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NPC Tin man Fear System - NTFS
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An upgrade from Fear All Tinmen 32 (or FAT32).

Link: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14348


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Author banter
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Feel free to share ideas and suggestions. Also, if you like what this mod does, please
endorse it. What I really need though is feedback on how the mod behaves in your
PC and whether you like its calibration or not. Your opinion can make this mod even better!

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Introduction:
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Picture the following scenario:

You are wearing power armor, you are the badass of the wasteland and some lowly half
naked raider thinks he can take you on with a 10 mm? I mean, ok, they're stupid but
this is suicide.

And now these:

- Raiders, Talons, all hostile humans fleeing on sight unless they seriously outnumber you.
- Enclave officers fleeing if all their troops are dead.
- Raiders fleeing once their Fallen Brother ally is killed.
- Fleeing enemies meet allies, bolster their numbers and return to kill you.
- Talons have cornered you and you are almost dead. Only a couple of them remain
now. Kill them? Nah. Just take a stimpak and they'll go searching Mothership Zeta.
In a hurry.

and many more. If you wanted having Power Armor to be a more rewarding achievement
this is it. This is the power of NTFS (and you thought it was the format thingy).

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Description:
===============

If you are wearing Power Armor, all "INTELLIGENT" (not creatures) hostile NPCs around you
that are NOT wearing Power Armor will flee from you because of the aknowledgement of their
upcoming dismemberment, based on certain conditions. I am proud to present the first
implementation of the Pack Mentality feature:

Pack mentality: NPCs will engage you in combat even if you are wearing PA, based on
a number of factors:

1. How many of them remain still alive.
2. How wounded you are.
3. How badly damaged your PA is.
4. They have a PA ally in their ranks. If he falls, and the other conditions are met,
expect them to scatter like rats.

This mod is best experienced with a spawn increasing mod such as MMM since unless your
enemies are at least 4 (including some randomness) they will flee in terror.

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Requirements:
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This mod requires FOSE!

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Installation:
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- First install

Just extract and enable the .esp. You should place the .esp late if not last in your load
order, before the merged patch of course. Certainly after MMM.
It only changes flee behaviour based on certain conditions so it won't overide anything
important or notable to your gameplay.

- Upgrade from previous installation

You must make a clean uninstall and re-install to your game. This means:

1. Go to an empty (from NPCs) cell
2. Save your game
3. Uncheck this mod
4. Rest till respawn
5. Save your game
6. Enable new .esp

To uninstall, follow steps 1-5. Nothing should really happen, but just to be safe.

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Compatibility:
===============

This mod introduces a scripted flee behavior, so it should be compatible with pretty
much anything. I use it with FWE + MMM with no problems. Arwen's Realism Tweaks shouldn't
be incompatible either, as long as my mod supercedes the aforementioned in the load order.
I don't really think this would fit in with Arwen's hardcoe difficulty though, unless you
want an easier game at high levels

If you are using a mod that decides when an NPC should flee, chances are that as far
as Power Armor is concerned, my mod will override the flee behavior if you load it
after the mod in question.

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Bugs/Issues:
===============

No bugs are known at the moment. Please keep in mind some things however:

1. This mod is still in beta. More features are planned to be added in the future, but
for that I need feedback on how this mod is working in your game.

2. This mod uses the Fallout Flee AI. If you notice fleeing NPCs coming towards you,
or cowering and waiting for you to shoot them you are simply experiencing first hand
the crappy Fallout 3 AI. Shouldn't happen too often unless another enemy scares them
your way.

3. There is certain randomness in what you will experience. In general, if you are in
good health, with good armor condition and none of your enemies is wearing PA, if there
are less than 4 enemies left they should flee.

4. This mod is pretty dependant on CPU. If you notice that NPCs are fleeing even though
there are many of them, chances are your CPU doesn't have the time to process the script.
If you experience this, post a comment mentioning how many hostile actors where present.
If you want to fix this yourself, you can go to my 1ntfsQuestScript and increase the
update interval until your PC can keep up.

