Some type of framework for the Civilians who seem to just random spawn and do nothing.

[Saint_Olaf]

The Civilians and NPCs of the like seem to be a real issue in this game. Especially for the use of our type of modding here. 

All other Bethesda games have paths, and schedules, jobs, patrols etc. It seems that most of the civilians that inhabit the world just spawn and walk around randomly and do much of nothing. They have no purpose other than to fill empty space. They should be moving around, taking the train, visiting Chunks, Visiting shops, viewing memorials, taking in the view, etc. I am not sure if this is something that will be fixed or even if its possible. This is one thing that seems to be a massive step backward. Maybe I am mistaken though, I haven't spent much time with them, I am still in my first playthrough. 

[Reigor]

Your not mistaken. Some NPCs will have schedules where they will eat and sleep (I've noticed this with companions, Cydonia miners and office workers, and the workers at the mech recycling factory on Nirra). The crowd NPCs are just background. What likely was going on was either it was too much work to give them places to sleep and individual schedules and/or it would be too much of a CPU load. 

 

For any sort of mod, I would start with the shopkeepers and named npc's, like the lady janitor at the train station, and give them schedules and expand out from there to see how much system impact it would have. 

[sen4mi]

I think the issue is conflicting (or perhaps incomplete) AI implementations.

 

This even sometimes kicks in in combat. (If you play a stealthy character, you probably won't see this, but if you play a highly mobile combat character you will often find low level opponents who are struggling to figure out how to react to you, or even where you are.

 

Some of this of course makes sense (new starfield players will also struggle figuring out how to react to things). But some of it is also well-known machine limitations (games tend to struggle with pathing for NPCs because many programmers do not know how to organize their work to deal with the possibilities).

[EgoBallistic]

Crowd NPCs are a different race (HumanCrowdRace) and aren't capable of having schedules or most any AI activity.  They had to be made that way because the performance demands of that many regular NPCs in the loaded area would bring the game to its knees.  It might be possible to replace them with real NPCs with schedules and interactions, but that would probably be terrible for performance.

[alcurad90]

45 minutes ago, EgoBallistic said:

Crowd NPCs are a different race (HumanCrowdRace) and aren't capable of having schedules or most any AI activity.  They had to be made that way because the performance demands of that many regular NPCs in the loaded area would bring the game to its knees.  It might be possible to replace them with real NPCs with schedules and interactions, but that would probably be terrible for performance.

 

Crowd NPCs would better be uesd for randomsex mod.

[ababababab]

I'll take that performance hit for realism. The real problem I have with them, though, is they're all fat and ugly. Even the main characters are ugly, but the crowds are just ugh. I don't even want to look at them.

[snoopy102]

On 9/25/2023 at 2:52 PM, EgoBallistic said:

Crowd NPCs are a different race (HumanCrowdRace) and aren't capable of having schedules or most any AI activity.  They had to be made that way because the performance demands of that many regular NPCs in the loaded area would bring the game to its knees.  It might be possible to replace them with real NPCs with schedules and interactions, but that would probably be terrible for performance.

 

I think we could get some mileage out of handling HumanCrowdRace differently. For example in Cyberpunk 2077 the majority of the NPCs does nothing but walk along the street either with or towards you, but it feels believable and immersive. Whereas in Starfield they are just few and far between, doing random things, staring and looking silly, taking me to uncanny valley the moment I look at them. 

Simply changing their basic behaviour could go a long way already.