Better NPC Support for Devious Devices

[donttouchmethere]

I gave a thumbs up, because that sounds incredible clever and economical ?

If you don't need to open CK I would assume that this can preserve your sanity ?

(I mean the sanity that is still left ?)

[Tenri]

On 7/8/2020 at 4:42 PM, donttouchmethere said:

I gave a thumbs up, because that sounds incredible clever and economical ?

If you don't need to open CK I would assume that this can preserve your sanity ?

(I mean the sanity that is still left ?)

I have tried looking for compilers without CK but haven't had any luck with that myself, but you can compile scripts without loading any data into the CK just launch the program then on the menu bar - gameplay - papyrus script manager, and you can compile all scripts that the CK can see from there. And since you don't load any esp or esm files there will be at most a couple errors to clear if any. Not as quick as a dedicated compiler but good enough for me.

[Kharos]

45 minutes ago, Tenri said:

I have tried looking for compilers without CK but haven't had any luck with that myself, but you can compile scripts without loading any data into the CK just launch the program then on the menu bar - gameplay - papyrus script manager, and you can compile all scripts that the CK can see from there. And since you don't load any esp or esm files there will be at most a couple errors to clear if any. Not as quick as a dedicated compiler but good enough for me.

The papyrus compiler is part of the CK (and installed with CK), but it is actually a stand-alone program that is just called by the CK. It is located in the Papyrus Compiler subfolder of the creation kit. It has no UI but it can be called from the console (or a script) if you know the correct arguments. This is actually what I am doing in my compile script for each .psc file ( https://github.com/RealHandcuffs/Better-NPC-Support-for-Devious-Devices/blob/master/scripts/compile_papyrus.sh#L77 ), so no need to even open the CK.

 

I did not find documentation about the version included with the Skyrim CK, but I found documentation about the version included with the Fallout 4 CK. It turns out that most of the options are the same ( https://www.creationkit.com/fallout4/index.php?title=Papyrus_Compiler ). If I remember correctly the Skyrim version does not support -release and -final, and it might not support papyrus projects either (not sure).

 

 

[Jubbi123]

On 6/16/2020 at 4:33 PM, Kharos said:

I have no personal experience with that. This mod is not very complicated, it's a few quests, factions, keywords, and four scripts. Might be as easy as just loading it in Creation Kit SE, recompiling scripts (is that necessary?), making a small change and saving again.

On the other hand I am not sure if I am somewhere doing something in a script that will not work in SE, or if the sequence of the events is somehow different. Bottom line, somebody would need to test that.

 

Anything new regarding the SE version?

 

[Kharos]

On 8/24/2020 at 4:05 PM, Jubbi123 said:

 

Anything new regarding the SE version?

 

No, I am not using SE so I have currently no plans to port it myself. If somebody tries and hits problems I am ready to try and figure out what is going wrong.

[DonQuiWho]

@Kharos

 

Hi. 

 

I have tried every version, and while it does what it says on the tin and you have done a load of things to try to get it to run smooth, even with a much reduced list of mods in my load order, the framerate reduction is just so great, especially in cities, that unfortunately I had to remove it

 

That's a real pity, as one of the aims of your mod is to ....

• Prevent bound NPCs from using weapons and spells in combat; they will use bound combat if enabled in Devious Devices settings.

TBH, that was what I really want this for ?

 

I can't find any mod that does that, so is there any way that you could maybe take out whatever part of your mod does that, and make it into a very lightweight mod doing only that?  For NPCs and followers

 

If that were at all easy to do, I'm sure it would be useful to a lot of people

 

Thanks for all the hard work tho.  It's not at all unappreciated ?

 

 

[Kharos]

15 hours ago, donkeywho said:

@Kharos

 

Hi. 

 

I have tried every version, and while it does what it says on the tin and you have done a load of things to try to get it to run smooth, even with a much reduced list of mods in my load order, the framerate reduction is just so great, especially in cities, that unfortunately I had to remove it

 

That's a real pity, as one of the aims of your mod is to ....

• Prevent bound NPCs from using weapons and spells in combat; they will use bound combat if enabled in Devious Devices settings.

