There are a ton of random encounters in this mod, so there's always the off chance that you might find something that seems to be in an odd location or might be misplaced. If you do, please let me know in the bug reports tab! Screenshots will definitely help but aren't required if you can describe the encounter and where you found it well enough.
if I use this mod and with the addition of 290 new encounters, would patches reducing the repetitiveness of Automatron Robots/Rust Devils and Vertibirds still be a boon to have, or would those encounters be automagically diluted in the mass so to speak, without the need for patches ?
I'm thinking patches are still required, but I will take every chance at sanitizing my mod list where I can.
Thank you for your wisdom and continued generosity towards the community.
That depends on your personal preference. I have patches for both of those mods available in my random encounter framework patch hub, and with those patches you can further reduce the encounter rates. That said, I can't really give you a simple answer because of how random encounters are picked and how random encounter framework changes them.
The reason for the indirect answer is kind of hard to explain so this is going to be a big wall of text. I would like to note that the Automatron mod you linked also makes other changes, and those may be changes that you'll find yourself wanting to keep if you're used to having them.
Anyway, back to how random encounters are picked. In essence, there isn't just one pool of encounters where it picks from them at random. Instead, it first picks a group of encounters and then picks an encounter from that group. Some encounters, like the vertibird ones, are part of bigger pools. Others, such as the Automatron ones, are their own self-contained pool. This mod adds a lot of new pools for the game to pick from, which makes it difficult to judge how rare any particular encounter might be.
To explain more simply, when you trigger a random encounter the game first figures out what group of pools it should be checking based on encounter type (so a chokepoint encounter on a bridge doesn't use a random encounter meant to be a firefight in an abandoned building, for example). After that it selects a pool of encounters from that type.
I'm going to use the random encounter under the rail bridge next to starlight drive in as an example, let's assume with a long-term save where you have completed Automatron and Nuka World and have not installed this or other random encounter mods. So you approach that random encounter and it limits itself to scene encounters, because it's a scene encounter. Then, because you've completed Nuka World, it has a 50% chance of choosing one of the very few encounters added to the commonwealth by Nuka World. Those encounters aren't quite that common because they also have a cooldown and a bunch of other restrictions, but they are given first priority. After that you have a 50% chance (so 25% overall) to get an encounter added by Automatron. These are much less restricted and so you see them a lot. Finally, you have a chance to get an encounter from the base game, which has a big list of forty or so options rather than the five or so from Automatron or the three or so from Nuka world.
With Random Encounter Framework, that prioritization goes away. Instead, all of the pools end up in a bigger parent pool that picks at random. So in the same context you go from 50% Nuka World, 25% Automatron, 25% base game to a 33.3% chance of each. (This is reductive, because the base game prioritizes Nuka World and Automatron and so the actual experience shows more Automatron encounters due to Nuka World skipping itself)
I add a new equivalent to each of the DLC pools in Random Encounter Framework, and so the odds wind up being 16.7% Nuka World, 16.7% Automatron, 16.7% base game, 16.7% Commonwealth Encounter Pack Nuka World, 16.7% Commonwealth Encounter Pack Automatron, and 16.7% Commonwealth Encounter Pack "base game". With other mods that use Commonwealth Encounter Pack, those odds per-pool go down even further.
The way you describe how your REF framework works is how vanilla should have done it from the start.
I despise practices that have game devs change intuitive and sensible systems just to fit the promotion needs of their latest DLCs. Paradox, Creative Assembly, EA, Bethesda, only to name a few, all have done that in submitting to their marketing overlords. Most of them usually would release patches later down the road to revert these anti-climatic changes, but to no one's surprise Bethesda never did.
God bless modders who with generosity and patience share their knowledge and creations like you do, and have to fix this bull*.
I highly encourage any aspiring modder or even players to download your mods, read your description pages, read the comments on your mod pages, check how your mods are structured in xEDIT, because there is a trove of wealth to be found if one is interested in making Fallout 4 a much more interesting and well-behaving game.
Thank you very much for your helpful reply. Following your advice, I'll give that Automatron mod a second look. Please have a nice day/evening.
Ah, that's why the base game random encounters became rare. I really want to play this pack mod, but I am hesitant to install the REF mod along with the SKK mods with random encounters. In my last walkthrough, I missed almost all base game random encounters having the REF installed. Any way to untie this pack mod from the REF or it's not an option? Thank you.
