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v0.8 Published  Friday, 04 Nov 2016

 

The new version is out and if you look at the change log you can get an idea of how much has changed, its a lot.

 

In addition to overhauling and updating the appearance of all the NPCs in Prettier bandits, I also overhauled how the NPCs are built and added some new possibilities.

 

All PB NPCs now use their own outfit categories.  This provides the option to update the outfit of various PB NPCs in CK with whatever outfits you wish to use.  This provides more opportunity to customize PB to make them look the way you want.

 

What's next for me is a weekend break!  LOL  After that I'm going to start putting together some more screen shots and also 2 tutorials on how to customize and edit PB in CK.  The first tutorial will cover changing the hair colors and will be a Beginner level tutorial (no prior experionce in CK required).  The second will be how to make your own patch mod to update the PB outfits with gear from any other mod(s) you want to use; this will also be a Beginner level tutorial.  I'm also considering a 3rd tutorial that would be intermediate level, more on that later.

 

As always feedback is welcome.

 

I'm already putting together my to do list for v0.9.  Among other things will be plans to add the hunter faction and probably the Vigilants of Stendarr.  I also want to double the number of bandits, warlocks and witches for increased variety.  There are also plans to add a new feature to PB to make it even easier to customize it further, more on that later.

 

Happy slaving!

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No official word, I've not used or looked at the mod so I'd be interested in what your experience with it has been.  Not knowing how that mod works, but from its description it sounds like its converting male NPCs to female which mostly wouldn't conflict with Prettier Bandits (at least for now) since it focuses on the female bandits.  I don't know if it edits the leveled lists any, so I would suggest putting Prettier Bandits after that mod in the load order.  Right now there's literally only one male encounter that PB edits and that's the old orc waiting for a good death.

 

What I do plan to do in the next release of PB (0.9) is double the number of female bandits, warlocks and witches in the encounter lists and all of them with their own individual appearance updates.  That will add somewhere between 200 and 300 more female NPCs to the encounter list.  That's not counting adding the Hunters faction and the Vigilants of Stendarr which are also going to be added to PB in 0.9 if all goes well.

 

That's about all I can tell you.  I won't promise that PB won't edit the male NPCs in the future.  I've not had any requests to update the male NPCs (better hair and so forth) but I've been curious if there would be any interest in that.  If I ever do that, it won't happen before PB comes out of beta (v1.0 which I'm getting closer to being ready for, got one more major change / feature to add and test first) and probably not before 1.1 or 1.2 at minimum.

 

Oh an before anyone asks.  I haven't tested Prettier Bandits with SSE yet but reports are that Apachii Hair has already been ported over and works.  Since 0.8 isn't dependant on SKSE or SkyUI it probably will work but needs to be tested.  However, the next release will be adding a MCM page and so I can tell you in advance v0.9 won't be compatible until SKSE64 is out.  Just a heads up on that.  I haven't even installed SSE yet, I've been so busy working on other things there just hasn't been time and I probably won't get to it for a couple more weeks yet.

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I did not know if there were multiple ways of managing how many of which gender show up, and like I said they seem to be working together.  I do have yours down the list so any conflicts you'd win.

 

I think upgrading some of the men would be nice, as they do look a little bland next to all the upgraded women (yours, Bijin's and another I have). One thing I'd suggest, if it is possible, would be 2 separate ESPs with one favoring more females and the other favoring more males. I am not sure if a 3rd would be needed to make sure your appearances are used by the vanilla game or not, but one that leaves the balance for the ambivalent may be needed?  I have looked at the actor bases and the leveled lists when I wanted to create some custom outfits from a collection of armor mods and re-dress the bandits and such so I can appreciate your work. I think there were 5 versions of bandit-missle, bandit-wizard and bandit-twohanded at least.

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Rather than multiple esp controlling how many show up would probably be done with an MCM page and configuration option which is something I've considered but no one has asked for it so I've not put it high on my list of priorities.  I'm just now starting to add enough additional new actors that that would be an option (eventually I think I'd like to try and have about 3x as many female actors in each leveled list, it'll be a lot of work but it would really add so much variety).  Up til now I've been focused more on the "framework" of PB, sorting out the templates and so forth and getting all the foundational work done, another reason I still list it as being in beta.  But that's coming to a point where I'm pretty well done and have things the way they'll need to be.

