DLC's content interacting like that. Sure, you can have Radiant quests from the vanilla game and Dawnguard consider locations on Solsthiem, but never the Vampire attacks. Also Bethesda would be unlikely to ever make a DLC dependent on another, only on the base game. If they specifically needed something in both DLCs, then they would just have it in both, with a unique reference in both. Like the copied races that Dawnguard and Dragonborn adds to the game, used for NPCs to give them specific abilities, Keywords, etc.

As for the attacks in general, they only consider the city worldspaces(Whiterun, Solitude, etc), and Skyrim's worldspace. You will not have a group of Vampires/Deathhounds spawn inside Dragonsreach or the Blue Palace. However, even if you waited quite some time in those places, it is still possible for a group of Vampires to spawn in the related city worldspace, and you could encounter them even in the middle of the day. I had one case where I think I came out of the Underforge or Jorrvaskr, and I found at least a Vampire and a Deathhound close to Breezehome.

Vampire attacks do only happen during those hours and can be avoided, but what they don't tell you is that any wait or load screen that leads to you emerging in city streets can trigger them, even if you're still "inside a city". If you exit a city building or home during those hours you can trigger an attack because you are effectively reentering the city by doing that. You can also emerge from a "wait" or sleep during that time to find an attack ongoing, or find dead NPCs and vampires lying around. Yes, If you need to wait or sleep during that time, then doing it until after the 5am cutoff should prevent attacks, and if you go into a city building during that time then plan on staying in there until after 5am. Yes, the encounter zones are usually placed just inside and outside of the city gates. If you set off an attack inside a city, then it usually spawns in the nearest encounter zone to where you're at. They seem to have roughly the same chances of happening as running into the "town of Riften chasing a thief" scene.

I've slept overnight outside Whiterun in the closest spot that doesn't give me a message that that was a spot that it was illegal to sleep in, then when I walked to Whiterun in the morning well after the sun was up I found a group of vampires inside Whiterun. I don't know exactly how far away from the city I need to spend the night but if I can't make it before evening I've been staying well away from it. The two guard towers seem to be safe to sleep in but I wish I knew if I could get closer to the city to sleep.

Vampire attacks are triggered on location change. A "location" for game purposes includes both interior and exterior locations. Since attacks only occur in towns, to provide a general definition, an attack only occurs when you enter or exit a town or its environs (which includes going inside and outside buildings).

Attacks only occur between the hours of 10 PM and 5 AM, so you can restrict your travel between these times, of course. Attacks don't occur anymore (unless you use Auriel's Bow to eclipse the sun) after Harkon's death.

You have a 5% chance of triggering an attack, and an attack occurs at least every twenty days if one hasn't occurred in that period. Your first attack is guaranteed once you reach level 8 so there's no point it trying to avoid it.

If you speak to a guard and they mention a vampire attack, one is probably going on; you can cancel this attack by leaving the area, and the vampires will be removed. Vampires won't be removed unless you leave, but they are weakened by sunlight, so if you must stay, you can simply wait until morning.

A city's "location" must include the area outside of town where the carriages park because I have seen vampire attacks during the day after riding carriages to another town and arriving after dark but then waiting right next to the carriage until noon and then approaching the City and going through the loading door during daylight hours. I've had vampire attacks occur in the middle of the day plenty of times under these circumstances.

And of course, if you're on PC, there's a mod to obviate those attacks:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31088/?

I seem to get all of my Vampire attacks during the day, lol. My character will exit the Bannered Mare after a night's sleep to find a fight to the death near the front gate. It always seems as though half the population of Whiterun is already there. By the time my character can get there to help it seems as though the population of Whiterun has already decreased by one-quarter (including my favorite Whiterun merchant, Adrianne Avenicci).

Yes, I've gotten numerous daytime attacks as well which is why I ended up just shutting of the random attacks once I switched to PC.