Re: Attack and Hide compatibility.
It may depend on which version of Attack and Hide is being used. There seems to be several variants out there. The one I looked at only seemed to change one setting. I'll take another look at it. Maybe I overlooked something.

Re: Attacking groups
The behavior you described is basic to how Oblivion detection works. When attacking a target, other NPCs get a boost to detection based on their proximity to the target, not the player. Then the other factors kick in. Because the other two Goblins didn't have line of sight, they didn't have the extra bonuses needed to detect you and were like "Hey, what's the rush?".

I did a lot of experimenting in the tutorial in the main goblin cave which was ideal because of the patrolling goblin who would circle the cave. I attacked him at the far side, the shaman and other goblin would join him at attack. If I waited and attacked him when he got to my side, the others wouldn't notice. Goblins have a really low sneak, so presumably, if I set the base sneak value of the shaman goblin really high and tried the same trick, he would spot the skirmish.

New version (1.02b) with improved Auto-Move disabled and other new features is available for download.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37385

:dance:

I tried this for a few hours in a cave and I got to say it's working quite well. I didn't notice much of a difference though, but I think this is attributed to the fact that I play Oblivion like a typical stealth game where I take light, line of sight, and sound into account. The thing that this mod takes into account for me is weight, so now I typically sneak in regular clothes. However when I get caught sneaking I don't put my armor back on. That makes no sense. So yeah I role play it And with Deadly Reflex and FCOM installed I'm use to dying a lot.

Hmmm... perhaps another hardcoe feature of this mod could be to disable your ability to put on/take off armor while in combat and while sneaking, so you couldn't slip on some heavy armor before going into an ambush But I'm quite content with role playing it.

Just wanted to pop in with a bit of support. This is the kind of mods I like, and I intend to try it out - it is just that I'm always too busy with my own modding projects...

Hmm. I'm using http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36465, if it's any help. It seems like SDR has some of the same functionality - last night, I noticed a couple times that if I was far enough away from my opponent, I could go back into hiding.


I had a feeling that was basic AI doing this, not SDR, but I thought I should note it anyway.

This is really impressive, I really like your thoughtfulness, responsiveness & lucidity. :clap: I'm hoping it will work out of the box in Nehrim, anyway I'm going to try it in my new game Regards Beebee

Hi, saebel.
I've faced a new issue on both beta01 & beta02 versions with character's incapacity of casting any spells after a silense effect duration expired.
I'll highly appreciate you and any users of the mod for the report if they experienced such issue or not.

Hi Alliria,

That's a puzzler for several reasons. The SDR Mod does not modify Silence spells directly, all it does is check to see if it was in effect on the player at the time, and if so, the sound penalties get camcelled.

At first I thought it might be the optional AV Uncapper plugin, but that wasn't in the first version which you reported the problem with as well.

There isn't a single setting in any of the SDR scripts that actually modify the ability to cast spells that I know of.

The only other thing I cam think of is that the key for auto-move is disabled im sneak mode, but that is control specific, not key specific, and should not prevent you from casting spells.

I didn't test the effects of silence very thoroughly in the first version. It seemed to work fine, but then I didn't try to cast spells afterwards. I was just checking to see if the sneak sound modifiers were being negated or not.

I am assuming you have other mods installed. I would create a special saved game so you could go back and recreate the conditions of what happened with the following scenarios:
1. only the bare minimum game and just my mod.
2. the game you normally play, without my mod.
3. the game you play with my mod.

The result of the experiment will be one of the following:
Scenario 1: If silence doesn't work right, then it's my mod.
Scenario 2: It's actually a different mod causing the problem, but you didn't notice it until after you installed my mod.
Scenario 3: There is some conflict between my mod and another that is causing the problem. I don't know how that would be possible, but give me a mod list, and I will try when I have time. (which unfortunately won't be for a week or two). If you don't want to wait, you can deactivate half your mods and see what happens, then half again, etc. Untill you narrow it down to two or three.

I hope that helps, and am curious to learn your findings.

Just a thought: would it be possible to silence your footstep sounds when you have the silence effect? It would sort of be an aural clue to if you have the effect on or not.

I'm pretty sure it must be possible to nerf the fooffalls during a silence spell.. That's a good idea.

One thing I find interesting is how the actual silence spell works: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Silence

The ONLY thing that actually gets "silenced" is the ability to cast spells verbally. You can still use scrolls, grunt and scream, engage in dialogue with NPCs, etc.

There are a couple of possibilities here, one is to hook the entire silence effect and really make it extreme (no sounds from the player, including scrolls, inability to engage in dialogue. The other option is to create a new unique spell that does the above, and leave tge original silence spell alone. Perhaps add a second more expensive / difficult spell that only silences equipment gear. The latter option (new spells) might be a fun part of a "Shadow Magic" option, with altered variations of normal spells that don't give off as much light. There may even be a mod that already does this (if I recall).

saebel, at the time I can say that the issue is not connected with "Better Sleeping Penalties" option (I've disabled it during pre-running tweak) directly, and I don't think that it's caused by "Silence Spell Nullifies Sound Penalties" option because I runed the game in both conditions if it was enabled or disabled. Also, the game functions normally if SDR was not activated/was deactivated, so there is not scenario 2. I'll try to find a conflict or scenario 1.
Oh, and I hope you're not frustrated my English. It's not my native language.

I am not certain if this is possible but i have to try and ask.

When i sneak around with my current character and if there is more then one enemy...and if i kill one of them with a bow then often(not always) all the others home in on my character despite the Automagic cloak from Class advantages. Now that is not what i have a problem with...what i do not think is realistic is that when i use a blade i can sneak up to a NPC and sneak kill them while a colleague of him/her is standing only a meter or 2 away and they simply do not react? I can kill a room of one by one without them reacting...actually so far only ones did a NPC draw her blade and started searching for my char.(And she failed miserably of course. ) And i think that only happened because of the mod Duke Patricks - Fresh Kills Now Alert The NPCs.