 

The new outfits option will make it much easier to edit and customize the outfits the PB NPCs wear.  This is an option I intend to continue to develop and expand on.  One of the tutorials I intend to do will cover how to make your own mod patch(*), add in any outfit you like from any other gear mod (or any other mod at all really) and add it to or replace the contents of the current PB outfits, then save it and use Wrye Bash to add PB and whatever other mods your taking gear from as forced masters.  If it sounds complicated, it actually isn't and the tutorial will be rated Beginner level so no one should feel intimidated by that.  With that, people will be able to customize the various PB NPCs to wear whatever you like.  Want all your female bandits wearing Savage Armor, go for it, or just the missile bandits, you can do that too.  Want to give your heavy fighters gear out of Tera Armors, you can do that.  Or give the warlocks robes from the Tera set if you like.  Want your Thalmor soldiers wearing Falmer Bikinis, do it.  Want Vigilants running around in lingerie or bondage outfits (or a random mix of both)... sure, why not.  LOL  I absolutely encourage people to have fun with it.

 

(*= why make a mod patch instead of editing PB?  Because that way when I release new versions of PB you won't have to redo your work, your patch will still work fine and you'll only need to update it to change the outfits of newly added factions as you wish)

 

I'm also looking at other ways to make it even easier to update and alter the outfits in future versions of PB, more on that later.

 

I'm glad you like the mod and happy to hear you can use it with something else.  Happy slaving! (that's like my new catch phrase.  LOL)

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Ah, an MCM would be a nicer way... if you wanted more male warlocks and more female vampires or something... if that is even possible.  Well, possible, feasible, and takes less than the time needed to develop a screenplay.

 

Now I have a greater incentive to make sure the guard, fur, iron and steel helms are circlets or removed, with better hair in use.

 

Sadly I can't haremize as many as I'd like with my aging computer. It isn't happy with too many NPCs so close together but that just leads to my efforts to make more NPC factions less aggressive to each other and the PC so I can just visit groupies in each town, village or bandit camp. I have a More Bandit Camps mod that has them littered everywhere. As I type that I wonder if replacing bandit wizards with actual wizards, witches or necromancers would be too hard.   Probably given you'd need to swap out the spawn points, I think, or just rename and re-AI-package bandit spellcasters as witches.

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Well so far no bug reports from anyone, that's.... rare.  LOL

 

This weekend I'm going to get started working on the next version, 0.9.  I've got some plans to add a new feature as well as expanding the factions included in PB and adding more actors to the already included factions.  More or less in that order of importance, meaning adding more actors to the encounter lists will be the last thing I do and I'll do what I have time for.

 

Thanks for the support, I think you're going to like what's in the pipe.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have started work on the next release of PB.  There's some good news and bad news here, I'll get the bad news out of the way first.

 

The bad news is the main feature I was hoping to add isn't going to be possible for now.  I don't know when or if it will ever be possible.  What had wanted to do was add a MCM page for PB and include an Outfit Manager option on it.  What would this have been?  The idea was to have a page that allowed you to select from gear your character currently had equipped and use this to assemble a new outfit.  This could then have been saved to one of the various PB outfit so that any NPC using that outfit would have begun wearing it.  Had it been possible, it would have meant you would have had an easy way in game to customize the outfits worn by various PB NPCs.  Want bandit archers in bikinis, equip it, make it an outfit, save it to the PB_BanditArmorMissileFOutfit and there you go, all PB bandit archers would then wear the outfit you created once the game had time to update the encounters (usually taking 10 to 30 game days for everything to update).  The idea was simple enough, just update the contents of the outfits.  Unfortunately I don't have the ability to actually code this and my coding guru is unable to help at this time.  I've been variously told its impossible to do or that it should be possible, which has added to my frustration.  If anyone out there happens to be familiar with creating an MCM page, adding and removing items from a leveled list (which is what outfits are) and wants to take a crack at helping me out with it, drop me a PM.

 

Okay, so that's the bad news.  The good news is that everything else about PB is working quite well and it gives me solid framework to build on.  So the next release is going to focus on two areas.

 

First I intend to double the number of unique female bandits, warlocks and witches in the encounter lists.  It will mean I'll be creating a lot of new NPCs, but I've gotten fairly good at putting them together quickly and having all the templates already worked out speeds things up considerably.  This will give us more variety in our various encounters so you don't see the same faces quite as much.

 

Second, I intend to add the Hunter faction and the Vigilants of Stendarr, and similarly increase the number of PB NPCs in those encounter lists as I've done with the others.  As an extra bonus, Keeper Carcette will be updated with a unique appearance all her own and I plan to spend some extra time working on her.

