Random Encounters - Need Insight

[Zorkaz]

Can someone teach me the basics of random encounters?

 

I want to make a mod with more wildlife appearing, yet I play with "No respawn". So I want to use the vanilla random encounters system or create my own.

 

So my questions are:

 

-How can I add anything to the vanilla encounter system

-How can I place the markers

-How can I make my own randomencounter quest

[Pelgar]

Gerokeymaster has a tutorial on YouTube that should help you get started.

 

I've spent ten min. trying to add a link to the tutor, just not working!

The YouTube title is Fallout 4 GECK Tutorial: Random Encounters

[Zorkaz]

Ok, will look into it. Thanks

[Carreau]

All random encounters are handled through the game's story manager. Adding one is pretty simple, and Bethesda streamlined their random encounter creation by including templates. The story manager will make sure certain encounters only appear at certain RE spawn points. Your idea would fall under REScene types. If you go into the CK, navigate to the quest tab, and type in RE to the filter box, you can review how the vanilla RE quests are done. There's already one with additional radstags under quest RESceneCT07. I would recommend looking this one over to see how the aliases are handled.

 

To start a new quest, duplicate the template quest. There's one called RESceneTemplate. Duplicate that and then navigate to the alias tab. Do not mess with the TRIGGER alias or any of the Marker aliases. ActorAlias is the one you really care about. In the radstag RE, the ActorAlias alias was renamed to Radstag01 and then copied to Radstag02. In your quest, you can change the spawn type in "Create Ref to Object" from REFarmer to any kind of actor you want. Since you want wildlife, set it to wildlife. You can change the difficulty of the spawn as well. The last drop down is which marker in the RE spawn area the reference will be placed. The A and B are groupings. And there's a center marker. You can leave the default script in its default state. The last thing you'll need is an AI package to include. Most RE quests will have specific AI packages since the RE quest will be set as the owning quest in the Package editor. I would recommend copying package RESceneCT07_Radstags and setting your quest alias' packages to your copy. Then make sure the Owning Quest of the package is your RE quest. The last thing I would say to do is delete the RefCollection alias as I don't think you'll need it. Just have a couple of single aliases with whatever wildlife you want to spawn. The last thing you need to do is navigate to the Script tab and update script properties. Copy the same setup as RESceneCT07 and you should be good.

 

In "SM Event Node", you'll find the Script Event manager. Open it up. Then expand these nodes:

-Stacked Branch Node: REMainBranch

-Stacked Branch Node: REBranch

-Stacked Branch Node: REBranchNormalTriggers

-Stacked Branch Node: RENonUrban

-Random Quest Node: RESceneQuests

 

Right click "Random Quest Node: RESceneQuests" and select " Add Quests" and then select your created quest(s).

 

That will update the story manager to include your random event(s) into the queue. The last thing you need to do is give it some conditions. The Quest Node for RESceneCT07 has one conditional on it to make sure the radstag RE doesn't populate in a random event area that would best be suited for human types. So, it has a condition to check for a keyword to make sure the RE area doesn't prevent animal spawns. I would copy that condition and paste it into your conditions.

 

And that should be it.

 

It seems like a lot at first, but it's basically copying the template quest, updating a few aliases, and then populating the Story Manager.

 

As for testing it, I haven't figured out a way to force specific random events to fire yet. For things like load screens, I would set a condition to point to a global called TrueGlobal and make sure it's equal to 1 (which it always is). That forces the load screens of my choosing to populate first so I can make sure they're working right, but it hasn't worked with random events yet.

 

Anyways, good luck!

Edited May 12, 2019 by Carreau