Trying to determine best "increased encounters" mods

[StayFrosty05]

Mike...I honestly don't know if SoT's Modder would have that file anymore...(sadly I doubt it, but you could always ask him anyway) it was during October last year...I just ran a search on SoT's thread and found the references to those battles, I wrote down some battle descriptions at the time... :happy: ...here's two of them if your want to get an idea of the kind of action we were facing...:

 

 

 

 

Yep, the spawns are clustering and coming thick and fast....I'm going to have to fiddle with the odds....Kane had another cluster from hell to contend with.....Thalmor's taken on a merry run into a Giant Camp. A little further down the road Kane entered an area bad for leverage and stealth (open and flat) when three Gargoyles spawned...still managed to get the first shot off in stealth (dropping to stealth as soon as a SoT warning comes up)....summoned Cat....then unsummoned...as at that very moment a Shock Dragon chose to join the fray...(a quick note: though the Dragon is courtesy of 'Deadly Dragons'.... there's an unintended rare-ish event that happens with 'Dragons Hunt in Swarms' that makes the odd Dragon Dovahkins ally....this Shock Dragon spawned friendly to Kane).....So Kane and Dragon went to war on the Gargoyles....backing up towards a Bandit Keep...the Dragon sends very hurt Gargoyles running for cover, Kane tracked them down and finished the job....in the mean time the Dragon has started on the Keep ....So head to the Keep and help Dragon dispatch what's left of the Bandits....then the Dragon departs....moments later SoT Thalmor spawn.... Stealth and they don't see Kane...he takes a shot and is exposed so beats a hasty retreat and starts circling the outer walls of the Keep in stealth, hoping the Thalmor loose track of him....The Dragon returns and it's on again.... :dance: ....Kane charges into the outer Keep where the Dragon is playing fry the Thalmor....Kane drops into stealth again and tracks the Thalmor trying to hide from the Dragon....very neat and precise kills....last Thalmor goes down and Dragon departs again....sigh of relief, fights over, time for sleep....Kane heads for the Keep for a bed....before he can get inside four Assassins spawn....drop into stealth and they don't see Kane....he sneaks out of the Keep to get some range and the three SoT Death Mages spawn on him as his leaving the walls behind him....had to jump and run, they were right on top of Kane....Run around the outside wall of the Keep and a nasty idea spawns in my tiny little brain.... :devil: ....head for the other entrance to the Keep grounds....sprint through picking up a train of Assassins on the way (the Boss and another) and head straight for the Mages.....drop into stealth, watch them clobber each other for a while...then start filling the victors with arrows...worked a charm.... :happy: .....In stealth head for high ground near the Keep looking for the two remaining Archers (Detect life definitely doesn't work on the Assassins, but does on all other SoT opponents)....finally spot Archers and stealth clean shot kill one...the other spots Kane and so they dance....both dodging arrows left and right slowly closing range taking shots at each other...Archer hits Kane with one arrow...but Kane's moving aim is better ...both went through a heck of a lot of arrows though.....Finally runs for the Keep, dispatches a couple of Bandits inside and finds a bed for what little is left of the night..

 

 

 

Tony, I tried filming my game and epic fail...my frps (sitting on 57 pretty solidly it seems) suddenly crashed out and immediate drop to 30 something fps and a note popped up saying the load was corrupted.... :sad: ....as soon as I activated filming it did it....Hopefully it's something that can be corrected and fixed...tried it twice....did it the second time too.

Is a real shame because what I thought was just a small battle with a couple of SoT Orc Hunters, which I thought I would test the filming out on...turned into an all night battle of supreme epic proportions...the most epic so far.... :woot: ....There is a field of absolute carnage now spread far and wide between Riften and Shors Stone.....Had to use every one of Kane's skills and all his tricks to survive this rampage....would have been a good show piece.