5. Super Mutants are NOT actors, they are creatures. Even if they were, their hatred for
Power Armored people is well known.

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Future/Planned:
===============

There are several features planned for this mod. Unless major bugs come up, you can
expect a new feature with every update. These include:

- Pack mentality improvements for even more advanced AI.

- Expansion of this behavior to EVERY NPC WEARING PA.

- BoS and Outcasts shooting you on sight if you are wearing Enclave armor. This can be
worked around by the player if he/she:

1. Is not wearing Enclave helmet and has high enough karma for them to know the player
on sight.
2. Has such high karma that they can recognize who the player is through simple voice
communication, thus you will not need to take of the helmet at high levels.

===============
History:
===============
1.0b - 28/08/10:
Initial Release
1.1b - 06/09/10:
Implemented Pack Mentality Feature
Fixed actors becoming non-hostile
Fixed actors not fleeing when they should
Fixed some smaller bugs

===============
Credits:
===============

- Thanks to Bethesda for creating Fallout 3.
- Kudos to the FOSE team. This mod would have been impossible without their work!
- Many thanks to schlangster. This mod is based on his ref-walk script.
- Also, kudos to Saiden Storm for his excellent advice!
- Kudos to Ashven for the FAT32 name. It was a moment of pure genius.
- Many thanks to all the wonderful people in the Bethesda Forums. This mod wouldn't
have been possible without their experience and advice!
- And, as usual, thanks to the hamster I never had. Missing you already.

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License/Legal:
===============

- This file is provided as is and the author holds no responsiblity for anything that
may come to happen from using this file. Use at your own risk. If it breaks your game,
nukes your computer or causes an outbreak of pestilence, I am not to blame.
- Everyone who charges whatsoever for this mod will burn for eternity to the nine depths
of Hell. Also, Dante might pay him a visit.
- Do not publish altered or tweaked versions of my mod. This was a lot of hours' work
for me to allow it being molested.
- Please do not bug me debating whether or not this mod is necessary and/or immersive.
This is my take on the Wasteland. If you do not agree, do not download this mod.
- I have a PhD to pursue and thus, not a great deal of free time. If I do not repond
to your questions, do not take offense.
- All the above is not applicable to you if and only if you are a Giant Space Hamster.
You will rule the universe anyway so why not be on your good side?

Gatta admit this looks pretty damn cool.

But first question - what if you are not waring power armor and you off most of the group of a raiders or the other features you mentioned?

Do all the features only work if you are in a tin can?

KInda reminds me of a greatly expanded version of one my favorite Oblivion mods http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22392 by Kuertee where if you lower their hitpoints enough they surrender to you and beg for their life. It has other features like effecting wildlife aggression and killing quest oriented NPCs who need to die after you leave a cell so that a quest can progress (just to you it seemed you spared their life).

I can see Arwen liking this. Less bloodshed and all.

This sounds very good, however I would not like to spend hours chasing NPCs around just to clear an area or complete a quest.... I can think of several alternatives to avoid this, but I have NO modding experience and so I don't know if they are possible:

1. Be able to gain a "track" perk which would allow the player to find these fleeing NPCs somehow (visible footprints or bloodstains on the floor?),

2. Be able to gain an "overwhelm" perk which switches off the flee response,

3. Be able to gain a "sprint" perk which increases speed for a limited period (there are mods that do this already)

IMHO, this would be a good way to mitigate the flee response and avoid having to run around all the time chasing after fleeing enemies...

Yep, that is the point
It would be very easy to implement this behavior for non-PA users (I'd actually have to remove lines from the script ) but it kind of
beats the point of this mod. Even if you off a whole battalion of raiders, only lucky shot can still take you out. If you are wearing PA,
there is just no way



You shouldn't have trouble of this sort, but if you do (and I mean REAL trouble), you could:

- Unequip your PA. This will stop the NPCs from fleeing after a few seconds.
- Leave your health below 30%. This will also prevent the flee behavior.

