LE Bandits are probably Jerks

[Methusael]

Problem

 

Bandits at presant behave like bowsers minions, running towards you even when they are wearing fur and you are covered in high level daedric items and its clear that you are going to metaphorically jump on their heads, and they are going to die.

This is not realistic or immersive; and its also not as fun as some simple changes to their behaviours could be. My goal is to via a simple change in behaviours create something that will create fun for the player as well as wonderful narritves in game.

Solution

When you meet a bandit, dialogue with them is started (similar to what happens at vaultheim towers); you have the option of saying that you are hear to barter with them. This makes sense because bandits in real life don't simply attack everyone that comes close - they also buy and sell.

They may allow you to walk around their camp, bartering with each bandit in the camp, or they may instantly attack you; alternatively the bandits as a group may attack you whilst your in their camp.

When they barter with you they dislike you so give you crappy prices. This gives you the option to convince the bandit leader to sell you quest items at a crazy price although it will likely get you stabbed in the back.

Variation

Not all bandits dressed in fur armour will want a scary looking person in dragonplate armour walking around their camp. So in some cases they will ask you to hand over your weapons, and or your armour.
Sometimes when you are leaving the camp they will want to keep these things or sell them back to you. Additionally once you have handed over your armour and weapons to the bandit on the door there is no gaurentee that the whole camp will not turn around and attack you.

Alternatively they may ask for a large amount of gold to le you trade n their camp, or they may just let you do it for nothing. This is because bandits are unpredictable. The fact that they may stab you in the back after all this is because they are (probably) jerks.

Implementation

 

I'd like to make the bandits behave capriciously - like real life gangsters and bullies. So i'd like to do this by running a random number generator once and depeneding on the outcome determine what the bandits
will do for the duration of your time in the camp

Also the dialogue could innitially be made with fuz ro dah; that is be silent and with subtitles. Later on we could use voice manipulation software to make iit work in a more immersive way.

Edited July 3, 2016 by Methusael

[Methusael]

So I got a crappy version of this going that relies on console commands!

when you approach a bandit camp, before you are seen immersively open the console and type
player.addtofaction e0cd9 0

 

I have some mod installed that gives a lot of extra dialogue options with NPCs so at that point you can talk to some of the bandits (for reasons i don't understand you cant talk to all of them)

then when you want to be betrayed you immersively open the console and type
player.addtofaction e0cd9 -1

 

and then they will "betray you"

my next goal is to find a command that causes skyrim to wait between these two comands. Meaning the script will look somehting like this:

player.addtofaction e0cd9 0

;wait a minute or so command here

player.addtofaction e0cd9 -1

 

[lofgren]

So I can speak to this with some authority.

 

I have a mod called Contraband:

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75425

 

Before it arrived at its current relatively simple implementation, the mod aent through several iterations, including one where it did just about everything you ask. A bandit would randomly approach you and escort you to the Boss who would barter with you. Unsheathing weapons or dropping into sneak would cause the bandits to immediately turn hostile.

 

The reason I walked it back to the more simple version that I shared is that I ultimately felt like most of the features of the complex version wouldn't actually get used more than a couple of times, so I pared it down to the features that might have an impact on the way the game is played.

 

Anyway, the scripts and quests that I used for the more elaorate version are still be in the esp. A few bugs need to be ironed out and some things that were handled through scripts would be better handled through dialogue, but it might provide a base for the mod you're working on. Feel free to copy or reuse anything you can out of it.

[Methusael]

Thanks so much!

I thought someone out there must've had a similar idea! I'll download the mod and do some coding tonight!

 

As its my the first mod i've ever worked on for skyrim, do you mind if I ask you lots of (possibly silly) questions about your code and how it works?

Just read your mod description

thats flipping amazing! I had never even thought of stuff like that! I'll install it and play around tonight!

Edited July 4, 2016 by Methusael

[lofgren]

As long as answering them doesn't become more work than making it myself.

 

The quests you are looking for are LFGAlliance and LFGAllianceForsworn.