I'm trying to find the best combination for seeing more animals and realistic animal behavior. I know that some mods are meant to be compatible with others, but because of that it's hard to know what's going to produce the best results. I'll probably end up trying lots of different combinations on my own, but I wanted to know what other people do to achieve this goal. Also, I'd like to have whatever I end up using be compatible with mods that add new creatures to the level lists. Obviously I'm not looking for anything like Fran's or MMM, so please don't bother mentioning it.

Thanks for your time.

For realistic wildlife you'll definately want WAC, it's in beta but it's got hundreds of new custom wildlife creatures. It's the best creature mod bar none in my opinion. http://waalx.com/RealSwordsForum/index.php

PS you do have to sign up to his forums to download.

When I said seeing more creatures, I meant more of the animals already in the original game. I've heard many good things about the additions that come with WAC, but right now I'm just looking for a change to what's already there.

I know you said you don't want to hear about MMM, but I just want to make sure you're aware that MMM's faction'd creatures probably do exactly what you want. I haven't tried it myself yet, but having read through the readme it definitely modifies the way creatures behave so they're more realistic, interact with one another, fight and flee, etc. And unlike OOO or Frans or whatever MMM won't mess with the core game balance in any substantial way. Just want to make sure you know about that.

As for a stand-alone mod that does the same thing, I know I've come across one or two that do something similar. If I could remember what they were I'd link them, but I'll keep my eye out. Keep searching for "realistic creatures" or "creature realism" or replace creatures with animals, and so on. I'm almost 100% certain there are a few mods out there.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2063

I like what it does, but now I need something that will make more animals spawn. There are very wide gaps in Cyrodiil where everything just seems lifeless. I'd like to be able combine a mod like this with one that adds animals to fill in these gaps. Does that make sense?

It makes sense. What doesn't make sense is your aversion to MMM as it basically does what you're looking for in this thread, including an optional More Wilderness Life plugin that adds spawn points in previously empty areas around Cyodiil. Oh, well... :shrug:

Well, I've been quite happy with these mods: Creature diversity,Cats and Rats, Axebane hunters and Fair Spawns. All should be in Tesnexus. However, I'm very new to mods and almost as new to using forums -any- forums, ( just recently got my first net access) so take this advice with a handfull of salt. Still, I'm now neck deep in mudcraps and rats and whatever, add Realistic fatique and things get rather interesting.

As the guys said above, MMM IS actually the most suitable mod for your needs. It is very adaptable so you can alter it pretty easily to suit your tastes. At least, give it a chance.

I know you already said you didn't want MMM, but as mentioned by others, it does exactly what you want, except that it adds a lot of new creatures. But most of the new creatures added by MMM are lore friendly, and most of those that are not, can be disabled with specific No_... plugins. With those plugins, MMM gives you more spawn points and more realistic animal behaviour (which is what you wanted), and additional creature diversity, like different types of wolves, friendly dogs, etc, but hardly anything that wouldn't be natural to have there in the first place.

My advice since you are trying to avoid MMM..

If you want a pure vanilla creature mod that increase creature spawn rates and give them unique AI has well then try out

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5251

@those that recommended MMM: My main reasoning for being tired of trying larger mods such as that is mainly due to the complications with compatibility and my taste in the creature additions. I've heard it's customizable, but the last time I looked into it, it seemed like there was still a lot of potential of it being too much for me. That being said, if anybody knows of a list of exactly what creatures are added, maybe I would be a bit more will. I played with Frans for a long time, and what I didn't like the most were the additional atronachs and demons in Oblivion, the hill giants, and the dragons. Also, does it add anything that Lore Creature Expansion adds? I'll be discussing that in my blog soon, so I would want to ensure compatibility between the two.

@Corepc: The main reason I disliked Creatures Alive was due to incompatibility with Alive Waters, which I consider pretty essential to my game. It would cause the slaughterfish it added to spawn on land all the time. Do you know of any way around this problem?

Thanks everyone for their suggestions, and I apologize if I seem picky. I'm just trying to find out as much information as I can before I make a final decision.

EDIT: Grinalot, could you give me a link to the Unofficial Mob Variety Generation Mod? I can't seem to find it on Nexus.

http://pages.suddenlink.net/corepc/#_=====_CREATURE/NPC_LISTING_=====_1

Oh, sorry. I only now noticed the edited post. I don't remember using any mods named like that and the spawn mod's full name is; Fair_x2_Spawns, it's closer to a tweak really. I can definetely agree that some large/huge mods seem to add plenty of lore breaking content, I prefer to avoid them too. 'Sides these little/medium sixed mods work like charm, heh, I just keep adding new ones, at this rate I might end up building a shrine to Boss. :laugh:

This may not be what your looking for either if you have an aversion to overhauls, but http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35265 adds more critter spawns, aswell as TNR NPCs around Cyrodiil, and nothing really out of the ordinary (apart from a few very rare occurance of titan sized versions of a few like a huge daedroth - not quite as big as the word titan would have you imagine)

To add a little to that I throw in LittleBarons Lore friendly creatures ..