No, I created Random Encounter Framework specifically because Bethesda made an unlisted change to the game engine that turned adding random encounters into a compatibility nightmare. In oldrim and in the initial release of Fallout 4, you could just add new encounters to the existing pools and it would merge the changes made by different mods rather than only keeping the changes made by the last mod in your load order.
Unfortunately, in Skyrim Special Edition and current versions of Fallout 4, that no longer happens. Instead you either wind up with a compatibility patching nightmare or you use something that rearranges the encounter tree. Notably, this doesn't specifically make base game encounters rare. With just this mod and random encounter framework installed, you'll have a 50/50 chance of base game versus CEP encounters at the start of the game. The specific odds after unlocking all encounters will vary by where you are in the commonwealth, but in the worst case you'll still be looking at one in every six encounters being from Fallout4.esm. (Along with similar odds for the encounters added by Automatron and Nuka World)
That said, I'm also aware that the more unique random encounters from Fallout4.esm are popular, which is why I made Story Encounter Booster to add new pools containing just the interesting random encounters from the base game.
Edit: Just for context, this is a list of mods that I know this mod would be incompatible with, if I didn't require Random Encounter Framework:
Thank you for the clarification. So, how about the following combination in the plugins order from low to high (only probably relevant mods):
RFE (Top ESM) BNS 2.4 Minuteman Watchtowers (old version) Most RRTV's housing mods Heather (new version) Ellen Liga of my companions Most recruit mods by Kiara Nuka Town USA – Restored Nuka World Open Season Extended Combat Drones Combat Drones RFE patch Gun For Hire Gun For Hire RFE patch AR2 AR2 RFE patch Tales from the Commonwealth Tales from the Commonwealth Fixes1 Tales from the Commonwealth Fixes2 Settlers of the Commonwealth Immersive Gunners Plaza Immersive and Extended Nahant Interesting Encounter Booster Story Encounter Booster Tie-In Encounter Booster Commonwealth Encounter Pack Random Encounter Manager by SKK (yes, base game encounters are enabled) SKK Combat Stalkers (hostile spawns) SKK Feral Nights SKK Scavver Faction SKK Workshop Ownership Utilities SKK Settlement Attack System Better Drumlin Diner Transfer Settlements Scrap Everything (yes, I'm using it and have no problems whatsoever)
+ Most of CC mods (tunnel snakes, radio mercenaries etc.) * This is for NG installation ** Automatron starts only at Level 100 (hate it), so no robot encounters during the game. :))
Alternatively, I can stop Automatron random encounters from replacing all other random encounters by two simple commands: setDLC01REPercentChance to 0 setDLC01WorkshopRobotAttackChance to 0
I am not sure if the mod is working, I have version 1.10.163.0, it was downgraded. I am starting a new game and so far traveled from sanctuary to tenpines bluff, and still no encounter. I have the framework installed.
Random encounters can only happen at fixed locations in the game world, where Bethesda placed spawn points. In terms of locations that can be easily tested at the start of the game, I would recommend the campsite next to Concord and the rail bridge just east of Starlight.
I've encountered some robots I've never seen before next to Concord. Then there were a group of NPCs - one of them is a trader. Near the railbridge I've found some feral ghouls, brahmin and wild mongrels (not sure which one was the encounter). At the Westing Estate River Encounter site I've found a refrigerator :) with some meat in it. The mod is definitely working. Version 1.10.163.0.
I don't know whether it works on 1.10.138, unfortunately. That's a few versions back from 1.10.163.0, which I built this for. If the version you're using predates the update that added expanded plugin space (aka allowing formids from 001-799), then your game will probably fail to load Random Encounter Framework, which is a requirement for this mod.
Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm very new to modding and there's quite a LOT to learn here, but I'm mostly rocking right now with FO4. Have a few of your mods and having a blast!
Hello, I have a question.What is the possibility that you can add an option in this mod to choose the size of the patrols or groups and the repair time of the factions and enemies?I was using this mod along with NPC travel + Random Encounter Manager by SKK + SKK Combat Stalker + Improve Factions + Natural Occupation with the hostility option that I had requested to the author of that mod, but Natural Occupation makes enemies come out too often and there are a lot of battles as I like the FO4 environment, but I removed it to avoid bloating my save game. And at the same time I removed NPC travel since after a couple of hours of gameplay I was only getting enemies generated by NPC Travel and it gave me sudden CTD. But one of the options I liked about NPC was that you could increase the % of group size, as well as the amount of patrols, the amount of members per patrol. Currently I only run Random Encounter Manager by SKK + SKK Combat Stalker + Improve Factions + this mod and it works great for me, there are not so many encounters but it is more stable. But I ask you that query if there is that possibility that this mod has some similar settings to NPC Travel, Random Encounter Manager by SKK or SKK Combat Stalker have something similar, but I feel that this mod would be something great, I love this mod and especially the REF system in general, is a great job you have done.