 

Also, apparently the WE Road encounters with Thalmor was updating their armor outfit to other than what I'd set it in PB.  I believe I've tracked down the cause and fixed this so that all Thalmor encounters should be wearing their assigned outfits, whatever those are.

 

Once I get the above done I'll make another release and then move on to the next phase which will be adding the Stormcloaks, Imperials, and Town Guard.   With those done I'll probably take a break for a bit, I've got some research to do for what I would like to do with the Forsworn, Vampires and the Afflicted.  One of the ideas I'm playing with are removable tattoos for the Forsworn (an not using Slavetats, these would be something you could remove in game without needing any other mods).  I'm also tinkering with a more diseased appearance for the Afflicted as well as the ability to "cure" those you enslave. 

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Woo, sounds nice.

 

While I'm not sure its a leveled list, The Manipulator mod has an outfit option you can use to assign an outfit to an NPC. It isn't created using things you wear (I think you need to enter ESPs, Item codes and assign a name... I have just made outfits in the CK in my merged armor mod and put in the IDs using a text editor on the JSON file) but maybe that would help someone. I dont know if that method can be used to assign something to an ActorBase (or whatever the correct term is) instead of a spawned instance.

 

I've been thinking I need to get one of those NPC face clone mods, because I'd love to capture the looks of a few of your bandits or Thalmor wizardesses and pop them onto the regular named town NPCs not re-worked by Bijin or anyone else.   I don't know if there is an easier way to use some of your already created looks for other NPCs, so we don't have to download more GB. My MO folder is large enough as it is (and I haven't gotten around to buying a larger hard drive yet).

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Okay, two subjects here let's take the outfits first.

 

There are a number of mods that can edit the outfits of individual actors, that's a pretty well known concept and if that's all I wanted to do it probably wouldn't be an issue at all.  But what I want to do is something much more fundamental than that.  To understand it, I guess I need to explain more of what's already been done in PB, how outfits work for NPCs, etc.

 

Every actor in the game is assigned an outfit to wear.  That outfit is a specific kind of leveled list.  Some outfits may only contain a few items, for example 'FarmClothesOutfit01' which contains only the items 'ClothesFarmBoots01' and 'ClothesFarmClothes01'.  Others contain multiple items set at different levels to form a more conventional leveled list.  More commonly the random NPC we encounter have outfits that are composed of several leveled lists contained within the outfit.  As an example of that there is the 'BanditArmorMeleeShield20Outfit' which contains four leveled lists:

  • LItemBanditBoots
  • LItemBanditCuirass
  • LItemBanditGauntlets50
  • LItemBanditShield20

The numbers indicate the percentage chance that item will be generated, so the bandit wearing that outfit has a 20% chance of having a shield and a 50% chance of having gauntlets.  The percentage chance is assigned inside the leveled list, the number in the name is just for a handy reference; this is a typical naming scheme used by Bethesda throughout Skyrim.  Each of those lists contain items rated according to level, only items rated at or below the level of the player character have a chance to appear.  This is how the apparently random equipment is actually generated, it can get a little complex as there are sometimes still more leveled lists nested inside these lists but it also create more variety.

 

At the top though is the main outfit which really just serves as a way for Skyrim to identify what group of items, lists, etc to look at when equipping that NPC.  In the current version of PB I duplicated the existing main outfits used by the bandits, warlocks, etc and renamed the duplicates with the PB_ prefix and then assigned those outfits to the PB NPCs.  But the outfits themselves are currently just duplicates of what is already in the game, same items and leveled lists and it all works exactly the same.

 

So why do this?  Because it allows those of you who know a lil bit about CK to go in and edit those outfits and drop in whatever you like.  You can add your own items, leveled lists, etc.  I need to write a tutorial on how to do this and post it.  Should put that on my To Do list. :dodgy:   The short version is, say you wanted to give one of those outfits you were just talking about to all the NPC who wear the bandit armor described above.  Okay, fire up CK, then open the mod with the armor AND PB but do NOT assign either as active.  Add the armor to the banditarmor outfit however you like, whether that's just replacing all the stuff in that outfit or adding it to the leveled lists.  Now save the mod as something like "Your_PB_Outfit_Mod" or whatever you want to name it.  Now open Wrye Bash and select your mod.  There is an option to Add Masters, add the original armor mod and PB as masters (note, you only need to add the original armor mod if it was an esp, for example TERA armors is an esm so it will already be added as a master when you saved your mod in CK, this is just for force adding esp files as masters).  Close Wrye Bash.  Done.  Just activate your mod in your load order after the armor mod and PB and you're good to go and you'll start seeing the armor you added on bandits.  Want all your PB bandits wearing Daedric Reaper armor... whatever floats your boat man, go for it.  (That's the very brief abridged version, I really do need to write a full tutorial on that.  But once you know how to do it its actually pretty easy to do.)

