That's the one I am shooting for (inviso sneaking alpha channels). In order to do it properly, I have to calculate penalties and bonuses almost exactly the same in either direction, which is forcing me to break down my larger scripts into smaller functions that can be called by either NPCs or the Player and return accurate results. So I'm basically pulling everything apart and putting it back together again.

It's just as well too. Found a flaw when it comes to calculating the movement speed while sneaking based on mastery level. It changes the actual game setting, rather than just modifying your speed. Which means when you reach a higher sneak mastery level, when you sneak faster, so does everyone else, regardless of their sneak ability. Oops. So in addition to everything else, I'm trying to figure out an alternate way of doing it, which is proving more challenging than I had hoped.

Nonetheless, I think it will end up a better mod for it.

Sweet. I really like mods that have a ton of features that are easily toggleable (?) via INI file - TheNiceOne's mods are exactly this. Reduces load order clutter and allows for some serious customization of gameplay.

Thanks for your work on this mod.

Had to redo a slew of scripting and calculations to add the "Disappearing NPC Sneaker" bit and give approximately the same weight of the player detecting NPCs and having NPCs detect the player.

Ran into some technical problems with the construction set that stalled me for awhile, but those are fixed.

Now back to double checking and making the scripts as efficient as possible, and play-testing. So hopefully I'll have something soon.

Very cool.

thank you!

Weehew!

Almost done. Wow, that was some painful reprogramming, but in the end, I think the overall balance is improved as well as some refinements, let alone the new alpha channel feature. Watching NPCs fade in and out as they sneak around is looking pretty good. I still have one more tweak to make. Essentially I want to duplicate what an NPC's experience to detect the player and reverse it, so I'm throwing in additional adjustments for combat, being attacked, noticing and tracking someone, that sort of thing. So although the idea is inspired by the other mods, the end result is calculated from scratch based on the SDR system.

Because I pretty much had to rewrite everything, before I officially release it, I'd like a few volunteers to beta test it behind the scenes. PM me if any of you are interested in doing that. I will most likely have something ready by the end of next week, if not the end of this weekend.

Thanks for challenging me, I think the new feature and revisions to the mod make it better than ever.

Thanks for taking up my request to make your mod compatible with Reneer/Haldar's work.

PS: I understand that if I use your released version, I will have to turn off the disappearing NPC feature from Haldar's via the ini, right? Also, Attack and Hide, SM Combat hide etc. also need to be disabled?

Hey all!

The next release is basically finished, I'm just double checking my work and updating the documentation.



With the next release, here are the inter-mod compatibility notes:

COMPATIBLE
The following mods do NOT conflict as far as I can tell.
- Undercover
- Undercover 2.0
- Thieves Arsenal
- Morrowind Lockpicking
- Reneer's Guard Overhaul

MINOR CONFLICTS
- SM Combat Hide: There is only one minor game setting conflict with SM Combat Hide. Keep SM Combat Hide enabled, but make sure to load SDR after it.
- Haldar's mod pack: Disable the disappearing NPC part of the mod pack in the .ini. The other four do not conflict.

NOT COMPATIBLE
The following stealth mods should be disabled, as they completely conflict
- JOG's stealth overhaul
- Proximity sneaking
- Phitt's sneak penalties
- Deadlier sneaking
- Attack and Hide
- Reneers NPC Sneak Mod

If there are any other stealth related mods you have questions about, let me know. If sneaking and detection isn't involved, then there is probably no conflict.

Will your Disappearing NPC Sneakers keep the NPCs stealthed for a few seconds after they begin combat with the player?

SNEAK PREVIEW!

I took some screen shots of the new mod in action.

1. It's awfully dark, and it looks like no one is there.
[img]http://www.creativehaven.net/ss7.JPG[/img]

2. Light a torch however and voila!
[img]http://www.creativehaven.net/ss6.JPG[/img]

3. If you don't use a torch, you might end up right on top of them before you see them!
[img]http://www.creativehaven.net/ss8.JPG[/img]

Fun stuff!

