Well, your old version, yeah. I have that one. But you're working on v2.0 or whatever it's going to be entitled, right?
Uhm, so far, the only unarmored NPCs I've seen were Heddvild in Balmora and Engar Ice-Mane from Skaal Village on Solstheim and Kunthar from Pelagiad. Those three so far are the only ones I've seen without chest armor. I actually made addons myself and put armor on them. I mean, it's only 3 NPCs. lol

Oh, when you update your file on PES, can you also include a link to Danae's Hold it addon? You're saying that his is slightly better than your Hold It plugin? Well, I'll take your word for it and use his.
Thanks for answering my question, by the way.

Arn't those Vanilla NPCs ?

The Hold it mod randomly gives items to hold to vanilla npcs and has an addon for Starfire's NPC addition made with Starfire's blessing. You can find it http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7474. I first annouced the release of hold it's new version with the addons in this thread because we first talk about making a hold it - Starfire's NPC addon here. Sorry if that led to confusion.

That being said, Starfire, would you mind addind 'hold it in the related mod of your download page? You could even include the addon in your download but that's up to you.

Also, I'm a girl! I really have to put pink everywhere and start using cute emotes :angel: :hugs: :dance:

I just checked in the construction set and they are indeed Vanilla npc's and not part of my mod. lol I know I wanted my npc's to blend in but I didn't think they would blend in that much



Ah Danae and her trademark... wouldn't be seen without it would you? I have added hold it to the related mod list for you.

Just to be clear for anyone reading who might be confused. At this moment in time the most up to date version of this mod is Starfires NPC additions 1.11. If you want the npc's to also carry items then you will need to download Hold it made by Danae.

Ok here is a small beta for people to test if they fancy it.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ah51dga/n/Starfires_NPC_Additions_-_Patrols_Addon_rar

It is no where near finished but I would like some feed back on what people think so far so I can make any scripting changes etc while the addon is still in its early stages.

The beta includes patrols added around the following settlements...

Balmora
Caldera
Suran
Vivec
Peligad
Ebonheart

It also includes two npcs scripted to fight north of caldera (happens once a month atm)

Scripted attacks on the patrols around Balmora on certain days.

There are bodies of dissidents that randomly appear in the canols of vivec.

There is an ordinator escourting a doomed dissident around vivec.

Chances are that you won't get to see much of the npc vs npc combat in this beta. But thats ok because I am more interested in feedback on how well you feel the patrols fit into the game world and any changes you would make to them. Atm the patrols will spawn every day... they won't in the final version I just made them this way so you could test them easily. If you do happen to catch any npc vs npc combat by all means feel free to offer suggestions and feed back on them as well.

Two question I have atm for anyone testing the mod are...

Would you rather the npc's had names?

Would you like them all to have unique greetings?

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to download and test this.

About the dissidents, could you make it so after the Main Quest is done, the dissident "killings" become rarer, and the escort is gone?

Yup I could make the script look for the journal entry from the quest and adjust acordingly... I think.

Now that will seem like a changing world. Like your questing actually did something

I have to say this mod is VERY awesome. I just saw my first NPC fight between two Balmora guards patrolling and a necromancer, it reminds me so much of Oblivion's patrol system. Their pathfinding is very well placed and they seemed to fit into the world perfectly.

Now to answer the two questions.

1. I think the more generic names you already have down are perfect for the mod. It would seem off if the normal town guards didn't have names but the patrolling guards did.

2. Having unique greetings for each would be pretty cool imo.

Anyways, I can't wait to see what you have for us next Starfire.

Glad you like it and I am also pleased you got to encounter some npc vs npc combat. Your thoughts on my two questions mirror my answers so thats nice to see. As for what comes next.. I have barely scratched the surface of this addon. I thought it was just going to be a small addon but I have so many ideas (alot contributed by posters in this thread) that this addon will probally end up much bigger than the main mod file. I aim to have something random added to each wilderness square... be it a patrol, npc's fighting, dead bodies, Herders with guars, wandering adventurers, faction battles.... and perhaps scripted events combineing all of these ideas. Lol it wouldn't suprise me if I end up pathgriding half the wilderness by the time this addon is released. Then I still have plans for a hostile npc addon and various community made clothing/armor addon packs

Did a little bit of testing - here's what I found so far:
* dissident that's escorted in vivec will voice greet player even though attempting to engage him in dialogue results in messagebox stating that his tongue has been cut out.

I ran into a bit of lag entering the Vivec canton cells, probably due to NPCA and not just the patrol addon. FPS dropped by about 25% too while amongst the cantons, again due to the number of additionally spawned NPCs. Would you consider adding an FPS check to prevent spawning if FPS is below a configurable value? abot's WaterLife implements such a check which greatly helps prevent over spawning - might be worth checking out.

Also noticed a few dialogue typos in NPCA v1.11 - I'll send those to you via PM so as not to spoil anything. -_-


I'll add my vote for unnamed patrol NPCs.
Unique greetings would be nice. Maybe just make it unique between patrol types as opposed to each patrol NPC.

Terrific work Starfire!

Just a thought, but I noticed if you change the patrol NPCs class to "Guard", they then act like normal guards, in terms of attacking aggressive creatures (such as one's the player's provoked). I only did this with the patrol NPCs which had "Warrior" class .... the Battlemage & Archer class ones I left alone .... but it seemed to work really well; the patrols simply resumed patrolling once they'd dealt with whatever was attacking.

