About this mod
Player owned workshop populations can turn hostile to enjoy the challenge of taking on your own defenses. An inversion of Settlement Attack System.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Mirrors
- Changelogs
SKK combat solutions focus on uncertainty fear and excitement, not predictable RPG immersion. If you don't enjoy combat surprises or killing your individually named and dwessed settlers, this solution is totally not for you. This is for the 1% that are Bartle killer player type, so best to be clear up front.
Install this non intrusive mod at any time in any game, as it makes no static changes to your game at all. After leaving Vault 111 the player is given a [ .SKK Hostile Workshops Holotape ] to configure:
Trigger interval game days [ 1 | 2 | *4 | 8 | 16 | Random ]
Trigger chance [ 25% | *50% | 75% | 100% | Random ]
Only use quest safe workshops [ *Yes | No ]
Use workshops with dismissed companions [ *Yes | No ]
Difficulty [ Off | 50% | 75% | *100% | 125% | 150% ] relative to player
Difficulty Modifies hostile Health and Damage [ *On | Off ]
Notifications [ Off | *Workshop Markers | Hostile Actor Markers ]
Hostile Intel Briefing [ *On | Off ]
[ >>> TRIGGER NOW ]
Faction Menu
Ignore faction relations [ *Off | On ] for hostile takeovers
(1) Picking a workshop
When enabled and the configured game time interval ticks or [ >>> TRIGGER NOW ] is selected, all player owned workshops are evaluated for potential candidates against your holotape criteria and a super-secret rebellion/takeover formula. The formula considers the usual factors [ happiness, defense, local inventory value, resource production, days since the player last visisted, synth agitators, ].
Workshops that the player is near with 3d loaded are never selected as the hostile faction conversions want to be run off-screen. To force a specific workshop for defense testing, craft a [ SKK Workshop force hostile note ] at a Chemlab and put into the Workshop. Then run away until the [You hear that ... ] stage (2) configuration message pops when it unloads, then U turn to engage.
Interior workshops and "player home" workshops that are not WorkshopParent registered are not supported because technical reasons.
Only use quest safe workshops avoids those workshops that have quest reservations on them. The base game is quite good at making reservations, mods are not. So this is not actually 100% quest safe, reasonable endevours.
You will be notified if your are short of owned workshops and the holotape criteria are too strict so no candidates can be found. Example you have a companion dismissed to each owned workshop and [ Use workshops with dismissed companions = No ]. D-UH!
This solution allows for multiple hostile workshops to be active if you are slack and don't deal with them. With the right settings and timescale it is totally possible for all your workshops to turn hostile for super frenzied shooting mayhem.
If you dont want any more hostile workshops set Disable, but you will still need to clean up any workshops that already have hostile populations.
(2) Converting a workshop
When a workshop is picked: player ownership is lost, fast travel disabled, supply lines cancelled and any known recruiting beacons are switched off (includes SKK Population Manager and Multiracial recruitment beacons).
This is done when the workshop is unloaded out of sight of the player to be tidy and possibly surprising. For the choice of surprise or comfort for those that do not enjoy anxiety, there are 3 levels of notification and warnings:
(a) Off for combat surprises. The the base game will unfortunately always flash up an unstoppable [ Player Lost Ownership ] message.
(b) Hostile Workshop markers which will pop a modal message when ownership is lost and mark all bad workshops.
(c) Hostile Actor markers which will pop a modal message when ownership is lost, mark all bad workshops and then switch to mark local hostile actors as they load.
If you are using quality settler health and recovery management solutions like Combat Settlers, they will detect loss of workshop ownership and release actors to fixed settings that can be changed. Check your comprehensive actor management software documentation that you don't end up with unkillable hostile workshops. Solutions that statically hack base actor forms like Mortal Settlers are not a problem.
Workshops can be released and converted back to player owned at this stage with the [ Hostile Workshops Disable ] option in the holotape. Enemy at the CHICKENS !
(3) Converting Workshop Actors
When a hostile converted workshop loads in the active area around the player (usually 10K game units range) any dismissed companions and unique actors become refugees hiding in a secret secure location. Everything else is converted to hostile and made mortal/killable. The process is run again several times when the player is nearer to the workshop to handle actors and turrets on the other side of larger build areas as they load. If you are interested in how the player loaded area (uGridsToLoad) works, this picture may help.
If there are any dismissed companions or unique named actors (Sturges, Level4 vendors, Drinking Buddy & etc) assigned to the workshop they become refugees hiding in a secure location until the workshop is pacified. If you are having difficulty taking down your own defenses and need help from companions in hiding, use the [ Recover Companions and Uniques ] holotape option to pick an owned workshop to recover them to.