That's a difficult change to add for this mod, unfortunately. SKK's mod works by hijacking the spawn points and then using scripts to spawn and track NPCs at those spawn points. This mod uses the system Bethesda set up, which utilizes custom-built utility quests to spawn, control, and clean up individual unique encounters.
That control allows for me to do really cool stuff, but the cost is that it is a lot harder to create large scale configurable options like how many NPCs to spawn per encounter.
Oh, that's a shame, but I totally understand. Yes, I can imagine how complicated it would be, but the fact that your mod uses the spawn system of the game makes it very clean and very good, to this day it still seems to me the best alternative among the spawn mods out there. Thanks for the answer and for your work!
This mod does not break precombines or conflict with PRP. While a lot of mods that add new encounters do so by placing objects in the game world, this mod uses spawn points that already exist thanks to Bethesda and as a result doesn't need to make any in-world changes at all.
Tried this mod on an existing save with GCM, SKK Random Encounters, NPCs Travel, Quick Trade and all the Improved Factions mods from Warsaw2135 installed. Seems to be working well with these mods. Haven't encountered any bug, stutter, crash etc so far.
That's quite the list you have there! Just to be sure, do you have the base game random encounters enabled in SKK's Random Encounter Manager? If those get turned off, you won't see this mod's changes, nor would you see the random encounters added by Warsaw2135's faction mods.
Yeah, been using the same: 'NPCs Travel' + SKK's 'Random Encounter Manager' + 'SKK's Combat Stalkers' + 'Mutant Menagerie - Life Finds a Way'.
After downloading your mod and play for a while I've uninstalled both SKK mods and now running:
Commonwealth Encounter Pack NPCs Travel Mutant Menagerie - Life Finds a Way (+ Hunter of the Commonwealth)
I think this is the best combination: there's enough life now in the Commonwealth without overcrowding (and stuttering during big fights in the same cell), while offering plenty of diversity.
I will be merging them in during the update. The head one too, since that just tells the game to use the head of the NPC I originally copied rather than generating one from my mod.
Pretty fun and quirky encounters so far. I was unlucky enough that a group of feral ghouls from this mod attacked mid conversion at Abernathy farms, and made everyone engage in combat, just right before I could turn in the locket to Blake (cleared the station and retrieved the locket before meeting Blake for the first time). It seems they wandered towards the farm. After fighting them off, the quest of Returning the Favor seems to break. Now instead of continuing our conversation, Blake will just give a general greeting, not allowing me the chance to finish the quest.
That sounds like a fundamental flaw with Returning the Favor. There are so many different ways for combat to start unnannounced at settlements, up to and including NPCs following the player into them. If Returning the Favor breaks because the turn-in scene gets interrupted, that's definitely something I'll need to look into for submitting to the unofficial patch.
As for the encounter itself, it's possible that it was one of my encounters but not strictly limited to mine. There are three encounter sites near Abernathy Farm, and they're all about the same distance away as Wicked Shipping Fleet Lockup. To the south, there's a camp encounter. To the east, an object encounter. And to the north, a scene encounter. I add some ghoul encounters, Bethesda has several ghoul encounters, and Wicked Shipping Fleet Lockup has several ghouls as well. All in all, lots of potential for things to happen near the farm and spill over into the farm.
Edit: So I just looked it up, and that should not have broken the quest. Stage 400 gets set the moment you say "I've got that locket back for you." and then set again when Abernathy says "You serious? That's great news! Connie's gonna be speechless." That quest stage is what takes the locket out of the inventory, clears leftover data, gives you the settlement, and sends you back to Preston or completes the quest as relevant. Are you sure you don't already have access to the workshop?
I've noticed recently that when my settlements get attacked by, well, basically anything, there are quite a lot more attackers than there used to be. An average ghoul attack is now spawning 8-10 ghouls. The Slog gets attacked with a pretty decent amount of regularity by raiders, and there's always like fifteen of them in the group.
No complaints there, I enjoy having a good proper actual threat (y'all really gonna tell me twenty armed settlers can't take out two ghouls, Bethesda?), I'm just curious if that's because of this mod, next-gen, or something else.
