Adding Encounter Zones to a Worldspace

[Hellscreamy]

I was wondering how to add respawning Encounter Zones to my custom Worldspace. I would like to separate cells and area's and make sure only specific npc's spawn in these cells. I came upon the Regions View under the World tab and managed to change the weather of my zones, I want to do something similar with encounter zones. So far I haven't found anything under the Cells or Regions view which could do something like this, I couldn't find any reference in the Tamriel worldspace either and the Creation Kit wiki doesn't say anything on this subject.

 

Anyone have an idea how to set up these encounter zones?

[Hellscreamy]

bump, I am soon going to start on the npc's and I could use some help on the matter of outdoor encounters.

[Hellscreamy]

I am not sure how many times I'm allowed to bump a topic, but I can't find any answer on these forums, the Bethesda forums or through google. I'm sure there are people who have tried this before but I can't find anything.

[jack013]

http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Dungeon_Wrapup#Encounter_Zones_.26_Level_scaling

 

like this?

[Hellscreamy]

I have had a look at that page, but that wasn't the thing I was looking for, I want monsters and npc's randomly spawning in a cell without having to assign the spawnlocations, as is done in the Tamriel Worldspace. Encounterzones can't be assigned to cells directly and assigning locations doesn't let me chose the npc's I want to spawn there.

 

I'm still stuck with this and any help would be appreciated.

[acidzebra]

An Encounter Zone dictates how leveled lists are generated, specifically what level the NPCs should have. It doesn't generate monsters. You create a leveled list with monsters you want, then place the leveled placeholder in your world where you want them to spawn.

 

The logic goes

 

Take monsters with names starting with "enc" - these are your base monsters.

Put them in a leveled character list - these are the names in CK starting with "lchar".

Finally, you create a NPC using the lchar as a template.

This final one is the one you drop at points in your dungeon.

Then when you set an encounter zone you can set minimum and maximum levels for this generated character.

 

A good example in the CK is "lvlsailor" - it takes a random character from the "lcharsailor" list. This list in turn has an "encsailorimperialM", "encsailorredguardm", and "encsailornordm", which are in themselves templated (but different from) the "encsailor00Template".

 

Now when you drop an lvlsailor in your dungeon, the engine will pick one of these randomly when you visit it. So you will encounter either an imperial, redguard, or nord. If an encounter zone is set with, say, a minimum level of 15 the sailor will always be at least level 15 when encountered, higher if the player's level is higher. If a maximum is set, it will be of a level no higher than that.

 

These leveled spawns are placed (by hand) all over Tamriel - they are the icons which look like an M with an arrow (which indicated the initial direction they face). Once placed you can edit that instance of the leveled character - setting the difficulty from easy to very hard - easy will be a green M, very hard is red, middle is yellow/orange. There is no magic autospawn setting as far as I know.

Edited November 23, 2012 by acidzebra

[Hellscreamy]

I understand what you mean and I wanted to do this first too, but then I noticed there is a lack of these markers in the Tamriel worldspace, I can't find them anywhere in the Wilderness cells, only specific ones for Ambient Creatures, npc's being chased and setups for events and quests. I only managed to find npc markers in specific locations such as ruins and buildings which are usually filled with bandits, but I never see any markings for wolfs, bears or other wildlife.

 

When I noticed this, I thought it had some reason to it (efficiency, easier spawning or anything else). If there isn't any other way of placing these npc's in the world, I'll just go with the normal method.

 

This is what I'm trying to achieve: I want to fill a certain area with wolfs that can range from lvl 1 to 4, but they should only be specific to a few cells. I can place the markers in the world and this would be the easiest, but this isn't how Bethesda done it. I'm only searching for the most efficient way.

Edited November 23, 2012 by Hellscreamy

[acidzebra]

but this isn't how Bethesda done it

 

It's exactly how they did it. But if you're looking for a wolf or bear marker you're looking in the wrong place. They all spawn from lvlanimal[environment]predator, as you see there are tons of them placed (first column of numbers).

 

<br><br>http://i46.tinypic.com/2vjv7ly.jpg<br><br>If you want to restrict how far your animals roam from their editor loc or something like that, you can do that with AI packages.<br>

Edited November 23, 2012 by acidzebra

[Hellscreamy]

Ok, guess it's easy then, thanks.

 

Last thing then because I'm sure I'll need it, but do you also know how to influence the spawning chance for specific animals?

[jack013]

you just have the stack the lists full i think.