TBH, that was what I really want this for ?

 

I can't find any mod that does that, so is there any way that you could maybe take out whatever part of your mod does that, and make it into a very lightweight mod doing only that?  For NPCs and followers

 

If that were at all easy to do, I'm sure it would be useful to a lot of people

 

Thanks for all the hard work tho.  It's not at all unappreciated ?

 

 

 

It's not that easy, most of the work done by the mod is required for the combat fix (just restoring missing effects is not strictly necessary). A lot of the time used by the mod is not spent restoring effects, but instead finding NPCs wearing devices (the scanner part) and analyzing what devices they are wearing (this is part of the fixup, together with restoring effects and changing combat behavior). I am attaching a temporary version where both the scanner and the fixup have been slowed down:

• the scanner now runs once every 20 seconds in this version (was: every 10 seconds, and it had a "fast mode" where it would run every second if a lot of NPCs were found)
• the fixup is now only allowed to "fix" one NPC every 5 seconds (was: three NPCs every 3 seconds)

You can test if that improves the situation. Of course the drawback is that it might take a long time to find and "fix" NPCs.

If it does help, it might be possible to make these things configurable in a mod configuration menu.

 

[Edit] Also a warning: This is a completely untested version, and I do not know if it will actually improve your situation.

 

Better NPC Support for Devious Devices 0.1 RC 3 (slowdown version).7z

[DonQuiWho]

3 hours ago, Kharos said:

 

It's not that easy, most of the work done by the mod is required for the combat fix (just restoring missing effects is not strictly necessary). A lot of the time used by the mod is not spent restoring effects, but instead finding NPCs wearing devices (the scanner part) and analyzing what devices they are wearing (this is part of the fixup, together with restoring effects and changing combat behavior). I am attaching a temporary version where both the scanner and the fixup have been slowed down:

• the scanner now runs once every 20 seconds in this version (was: every 10 seconds, and it had a "fast mode" where it would run every second if a lot of NPCs were found)
• the fixup is now only allowed to "fix" one NPC every 5 seconds (was: three NPCs every 3 seconds)

You can test if that improves the situation. Of course the drawback is that it might take a long time to find and "fix" NPCs.

If it does help, it might be possible to make these things configurable in a mod configuration menu.

 

[Edit] Also a warning: This is a completely untested version, and I do not know if it will actually improve your situation.

 

Better NPC Support for Devious Devices 0.1 RC 3 (slowdown version).7z 25.13 kB · 1 download

Thank you very much

 

I'm in the middle of creating a new game, so I'll see how this runs on that.  Might take a few days to get to the point where it will be tested out properly, but I'll get back to you on that when I can

 

Appreciate your time and trouble

[DonQuiWho]

On 9/4/2020 at 12:44 PM, donkeywho said:

Thank you very much

 

I'm in the middle of creating a new game, so I'll see how this runs on that.  Might take a few days to get to the point where it will be tested out properly, but I'll get back to you on that when I can

 

Appreciate your time and trouble

@Kharos

 

As promised I have now tried your slowed down V3

 

Added to LO, prior to going back to an old save from which I had progressed a while back

 

Location, Bandit Fight @ entrance to Bleak Falls Barrow

1 PC, and 2 Followers. 

1 Follower with DDe Straightjacket and 1 with DDe Armbinder

6+ Base Game NPC Bandits

Combat Mod in Use: Defeat - the last 5.3.5 Bane Version

 

It seems to work OK.  I equipped the followers with DDe Straightjacket and Armbinder, and they don't try to/can't use weapons when the punch up begins.  In those circs, with 6 or 7 bandits all in play, it runs fairly smoothly at 50+ FPS.

 

I have NOT yet tried it in combat in busier locations, with anything added by other mods. tho'   I'll try to add it in again in Riverwood after some other save, prior to a known, certain, punch up with MTB's Chain Beasts.  There's a load of them there, they are hard enemies, and half the known world joins in     I'll make sure some of the local NPCs are equipped with DD items too

 

I did notice that on equipping Bondgae Mittens, they appear in the POC and Followers menus, but then they are almost immediately unequipped, both visually and in the PC and Follower's inventories.  That's both with and without DD 'bound combat' enabled.  And when they have been unequipped, or at least aren't visible, the Followers don't 'draw' weapons, but will engage in bound combat fisticuffs, ie, they will try to punch the daylights out of the bad folk, rather than kick them.  Probably not unreasonable given that they think they're wearing boxing gloves ?