Actors and turrets will be hostile to the player and player allies, friendly to caravans and neutral to everyone else. Neutral in this game is an illusion because many actors like workshop turrets are hard coded for "aggro radius" to attack neutrals in range, which is why caravans have to be friendly to avoid being shot up by them.
Any shortfall in the target count (another super-secret formula) are spawned in from a random faction that is enabled in the Faction holotape menu. All of the hostile faction actors are standard base/dlc lvlActors, so if you have overhauls that touch them they will apply. If you want to include other lvlActors without faction checks you can add them to the list SKK_HWUserAddActorsList with xEdit.
The [ Difficulty ] setting when enabled adjusts:
(1) The minimum / maximum number of hostile actors from 50% to 150% of an index value (hard limits are 4 - 64) based on the player follower team size. If the workshop already has more actors & turrets they are left alone. For big FPS trashing fights, build an army of meat shields quickly with Unlimited Combat Followers.
(2) At a setting of 100% or over, hostile actors rocking a PipeGun (like basic settlers) are upgraded to something from level list LLI_Raider_Weapons. Could still roll a pipe gun, but we tried. Reasonable endevours. Again.
Do not use [ Difficulty Modifies Health & Damage ] if you already have overhauls that set actor health and damage where you want them. This is a broad brush to tune large scale engagements.
(3) Hostile actors and turret health from 50% to 150% of (base 100 + 5 / player level).
(4) Hostile actor and turret weapon damage from 50% to 150% of their base (it's a simple damage out multiplication perk).
If a hostile actor is not already wearing power armor, they are blocked from using it to help keep your stuff safe. There is no safe method to secure your stashes of weapons and ammo from being upgrade looted and then having actors corpses despawn with your legendaries, so be proactive and use something like Global Stash to avoid that problem.
Once workshop actors are converted to hostile there is no return like stage (2). You will know a workshop is ready for combat when the [ Hostile Intel Briefing ] is displayed (if enabled).
WARNING: THIS IS IMPORTANT
The actor hostile conversion process has a lot of script work to do in a short time between the workshop actors loading and your fight starting. By "sharding" the scripts into multiple "threads" it takes around 20 seconds to process 60 actors (uniqe+settlers+turrets) on a vanilla system running at 60 fps. Which is fine if you dont sprint so there is time to process.
Script sharding grabs an unfair share of papyrus processing time to get the job done. If you have other workshop/actor script intensive solutons like Sim Settlements or PANPC your experience will degrade as the script system will not have enough real time slices for everything. Slow down approaching workshops with all this stuff running. Teleporting to them is really bad.
********************************************************************************************
(4) Pacifying a hostile workshop
Its simple, neutralize all hostile actors and turrets with extreme prejudice to assert your authoritah and regain control of the workshop. If you are having difficulty tracking them down, map marker options are dynamically switchable to help. Or use an immersive heartbeat sensor.
Killing hostile workshop actors and turrets does not affect the workshop happiness on death because they are removed from the workshop when made hostile. And just incase you kill unconverted settlers, workshop happiness is reset when the player regains ownership. These killings do not affect companion affinity because of clever scripting.
Be careful of caravan vendors and their guards who may be on site. They look just like settlers, are player killable and not recoverable. Use your target recognition training soldier.
Workshop ownership is automatically restored when all hostile actors and turrets are dead. Any refugee companions and unique actors will automatically return from hiding to their duties. Level 4 vendors will return to their originally assigned stores, but other basic vendor actors do not.
(5) This sounds complicated and I have trust issues because my mum told me scripted mods are bad.
The base game has a backup condition built in that allows the player to take ownership of a workshop by killing all hostile and workshop associated actors in the area which marks the location cleared. As a backup the Workshop Ownership Utilities take ownership function is 100% safe to use. Gud enough ?
Known Issues
(1) Do not sprint approaching a large (>20 actor) hostile workshop so the scripts have time to do their thing. It is ready when the [ Hostile Intel Briefing ] is displayed.
(2) Occasionally at workshops with large buld areas (Sanctuary, Spectacle, hacked boundaries) some actors/turrets are so far the other side of the workshop they do not load in time to be made hostile, so remain neutral. Imagine they are Swiss or Swedish, ja.
(3) Dead powered turrets are stored in a holding location to avoid the power grid SCRAP CRASH condition. You will need to clean up the black wire splines yourself in workshop mode. +1000 props to @kinggath for publicising the scrap crash issue. Its un-nice, but better than crashing your savegame.