That would be something else. I don't touch settlement attacks at all in this mod since they're controlled by a different system that is similar to random encounters but not part of them. And NG didn't change settlement attacks either, which means it would be something else in your load order.
256 comments
if I use this mod and with the addition of 290 new encounters, would patches reducing the repetitiveness of Automatron Robots/Rust Devils and Vertibirds still be a boon to have, or would those encounters be automagically diluted in the mass so to speak, without the need for patches ?
I'm thinking patches are still required, but I will take every chance at sanitizing my mod list where I can.
Thank you for your wisdom and continued generosity towards the community.
The reason for the indirect answer is kind of hard to explain so this is going to be a big wall of text. I would like to note that the Automatron mod you linked also makes other changes, and those may be changes that you'll find yourself wanting to keep if you're used to having them.
Anyway, back to how random encounters are picked. In essence, there isn't just one pool of encounters where it picks from them at random. Instead, it first picks a group of encounters and then picks an encounter from that group. Some encounters, like the vertibird ones, are part of bigger pools. Others, such as the Automatron ones, are their own self-contained pool. This mod adds a lot of new pools for the game to pick from, which makes it difficult to judge how rare any particular encounter might be.
To explain more simply, when you trigger a random encounter the game first figures out what group of pools it should be checking based on encounter type (so a chokepoint encounter on a bridge doesn't use a random encounter meant to be a firefight in an abandoned building, for example). After that it selects a pool of encounters from that type.
I'm going to use the random encounter under the rail bridge next to starlight drive in as an example, let's assume with a long-term save where you have completed Automatron and Nuka World and have not installed this or other random encounter mods. So you approach that random encounter and it limits itself to scene encounters, because it's a scene encounter. Then, because you've completed Nuka World, it has a 50% chance of choosing one of the very few encounters added to the commonwealth by Nuka World. Those encounters aren't quite that common because they also have a cooldown and a bunch of other restrictions, but they are given first priority. After that you have a 50% chance (so 25% overall) to get an encounter added by Automatron. These are much less restricted and so you see them a lot. Finally, you have a chance to get an encounter from the base game, which has a big list of forty or so options rather than the five or so from Automatron or the three or so from Nuka world.
With Random Encounter Framework, that prioritization goes away. Instead, all of the pools end up in a bigger parent pool that picks at random. So in the same context you go from 50% Nuka World, 25% Automatron, 25% base game to a 33.3% chance of each. (This is reductive, because the base game prioritizes Nuka World and Automatron and so the actual experience shows more Automatron encounters due to Nuka World skipping itself)
I add a new equivalent to each of the DLC pools in Random Encounter Framework, and so the odds wind up being 16.7% Nuka World, 16.7% Automatron, 16.7% base game, 16.7% Commonwealth Encounter Pack Nuka World, 16.7% Commonwealth Encounter Pack Automatron, and 16.7% Commonwealth Encounter Pack "base game". With other mods that use Commonwealth Encounter Pack, those odds per-pool go down even further.
I despise practices that have game devs change intuitive and sensible systems just to fit the promotion needs of their latest DLCs. Paradox, Creative Assembly, EA, Bethesda, only to name a few, all have done that in submitting to their marketing overlords. Most of them usually would release patches later down the road to revert these anti-climatic changes, but to no one's surprise Bethesda never did.
God bless modders who with generosity and patience share their knowledge and creations like you do, and have to fix this bull*.
I highly encourage any aspiring modder or even players to download your mods, read your description pages, read the comments on your mod pages, check how your mods are structured in xEDIT, because there is a trove of wealth to be found if one is interested in making Fallout 4 a much more interesting and well-behaving game.
Thank you very much for your helpful reply. Following your advice, I'll give that Automatron mod a second look. Please have a nice day/evening.
Unfortunately, in Skyrim Special Edition and current versions of Fallout 4, that no longer happens. Instead you either wind up with a compatibility patching nightmare or you use something that rearranges the encounter tree. Notably, this doesn't specifically make base game encounters rare. With just this mod and random encounter framework installed, you'll have a 50/50 chance of base game versus CEP encounters at the start of the game. The specific odds after unlocking all encounters will vary by where you are in the commonwealth, but in the worst case you'll still be looking at one in every six encounters being from Fallout4.esm. (Along with similar odds for the encounters added by Automatron and Nuka World)
That said, I'm also aware that the more unique random encounters from Fallout4.esm are popular, which is why I made Story Encounter Booster to add new pools containing just the interesting random encounters from the base game.