 

Anyway, is that 'removal' something that your mod might do, or should I look elsewhere? - I have vague recollections that the DD thread comments indicated that the Mittens have been problematic, but I can't remember for certain, or what the details might have been

 

Also noticed that the Bandits seemed to sometimes be unwilling to stop porking the PC, if I left the Followers waiting elsewhere before entering the battle zone.  That's probably Defeat just getting a bit confused

 

Main thing is that the Followers don't, on the whole, seem to be able to draw weapons when properly bound up, which is what I was aiming for.  I'll see if that applies to the local riff raff in Riverwood next I manage to try this out there

 

Hope that helps and, FWIW, is encouraging ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kharos]

9 hours ago, donkeywho said:

I did notice that on equipping Bondgae Mittens, they appear in the POC and Followers menus, but then they are almost immediately unequipped, both visually and in the PC and Follower's inventories

If everything works correctly they should quickly be unequipped and then reequipped on the follower as my mod kicks in. There should be no changes to the PC. Might be something else causing problems, I cannot say for sure. The fact that it happens with the PC, too, points to something else going on.

 

9 hours ago, donkeywho said:

the Followers don't 'draw' weapons, but will engage in bound combat fisticuffs

Yeah, that's my mod. Bondage mittens will now prevent NPCs from equipping weapons and spells, so they are forced to fight unarmed.

[DonQuiWho]

2 hours ago, Kharos said:

If everything works correctly they should quickly be unequipped and then reequipped on the follower as my mod kicks in. There should be no changes to the PC. Might be something else causing problems, I cannot say for sure. The fact that it happens with the PC, too, points to something else going on.

 

Yeah, that's my mod. Bondage mittens will now prevent NPCs from equipping weapons and spells, so they are forced to fight unarmed.

Thanks for the info. :-)

[DonQuiWho]

As promised, I've now tried out this (the slowed up V3) in busier settings, eg in Whiterun etc.  To give you some idea of the environment, also have running

 

Populated Skyrim AIO (lower spawns / no bikinis)

Hydra Slavegirls

Slaverun Reloaded

Sexlab Survival

Bunch of follower mods

etc

 

Things do slow down a bit, ie framerate lower and general jerkiness when PC interacts with/is in proximity to passing NPCs, but I can't be 100% sure your mod is the cause, tho

 

When I do get a CTD when it grinds slow, the log does show a lot of 'checking activity' on devices etc that may be being generated by it, but again Papyrus logs don't don't prove errors, and the Crashfixes Logs all show varied exception addresses, none of which is traceable anywhere with Google

 

I was wondering, tho, if there was any way that you could add a very simple 'On/Off' switch, so that the mod could be 'stopped' when the player is in really really 'busy' territory?  A one line MCM with an 'ON/OFF' button would do ... ?   It's a great concept, and does what it says for the most part, and I'll probably leave it in the load order in this game, as it suits that quite well, but I'd probably wait to first see what strain there might be on subsequent games before I added it later

 

Thanks again for this, tho.  There's nothing basically wrong with the idea and implementation

 

 

 

[Jasmine91]

Hey Kharos want to give my thumps up for this Mod/Patch because it really brings the "immersiveness" with NPCs in Devious ans ZAP Devices!!

 

Today I had an idea/suggestion of an other Bug, that might be fixable (well more like a work around) with the same methods you are using here:

I don't know if you are familiar with Paradise Halls Enhanced PAHE?

The more you play an enslave NPCs, the more likely you are to run into the famous "Naked Bandid Bug" (Link). Since your mod is already scanning for NPCs and selecting them based on what they wear, maybe it can be extended to find naked NPCs that are spawned bandids and the like and supply them with some closing? (Fur Armor most of the time)

[aulton1968]

I have tried to keep a lighter load order and just use zap 8 for bondage, but I hate seeing the bondage idles always breaking. I will have to start using DD again since this awesome mod requires it. 

