WHO GOES THERE?

[Cipscis]

Have you thought about using a simpler approach, like placing a sniper somewhere in the town with a very powerful weapon (perhaps scripted to kill any creature in one hit) that can deal with any nasty critters that pop up? You could script the actor to replace their weapon with a weaker version when "opened" if you want them to be lootable, and remove the powerful weapon in an OnStartCombat block in order to prevent them from using it on the player.

 

Cipscis

[BadPenney]

Have you thought about using a simpler approach, like placing a sniper somewhere in the town with a very powerful weapon (perhaps scripted to kill any creature in one hit) that can deal with any nasty critters that pop up? You could script the actor to replace their weapon with a weaker version when "opened" if you want them to be lootable, and remove the powerful weapon in an OnStartCombat block in order to prevent them from using it on the player.

 

Cipscis

Simple is good. Simple appeals to my simple mind.

 

I already have snipers, so it would just be a matter of changing their weapons in the manner that you describe. It doesn't solve the resulting bodycount in the city square, but I understand that one of Arwen's mods will dispose of bodies and gore.

 

Now that I think of it, I already have one NPC that toggles essential status. I suppose that I could make town residents essential to all but the player for added security against NPC foes.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

[BadPenney]

Food for thought. Anyway, the problems associated with towns that sit in the wasteland (Big Town, Arefu, Dave's Rep., Canterbury) aren't just limited to spawn points. You also have NPCs that wander off for no apparent reason, the tendency for the town to "pop-up" on some systems, crashing, and NPCs that simply vanish or go flying through the air if they happen to die earlier on.

I'm not familiar with the "pop-op" phenom but I've witnessed the others. I had to put leash scripts on NPCs that are active in the exterior to teleport them back to town if they go walkabout. I suspect that some of the scripts and trigger boxes that I've used to compensate for the problems that you point out may well have contributed to FPS drop and stutter in some places. The computer that I built the mod on was stout enough to hide that from me, but I've heard of frame rate drop in and around town in feedback.

 

My thoughts for a follow-up mod involve spaces that are almost entirely indoors and underground. I think that will be much simpler.