If anyone faces a problem because of this mod, please post so I can work around it :toughninja:

Leaving my health below thirty just so i can stop enemies from running seems somewhat against realism - I mean who would stay wounded just to fool his enemies into staying ?

What would work is perhaps a "pretend you are wounded" option which lures enemies close when they should be fleeing... :whistling:

Anyway - no more bugging you - it's your mod, and you can develop it any way you can

Well a lot of the original Oblivion stuff is still in there. Maybe some sort of 'Drain Health' effect that reduces health by a certain amount and then returning the lost health after the effect wears off could be used? Of course that's pretty dangerous and not really pretending.

Well, I did say to do that if you REALLY need to And it was 30 "percent" not 30 "points"

I could make a pretend to be wounded perk, but first you must tell me whether you actually had a problem with a quest or not, because
I don't think I ever had such a problem Also, immersion-wise, NPCs don't really give a damn on whether you'll have problems
collecting ammo or killing them, they would actually be trying to avoid just that.

What I want though is feedback, feedback, feedback!!! How is it working for you???

Kuertee's mod I cited above has the NPCs run only for the length of a cell or two then they give up.

Another option is have them surrender if overwhelmed. Or drop their loot before running.

Some use the NPCs yield to get the opponent to surrender then use Talkie's Companion Share and Recruit to take them on as expendable henchmen.

That's awesome. The ideas in this thread are pretty cool, too. If you can actually make it so raiders flee when you kill most of their group I think that'd be something a lot of people would be interested in. Having the NPCs yield to you seems like it'd be a bit more complicated.

How about some sort of "terror threshold"? Eight people may be enough to take down a power-armoured person, but if you've killed five of them and aren't badly damaged then they clearly have a reason to run for their lives. And if you kill another one? Well, they can take that as incentive to surrender. Or to run faster.

One small question, though; does this affect friendly NPCs? What about NPCs that will always fight you?

And one other question: is this determined by the number of NPCs fighting you, or their collective "I'm outta here!" chance? Sure, most people would cower before a power-armour-wearing person when not in large numbers, but that doesn't account for the number of NPCs that are either overconfident or stupid...

Also happens here. Well, except the give up. They only run for their lives




Well, numberwise, what you describe already takes place in this mod. This mod applies only to HOSTILE NPCs. If an NPC is overconfident or stupid, or just plainly strong, he/she will stay and fight

The only thing that doesn't happen is enemies surrendering because, plainly, what could a PA character gain from a surrendering raider? Ammo? He/she probably has enough already :celebration: Besides, this isn't the point of this mod. The point is a more realistic AI reaction to the fact that you are wearing PA

Wondering about load order and possible bash tags.

Thinking like prior to FWE and maybe use a scripts tag if there is conflict.

What this mod does is a ref-walk to find hostile actors and then it applies a flee script effect if certain conditions are met (well ok, it's more complex but in essence that's about it). I also change some Game Settings for fleeing, so it shouldn't really matter where it is loaded, the script effect will be applied anyway if the quest script is running. I went to great lengths to ensure that if the effect is applied, the actor WILL flee, so no worries there.

Therefore, the structure is simple; one quest script and one script effect.

The only reason you would load late are the Game Settings. If you don't really care for NPCs fleeing a bit further then load order wouldn't really matter. Also, the script tag is the way to go, yes, keep in mind however that there is also a script effect. I don't use garybash so I can't tell you more right now

Ah, but you've missed my point. Running away from anyone wearing power armour IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES is unrealistic - this may be the wasteland, but if I were a raider and I just saw some guy wearing power armour kill all my buddies, I'd either run like hell or start bawling at them to spare my life and let me live. Furthermore, you seem to be going under the assumption that a player would kill every enemy they encounter, whether they'd surrender or not! The point is less "they surrender so we can kill them easier" but more for that "realistic and immersive" thing that people keep going on about.