It all started with Kane passing through the grounds of that Bandit infested Keep midway between Riften and Shors Stone....was just trying to deliver the Ore sample....Well the Bandits agrro'ed as Kane passed through...so decided to sort them out and went Werewolf on them....nothing left of the Bandits....waited until Kane turned back and left the Keep for Shors stone....Just as he was leaving the Keep a SoT message come up....Orc Hunters, three of them....led them on a merry chase separating their party...ran them through a small wolf pack etc....ranged hits every time Kane could get the distance to turn around....keeping terrain between him and their Archer....Battle over fairly quickly...on to Shors Stone....never made it....Two more Orc Hunters show up (this is where I tried to film and failed....had saved at the point of the second SoT message...and had to reload to before the corruption)....separate them too and decide to play.... :devil: ....Werewolf time....transform....and moments later run into that caged wolf and release him....so now two Orcs and two Trappers after Kane....leads them all into a Wolf Pack and turns around for a feast....they would make for easy pickings whilst their concentrating on the wolves.... when two Dragons show up, both aggro this time....And this is when the world exploded..... :woot: ....Every animal within quite a range goes aggro....a number of Cave Bears....the big Wolf Pack (SkyTest Wolf Pack)...and a Troll...and some Stormcloaks (remember Kane's a Werewolf at this point)...and the Dragons are raining down Fire and Brimstone on EVERYONE (well ice shards and frost actually)...The Dragons looked amazing...night had fallen and I have the 'Realistic Night Skies' mod, the sky was bursting with Nebula's and stars....the Dragons looked breathtaking against the sky....Anyway, Kane is in no position to bring any Dragons down to land so scatters with the rest of the now huge mob of aggro'ed people and creatures everywhere....trying to divert the Dragon's attentions from himself by leading them to all the red dots spamming his radar...it worked...as that's taking place....another SoT message flashes.....Vamp Lord with side kick...Very cool I think....what does one most want to be when tackling a Vamp Lord, but a Werewolf of course.... :dance: ....The Vamp Lord goes down easily enough....just keep swiping at him and don't let him get his bearings....his side kick proves to be bad news though, she's tough and metes a lot of damage out on a Werewolf...so make a fast bee line for the Dragons, let them sort her out...Frost damage doesn't do much to Vamps....some poor Stormcloak courier turns up at this point, funnily enough he doesn't aggro on Kane at all, but only attacks the Vamp....he shortly became her minion....At this point Kane finally now tranform's back to human....out with the Bow and with a little Fire Poison....makes surviving a lot harder for the Vamp...once the Minion stops trying to belt Kane with his axe that is....though the moment was saved by the battle getting too close to Shors Stone and some of the Guards coming to Kane's aid....one tackles the minion whilst the other keeps the Vamps attention and Kane fills her with another few arrows....once she's down time to tackle those Dragons....Summon Cat (distraction) and sort those Dragons out...finally finishing them off and turn towards Shors Stone....not so fast....another SoT message...Vamp Swarm...Kane, Cat and surviving Towns Guard go to work on the Swarm....Guard falls but the Swarm finally sorted....they don't seem too fond of the Cat.... :D ....Head into Shors Stone and set up camp near their permanent fire pit....lay down Bed Roll and SoT message flashes....Assassins!....Kane immediately drops to Stealth and a quick roll into the cover of darkness....Assassins (four of them) don't see Kane, but found the poor last remaining Town Guard near the Mine.....Kane manages to one shot kill one of the Assassins...giving away his location in the process though.....Two of the Assassins (Boss included) head Kane's way...the third is in battle with the Guard....Kane's poisons his Bow with that very special Tactless Toxin usually kept exclusively for Bane and Blade...and hit both the Boss and his side kick with it....their distracted....Kane repositions himself in stealth and fills the two Assassins with arrows and fire poison...they go down.....Kane reverts back to Werewolf and tracks down the last Assassin....quick kill....then wander off to search the carnage left on the field for any missed feeding opportunities...creatures and people....can't feed on Vamps or the Assassins for that matter though.....Bumps into a Dawnguard Vamp with her Thrall and makes short work of them...then heads back to Shors Stone....waiting the transformation out and reverting back to human before he enters....ready to lay down and sleep....SoT message 'Silver Hand Hunter'.....drop into stealth, but too late Kane is already spotted....so make a run for it and start on the Silver Hand with the Bow....he eventually goes down....It was still light when Kane left the Keep....late in the day, but light....it was 5 0'clock in the morning when he finally was able to lay down and sleep.... funny thing, he felt quite full and passed on breakfast when he awoke... :tongue:

 

 

It was SoT version 4.2....I don't know what caused the explosion of activity, only SoT's Author could tell you that....As for anything else wrong with the file, it pre-dated the MCM and so used a Ring and a Staff for configuration, the Ring was creating an odd column of light that wouldn't go away, but the Staff worked fine, we were able to use one or the other....The game ran mostly stable, though with that much spawning going on (remember Skyrim doesn't like new spawns) it was crashing some peoples games....mine did very well, but did CTD every once in a while....I would run it for two to three hours then to avoid CTD's would quite the game, clear some save files out, etc...then re-start the game....kept it stable for me....So I guess a lot of it would come down to individual game stability and what other Mods people had running with it as to how well and trouble free the 4.2 version ran.