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35913

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37529

He also has a Water Beasts one too (advlt content, cannot link).

Undead additions is a revamp of an older version of his, and the other two are currently being worked on to update those too.

If you did not like some of Frans New Creature then MMM you are most likely not going to like either. Has Frans New Creatures actually came from MMM but not on the same scale has MMM version is now.

MMM has plugins to remove some of it creatures but not all them. The HIll Giants and Wyvern can be removed with a plugin.

MMM Already contains the Lore Creature Mod has well. And MMM already Contains some of the Tweaks from Creature Alive has well and Much More.

Once again read the MMM thread or the homepage that was linked above for more info on MMM itself


Creature Alive -

But has for fish spawing away from shore with Creature Alive (One of my Favorite Vanilla Creature Mod) , I think I have a tweaked Version floating around somewhere,

TIE Is good choice has well but that is more a Overhaul than anything else.

If I add Little baron's creatures/undead/vermin to my bashed patch, does it need any BASH tags? BOSS doesn't add any at the moment.

Will these other creature mods play nicely with FCOM?

I don't see this (or any of LB's other creature mods) listed in the Leveled List section of the bashed patch while recreating it.

Someone please advise!

EDIT: Found http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Wrye_Bash/Bashed_Patch#Leveled_List_Merging to clarify and answer my questions...

Be sure to PM me if you do end up finding that tweaked version. That really was my only issue with Creatures Alive while I was using it, so having that would be brilliant. Especially if I would be allowed to link to that on my blog.

As for MMM, I read through the additions and cringed at a few of them. Are each of the sections that they're categorized into in the readme different plugins that can be toggled? If so, I'd be fine.

@alt3rn1ty: Thanks for those links, I really like the undead updates. Is there a thread for his progress on revising the other two? PM me if it can't be linked to here.

@Grinalot: Haha, I know what you mean! Thanks for the full name for Fair Spawns.

Nope - Just http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=7488102Untitled0.jpg and Wrye Bash http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=6586788Untitled.jpg if they conflict with anything (in my case with T.I.E). If they dont conflict with anything ... the mods esp is still adding them to your game.

They will randomly pop up in game, try walking around the edge of water for a while, those Water Dragon flowers will be sniping you're derriere with a fireball before long - If they are in a cluster of long grass they can be awkward to locate too for a few seconds. So you get a bit of a toasting before you finally home in and slap them.




I have never seen a dev thread for LB's work, unless he has one on TESNexus .. to be honest I have never gone looking for one would be nice to know actually what plans are in progress for Vermin and Waterbeasts - Hmm, I'm off searching

Edit: Some (but not all) of LB's are included in Creature Diversity mentioned above, but its a bit behind the curve with updates (includes for instance Ghouls and Mummies which has now been revamped by LB into Undead Additions), IIRC there are a couple of LBs creatures missing from the line-up, haven't used it for a while.

Edit2: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26634

Edit3: Cant find anything dev for LB's mods.

I happen to be trying out MMM for the first time right now. Here are all of the "no" ESPs included with MMM that allow you to exclude specific creature types:

No Adventurers
No Balrogs
No Fiends
No Giants
No Pests
No Skeep
No Swarms
No Werewolves
No Beholdens
No Reavers
No Wyverns
No Uberhulks
No Slimes
No Spiders

I have no qualms with the creature types I've encountered so far, but I'm not really strict about lore stuff. As long as it's not something absurd like Borg drones spawning in the wilderness I'm okay with it, really. Though those spiders are starting to really scare me; I'm not especially creeped out by spiders usually but the paralyze spell they cast makes me fear them more and more. Probably because the first time I ran into them there were two that surrounded me and just repeatedly paralyzed me for 10 minutes looooooool

I am really enjoying the faction system, though. It's fun seeing huge brawls break out between different groups of creatures and NPCs. Balance-wise things seem noticeably more difficult due to the increase in creature spawns, but I was hoping for that anyway. And surprisingly the performance hit has been minimal, aside from some additional instances of loading pauses, but it's definitely tolerable.

Anyway I'd really suggest trying it out for a bit just to see if it might be what you're looking for with creature behavior. Even if there are types of creatures you don't want in the game and you aren't able to disable, you probably won't see them very much, and you can always very easily disable and uninstall MMM if it isn't to your liking.

I do not mind sharing my tweaked Version,

http://www.4shared.com/file/HKO4xk1D/Creatures_Alive_v13.html

I know I did these tweak for sure to fix some problem's

- Removed the worldspace cell edit changes and x markers that where used by Water drinking packages
- Tweaked CreatureDrink Packages to use BeachShell Method for finding water instead of using x markers..

Fantastic, thank you. I'll sure to link to it in my blog as well.

I'm not sure whether this is something that would be in a creature mod or not, but I've found that I can never seem to run far enough away from boars or wolves, even when using Creatures Alive. Maybe the mod doesn't touch this, but it'd be nice to be able to hide from creatures you know you can't kill on your own. I know of "Attack and Hide" and the one by Strategy Master that I can't remember the name of, but if I'm not mistaken, I was under the impression that those only affect NPC behavior. Was I wrong to assume this?