Edit: Just for context, this is a list of mods that I know this mod would be incompatible with, if I didn't require Random Encounter Framework:
- America Rising - A Tale of the Enclave
- America Rising 2 - Legacy of the Enclave
- Capital Wasteland Auto Axe
- CC Material Swap - Improved Minutemen Patch
- Commonwealth Broadcasting Services
- Commonwealth Hit Squads
- Crime And Punishment
- Decreased Automatron Bullshit Encounters and Minor Rust Devil Tweaks
- Enclave Remnants
- Feral Infestations
- FNAF - Animatronic Apocalypse
- Game Configuration Menu
- Gun For Hire - Commonwealth Mercenary Jobs
- Gunner Hit Squad (Stand Alone)
- IceStormNG's Combat Drones
- Improved America Rising 2 Enclave
- Improved Brotherhood of Steel
- Improved Friendly Factions AIO
- Improved Guards
- Improved Hostile Factions
- Improved Institute
- Improved Minutemen
- Improved Nuka Raiders
- Improved Railroad
- Integrated Automatron
- Less Vertibird Encounters
- Private Contract - Talon Company Mercenaries
- REPUTATION
- Sector Five - Rise and Fall
- Shoddy Post-Apocalyptic Marketing - SPAM
- Story Encounter Booster
- The Fens Sheriff's Department - Random Encounters Patch
- Unga Bunga Watongi Pogo
RFE (Top ESM)
BNS 2.4
Minuteman Watchtowers (old version)
Most RRTV's housing mods
Heather (new version)
Ellen
Liga of my companions
Most recruit mods by Kiara
Nuka Town USA – Restored
Nuka World Open Season Extended
Combat Drones
Combat Drones RFE patch
Gun For Hire
Gun For Hire RFE patch
AR2
AR2 RFE patch
Tales from the Commonwealth
Tales from the Commonwealth Fixes1
Tales from the Commonwealth Fixes2
Settlers of the Commonwealth
Immersive Gunners Plaza
Immersive and Extended Nahant
Interesting Encounter Booster
Story Encounter Booster
Tie-In Encounter Booster
Commonwealth Encounter Pack
Random Encounter Manager by SKK (yes, base game encounters are enabled)
SKK Combat Stalkers (hostile spawns)
SKK Feral Nights
SKK Scavver Faction
SKK Workshop Ownership Utilities
SKK Settlement Attack System
Better Drumlin Diner
Transfer Settlements
Scrap Everything (yes, I'm using it and have no problems whatsoever)
+ Most of CC mods (tunnel snakes, radio mercenaries etc.)
* This is for NG installation
** Automatron starts only at Level 100 (hate it), so no robot encounters during the game. :))
Alternatively, I can stop Automatron random encounters from replacing all other random encounters by two simple commands:
setDLC01REPercentChance to 0
setDLC01WorkshopRobotAttackChance to 0
Thank you so much for these great mods!
<3
That control allows for me to do really cool stuff, but the cost is that it is a lot harder to create large scale configurable options like how many NPCs to spawn per encounter.
After downloading your mod and play for a while I've uninstalled both SKK mods and now running:
Commonwealth Encounter Pack
NPCs Travel
Mutant Menagerie - Life Finds a Way (+ Hunter of the Commonwealth)
I think this is the best combination: there's enough life now in the Commonwealth without overcrowding (and stuttering during big fights in the same cell), while offering plenty of diversity.
I can't recommend this enough! 😍
As for the encounter itself, it's possible that it was one of my encounters but not strictly limited to mine. There are three encounter sites near Abernathy Farm, and they're all about the same distance away as Wicked Shipping Fleet Lockup. To the south, there's a camp encounter. To the east, an object encounter. And to the north, a scene encounter. I add some ghoul encounters, Bethesda has several ghoul encounters, and Wicked Shipping Fleet Lockup has several ghouls as well. All in all, lots of potential for things to happen near the farm and spill over into the farm.
Edit: So I just looked it up, and that should not have broken the quest. Stage 400 gets set the moment you say "I've got that locket back for you." and then set again when Abernathy says "You serious? That's great news! Connie's gonna be speechless." That quest stage is what takes the locket out of the inventory, clears leftover data, gives you the settlement, and sends you back to Preston or completes the quest as relevant. Are you sure you don't already have access to the workshop?
No complaints there, I enjoy having a good proper actual threat (y'all really gonna tell me twenty armed settlers can't take out two ghouls, Bethesda?), I'm just curious if that's because of this mod, next-gen, or something else.