[Shadeybladey]

The Meteorite insanity did me no damage either, just concerned me that a no longer present Mod was still effecting my game....after my nightmare experience with Skytest, I certainly prefer not to go through that again.... :ohdear:

 

Yes, some odd things happen with Beth games, that's for sure. My new character got his first random Dragon from Immediate Dragons at level 8 and the thing dive bombs from the sky, lands right behind me and the impact sends me sprawling. That's part of DCO (which I still have). I do have Justified Knockbacks, Realistic Ragdoll Force etc, though.

 

But Alduin didn't do anything like that. I'd have thought his behaviour in the opening scene was specially scripted - his flight path was the same, at least; he landed in the same place, flame breathed on the same things and perched on the same wall. I'll keep an eye out next time.

 

 

What problems did you have with SkyTEST? The only problems I had was that the pig grunts were FAR too loud (so I had to edit the sound files for them) and it crashed when I had Warzones installed whenever I approached certain spawn points. I think the latest version is fine, and there is one just for the AI without the extra spawn points.

 

But I dumped Warzones, though. Not updated since something like patch 1.5.

 

Shame, really.

 

~.~

[miketheratguy]

Lol that chaotic scenario in SoT sounds great. If it were adjustable I think I would have loved something like that.

 

I've still not yet gone back to test SoT again, I was wrapping up my testing with DFB Random Encounters plus Immersive Patrols last night. It's working great- not one crash or hangup in seven hours of gameplay and I'm getting a lot of encounters of exactly the type that I like. Minus the loss of such awesome mods as Warzones (seriously, removing that file was a dark day for many on the Nexus) I think that my game is right about where it was last year. This seems to be the winning combination for my needs.

 

But, again, I've now been spoiled by some of what SoT promises. I keep wanting to try it again.

[StayFrosty05]

Shadey....Yes, Alduin's flight path was still the same, but somewhat more ground pounding you could say.... :tongue: ...as you mentioned DCO impact...and Meteorites raining down hell on earth.... :dance:

 

What problems I had with SkyTest....well none really that weren't explainable while it was running in my game, it was the getting rid of it that caused all the nightmares. I had let it go because I play a Werewolf with full time alliance with Wolves, SkyTests Wolves are altered and as such behaved very oddly to the alliance, they would gravitate to my Dovah in both his Human and Werewolf form and mill around him following him, they also were showing as red dots on his Hud, but not attacking him, but what they did do after milling around him for awhile was begin attacking and killing each other....was very odd...but due to their non-vanilla package I can understand such oddities showing up.

 

The getting SkyTest out of my system proved a hellish task though....I ended with EVERY single Chicken in my game dead, large Animals floating in the air, the sound of running water everywhere my Dovah went and he sometimes would begin swimming in the air also. I had let go of a couple of Mods at that time and so had no inkling as to the cause of these glitches....Funny thing, I had Skytest for so long I had forgotten vanilla Skyrim doesn't have Roosters and baby Chickens and posted a few places looking for help, mentioning all my Chickens are dead, but the Roosters and Chicks are fine, seems a number of people were using SkyTest at the time and so no-one picked up on the clue about the Roosters....Then one day I noticed a female Sabre in my game and that's when I clicked, there are no female Sabre's in vanilla Skyrim.

 

Made a number of attempts to remove the SkyTest issue....tried a number of new Games, didn't work....deleted all my 'saves' and dropped my 'clean save file' in, didn't work...searched carefully through all game files I could find, removing all I could find and ran cache, didn't work....Uninstalled Skyrim, got rid of ALL files I could find then re-installed, didn't work....As I mentioned I am not PC savvy and turns out there were files I missed not knowing their location....I eventually had a friend who does know PC's, Mods, etc...Remote Access my PC...my game was completely corrupted beyond easy repair...had to un-install Skyrim again and my friend cleared EVERYTHING out and a few more things..he was there for a while... I didn't understand all he did, just watched (always trying to learn)...eventually gave me the all clear...I re-installed Skyrim and problem finally fixed.... :dance: