Trying to determine best "increased encounters" mods

[miketheratguy]

Last year I had my game set up just right so that I was getting a regular flow of combat with NPCs, which I love. I'm not as interested in fighting wildlife, I mainly enjoy encountering hostile groups of people (such as bandits) every couple of minutes.

 

But because of updates and other issues, I can't seem to make this happen again. Half the mods I used to use are different or dead, or people have found serious bugs or bloat or other problems with them (in fact I think I used to use a combination that included Occupy Skyrim, which was seemingly removed altogether). There are new ones that I haven't tried (Sands of Time, etc.) that sound good but also sound like they offer (or require) more than what I'm trying to do.

 

 

So, I thought that maybe you guys could help. Here's what I'm looking for:

 

* Greatly increase the chance of an encounter

 

* Increase the possible spawn amount of each encounter

 

* Focus on "people" (no wildlife, trolls, atronachs, etc.)

 

* NO SkyUI dependence. I don't use it. Official expansions are fine.

 

 

That's basically it. I'm just looking to encounter many more hostile NPCs much more frequently. Is anyone using a mod or combination of mods that have the capacity to do this without other mandatory bells and whistles (and without crashes)?

Edited August 4, 2013 by miketheratguy

[myztikrice]

I don't know what mods you were using, but both ASIS and DFB - Random Encounters both do this and have been active mods in the community for 1 year+.

Edited August 4, 2013 by myztikrice

[miketheratguy]

I am using DFB currently, I just added it last night. It's the only extra encounter mod I'm using at the moment because I'm still trying it out- while I've made changes to the bat file and the game does recognize it, I'm not really noticing a difference in encounters so far.

 

I hear a lot about ASIS, but I've also heard that it uses loads of scripts that cause complications. It also seems to add a lot of extra stuff that I have no interest in (giving NPC enemies new abilities). Do you use these mods yourself?

 

EDIT: In the past I tried out various combinations that variously included Warzones, More NPCs in the Wild, Occupy Skyrim and Immersive Patrols. At this point all of these mods seem to have various issues so I hesitate to use them again. Don't know what happened with Occupy Skyrim.

Edited August 4, 2013 by miketheratguy

[StayFrosty05]

It is a shame about SkyUI because Sands of Time is fully adjustable to an individuals own wishes for game play....has a comprehensive toggle and percentages menu system allowing you a great deal of control over exactly which features you wish to use and how regular of large you want your spawns both in Interiors and Exteriors.....I have been using SoT for about a year now and just don't enjoy Skyrim without it anymore and I run a highly stable trouble free game....it's the best encounters Mod on Nexus I know of myself.

[miketheratguy]

That's exactly why I'm becoming so frustrated with SkyUI. For months I didn't want to download that mod because literally ANY time I looked at the comment section, it was riddled with bug reports. Then finally one day I figured "what the hell, thousands of endorsements must mean something" and tried the mod anyway. I have to admit that I'm surprised at my reaction, but I just plain didn't like it. Maybe the biggest reason for this is the fact that my game is on a laptop connected to a fairly large HD screen, and the font is simply really hard to read.

 

Sands of Time doesn't look to require SkyUI, are these features not available without it? They sound like exactly what I need.

[mindw0rk2]

Sands of Times is abit buggy, but its nice and has customization through spell (or staff).

Also try OBIS with Bandit Raids optional file, Immersive Patrols and High Level Enemies.

[miketheratguy]

Thanks, I don't recall hearing about OBIS (or at least am not recalling whatever the acronym stands for. In what way is SoT buggy? Crashes. freezes, etc?

 

Does anyone know what happened to Occupy Skyrim? I've looked it up and all I can see is that it was removed, no one seems to know why.

[Shadeybladey]

Does anyone know what happened to Occupy Skyrim? I've looked it up and all I can see is that it was removed, no one seems to know why.

 

Nobody knows

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/842260-occupy-skyrim-mod/

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/860896-occupy-skyrim/

[miketheratguy]

Yep, those two topics basically match the ones that I saw. I was hoping by now that maybe someone had gotten word as to what happened.

[sapience89]

There's also Immersive Patrols, which I use and works great. It's not really big for the amount of encounters that it adds, but at least it's some extra, though I did run into a huge war going on between the Imperials and Stormcloaks in the valley to the south of the Throat of the World one time. It was about as large as one from the Warzones mod before I uninstalled it for all of the save bloat it was creating. This one is script free too.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12977//?