Armies

[Ben1991Cheesy]

Would it be possible to make a mod that would allow the other cities to fight each other?

[Vagrant0]

Would it be possible to make a mod that would allow the other cities to fight each other?

Certainly, but since there are significant limits to the number of NPCs involved in a fight, and it ruining alot of the game, it isn't remotly practical. Go try adrenaline oblivion, you'll see how quickly things degrade when there are more than 10 NPCs in a single area. Even something less significant like having bandits attack a town would undoubtedly create problems due to how most of the NPCs are needed for one thing or another. Go feed your bloodlust somewhere else.

[Parkillous]

Why is it that in Oblivion, each NPC and creature is so taxing on resources... I mean couldnt they have done better??????

[Povuholo]

Well every npc has to make sure they don't walk into walls, and that they react in combat on what the others do.

 

There is some kind of function that simplifies the A.I. during combat so it's less heavy on performance, but I don't think really works good.

[Marxist ßastard]

Each NPC has to check if you're firing an arrow --- and, if so, move between you and your target.

[Parkillous]

Lame. I really hope for tes5 they dont focus so much on the graphics, but try to improve the way the game runs and all that jazz.

[21603]

There is nothing wrong with the AI. I think they did a good job with it and if you have a high end CPU (duel core) you shouldn't have much of a problem (correct me if I'm wrong). Supreme Commander does the same thing with old CPU's and lots of units (AI). I noticed when I installed 2Gb of RAM that the stuttering I received from having too many NPC's on screen has gone.

[Abramul]

Does using extremely-low-quality (think Unreal Tournament) meshes and textures help at all?

[SickleYield]

I've been told poly count does have an effect on framerate most of the time, yes.

 

I get a significant hit to frames in cells with multiple spiders in them, for example (as I'm using spider creatures in my mod) - they have a LOT of polygons.

[Vagrant0]

I believe the real reason is that Bethsoft never intended there to be large scale battles in complex settings, unlike supreme commander. They probably won't in the future either, this isn't a rts, it's a fps with rpg elements at best. The player won't be issuing orders to large armies, and those armies won't be working together as a group. Instead individual NPCs will run around as individuals, each having to think about what is happening around them, forcing more resources to be demanded. Even years later, when technology makes Oblivion look archaic, you'll probably still run into problems because the programming simply wasn't designed to handle it.

 

They scrapped the wars between goblins for this exact reason. Most of the work involved is already there, but it was disabled in the standard game because it caused such problems when any reasonable scale was involved, and small scale just didn't make sense.

 

This is all ignoring the fact that from a practicality standpoint, you couldn't really have much happening within towns without the potential of killing off key (non-essential) NPCs like merchants. Now as most people wouldn't want to bother using a mod that has the potential to ruin their game. And given all the work involved with making even something so flawed do what you want, it hardly seems worth it. Making something less likely to ruin a game is possible, but would require by far more work, and would still be a one time deal at best. If I ever get bored, I may decide to setup some sort of testing area for a riot, just to see what potential there is in the AI and how some things can be avoided, but I wouldn't imagine it amounting to much.