[sanguinius86]

Hello everyone. First, sorry for my english, i'm french. I did discover this gem just five minutes ago, and then i did see taht there wasn't any SE port...So i decided to try and make it myself using CK. But then, after loading the mod in NMM, i decided to...just try it like that. Results? Well, it works. Mostly. The animation did stutter a little, the hands tend to jump in and out of the Armbinder, but she use bound combat animation. So i would say that it works somewhat. I will try and use CK and make it SE and see if it make the animation better.

 

Edit: The use of CK didn't change much, maybe even anything. Will continue using the mod anyway, and see if there is any real problem. Meanwhile, does the LE have the same problem of animation? If yes, then it doesn't come from SE, i suppose. Still, great Job ! The is the mod i wanted from the beginning...

 

Edit 2nd : On the other hand, if you disable bound combat, there is not animation stutter. The npc will simply stay close, and just observe the fight. As it is, that works perfectly.

 

 

[Jasmine91]

On 11/28/2020 at 11:53 PM, sanguinius86 said:

Hello everyone. First, sorry for my english, i'm french. I did discover this gem just five minutes ago, and then i did see taht there wasn't any SE port...So i decided to try and make it myself using CK. But then, after loading the mod in NMM, i decided to...just try it like that. Results? Well, it works. Mostly. The animation did stutter a little, the hands tend to jump in and out of the Armbinder, but she use bound combat animation. So i would say that it works somewhat. I will try and use CK and make it SE and see if it make the animation better.

 

Edit: The use of CK didn't change much, maybe even anything. Will continue using the mod anyway, and see if there is any real problem. Meanwhile, does the LE have the same problem of animation? If yes, then it doesn't come from SE, i suppose. Still, great Job ! The is the mod i wanted from the beginning...

 

Edit 2nd : On the other hand, if you disable bound combat, there is not animation stutter. The npc will simply stay close, and just observe the fight. As it is, that works perfectly.

 

I am using Skyrim LE and have no problems with the bound fighting animations.

 

But since this mod does not have its own animations and "all" it does is reapply the ZAZ and DD devices from an NPC after a load or cellchange (by just taking it away and immateriality putting it back in their inventory), the animation problem is likely with DD or ZAZ.

 

Does your player character have the same stuttering animations when you equip the devices yourself?

[DonQuiWho]

@Kharos

 

Hi there.  I've been giving the 'slowed down' version of this another go this week, in quieter parts of Skyrim, where there art fewer of Corsec's bound PCs in play(!), and it seems to really do the business, insofar as it doesn't slow down performance unduly AND it properly prevents PC and NPCs unrealistic use of weapons when disabled by DDs.

 

Only thing that still seems to be slightly odd is that I find my PC can't use, say, an Axe, but can use a Bow.  That's really no big deal though, and down in the depths of some of the larger dungeons it's probably not too bad an idea, as it prevents your game grinding to a halt because it becomes unplayable

 

So all seems pretty good really ?

 

I had a few questions about DD5 how that might impact on this:

 

- DD5 device equip/unequip times are supposed to be much better.  Will that affect your mod here in a positive way?

- as DD5's devices seem to have a few operating changes, will those mean that this mod might not be needed to prevent the PC/NPCs etc using weapons in an unrealistic way?  Or do you still see your mod being necessary/essential to doing that?

 

To sum up

 

This mod really seems to do what it says on the tin

Any performance hit isn't unduly bad

It may well be a good base for anything similar that might be needed for DD5

 

Thanks again for taking the time and effort to make it.  Much appreciated

 

[Kharos]

17 hours ago, donkeywho said:

To sum up

 

This mod really seems to do what it says on the tin

Any performance hit isn't unduly bad

It may well be a good base for anything similar that might be needed for DD5

I'm happy to hear that. I did some testing with the DD5 beta, but I am not playing Skyrim at the moment.

 

17 hours ago, donkeywho said:

- DD5 device equip/unequip times are supposed to be much better.  Will that affect your mod here in a positive way?