No, this mod does not modify NPC behavior in terms of making decisions whether or not to stay in stealth mode. Otherwise it would probably conflict with other mods' stealth AI behavior. This mod only handles immersion at the detection level.

Visibility mimics the minimum detection levels that NPCs have to detect you:
Friendly or unaware NPCS: base detection level. If they are good sneakers, you probably won't notice them unless lighting conditions are bright (torches become important!) or you stumble across them in close range. Obviously if your sneak skill is high, your chance of noticing them improves.
Alert / Searching NPCs: mimic by going into "Sneak" mode yourself to gain a bonus, by the same factor if the NPCs was searching for you or on alert. I figure if you are Sneaking, you are probably mentally more in an "alert" mode than when you are not.
In Combat: If the NPC is in combat, and you are the target, they become more solid, by the same factor if the situation was reversed.

There is an additional option I built in that uses disposition to modify how well you see the NPC. That way if you have a mod installed that allows sneaking as a team, and the other team members have a high disposition towards you, you are less likely to lose sight of them.

Hope that makes sense.

I don't necessarily mean that. I guess what I meant was that with using Reneer's NPC sneak mod or Haldar's, the NPC that is initially invisible, they stay invisible for a few seconds after hitting you and engaging combat with you. Does your version change that? Do NPCs become visible as soon as they initiate combat or do something similar to NPC Sneak Mod or Haldar's version?

There's no timer or anything like that. The mod scales the visibility depending on your detection level against them. So rather than on or off, it's in shades. When you are attacked by someone, your "detection level" against them goes up by 40 pts. with my default settings. In most cases, such as in close quarters combat, odds are they will become more visible, probably anywhere from 5% to 40% depending on how hard it was to detect them in the first place. However there may be some occasions when they won't, but that would take a big difference in sneak skill levels as well as lighting conditions, or if they are striking at a distance with a bow.

Now if the attacker were to strike, and then disengage combat and run away, they could slip back into the darkness and not be spotted. You would only briefly get the bonus when they attacked, because the moment they disengage combat and you are no longer the target, they are focusing on staying hidden rather than attacking you.

I think that the idea behind the several seconds delay in the other mods is to allow for disorientation. But I think that happens naturally anyway, with or without the mod. That's my take on it anyway.

The only thing I'm not thrilled about, and I doubt there is anything that can be done about it, is that LOS is calculated from the p.o.v. of the camera, and not where the player's eyes are, so there is a better chance of spotting someone sneaking up on you in 3rd person than 1st person. But I suppose that will have to be the choice of the player how they want to role-play it.

hi, i have play this mod now for couple of weeks and i have to say it works good.
the only thing i have problem with is with my thief character.
am now max out on sneak (100) and its to easy all, i can run in daylight in to IC and no one even see me
even worse, i can bump in to them and thy do not react, the guards are not even reacting anymore while i have Reneers guard overhaul.
so, anyone has the same problem are is it only me ? i have no other sneak mod running

I've been working on a new version with some revised formulas. I'll go test out your scenario with the new mod and see what happens.

Okay, I think I have solved this problem. I am adding an additional customizable lighting adjustment setting. It takes the current amount of light on the sneaking target (you the player), takes a percentage of it, squares it, then adds that to the total.
The formula is:

vNewSightBonus = vOldSightBonus + ( ( vLightOnActor * vLightingPercentage / 100 ) * ( vLightOnActor * vLightingPercentage / 100 ) )

after which chameleon and blindness effects are added.

Here are some examples of how that effects game play.
In broad daylight, vLightOnActor would be 100
Lets say you set vLightingPercentage is 20
This results in a bump of 400 to the light value, which goes into the rest of the formula.

In low lighting conditions, say vLightOnActor is 20, this would result in a bump of only 16.

With 100 sneak, in broad daylight, in the above scenario, I could sneak, but once I got within about 900-1000 units of a guard, if they had line of sight, they would spot me. So what that means is that at a distance you can still sneak around and do stuff in broad daylight, such as pick pockets or pick locks on doors, but you just have to be careful about anyone else who might be nearby and have line of sight of you. Even with a 100 sneak. However, if you have a lot of chameleon spells and effects on you, you can sneak right up to the guard's face and they won't see you. But you need a lot of them. With 30% Chameleon, you can get fairly close, but they will notice you in short range. With about 50% they won't notice you until you bump into them. With about 80% they won't notice you at all unless you attack them.