 

Point is, the only NPCs who will wear those updated outfits are the PB NPCs.  And since there are different outfits for different factions and even different types of NPC within that faction, you can really start customizing their gear.  Whatever changes you make only affect the PB NPCs, but because this is being done inside the outfit container itself, those changes will automatically be applied to every PB NPC assigned to wear that outfit.  Its all automatic from there.

 

This also lay the foundation for my Outfit Manager idea since it would need these same outfits to work with.

 

Okay, next subject, how to make an NPC look like a PB NPC.  Its actually pretty darn easy.

 

Open CK and again load PB but do NOT make it active.  Let's say you want to give Ysolda a new look based on a PB NPC you like.  Find Ysolda (or whoever you want to update) under the Actors/Actor folder and open her actor form.  In the bottom left you'll see Template Data.  There is a drop down menu and some check boxes.  You'll need to know the form ID of the bandit you want to copy, but assuming you know that, open the drop down box and quickly type PB_.  This will filter it down to just the PB_ actors and save you a ton of scrolling.  If you can type really fast and know what type of NPC you might type something like PB_encbandit for bandits or PB_encwarlock for warlocks (you have to type quickly because if you pause it stops and then resets the filter which will annoy the piss out of you... take that from a guy who as done this a few million types at this point :s ).  Now find the one you want to copy and select that one.

 

Once you've done that part the check boxes won't be greyed out anymore.  The only one you need to worry about it the first one Traits.  Check that one.  Presto, Ysolda now looks exactly like the bandit you chose.  Now there are some warnings here.  Traits includes the facial data, but also the body weight and the RACE.  So Ysolda is a Nord, but if you picked a Redguard bandit then your Ysolda is now a Reguard.  It also includes one other bit of data that can really cause you problems... VoiceType.  Ysolda normally has the FemaleYoungAndEager voice type, but virtually no random NPC uses this (most Nords use the FemaleNord, Reguards often use the FemaleEvenToned).  So if you left it this way, Ysolda would try to speak but there would be no audio for much of her dialogs because the voice type doesn't match her dialog lines.  To fix this just uncheck the Traits box.

 

Yup, you read that right, uncheck it.  And also clear the Template drop down box, set it back to None.  Don't worry, you'll still get to keep the appearance.

 

You may have noticed that when you checked the Traits box everything on the Traits tab got greyed out, but when you unchecked it things can now be edited again.  If you were really paying attention you may have noticed Ysolda normally has a body weight of 50 but after you did the above her weight may be different now (a lot of the PB NPCs have a body weight over 50... I figured a lot of you would like them a bit... umm... chesty).  That's because your changes are still there, they didn't go away.  Reset her voice back to the FemaleYoungAndEager so she has her voice back when she talks.  Now if you want to see what's happened just to verify things have changed, click on the Preview check box bottom center of the form.  In a window on the right side (you can grab the edge and resize it btw), Ysolda will now be rendered and she'll have the new appearance.  If you want to alter her body weight up or down, do it now, if you do it later you'll have open neck seams.  Same if you want to tweak her make up a bit or something.

 

Now... if you don't like what you see... just click cancel and everything gets reset and no harm done; Ysolda will be back to her vanilla self.  But if you like your choice and want to update her, click okay.  The form will now close

 

We're almost done, just one more step.  Select Ysolda in the actor list by clicking on her name once (one click only you just want it highlighted).  Now press Cntrl + F4 at the same time.  You get a pop up asking if you want to export the face date, say yes, you do.  Wait 15-30 sec in most cases and another box will pop up that simply says Done.  Click it and your done.  Save your mod now naming it whatever you like (I have one called My NPC Updates) and enable the esp in your load order.  Next time you see Ysolda (or whoever you updated) they'll have the appearance you just gave them.  That's it.

 

Now one more warning, don't go back an edit them again or stuff will mess up, particularly the hair color.  Why, because we did it the lazy way and didn't actually import the PB hair color.  You can do this if you want, and in the long run it may be better to do so (I'd have to do another tutorial on importing the hair colors that's a whole process in itself).  Or you could use Wrye Bash again and make PB an assigned master and then your mod will simply load it from PB each time you load your game.  Either way works.

