Extra NPC mods?

[folgore62]

I already have Interesting NPCs. Are there any other recent additional NPC mods out there to give Skyrim a more "populated" look? I used to use "Inconsequential NPCs" after processing it for SSE, but it's a bit long in the tooth. Anything more recent?

[Thedudeistt]

Passive NPCs

 

populated skyrim reborn (There's like 5 different versions of it, so you'll have to see for yourself. I can't remember why I stopped using this one. Think it was because of JK's and Dawn.)

Children of skyrim warriors in training (adds extra children to cities and arms all children as combatants. I recommend also adding some killable children mod so that they don't become immortal warriors.)

Also, both JK's Skyrim and Dawn of Skyrim add npcs to inhabit the new locations added.

Cutting Room Floor also adds some npcs, but it adds a lot of other things as well.

Immersive College NPCs adds npcs to winterhold, along with all the college overhauls.

College Students adds even more students to the college.

 

Aggressive NPCs

 

Skyrim at War (Adds 2000-4000 civil war npcs that duke it out across the map. Note that this one drops fps overall.)

Warzones (and its add-on, Warzones Assault) (Same as above, but they only spawn in once you reach the target locations that will be shown on the mcm.)

Immersive Patrols (Guard, thalmor, civil war patrols. There's also a simplified patrols version that simply removes patrol types that you dislike. But this one is needed as a base.)

Massive battles and patrols ( Adds all kinds of patrols, more varied than immersive and npcs have simplistic names like 'peasant, adventurer, etc.' It runs perfectly fine with others. You need to open in CK to update header form, it's in form 43, but that's all you need to do.)

Extra Guards (Does exactly what you expect it to.)

 

Tagged as follower mods:

 

MINPCS (travelling npcs with followers.)

Companions and followers essential(travelling npcs that are also followers)

 

There's probably more, but I use all of these together with no issues other than the expected fps drops when there's more than 60 npcs on-screen.

Edited September 14, 2021 by Thedudeistt

[creekdipper]

The best ones I have tried besides besides 3DNPC's and Inconsequential NPCs are Citizens of Tamriel and Immersive World Encounters. They are much better than the ones that just junk the place up with tons of random generic NPCs.

[thumbincubation]

I use a mixture of population mods, in combination. They seem to work well together.

 

Immersive Patrols by Scrabbulor

Immersive Followers by Scrabbulor

Populated Skyrim Legendary Edition (name is confusing but is for SSE) by Tonycubed2

JNL Lots More Followers by Tonycubed2

Genesis Unleashed Leveled by Tonycubed2 (does inside dungeons, in addition to populated series)

Genesis Surface Encounters Leveled by Tonycubed2 (does the roads and wilds)

NPCs Travel by Win2009

 

Immersive World Encounters by Sette Lisette

Extended Encounters by Jonxor

 

These all work together, for me, with no particular attention to load order. I just let LOOT do its thing.

 

I tried out Skyrim is for the Nords, also, but it added some furniture and made navmesh edits that I didn't want to try to get around, with other mods affecting same areas. Good mod, not good fit for my load order.

Of the Tonycubed2 Populated series, there have been some small additions made to the inns, to keep them from overcrowding, but they don't seem to interfere with JKs at all, and they've been in my LO for so long, they fit well. There is another author with the Populated Skyrim series uploaded as well, though they have made no edits like that. I am thinking about stripping out the named NPCs and loading them alongside the Tonycubed2 version, so I have double the amount of unnamed NPCs. I haven't undertaken that project yet, though.

 

There was another follower mod, where they roamed the roads and waited for you to ask for help, acting as a population mod too, but I was crashing with it, so I took it out. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name.

Edited September 19, 2021 by thumbincubation

[Thedudeistt]

Huh, haven't seen immersive followers.

[thumbincubation]

I'm sorry. I was going by my data folder. The plugin is named Immersive Followers.esp, but the mod itself is called Companions and Followers. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/719 My apologies.

[Thedudeistt]

Oohh, nevermind, yes that's the one I know about and also use. It's quite interesting because you see a group of them wandering around the roads of Riverwood as you walk out of Helgen.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Thedudeistt

[thumbincubation]

Yeah, it can be a lot of fun, though it sometimes is hard to tell which mod deposited which NPC. I haven't done it since this OS reinstall, but I usually go into each one and kind of synchronize their outfits, so they match what their vanilla counterparts are wearing.