SKK Random Encounter Manager

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“I was just about to put fallout4 down for good after 1500 hrs of playtime but after loading your excellent Combat Stalkers + Random Encounters I can see myself easily putting another 1000hrs in” @digitalinsite Nov 2019

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Install the mod at any time in any game to receive a [.SKK Random Encounter Holotape] in your MISC inventory (after you exit Vault 111) with which you can configure settings:

(1) Random Encounter manager [Enable | *Disable]

(2) Base game random encounters [*Enable | Disable]

(3) Create additional combat encounters at inactive RE locations [ Enable | *Disable]

(4) Configure the chance of an additional encounter [ 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, *100% ]

(5) Configure cooldown time between additional encounters [ 0, *1, 3, 6, 12, 24 ] game hours.

(6) Configure actor difficulty for additional encounters [ 50%, 75%, *100% ,125%, 150% ] of player level.

(7) Configure a maximum number of actors in a team [ *Random, 2, 4, 6, 8 ]

(8) Only spawn ferals  [Enable | *Disable]

(9) Hostiles can follow player  [*Enable | Disable] & hold following hostiles when sleeping [*Enable | Disable]

(10) Level friendly actor health [ Enable | *Disable ]

(11) Show encounter notification messages [ Enable | *Disable ]

(12) Show map markers [ *None | RE Triggers | Spawned Actors ]

(13) Recruit friendly actors running WorkshopNPCScript as settlers  [ Enable | *Disable ]

(14) Configure the nearest base game RE trigger.

(15) Configure DLC01 RustDevil Chance [ 0%, 10%, 25%, *50% ]

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User Guide (RTFM) if you want to know how this works.

(1) This mod makes zero changes to your game until you set enable. Disable switches all options off, enables all the base game encounters and cleans up all spawned actors as if nothing happened to your save game at all ever. Nothing to see here ladies and gentlemen, please move along.

(2) The base game has 184 random encounter trigger locations in the Commonwealth. The base game encounters can be switched on or off, but the conditions and probabilities are not modified in any way. If you want to force trigger specific base game encounters, look at the standalone SKKRETrigger Optional File, but WARNING that hacks base game quests to make encounters selectable.

(3) Spawn additional combat encounters will populate up to 4 loaded RE trigger locations that do not have a base game encounter running. The additional encounter can be friendly, hostile, friends vs hostiles or hostiles vs hostiles. Friends are chosen from factions the player friendly with at that time, so BOS, RR, MM, Synths and Nuka Raiders could be either friends or enemy depending on your faction relations. Mostly they will sandbox at the encounter location, sometimes hostiles will follow and hunt the player like cut price Combat Stalkers.

If the engagement involves combat, whilst the player may hear fighting the actors don’t start dealing damage until the player turns up to spectate or participate.

Hostile actors are only hostile to (a) the hostile vs hostile opposing force and (b) the player and members of the player faction. They are not hostile to anyeone else BY DESIGN so they dont trash settlements and neutral base game actors. This “innocent protection” is not switchable. If this is a problem for your RPG ‘mershun, don’t bother letting the world know as we already have a guts full of that ignorant whining.

How do SKK mods spawn so much stuff without causing a single CTD ever ? To avoid the traditional spawning CTDs a maximum of 64 active actors are spawned at any one time. Once the player moves over 15K game units away, live spawned actors are removed as they unload. No worries, they will be replaced when the area loads after your next configured cooldown. Despawning actors when they unload is an engineering quality decision for your game stability and not “a lame bug in the mod” as observed by half-wits who must enjoy chowing down on their spawning CTDs like a dog on vomit. Do you feel the years of ignorance I have had to deal with ?

All spawned actors are unmodified base game lvlActors so your overhauls will apply without conflicting. You can also xEdit the static hostile lists SKK_REMPotentialHostileXXX as much as you like, and replace actors in SKK_REMPotentialFriends without changing the faction order, but DO NOT EDIT ANY OTHER LISTS. You will not see Ferals or DLC actors in those lists as they are scripted file lookups.

(5) With base game encounters disabled, setting zero cooldown for combat encounters will continuously trigger spawns if you run in a circle so the RE triggers unload and load again. Not recommended for less than insane combat plays.

(7) For Team size the default random count is based on 10% of player level (min 2 max 8). If the actor is a “HeavyKnocker” (Deathclaw, Behemoth, SentryBot, Queen) the spawn count is reduced to a third (min 1 max 3). Setting [SKK_REMTeamSizeMax] to more than 8 with the console may compromise your game stability, if you desire volume over stability best not to use this mod and consider the blunt instruments of spawn multipliers and/or WOTC for that sort of thing.

(8) Is for the popular feral horde configurations to complement Zombie Walkers, True Storms & etc. With this setting only hostile lvlFeralGhoul will spawn (no friends) and the upper limit per group is doubled, which should be OK as they are melee only with low poly/texture renders. If you have a high poly/texture feral overhaul and have FPS issues, reduce the maximum team size and read this page.