 

An that's pretty much it.  BTW, if you're building a mod and want to "borrow" the appearance of some PB NPCs for your mod, same deal and feel free to do so.  PB is a resource, if people want to use it to spiffy up some NPCs in their own mods that fine by me.

 

Hope that was clear enough, I really do need to set aside time to write some proper tutorials on all this.

 

 

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I just want to mention I think I knew all that (though that's good to have all typed out, I didn't know the "don't make active" bit on combining mods, though I have been able to use the merge plugins mod for MO.

 

I guess I just hoped there was something a little easier, more flexible, and more automated....  this way I'll have to find and favorite some looks before chasing NPCs down in the CK.

 

Oh well, at least it will pass some time while I pretend to game and not take up bandwidth. :s

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You're right it does help to have it written down, might help others who didn't know.  I really do need to do proper tutorials on it though.

 

If you spot an NPC you like in game, do the following.  Make a note of what they're called and their race.  For example a Bandit Highwayman or a Apprentice Ice Mage.  If you know that you can open CK, filter for PB_ and say then find the 'bandit highwayman' npcs.  There aren't that many and they're always level 14.  If you know the race such as Redguard or Nord you can pretty quickly narrow down which one you're looking for and now you know the Form ID name.  I learned to do that tracking down reports of grey faces originally and found that as long as I knew those two pieces of info I could sort out which NPC I needed to look at within a few minutes.  That was before I added the PB_ prefix to everything, which makes it even easier now.

 

The reason you don't make them active is whatever mod is active is the one that gets edited.  If none are active, then when you save it makes a new mod.  The reason you'd want to make a new mod and then use Wrye Bash to add masters is that the next time I update PB, you won't have to redo your changes.  Since the file name for the PB esp never changes your mod will continue working.  In the long run its less work for you that way.

 

Okay, its waaaaaaaaaaaaay past my bedtime (having trouble sleeping actually) so I'm gonna head to bed and try to get some rest.

 

Ciao

 

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Recovering from Thanksgiving! :D

 

Did manage to get some work on PB done.  About 50% done with the additions to the bandit faction and witches factions; about 30% done with the warlocks.  Got some thoughts about the Vigilants.  I'll post some questions / ideas soon for feedback.

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Feedback on the Vigilants of Stendarr

 

Okay, I wanted to ask you guys to give me some feedback on how you'd like me to go with this.  So what follows are some ideas, thoughts, suggestions, etc.  Post your feedback and I'll try to keep everyone's thoughts in mind as I get ready to start adding them in.

 

Vigilants gear
One of the first things I thought about changing was their gear.  Right now Vigilants walk around in robes.  I always thought this was a little odd for a militant organization that supposedly fights daedra.  You'd think maybe somebody would wear a little armor.  So, what would you guys think of having some vanilla Skyrim armors added into the mix.  Maybe some steel armor and/or steel plate depending on the level of the encounters.  Some of it might even be enchanted.  This change would affect all Vigilants not just the gals who get the PB treatment (the PB gals would still get their own PB outfits so that they could be modded separately later, now all we need is the Holy Chain Mail Bikini of Smiting +3 :lol: ).  Some different ways I could approach this would be:

  1. Just add some armor to the leveled lists for all Vigilants and let the game randomly select and apply it like it does any other outfit containing leveled lists.  This would be the simplest approach.
  2. Split the outfits into two groups, VigilantRobes and VigilantArmor.  Some vigilants would get the robes and would wear those, others would get a new armor outfit containing regular iron, steel or steel plate armors, with enchanted versions at higher levels.  This would be a bit more complex made more so if I also did something else which brings me to the next item.

Vigilants combat types
Right now there are vigilants; they're all pretty much the same when it comes to combat style, skills, etc.  The option of two outfit types got me to thinking what if they were split into two broad combat groups.  One group would focus on magic while still having some basic melee skills; they'd have spells to banish daedra (not conjure them just banish them), repel the undead, heal, magical armor, destruction spells... you get the idea.  They'd wear the robes, basically they'd be Vigilant Mages.  Then there are the warrior types, they wear armor, swing maces, have a little magic of a basic type; these are the Vigilant Knights or some such.  Both would be mixed into the same encounter lists so that the existing encounter makers would randomly spawn one or the other type (I do not want to tackle trying to update all the encounter markers to only spawn one or the other an then try to balance that, too much for what this mod is intended to be).
So, would you guys want two types of Vigilants in your encounters, Mages and Knights?  Again, this would affect all Vigilants, not just the PB gals.

 

Keeper Carcette
Keeper Carcette is the head of the Order in Skyrim, at least up until those mean ole Dawnguard vampires burn their HQ and kill her.  Tragic really.  But, until then you can go pay her a visit and if you're feeling particularly ornery that day you could attack them or enslave them using PAHE.  So, that raises the question, what shall we make her look like?  I tend to try to reflect what Skyrim was doing, so left entirely to my own devices I'd make her a Breton, medium build, blond hair of medium length and the FemaleEvenToned voice and go from there. 

 

But, I don't have to do that. 

 

Other than the voice type just about everything else is malleable.  We could make her a brunette, redhead, short hair, long hair, light build, chesty, etc.  We can even change her race to any other standard playable race (so no I won't make her a succubus much as I will admit that would be kind of amusing LOL), she could become a Nord, or even an Argonian (which is perhaps even weirder than making her a succubus).  Voice type needs to stay the same though so that she still can say her dialog with audio.  So, got any suggestions, post em.  Got a screen shot of a favorite NPC, post it.  I'm even willing to do a custom facial sculpt in Racemenu (just don't expect it to be on par with Sansuka's work, I'm not that good yet) or maybe even import a custom hair model for this (provided the model is one I can get permission to use) since this is a one off custom NPC.  I'm even willing to consider special abilities as long as we don't go making her too powerful, after all she's fated to be killed by a few vampires so she shouldn't have been too tough.  If you want dragon shouts, I'll consider it, but not full three word shouts.  Probably only the first word and maybe only one or two shouts.  Reason being is she isn't Dragonborn so, like the Greybeards, mastering even one word of a shout takes years of practice and she's not an old lady.

 

 

Okay, so there you go, have at it and let me know what you think.  Got other ideas for the vigilants other than the above, I promise I'll at least read em.  Once I have a general idea what directions to go in I'll start doing the prep work of organizing those ideas into outfits, templates, etc. before beginning to build the NPCs themselves.

 

Meanwhile I still have a lot to do to finish up expanding the bandits faction which is currently about 50% done, the witches also about 50% done, and the warlocks which is maybe 30% done and then I need to go back and double check new stuff is plugging into the Vaermina devotees and some others properly.  So probably at least a couple of weeks work on that alone at minimum.

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Simpler might be better for the armor, though I'd also like to see a bunch of busty blond nord babes running around in chain bikinis.  I see Vigilants a lot with the extra encounter mods I have and they would brighten the landscape.

 

On the other hand, the chainmail bikini mods I've tried haven't worked for one reason or another. Probably because Bodyslide eluded me and I haven't tried again.

 

For both armor/cloth and mage/fighter types you might look at what the mod Dawnguard Sentries does with them.  One problem I have with some of the sentries is the mage ones tend to only use the new Sun spells from Dawnguard which do little against dragons. Making a Melee-Plate and a Spellcaster-cloth male and female is 4 variants, but maybe you could switch off on leveled ones, so the low level ones are melee males and spellcaster females, then the middle group is melee females and spellslinging males, top group is something else.

 

There is also a Witchhunter mod that adds spells to add magic damage to melee weapons that would fit something that is out hunting the unnatural. Using this I kinda play a Vigilant when I am unfocused and want to just wander Skyrim.  Too bad there aren't more things out there to hunt. Using enchanted maces though would duplicate the goal and not need extra spells added to your mod.

 

Dawnguard Sentries, on both Nexus and Here

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/66126/?

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/47373-dawnguard-sentries-plus/

 

Witch hunter

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/53751/?

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I don't know what all armors are out there, but not much surprises me.  My goal though is to set things up to make it a lil bit easier for players to customize the gear in their own games, that's about all I can do.  Trying to get permission for a variety of armors, then setting up body slide adjustments for each body type, etc. would be more than I'm willing to do.

 

There's a tutorial here on LL for Bodyslide that you might find helpful.  It takes a lil bit to get the hang of the basics, or at least it did me.  I'm still practicing but I can't get the really great results I see others producing, at least not yet.  For me the underside of the breast is a tough area.

 

So for what armors I would include, it would be the vanilla armor already in Skyrim.  For the Knights I'd have iron at lower levels, then steel and then steel plate.  Not sure if I would go beyond that.  Robes are robes, other than differences in enchantments there's not a lot of variety there.  Beyond that individual players would be able to use the PB outfit 'container' to add in whatever custom armors they want just as I've done with the other factions.

