El_Duderino

I'm not sure at all how they both interact, however I suppose Skypatcher might overwrite stuff that Synthesis does. In other words: I don't know why the patch in your ini doesn't take effect. It could also be a faction thing: I'd recommend to load your entire load order in xEdit and see if anything has common factions set hostile to the bandits. In DBO, only guard and soldier factions are supposed to be hostile.

Mod Update: Version 0.3.2 Improvement: The Civil War forts originally occupied by bandits will no longer be processed by this mod once the Civil War has been started (that is, once the player has finished the recruitment quest for either side). This should persist throughout and after the Civil War. Safe to upgrade mid-playthrough.

Awesome, thank you so much for your help! Your analaysis is extremely helpful and a great discovery with the dead-end in Maul's dialogue -- it never occured to me that the issue might be triggered by staying in the dialogue. The dialogue script of Maul's first dialogue starts/stops a few quests and sets various variables. It seems like some of that might get delayed until the dialogue exits completely, or perhaps even fails to fire if one proceeds in the dialogue. I hope this can be fixed easily by forcing the dialogue to exit after the first chat. I'll also add Hemming Black-Briar as an alternative dialogue partner so we won't have to rely on Maul and his restrictive vanilla dialogue conditions.

Hi again, a follow-up. I can't seem to find an error in the recruitment dialogue for both Aneke and Mera. What do they say when you speak to them? With Aneke, there *should* be a dialogue prompt "Aneke, good news! I've just bought you." I take that doesn't show up in your game? With Mera, her opening line to recruit her as a follower should be "Mera? Can you help me?" Could you run a couple of console commands for me to help trouble-shoot this if you still have the savegame? sqs AR_Q_SlaveryHandler -> this quest should NOT be running sqs AR_Q_NPCScheduler_9004 sqs AR_Q_NPCScheduler_9006 -> one of these two should be running, but not both.

Hi and thanks for the feedback! I'll check the dialogue conditions.

Huh, that's a very good question. I've never played as werewolf or vampire in all those years and the thought never crossed my mind to check how the mod reacts.

Hi and thanks much for the kind feedback! Taking over the establishment was actually part of my original plan for the mod; it was intended to be the main ending. At some point I decided to cut it because it was quickly becoming too complicated. Maybe I'll return to that idea in some kind of spin-off quest now that I have learned much more about the CK. The wall issues are very likely because of my customized Dwemer walls. I didn't like how large the existing Dwemer room kits are and edited them into smaller wall sections in NifSkope, but couldn't get the collision to work properly. I covered the gaps that I could find with collision volumes but apparently missed some.

Hi @Spoilerman thanks, I did not know about that Gourmet mod. A non-CACO version probably won't happen any time soon. One issue is that it means creating a fork of the mod which would then fall behind any future additions to the main version. Another issue is admittedly a lack of motivation on my part as de-CACO-fying requires editing quest/script properies, dialogue text and dialogue conditions. All of which are areas of the CK where it's easy to make mistakes and which are a bit tedious, especially for something that I'll never use myself. In theory, the mod should be playable if you use an empty dummy .esp for CACO -- and avoid the quests which make use of CACO ingredients (the two tavern quests and the Battle-Born quest). The rest should work if you can live with a bunch of log errors at startup that shouldn't affect the long-term stability of the game.

Hi and thanks for the question and the heads-up. The bandits becoming hostile when you "tab out" of dialogue is intented and will happen any time during the initial dialogue after entering their territory. When they ask you to give up your weapons, you must choose between giving up your weapons or fighting, which happens immediately when you refuse. You can keep your weapons under certain circumstances (spoiler alert!)

Hi and thanks for the reminder about this issue! I couldn't find a good way to address this when it was first reported and then must have forgotten about it. As far as I can tell, Treva's Watch doesn't get broken outright by this mod, but it's far from ideal: The Treva's Watch bandits' "DBO behaviour" sort-of works. The interception quest starts and they walk towards the player, but then they usually get stuck behind the locked iron bars of the main entrance. The player can initiate dialogue with them through the gate. Failing that, the bandits should turn hostile after the dialogue timer runs out. The previous patch (0.3.0) improves the situation by turning the bandits hostile when getting shot at. This should allow conquering the fort "vanilla style". In theory, the vanilla Infiltration quest should be unaffected by this, but I haven't tested it yet (I find that quest quite underwhelming).

Mod Update! New Feature: Bandits can now "legalize" stolen items and remove the stolen flag from them. You can now ask bandits to "legalize" stolen goods. For a fee, of course. Speak to any bandit while at a bandit hideout/camp and ask them for help with some illegal items. A container menu will open, into which you can put your stolen items. Upon paying the fee, just close the container and your items will be returned to you, cleared of the "stolen" flag. This update requries Steelfeathers’ Papyrus Extension! https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/154540?tab=description -- stick with version 0.3.0 if you do not want to use that extension.

New Update! Version 1.8.3 (May 29, 2026): Bugfix: Logical error in Player Alias script that prevented Mera’s payment to work Improvement: Enabled „Random Conversation“ flag to some of Aneke’s packages that didn’t need to have it disabled. Improved: Mera will no longer auto-loot corpses while having bound hands. NEW FEATURE: Mera won’t agree to carrying stolen items. Requries Steelfeathers’ Papyrus Extension! https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/154540?tab=description

I don't know. What is gourmet? You probably don't mean the NPC in the game.

Thanks, that's a really cool idea. At the moment, I don't know how it could be implemented, but I'll definitely investigate further.

As far as I know, crashing on game start is usually caused by missing plugins. Check that all required mods from the download page are installed and activated in your load order. The four CC items that come bundled in Skyrim AE are probably hard requirements, too, because I think that CACO requires them. That's all I can think of at the moment.