(4) DLC04 Raider Outposts are included in candidate workshops. As the DLC04 workshop scripts do not support loss of ownership, they are converted back to normal workshops for hostility. After they are pacified use Workshop Ownership Utilities to convert them back to a raider Outpost if desired.
Compatibility
The mod 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 has no load order dependencies.
(1) Solutions that dynamically manage workshop actor ("settler") recovery and health WILL cause problems if they do not release actor management on loss of workshop ownership so they can be mortal. Switch 'em off.
(2) Solutions that include unkillable workshop safety/defense items like turrets that do not run the standard WorkshopObjectScript MAY not allow workshop pacification to complete. Switch 'em off.
(3) Solutions that bypass map marker fast travel for settlement/workshop teleportation will cause confusion as the player will turn up whilst the hostile actor conversion scripts are running for bipolar behaviors and a crappy experience.
(4) Spawn multipliers or extenders may or may not replicate the scripted actor AI package, faction and aggression states so any innocent actors (like caravans) may nor may not be compromised. They will not be included in the pacification kill count.
As this mod was published after November 2019 it depends on Fallout4.exe 1.10.162.0 (or later). Get fresh and stop living in the past with aged content.
Associated Solutions
Unlimited Combat Followers by SKK - a team of disposable meat shields to support your assault.
Multiracial Workshop Actors from SKK - more diversity in the defending population.
Nexus PC manual installation & disable
Copy SKKHostileWorkshops.esp and SKKHostileWorkshops – Main.BA2 to your...\Fallout 4\Data directory, enable in the Bethesda mod menu, mod manger or whatever.
The mod functions can be disabled in the holotape, once all hostile converted workshops are pacified none of the scripts do anything so in theory this mod can be disabled. But removing scripted mods from save games is unpredictable and a bit mad, for what benefit ?
Nexus FAQ
(1) What about an ESL version ? Check in xEdit if you can ESL flag this ESP.
(2) Why another holotape rather than MCM ? Because 90% of SKK mod users shoot stuff on Xbox. Yes, there are 9x the unique Xbox downloads on Bethesda.net than PC master race downloads on nexusmods.com. Don't whine, make your own MCM json file with the console commands.
(3) How is this different from just attacking settlers ? (a) No surprise (b) Settlers only have pipe guns and 100 health (c) Settlers are protected so your followers can't kill them (d) Happiness drops 10 for every settler killed (e) All unique actors and level 4 vendors are killed (f) Current and dismissed companions will attack and kill the player to death (unless you have a kill essential solution which costs you a wafu).
(4) Is this compatible with X Y or Z ? This is 100% compatible with the vanilla base game and DLC content. It has not been tested with any 3rd party content. Check the user posts, if your X, Y or Z is not mentioned then you will need to test it out yourself.
Console Commands
If another holotape in inventory triggers you, throw it away and use these console commands in hotkeys.ini or MCM json things:
set SKK_HWEnabled to 1 ;[0|1]
set SKK_HWTriggerGameHoursInterval to 96 ;[1:999999] or -1 is random.
set SKK_HWTriggerChance to 50 ;[1:100] Percent or -1 is random.
cqf SKK_HWQuest "SKK_HWQuestScript.SwitchEnabled" ;Implements the enable/timer changes.
set SKK_HWUseQuestSafeWorkshops TO 1 ;[0|1] Do not pick Airport, Bunker, Castle or quest targets.
set SKK_HWUseCompanionActorWorkshops to 1 ;[0|1] Do not pick if dismissed companions are there.
set SKK_HWDifficulty to 100 ;[0|50|75|100|125|150] 0 disabled, read notes.
set SKK_HWDifficultyModifiesHealth to 1 ;[0|1] ignored if Difficulty 0
set SKK_HWDifficultyModifiesDamage to 1 ;[0|1] ignored if Difficulty 0
set SKK_HWIgnoreFactionRelations to 0 ;[0|1] add all factions to hostile pool.
set SKK_HWIntelBriefEnabled to 1 ;[0|1] so you know the workshop is ready.
set SKK_HWShowMarkers to 1 ;[0|1|2] off | workshop | actors
cqf SKK_HWQuest "SKK_HWQuestScript.SwitchMarkers" ;Implements the changes.
cqf SKK_HWQuest "SKK_HWQuestScript.Trigger" 1 ;[>>> TRIGGER NOW]
cqf SKK_HWQuest "SKK_HWQuestScript.HoldingActorRecoveryMenu" ;recover all refugee companion/unique actors secured in holding.
********************************************************************************************
If you have read the comprehensive solution description and still need support,
use the SKK Mods Discord channel https://discord.gg/tgKNT77DC8
********************************************************************************************