 

Combat styles for Mages and Knights means making two combat styles.  I'm pretty comfortable with this having done a lot of experimenting with a custom follower I made for myself.  She's lethal with a bow at range, but close up switches to magic and will also heal herself fairly intelligently.  She even uses conjuration spells pretty well.  So I think I could manage to come up with something for the Vigilants that would be more basic.  Then its just a matter of setting up the templates for the different level groups, higher level NPC would of course have more skill perks and maybe extra spells.  While I have been learning more about and experimenting with making new spells in personal magic mod I've got going I'm not planning on adding any new spells, just making sure the Vigilants make use of what they do have.  That's not to say I wouldn't consider it if there was a lot of request for something new.

 

I will take a look at the mods you linked thanks for including the links.

 

[unofficial] Bodyslide 2/Outfit Studio Tutorials

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Yeah, with the size the mod is just with face data, I don't think armors need to be added. Just using vanilla ones and let a user's armor replacer take over is the simplest.

 

Did you mean you have a box someplace in game we can put in armors for bandits to wear, or did I misunderstand that comment and you just meant the outfits we can edit in the CK for the various types?

 

I found a few armor mods recently that I've been able to merge together into some theme esps. so I could make a PB addon mod and add them in finally.

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Could be, I don't know anything about OBIS.  From what I have heard it also changes the leveled lists for encounters, so it probably is not compatible but I can't say for sure without cracking open that mod and looking at it inside (something I've not had any time to do).  Could you tell me which NPCs you are seeing having a grey face? 

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Glad to hear.  BTW, if you do find something with a PB NPC you need to report (or maybe you just want to point one out for some reason) here's what I need to know to find it.

 

Type:  Such as Bandit Thug, or Bandit Marauder or Novice Ice Mage or Master Conjurer.

Race:  Breton, Nord, etc.

Level:  (not actually necessary in most cases but can be helpful).

 

With that info I can pin down exactly which NPC you're referring... except for witches and hags, they're a lil more difficult.  In those cases a screen shot is probably best, I can identify most of them on sight.

 

Meanwhile, happy to say the final expansion of the bandit faction for the next release is nearly done.  This doubles the number of PB bandit actors in the encounter lists.  As a bonus, the top level group (level 25) are actually being tripled.  Witches are half done, should be done with the rest next week.  Warlocks are maybe 40% done, its the largest faction group and I intend to triple the number top level warlocks as well.  This should create quite a lot of variety in the encounters.

 

Also doing a bit more tidying up.  Found a few actors that were still flagged as unique so fixing those as I find them.  Tweaking a few more make up sets from the current release, going back over them I thought some still had eye shadow that was too dark or maybe something else that didn't look quite right.

 

This weekend I'm hoping to find time to start work on the Vigilants templates and maybe start playing around in Racemenu with ideas for Keeper Carcette.  I'll also probably give her a new behavior package of some sort, right now she just stands at the alter with her hands on it and doesn't move.  Maybe just be a simple sandbox or something, make it a lil easier to look her over if you go pay her a visit.

 

Next release will bring us up to 1.0.  At that point I'm going to officially move it out of beta.  At this point most of the main issues have been resolved, the internal structure of the mod is well organized and I've got a solid foundation to build on going forward.  I should also probably get an album of screen shots of the various NPC groups put together for the next release as well.  Thinking maybe pics of each PB bandit group by level  (so all the level one Bandits in one screen shot if I can fit them all in, then all the Bandit Outlaws (level 5) and so on; same for warlocks and witches).  Maybe update the mod logo image a bit as well with something a lil more "illustrative".

 

Alrighty, back to work for me... can't sleep again so might as well be productive. :cool:

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I'm not sure what mod I have that does it, if it isn't vanilla behavior, but she does go to bed in my game.

 

I must have something that changes AI behavior, as I'll get enemies from half a dungeon away running to me if I enter non-stealthed and something could see me (ie not the places large enough where there is nothing near the start of the place).

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Hmm, yeah sounds like you've got a bad mod somewhere.  PB currently doesn't touch the behavior packages of anything at all nor the NPC AI functions. 

 

I've seen some odd things like that, sometimes its due to someone making a big boo boo and editing behavior packages labeled "default", which is REALLY bad to do. 

 

But what you're describing sounds more like something has maybe tinkered with the Aggro radius on the AI Data tab for the actors.  This is something else PB doesn't mess with.  However, is another mod does, and it was turned on and the radius was set to something really high then as soon as you got anywhere near them then yeah they'll all aggro and auto attack.  Since once one NPC aggros it tends to alert other nearby NPCs that would cause a chain reaction with others, even PB NPCs who don't use this feature.

