Dynamic Raiders (Raiders who know when to run/Flee system expanded)

[Lemecc]

If there's a mod that does this already, please let me know! Sometimes I miss really obvious ones.

 

I have an idea that's well beyond my capability to make - not just for lack of current skill, but also/entirely time. Putting the idea here in case anybody else likes it/has the capacity.

I'd like to see a dynamic raider system - or more like a system that comes close enough to feeling like it for the player - in which raiders respond to the players actions a bit more:

• If player rolls in armed to the teeth, raiders might even scatter without fighting at all (level check, or some kind of check for number of weapon items in inventory?)
• Similarly in terms of this, maybe a number check too if possible, so raiders can decide to flee if there are too many feral ghouls or super mutants chasing them for example. Basically, I'm unsure of how this check should be made, but some way for raiders to decide to flee a fight if they think they are outmatched. Similarly if the check tells them they have a good chance, it emboldens them to attack.
• If a fight breaks out, and more than x amount of raider allies die (in the same cell or same couple of cells?), the remaining raiders will flee. Fleeing could be random to save on game resources, and have them despawn. However, an ideal scenario would be...
• Keep a tally of major raider groups, and one breaks up and scatters, it temporarily adds to the ranks of another raider group. Extra raiders that have fled the original encounter and joined a new group are only active until a cell reset, and then things go back to normal. This will help those raider groups we get in-universe flavour notes for feel more real - especially the ones that talk about joining other gangs.
• If it would be too much to track specific fleeing raiders, then tracking the quantity of fleeing raiders and blanket-adding that quantity to the nearest surviving raider group HQ would work in making the encounters feel a bit fresher and more dynamic. But...
• If the raiders that have fled can be tracked by the game in some way, so that they retain their features/appearance/info in their temporary new home, that'd feel even more like they're the same guys that fled from you. For example, if you chased out the Operators, and some operators flee to whatever nearest surviving raider group (which may well be in the commonwealth!), then they're still Operators and still in Operator clothing. They haven't fully joined the new group yet before you showed up to ruin everyone's day. (Then when the cell reset takes everything back to normal, you can imagine this is when any survivors integrate into the group and are no longer Operators)

This could also be applied, with tweaks, to Gunners, Ghouls, Super Mutants, etc, but Raiders in particular stick out to me as a faction that would benefit from this, as they seem very willing to fight unwinnable battles when in-universe they're desperate and cowardly people. I know there is a mechanic in the game to make NPCs flee when they feel outmatched, but I encounter it so incredibly rarely that if you told me it wasn't actually implemented, I'd halfway believe you. I would love to see this flee mechanic both expanded and actually mean something in play terms. If you leave those fleeing enemies alive, it potentially makes future encounters more difficult as the numbers of enemies will be bolstered. Not only do you have greater incentive to clear a location out so that raiders don't run and join other raiders, but it's actually more challenging to do so since at some point in the fight raiders will make the decision to try and leave the area rather than keep running into your bullets. This would also make for more believable encounter situations, so raiders might start firing on a Behemoth for example but scatter as soon as the Behemoth kills one of them. To extend this to other enemy types, a single feral ghoul might effectively be non-hostile, as it decides to never ever take anybody on, and will always flee to a group unless killed.

I just think this would be a really neat system that would make the NPCs feel smarter, even if it's more smoke and mirrors.

It's my hope that, by limiting the fleeing NPCs existence by cell resets, that would also keep things as clean as is possible in this scenario.

 

Anyway, it's entirely possible that this is already implemented in something out there, so let me know if so. I hope it has! I hope it exists and I just don't know about it yet. 

[BlazeStryker]

PANPC (removed from the Nexus, but still available if you look up the modder and join his Discord) is what you need.

 

Mind you it's better tactics but not running as the engine and the Bathysphere flat out SUH-UHHHHCK at having enemies retreat! Hell, Skyrim, you could cross half the frigging province and still be "in a fight" as far as the Immobility Engine was concerned.

[Lemecc]

Thanks so much for the recommendation! It sounds like it does half of what I'm after, but not the other half of inserting lore/roleplay elements into Raiders specifically. From the manual though, sounds like the half it does do is exactly what I wanted to see and then some, so I'll definitely be checking it out!