Now i realize that a sneak skill of 92 and the chameleon effect from Automagic cloak combined with SDR sneak damage make my character extremely deadly while sneaking but it does not feel right that one can do this. Is there something that your mod can do for this or is this simply impossible?

No worries. Many things frustrate me, but other people's English is not one of them. You should hear my Italian (shudder).

That's a real tough one. Although I've pretty much got the formula for detection down, the AI reaction is tricky, and I haven't really had the time to really get too deep into it.

My understanding is that the moment an NPC dies, all other living NPCs pretty much ignore it (unless they were the ones who killed it). So if you kill it, and they didn't see you attack it, once it is dead, it's as if the NPC never existed in the first place.

I'm not sure that there is anything I can do about that. At least not in the first release. But I am collecting and cataloging requests for v2.0, which will go into what happens after the detection event. Mine pretty much only leads up to the point where you get detected, then the Oblivion AI and other mods take over from there.

Darn, i was afraid that would be the answer. Almost makes me regret having taken Automagic cloak.

Hopefully a way can be found to make it possible.

I have a built in event that checks for when an actor dies and removes their token. So I can tie some scripting to that, perhaps adding bonuses across the board, depending on proximity, for a brief duration that decreases over time. But that's definitely 2.0 material.

That would be great if it improves their reaction, take your time with working things out saebel.

You are right, saebel. This is a conflict between your mod and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7228. The issue appears if the option of spell power dependense from npc's stats/skills is enabled in kse configuration file. This is line: set KeaNPSPowerMagic to 1. Although I understand that anolysis of scripts made by other person could be a complicated problem, I hope there is a solution except of mod functionality reduction.
And a little more question, could you give any recomendation for combined using of SDR and JCN's "AV Uncapper Settings" mod? Is it necessary to load SDR after JCN_AV Uncap.esp or identical options tweaking in a compliance is enough?

Hi Alliria,

I'll take a look at KSE when I have some downtime. But I'm swamped for at least a week.

If you use the same settings in both my ini and the uncapper, load order does not matter, otherwise whichever settings you want to use load last.

Finally decided to replace Phitt's Sneak Penalties with SDR, looking good so far. Couple of questions. Would SDR conflict with Phitts Phighting Phixes, the Actors Care part, or would it just take precedence since it loads after PPP? And I'm having auto-move triggered for no apparent reason when sneaking about, while the actual auto-move key is disabled as intended. Don't know how to duplicate it, it just happens. Playing the game with just SDR loaded seems fine, so probably a mod conflict somewhere..

Ok, I thank you greatly for your obliging help and look forward for the futher development of the mod.

I've been getting that too - I thought it was a problem with my keyboard.

Does carrying (or being) a light source have an effect on sneaking? A couple times, I've noticed this: once, I had a light spell cast on me; another time, I saw an NPC adventurer carrying a torch. Both times, we were sneaking around completely unnoticed. The NPC stood there holding a torch, and a vampire kept bumping into him ("Gee, there's something here... but I don't see it! And where's that light coming from?" ).

No doubt a mod conflict. There is a script function that is called "tap control" which allows you to virtually strike a key. When I implemented my feature, I actually had to do check for two things, because Oblivion had two different behaviors.

1. If you were not sneaking, and you were in auto-move, when you switched into sneak mode, I could check to see if you were holding down the forward key, check to see if you were sneaking and then "tap" the auto-move off.
2. However, if you were not in auto-move, and then went into sneak mode, if you hit the auto-move key, you suddenly were auto-moving, and for some reason trick 1 above didn't work, so I threw in a second check that would disable the auto-move key if in sneak and re-enable it if not sneaking.

But the "tap" command ignores the "disable" command. So if there is another mod that is doing a similar check, and it throws in it's own tap, you could find yourself suddenly moving forward with no way to stop unless you get out of sneak mode. For example, I'm in auto-move, I drop into sneak mode, the first mod "taps" it off, and then my mod kicks in and "taps" it on. Since it's a toggle, there's not much I can do about it.

When I'm done with my taxes, I'll take another look at it. If you can figure out which mod is doing it, that would be very helpful.

Forgot to answer your first question. I'm not familiar with the mods, and I'm guessing not, but I'd have to download them and check. I'll do it when I get a chance.

In general, SDR will take precedence over another mod if it is loaded after, assuming that the other mod changes the same game settings as SDR. In which case there shouldn't be many (if any) issues). However, there are exceptions:
1. My mod sets a lot of the game settings only once when a saved game is loaded in order to boost performance. If another mod is constantly changing the settings, even if it is loaded earlier, it's script will fire and change the settings that SDR only set the one time.
2. If the other mod modifies an NPCs sneak skill or the player's sneak skill, they could be active simultaneously, and neither would know it. That means that the relative sneak skills between the player and the NPCs could get totally wacky.

Sure does. In the vanilla Oblivion game, only light on the player was taken into account. In SDR, light on both the player and the NPCs is taken into account, along with the distance between the two and line of sight.
The rough formula is based on the amount of light on the player, adjusted by the distance from the NPC, adjusted by the difference in light on the player vs. the NPC.

If you are far away, and in the dark, and they are holding a torch, they probably will not spot you.
If they are in the dark, and you light up a torch or cast a spell, they might spot you, depending on the range and how good their sneak skill is.

If the lighting on the player and NPC is about equal, it pretty much comes down to distance and how much light is on you.

Hope that helps.