Also, what does this mod do for hostiles that are meant to attack the player regardless of anything that comes up? Regulators and Talon mercenaries aren't just going to see you and go "screw this, he's wearing power armour". They have a contract, after all.

OK so after some testing I think I got it working well enough.

I have a FWE/WMK/EVE/MMM set up (with about ... oh a 100 other mods):
I originally placed it after EVE and got crashes on cell transitions (fast travel also the fastest way to stress test). I then moved it right before bashed patch and it worked fine. So fast travel to Nuke Cola plant, then fairfax, etc. Looking for those raiders to test.

Wearing the Winterized T15b whatever at max condition and an extended clip ACR - stormtrooper status ... yeah the raiders attack full force at first. But then after about 70-80% are dead the rest will put their guns away and flee. Strangely at the Nuka plant area - they all ran toward me when fleeing. One stayed behind with their head covered pleading for me (in vanilla spoken language) to spare his life. That was cool.

I've not yet faced like only 1-2 raiders - want to see if they will run on the spot.

This is a great companion for Talkie's http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13325 Which feels more like what being a walking tank should be like - they go great together.

The bawling thingy does happen, because of the flee AI. Some actors will decide that instead of running they should crouch and plea for their lives!

Also, as you said, the point isn't to kill them easier, it is not to have to kill them at all (well you can if you want ). The problem is that surrendering would require voice files to be immersive, as well as tweaking the base form in order to add these. This is great and all but it is not something I am willing to make since this mod is all about AI



That's a bit subjective but I think they would. You may have a contract, but when two of your buddies fall to a walking tank which remains undamaged, you will start thinking about it a different perspective Moreover, from a shameless modder point of view, it's just plain easier to have it affect every hostile actor. Filtering the hostiles is something I have planned for the future. My only concern is that since there are so many mods out there what would I base the filtering on? Weapon dmg? Level? Armor Rating? I am leaning towards the last, but we'll see :flamethrower:



This is F3 AI exhibiting its prowess There probably was another hostile nearby and scared them your way. Or they were just being plain stupid :brokencomputer:

Oh and good to see you got it working! Load last is the safest way to go it seems :toughninja:

Well if I had a dime for every time I heard the instructions "load last" ... I could ... well you get the idea. Not all mods get that coveted position. I've not yet tested earlier with bash tags.

What about supermutants? They are intelligent enough to use guns.

Personally I vote for no, but thought it worth asking.

roflmao I'll change it to "towards the end" then :celebration:



As stated in the readme:

Ahh the readme - yeah - heard of those things. Sorry

Well trying to load prior to FWE is still giving crashes even with scripts tag, so I'm setting for loading it after MMM with that tag - seems the most stable.

And yeah have run across like 3 raiders who all ran at the same time. I think I was chasing one of them and he turned on me and got down to fight - was this because up ahead there were more raiders and the number/ration changed? Works great so far - me likey.

Thanks for this.

Great mod otm! Are npcs wearing PA affected in the 1.1b or is it still only the player affected?

Bad bad modder :flamethrower:



Seems you'll get those dimes after all :clap:



Probably, yes



For now player only I will probably add this soon if no weird script problems arise but, you know, FWE and MMM 6.0 are out :hubbahubba:

Btw, I'm open to ideas, is there anything you'd like to see in this mod that is not already planned?? I thought of a little bonus, NPCs reacting when your weapon is out and/or pointing at them. The script is already there so why not use it, right?

I like that but there must be a reason bethesda didn't include those scripts, probably it causes glitches or crash? Anyways I'm willing to try it out if you integrated them to your mod. MMM and FWE 6.0 user here and so far haven't got any crashes in my game with my custom bashed patches. aside from companion ai glitches and navmesh issues hehe.