SMB92 Posted April 16, 2018 Author Share Posted April 16, 2018 Thanks for the kind words. Just to touch on story factions Spawns, these will not be included in the main random system. Too sensitive a subject to deal with, many people have different opinions on this. Best approach as you said is to leave them out, and revisit them in an add on at some point down the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
battlebrother13 Posted April 16, 2018 Share Posted April 16, 2018 That's what I was so relieved to see. Whilst I'm by no means an expert, I've researched and tinkered enough to know that where Gamebryo is concerned, the fewer things you can get away with touching for any given mod, the better. When you add to this that the factions in FO4 are pretty poorly supported in vanilla, and therefore have been tweaked loads by modders, it's something which is definitely best kept as an optional add-in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMB92 Posted April 16, 2018 Author Share Posted April 16, 2018 I've learned in general that faction data is rather tricky to deal with, hence why you see so many oddities with certain actor types attacking others that should be neutral etc. I even wrote a script to make the Institute friendly or at least neutral with settlement factions (about 6 or 7 factions), and they continue to fight probably because some npc somewhere is in some faction that's enemies with the other, and therefore makes all his allies enemies regardless of their disposition. Its a royal Pita, and there is so many temporary/special factions used for just quests/AI etc, it's a full blown job in itself to sort all that out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greslin Posted April 16, 2018 Share Posted April 16, 2018 That's what I was so relieved to see. Whilst I'm by no means an expert, I've researched and tinkered enough to know that where Gamebryo is concerned, the fewer things you can get away with touching for any given mod, the better. Amen to that one. I've been doing a lot of work lately myself with dynamic spawning. The real challenge is about fixing the real problem, and being willing to deal with the consequences of that. For example - and this is from my own recent experience - boosting super mutant spawning right around DC. There is a big encampment just down the street from DC, but the mutants stay on their block and DCS stays in theirs. That doesn't make any sense for either group. And if you boost mutant spawning, you also increase the chances that those two groups are going to intersect in unpredictable ways. That is made more difficult when you consider how lightly fortified DC really is, in terms of exterior guard manpower. Bethesda's answer to that (and a rational one, given that they needed to actually get the game done on time) is to limit mutant numbers and strength to something DCS can deal with, and then keep their aggro zones fairly away from an overlap. And that works great until you throw more mutants into the mix, or expand their aggro radius, or make them tougher. Then DCS quickly gets overwhelmed. So you think on that a bit, and think, okay. Well clearly we need more DCS, so let's get more DCS out on the street. And maybe they need better guns, or armor, or more HP. And that works great, except there's a raider encampment on the OTHER side of DCS, and you've thrown the balance off there, so now you have to figure out what to do about them. Place more raiders? That's still not really addressing the core problem, because now you have tons of extra spawns for all three groups and you're causing problems for caravans, NPCs Travel, and the like. At this point the easiest answer is to throw it back to the user and say, you knew what you were getting into when you installed this mod. But that still doesn't actually solve the core problem: the completely unrealistic security capabilities of Diamond City, given the enemies they're surrounded by. If Bethesda wasn't protecting them with Code Magic, DC would have been thoroughly overrun a LONG time ago. The solution I finally opted for was a flexible reinforcement mechanic for DCS, where they could call in extra help when they needed it, and then the reinforcements would quietly despawn after the fun was over. That gave them strength as needed but without all of the balance wreckage. It's not just the number of things you touch, but making sure you touch the right things. Playing around with Bethesda game balance is a little like defusing a bomb. The green wire isn't always the right one to pull. :smile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaSt3RofDraGOns Posted April 17, 2018 Share Posted April 17, 2018 ^^^ Sarcastically, I would respond by saying yank all the wires. You'll have the best chance at getting the right one that way. Back on topic, will you include any optional settings for resetting the cells? WotC has a similar effect, but isn't perfect [6 hours for normal cells and 24 for cleared I believe]. I have a feeling mileage may vary because of Gamebryo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMB92 Posted April 25, 2018 Author Share Posted April 25, 2018 Not a bad idea Greslin, that area is highly unbelievable. I am however waiting on a certain someone's mod to drop that should solve that problem quite nicely. Such mod will also be supported by SOTC. MasterOfDragons, my mod doesn't really have any impact on the vanilla spawn times/respawn times etc, it is pretty much independent from this. As such you will have almost total control over it, including a forced reset, from the entirety of the mod to on a per Region basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMB92 Posted April 25, 2018 Author Share Posted April 25, 2018 SOTC now has a Github and the current source code for SOTC is now available for viewing. https://github.com/SMB92/F4-SpawnEngine And that marks my 4000th post on Nexus :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
battlebrother13 Posted April 25, 2018 Share Posted April 25, 2018 Excellent news :) I can't pretend I'm going to read through all of it but I've had a glance at some of your code and you've done a great job of keeping it tidy and well commented for others to look at, so you definitely have my appreciation for that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMB92 Posted April 25, 2018 Author Share Posted April 25, 2018 Thanks. There's a lot of intercommunication between scripts so the comments mostly serve sanity. Taking the mod open source now should ensure that it is not lost in the event something happens to me, there has been too much work involved to let it go to waste if something were to happen. It also gives others the opportunity to chime in with contributions and prepare for making add ons. If anybody is interested I am looking for help with a few things, I have posted job listings on my Discord server. I will be going away this weekend so no work will be done but I will be mostly available for contact and will be checking the server from time to time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted19523939User Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 Thank you kindly for keeping on with this! I'm always excited to read your progress posts. I cannot wait to try this out :D Best regards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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