Most probably there is no difference as my mod does not fully unequip and reequip devices, it only does as much as necessary to refresh effects.

 

17 hours ago, donkeywho said:

as DD5's devices seem to have a few operating changes, will those mean that this mod might not be needed to prevent the PC/NPCs etc using weapons in an unrealistic way?  Or do you still see your mod being necessary/essential to doing that?

 

As far as I know this is still necessary with DD5.

 

17 hours ago, donkeywho said:

Only thing that still seems to be slightly odd is that I find my PC can't use, say, an Axe, but can use a Bow.  That's really no big deal though, and down in the depths of some of the larger dungeons it's probably not too bad an idea, as it prevents your game grinding to a halt because it becomes unplayable

My mod should not have any effects on the PC. Also if your PC is bound, as far as I know you should not be able to use a bow.

[DonQuiWho]

4 hours ago, Kharos said:

I'm happy to hear that. I did some testing with the DD5 beta, but I am not playing Skyrim at the moment.

 

Most probably there is no difference as my mod does not fully unequip and reequip devices, it only does as much as necessary to refresh effects.

 

As far as I know this is still necessary with DD5.

 

My mod should not have any effects on the PC. Also if your PC is bound, as far as I know you should not be able to use a bow.

Appreciate the prompt reply

 

It's been very helpful. 

 

Thanks

[Kharos]

Uploaded a new version with minor tweaks to bound NPC weapon handling. This should improve the chances that weapons stay unequipped, especially when using follower mods (e.g. Nether's) that mess with equipped weapons.

[DonQuiWho]

39 minutes ago, Kharos said:

Uploaded a new version with minor tweaks to bound NPC weapon handling. This should improve the chances that weapons stay unequipped, especially when using follower mods (e.g. Nether's) that mess with equipped weapons.

 

Thanks!  Very Much!

 

I had just logged on specifically to ask if this still would function with DD5+ and if it would still be needed to disable follower weaponry.  LOL

 

I'll try it when I can and get back to you.  Won't be immediately, but over the next couple of weeks I hope

[Kharos]

1 hour ago, donkeywho said:

 

Thanks!  Very Much!

 

I had just logged on specifically to ask if this still would function with DD5+ and if it would still be needed to disable follower weaponry.  LOL

 

I'll try it when I can and get back to you.  Won't be immediately, but over the next couple of weeks I hope

 

In my tests it is still required for followers with DD5.1, though part of that might be that I am using Nether's Followers Framework. Not sure how it is with vanilla NPC logic.

 

I will also upload an additional new beta version in a few minutes containing a simple MCM to configure how often the scanner is working. Hopefully this allows players with a lot of DD mods to still use this without too much lag, by just turning down the NPC processing a bit.

[Kharos]

Version 0.2 beta 1
- Add a simple MCM with the following options:
  * enabled/disable processing of NPCs (can be used to temporarily disable the mod)
  * frequency of NPC scanner (default: scan for NPCs every 8 seconds)
  * how fast to process NPCs (default: 3 NPCs every 3 seconds)

 

As this MCM is a bit experimental, I am keeping both 0.1 (without MCM) and 0.2 beta 1 available for download.

[DonQuiWho]

1 hour ago, Kharos said:

 

In my tests it is still required for followers with DD5.1, though part of that might be that I am using Nether's Followers Framework. Not sure how it is with vanilla NPC logic.

 

I will also upload an additional new beta version in a few minutes containing a simple MCM to configure how often the scanner is working. Hopefully this allows players with a lot of DD mods to still use this without too much lag, by just turning down the NPC processing a bit.

 

And I had just installed the latest one onto MO .... LOL

 

Thanks tho.  An MCM giving some more control has got to be good

[Kharos]

Version 0.2 beta 2
- Optimizations after testing with Devious Devices 5.1
- Add flag for papyrus logging to MCM  

 

Probably the last update for at least a few days, until we see if there are issues or not.

 

DD 5 fixes a few things. With 0.1 these things end up done 2x (once from DD 5.1, once from my mod), so if you are using DD 5.1 updating could be a good idea, it could  reduce script load a little bit.