Also, the setting can be customized in the .ini. So you can increase or decrease the bump percentage accordingly, or turn it off by setting it to zero. I've done some preliminary testing, and 18 seems to be work well for basic vanilla settings. Testing various distances and various sneak levels with various chameleon effects on or off.

Does that sound about right?

saebel

Update:
- figured out how to make NPCs fade out when they sneak

- figured out how to make the player fade out in place of the chameleon refraction effect

- in the process of figuring out the above two things, plus responding to some feedback, I found that my overall formula for the LOS visual penalties was not satisfactory, especially in broad daylight. I have since overhauled the formula, and thoroughly tested the broad daylight scenario at various levels of sneak skills for the player, the guard that was on duty, and various stengths of chameleon. I am very pleased with the results. Unless you have a very high sneak skill, or are using lots of chameleon, it is nearly impossible to stay undetected in broad daylight in close quarters, and only a combination of both a high sneak and high chameleon values will allow you to walk right up to a guard from the front without being noticed. However, at a distance, even a low level sneaker has a chance to sneak into a house within sight of a guard: as long as the guard is far away amd doesn't have a high sneak level themselves.

- I still need to test the same scenarios at night, as well as in a darker interior, and then check back on the NPCs sneaking fade effect with the new formulas.

- The only other thing I am not happy about is the "tracking" feature, which is supposed to give the detector a bonus the moment they notice the player, for as long as you are in LOS and are still sneaking. It's not quite working as I hoped, so I will have to revisit that once I've resolved everything else. I may use a totally different tactic on that. Not sure yet.

I apologize that this is taking longer than I hoped, but I think you will find the end result well worth it.

Okay, finished everything that was on the list, but had one more option (settable in the ini) idea that just popped into my head that I want to add: modifying LOS so that there is a gradient in penalties depending on viewing angle of the detector.

My thinking is that it is harder to detect someone coming at you from the side than from head on because your peripheral vision is not going to be as good. But Oblivion treats the side the same as coming from the front. Either you have LOS or you don't.

Well I found the CS functions that will allow me to calculate those angles, which in turn allows me to degrade LOS bonuses the further out of the field of vision you get until the detector no longer has line of sight, allowing the angle at which you sneak at a target to be more fluid than just front or rear. Fun yes?

Also, as a side benefit, I may be able to use this to nullify the LOS problem which kicks in with the camera in 3rd person p.o.v. Right now, if you are in 3rd person camera, if you see someone coming up from behind, you get LOS. But with this new feature, if the angle is behind where your character would normally be able to see, it will treat the target as if you don't have line of sight. This becomes very important when using the option combined with NPCs fading while sneaking. Because if you combine the features together, in 3rd person p.o.v., if someone is sneaking up right behind you, you won't be able to see them from the camera.

The adjustment will be in a range from 50% to 150%, depending on angle of view. It only applies to regular NPCs (except Argonians). The vast majority of "Creatures" and Argonians have different eye placement, so I am just going to clump them all into one group. Their field of view modifiers are the same regardless of angle.

Then it's updating the docs, and then a new release.

saebel

Sweet. This mod keeps getting better and better.

Quick update.

All features target for the next release have been implemented and seem to be working as designed. At least in the forced test scenarios I set up.

Finishing up the support documentation - just a few pages left.

After that, I want to do one last thorough test and go through the whole thieve's guild quest line with a brand new character and just the basic and unofficial patches. I want to make sure the playing experience is smooth over time.

Great concept, incredible really (my mouth salivated over the features all through my FCOM reinstall), but I'm having some serious issues.

The core of my issue is this: being detected by an NPC when I'm not in their L.O.S. and haven't moved (like a guard detecting me through a wall as they walk down the street, but I'm not in their L.O.S. and haven't moved or turned).