 

If its not this it might be something in a custom behavior package or even something scripted.

 

I'd start by suggesting you look for that in any mods that claim to make NPCs tougher and go from there.  No idea on what mods that might be though, I don't use any like that.  (EDIT: An other than being Capt Obvious, what I meant was, look at the male NPCs and check their AI Data tab.  Since PB ignores 99% of the male actors if another mod changed those that could cause it.)

 

==================

 

As for Keeper Carcette, she has three behavior packages, including one for sleeping.  The first is a forced greet that is supposed to trigger if you're wearing a daedric artifact.  I have not tested this to see if it works yet.  I suspect it doesn't since all Vigilants have this package and I've walked up to wandering Vigilants while wearing a several daedric artifacts and they've never reacted (most commonly Dawnbreaker, Spellbreaker and Azura's Star but I haven't checked if those have the keyword that triggers the package); but as a caveat I've never thoroughly looked at it or tested it so that's on my to do list.  The second package in the stack is a sleep package, this should work but I've never visited the hall at night (and to be honest until I started working on this stage of PB I'd never paid them any attention prior to the place being burned) so I may have just never seen it happen, will check it out though.  The last is a "sit" package which has her set to just stand at the table and lean on it.  So basically, she stands there from about 8 AM to Midnight, then sleeps for 8 hours, rinse and repeat.  I think I'd like to change that sit package into one or more sandbox packages so she has a lil more of a life.  Maybe on Tuesdays she wanders outside somewhere (where shes all alone.... :cool: ) or something, I dunno yet.  That topic is entirely open for discussion.

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Hmm, yeah sounds like you've got a bad mod somewhere.  PB currently doesn't touch the behavior packages of anything at all nor the NPC AI functions. 

 

I've seen some odd things like that, sometimes its due to someone making a big boo boo and editing behavior packages labeled "default", which is REALLY bad to do. 

 

But what you're describing sounds more like something has maybe tinkered with the Aggro radius on the AI Data tab for the actors.  This is something else PB doesn't mess with.  However, is another mod does, and it was turned on and the radius was set to something really high then as soon as you got anywhere near them then yeah they'll all aggro and auto attack.  Since once one NPC aggros it tends to alert other nearby NPCs that would cause a chain reaction with others, even PB NPCs who don't use this feature.

 

If its not this it might be something in a custom behavior package or even something scripted.

 

I'd start by suggesting you look for that in any mods that claim to make NPCs tougher and go from there.  No idea on what mods that might be though, I don't use any like that.  (EDIT: An other than being Capt Obvious, what I meant was, look at the male NPCs and check their AI Data tab.  Since PB ignores 99% of the male actors if another mod changed those that could cause it.)

 

==================

 

As for Keeper Carcette, she has three behavior packages, including one for sleeping.  The first is a forced greet that is supposed to trigger if you're wearing a daedric artifact.  I have not tested this to see if it works yet.  I suspect it doesn't since all Vigilants have this package and I've walked up to wandering Vigilants while wearing a several daedric artifacts and they've never reacted (most commonly Dawnbreaker, Spellbreaker and Azura's Star but I haven't checked if those have the keyword that triggers the package); but as a caveat I've never thoroughly looked at it or tested it so that's on my to do list.  The second package in the stack is a sleep package, this should work but I've never visited the hall at night (and to be honest until I started working on this stage of PB I'd never paid them any attention prior to the place being burned) so I may have just never seen it happen, will check it out though.  The last is a "sit" package which has her set to just stand at the table and lean on it.  So basically, she stands there from about 8 AM to Midnight, then sleeps for 8 hours, rinse and repeat.  I think I'd like to change that sit package into one or more sandbox packages so she has a lil more of a life.  Maybe on Tuesdays she wanders outside somewhere (where shes all alone.... :cool: ) or something, I dunno yet.  That topic is entirely open for discussion.

 

Well the problem predated my use of PB so you're not in consideration at all.  They don't just attack me, so aggro radius and detection was what I hoped to find. I don't think I have any "make bandits harder" mods, but now typing this I do have some added encounters mods that might have done that. I thought they just placed new spawns, but that might be all they intended. 

 

I've used the LAL start in the Vigilant hall a few times so I have been there at night. YMMV obviously (hands back Capt hat ) but no I don't think daedric things have worked for me either.

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