I'm using Abot's Guards but I assume this would happen without this too (haven't tested this though). I don't know if changing their class from Warrior > Guard might cause any problems or have effects you don't want, but anyway it seemed to work quite well.

Also, would it be possible to have the path grids start/ finish just inside or outside towns (such as Caldera), instead of a short distance from them? I think that might seem more natural really.

Superb work anyway Starfire! It was really cool to see patrols emerging out of the mist around Balmora, and the NPC attack near there was really spectacular! (I tried to help out the but my char. was too low level & the too powerful, so we ended up dead pretty quickly ..... :facepalm: )

I'd rather have named NPCs, for the sake of immersion. They would blend better among other named NPCs.
Actually the names you gave to the NPCs from your main mod are one of the features that make them so hard to distinguish from vanilla NPCs (in opposition to MCA generic names which stand out at first sight).

And like everybody else, I vote for unique greetings.

Would you rather the npc's had names?
Yes, definitely.

Would you like them all to have unique greetings?
I think they should. They don't all have be elaborate and loquacious, but a unique greeting goes a loooong way in making NPCs interesting to interact with.

Just teleported in:
"Out of the way Outlander, can't you see I'm late for my meeting?"

I saw my first mage teleporting in today =) I stood in front of him as he teleported behind me, damn man. It's definitely enough rare that when it happens you seriously can not anticipate it.

Awesome =)

Hehe good alot of feedback here

So I need to

Remove voicefiles from the dissident somehow.
Correct the spelling and grammer mistakes that tetchy has kindly pointed out.
Add greetings to the npc's.
Ah yes I forgot about making them back into guards... That I can do easily.
Look into limiting the number of npc's that spawn in vivec linked to fps.

As for nameing the npc's. I think it would be pretty good to name the npcs... however my biggest issue is that for most of the new npc's leveled lists are not going to be used due to the scripting (random wandering npcs and bodies can use leveled lists) This means that the same npc's spawn eveytime. So say if I named the patrol and the necromancer, they are set to fight a couple of times a month. You might help the necromancer fight and kill the patrol which would then respawn in a few days with the same names which would be odd. I could perhaps offset this by createing 3 patrols for the same path that alternate every 3 days.. this may create enough variety that you don't notice. What are peoples thoughts and feelings on this?

edit: oh yeh I just thought I would share. While testing yest I got attacked by my first vampire in Balmora. I was beginning to think that they didn't work properly. But it turns out they do and I had alot of fun running away from her once I got over the initial shock. I also didn't realise that the vampire faces in VV looked so good

I wouldn't worry too much about the names, I for one just scan the npcs' names without commiting them to memory. Obviously, if creating 3 patrols is possible without too much hassle, go for it!

Respawning after death is exactly why it would be best to use generic names for the patrols.

IIRC you said that you are randomizing the units that make up the patrol - if so, then with generically named patrols you really wouldn't need to create 3 fixed sets for each patrol route.

btw, did you decide to make patrols only 2 units each or sometimes also 3 ? If sometimes also 3, you could have the base patrol always be 2 units, with a chance that a battlemage or marksman would be added. In that case, having predetermined sets of 3 units would make scripting easier - you could then randomly select between 2 unit patrols and 3 unit patrols that have the special units added. More restrictive than a completely random patrol generator, but definitely easier to code.

I am settling on a mixture of both ideas... Atm I am naming the npc's and each patrol route has three possible patrols. Each patrol will consist of two members with a 50% chance of an extra npc spawning. Its a fair bit more scripting but it has its advantages at the same time. I can always have the guards go back to having generic names if I decide it doesn't fit. I will release a new beta with the new changes when I have reworked the mod for people to see which they prefer.

Patrols could use some torches/lanterns for night shift. :lightbulb:

Lol! I got attacked my first night in Balmora after loading your mod! I was more than a little shocked. Even more shocked by the fact that he didn't have a face until AFTER I killed him (and I guess he reverted to his non-vampire face?). I wish I'd gotten a screenshot of it for you. He was in the alley behind the guild halls, at night (obviously). Not sure if the problem was with your mod or a facepack I'm using. I'm not planning to worry about it unless I see it again. I've seen another vampire that looked fine, so it may have been a fluke.

They have been given torches so they should use them when it gets late enough



Hmm strange in all my testing the vampires have always had a face :shrug:

I am having issues atm with the scripting for the patrols. They work fine unless they are in battle and the player walks far enough away or if the player waits. Then the patrol leader stops patrolling/fighting properly. I need a way to reset the patrol leader when the player moves away from the battle. Also I need to be able to prevent the player from waiting while the npc is in combat.

I came across a similar problem with my random NPC generator which I need to simulate a busy dock. I was going just call every NPC by their race but I found out a couple of days ago that MWSE can change the names of NPCs. I haven't tested it yet but if it can my plan was to collect a bunch of names, place them in a script and every time I generated and NPC randomly choose a name from a special set of scripts. If you don't mind using MWSE then I think that is a good solution.

Starfire, will your mod also affect Silgrad Tower and Tamriel Rebuilt maps 1 & 2?

I checked your mod along side my new Molag Mar WIP in the CS, and they almost fit together perfectly.
It would be easy for you to move a couple spawn points to make your NPCs fit with my new Statics on the canton's exterior, since your mod is more flexible than mine in this instance.
I could send you what I have so far, so you can see what I mean.
Let me know what you think.