I believe the problem is related to detection based solely on range, and tested many different settings on the ini file but all of them were unable to change this fact. The effect was really noticeable once I changed the first setting: "BASIC - Base Sneak Value" from default -25 to -15, and the effect became incredibly more noticeable as I used higher values; at a very high setting of 75, I couldn't be any where in the same cell without being noticed either moving, in L.O.S. or neither.

Am I correct in understanding that no matter what the variables are, if I haven't moved and am not in L.O.S. I shouldn't be detected?

Not exactly.

First of all, Guards are weird, and seem to be hardwired to have different detection rules. I have a plan to (hopefully) address that in the next release, which will have other improvements to make the experience smoother as well.

Secondly, there are five components to calculating an NPC's detection level against you. Sight, Sound, Skill, Combat, Base Sneak Value. These five combine together to calculate detection. Of these five, only three diminish over distance: Sight, Sound, and Skill. So, if you are not moving, and they do not have line if sight, you still have to go against their skill, adjusted for combat, and adjusted by the base sneak value. Combat only applies if you attacked the NPC or are in combat with someone else, so lets assume you aren't and drop it from the equation. That leaves you with a Skill vs. Skill contest + the base sneak value. Their chance to detect you via Skill improves the closer they get to you, regardless of LOS or if there is a wall in the way. But ultimately, if your skill is higher, you would win that, as long as the Base Sneak Value doesn't wreck it.

That's actually where you went awry. The Base Sneak Value is ADDED to the NPC's ability to detect you, so by increasing it to 70, even if all the other factors were 0, it guarantees that they will spot you because it is outside of Sound, Skill, Sneak, and Combat. It's totally separate and unaffected by distance. As long as you are in range, that flat amount is applied. So in your experiment, you really should gone the other way and lowered it. If you made the Base Sneak Value - 100, odds are no one would ever detect you in a standard vanilla game.

Okay, so here are the other pieces of the puzzle. There are three other game settings that detemine the minimum value required in order to be detected. The first is for standard unaware or friendly folks (random NPCs in cities and guards). If their detection level against you is 0 or greater, you will be spotted. The second is for unfriendlies who are on a alert or NPCs that are suspicious. The min detection level for that is -20, so it is easier for them to spot you, because they are on alert. (It's basically the same as a +20 bonus.). The third setting is if you are engaged in combat with the NPC. Not only is there a huge bonus of +100 if you attack them, but the minimum detection level drops to -50 because they are actively hunting you down, so that's basically anothet 50 pt. bump. That's why it is so hard to shake someone after you have backstabbed them. Not impossible (unless they are guards), but without a ridiculously high sneak and chameleon to boot, in standard Oblivion, once you attack someone, they will find you 99% of the time.

Sorry this is so drawn out. Hope this helps, and please let me know if there is anything you need clarified.

saebel

Along the lines of the above, evilmog9999 figured out that once they are on to you, a guard's detection level rarely drops below 4. This could be some hardwired number or gamesetting. It's going to take some detective work to track it down.

However, I am going to try a workaround idea that popped in my head, which is to boost all of the base detection values by 60. Since it is a linear boost, it will have no effect on gameplay, except that if the guards still show the same behavior of not dropping below a 4, that lower limit will have no effect because with 60 boost, if a detection level drops below 10, the target is lost.

This is just theory at the moment. I'll try it out in a few days.

If anyone else wants to try it, there are five values that need to be adjusted from the default values:

set IAICombatMinDetection to 10
set FSneakNoticedMin to 40
set FSneakSeenMin to 60
set FSneakBaseValue to 35
set FSneakLostMin to 40

So if anyone decides to try this, let me know how it works with guards.

Quick Update: Finally finished updating the .esp, .pdf manual, .txt readme, and .ini for all the new features. (yeesh what a pain!)

Still want to do a thorough play-test and make sure the whole freaking thing works as planned. But I won't have time to do that until this weekend.

After that, RELEASE!

- I appreciate your patience.

saebel

And I, for one, really appreciate your hard work. Looking forward to a stable release

Bump for news!