(9) To intensify anxiety, some hostile spawns can follow the player to initiate engagements. If you have installed this anxiety inducing combat mod in your RPG story by mistake, you can disable that follow function and/or hold the actors during sleep and wait to avoid surprises when the player wakes up. I like a surprise in the morning.

(10) As some base game actors like lvlMinutemen health does not scale, if an overhaul or faction configurator is not being used, the Level Friendly Actor health option (100 +5 health per player level) may be useful to keep them alive and fighting with you.

(11) & (12) Show messages and markers are left over from development as a helpful utility to learn the map and see whats going on. Don’t use them and then moan about your ‘mershun.

(13) Recruit friendly actors running WorkshopNPCScript as settlers adds an activate menu option to suitable actors. There is a warning if they are detected as being unique actors or owned by quests. This “add activate” menu will conflict with any other mods that “add activate” menus to these actors (quick trade, settler management menus and such) so no options appear. This will detect and warn on  conflicts with other SKK mods, but it can’t know about or detect other sources.. Choose what you enable wisely.

(14) Find & configure base game RE triggers will provide a configuration menu for the nearest RE trigger in the loaded area. There are 184 base game RE triggers in the Commonwealth, of which 8 start disabled so they dont interfere with quests, this can enable or disable them.  The friendly encounter setting ONLY affects additional spawns generated by this solution, not base game encounters. Moving the spawn markers can break base game AI movement packages, but not additional encounters. It would be best to only modify configuration if base game encounters are disabled to avoid breaking quests and AI packages.

(15) If DLC01 Automatron is installed, once the initial quest is triggered Rust Devels become 50% of the random encounters. Set DLC01REPercentChance from 0% to 50%.

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Known Issues

(1) Hostile v hostile spawns start invulnerable so they don’t kill each other before the player gets there. When the system is under high load and/or low FPS causing script lag (learn more here) the events that trigger invulnerability perk removal can be missed or skipped. Its not dangerous as they both take and deal zero damage, so either: sprint away, enter an interior cell or disable the RE system so the so spawned hostiles can unload and clean up. You can test actors with the console [ HasPerk SKK_REMNoDamagePerk ] If the result is 1 this is not a fixable BUG in this product, you are either using a spawn multiplier or running too much sh1t in the script system.

(2) When the system is under stress, actors 3D unloading events can be missed so they don’t cleanup. With a maximum of 4 active spawn points, no more new spawns can be generated if they can’t clean up.  If you don’t get spawns for a while, disable then enable additional RE spawns in the holotape to clean up and reset.

(3) If base game random encounters are left enabled, sometimes RE trigger points are empty for a while as their quests can take some time to clean up and release the trigger. Base game encounters can also be slow to start, so this super fast additional encounter function sees an empty space and fills it with combat. As base game actor spawns are typically protected, it’s not an actual problem, just inelegant.

(4) Yes bugs and animals spawn in urban areas and urban hostiles like Triggermen spawn in the wilderness. The solution did have hostile actor zoning, but that predictability gets boring too fast. Like most SKK mods this is trying to extend the life of the game with new unpredictable experiences, not RPG ‘mershun which seems to be a euphemism for “I have limited imagination”. Try to imagine Triggermen go camping for fucks sake, or just piss off and don’t use this solution.

(5) If you use this with Fallout 4-76 which also disables the RE system and spawns replacement groups at those locations, things may become sporty. Human actors this mod spawns are protected from 4-76 for your combat insanity.

(6) Do not use SKK spawning mods with actor or spawn multipliers. The results are likely to be crap, because they don’t know about the “dynamic faction management for innocent actor protection” or “zero damage when out of player sight” configurations that elegant random spawning needs to deliver unpredictable excitement whilst not destroying your game world.

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Compatibility

This solution has no dependencies on extenders or DLCs and does not change any existing base game scripts, assets or objects. It is 100% pure new Creation Kit forms and scripts which means that it works on PC , Xbox and GamePass. As it does not touch any other stuff in your save-game, there should be no load order issues or mod conflicts excepting the known issues.

To be clear this is compatible with any and all other SKK mods including (for example, but not limited to) Fallout 4-76, UHD Combat Ponytails, Settlement Attack System, 4K nipples, Combat Stalkers, Feral Replacement System.

As this mod was published after November 2019 it depends on Fallout4.exe 1.10.162.0 (or later).

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PC manual installation & disable

Copy SKKRESystemManager.esp and  SKKRESystemManager – Main.BA2 to your…\Fallout 4\Data directory and add to Plugins.txt, or enable in the Bethesda mod menu, use a mod manger or however you organise.

With the holotape configured for RE Manager Disable the mod is idle. If you are happy to accept potential conflicts from load order changes in a save game, then you can disable and remove this mod.

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FAQ

(1) Why is there no ESL version ? Because life already contains sufficient hassle.

(2) Why a holotape menu rather than MCM ? Because 90% of SKK mod users shoot stuff on Xbox.