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About this mod
This mod makes all ranged NPCs in the game, including companions, have the fastest possible reaction speed and most aggression and improves their accuracy based on race and faction.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
The main reason for a combatant to be in the game is to remove health from their target's health pool. This mod makes them as effective as possible at doing so.
I'm going to name off a few A.I. mods available for FO4, tell you what they do, and why I'm not satisfied with them.
- PANPC - A lot of people are still under the impression that a mod that uses scripting is simply superior to a mod that doesn't. It's weird, because I think most people would agree that something that is more complicated isn't necessarily better than something that is less complicated. That's what PANPC is, the most complicated AI solution available. It can do things that aren't possible without scripting. Does this make NPCs more effective at removing health from their target's health pool? Absolutely not. PANPC actors react sluggishly, and have as long as I've known about it. The more NPCs that are controlled by PANPC, the more sluggish they get. FO4's scripting solution can only handle so many commands at a time, nothing will make it work faster. So when PANPC is sending more and more and more commands through it, it gets backed up, to the point where NPCs are reacting to things that happened in the past. If you use an NPC multiplier or spawning solution, or even travel to densely packed areas like Boston, you will experience this. Keep It Simple, Stupid is a common phrase for a reason. Now you might be saying to yourself "but gurutar, the NPCs that are spawned by PANPC and this spawning solution aren't affected by its scripting, so it doesn't contribute to its overhead!" So you have a big chunk of NPCs that aren't being affected by scripting, when the selling point of the mod is its scripted behavior. But don't worry, the "throttle" function is there to scale back its operations even further, so that even less NPCs are affected by scripting. This is why I get annoyed when someone asks what AI mod they should use, and everyone and their brother yell PANPC, and say "it's got scripts" like the dummies in Idiocracy say "it's got electrolytes." They don't even know what scripts are or how they work, but they know PANPC has them, so it da best.
- 4est Gimp's AI Edits - This mod makes a lot of good changes outside the Combat Profiles record, in Game Settings. However it doesn't have the same advantages as FADE (which I will explain later) and also cranks up the accuracy of every NPC in the game to near perfection.
- Real A.I. - I didn't even want to include this one because despite its massive amount of endorsements, it's regarded as a joke in the modding community. This is because people with modding knowledge know that all the fancy lingo the author uses is 100% Grade A bullshit. There aren't any "engine level subroutines" being tinkered with. The author is lying to farm DP. Add it to your game and watch as every NPC in the loaded cells all aggro on each other at once, charging across the map to fight each other. This happens even in the "stable" version, it's just bad. It also doesn't make any changes to the Combat Styles record at all, it only touches Game Settings. To explain, Game Settings are rules that all NPCs have to follow. Combat Styles effect specific groups of NPCs and get much more nuanced with how they act.
- Combat A.I. Empowered - Its Game Settings changes were literally copied from 4est, the author just tweaked some numbers. Combat styles are what directly affect NPC combat AI, and its changes there are tame. It won't have very much affect on AI and it actually lowers NPC accuracy in a lot of cases, making them less effective. Contrary to its name, it's actually DEpowering AI.
- Arbitration - Lots of good stuff here. It's all compatible with FADE except the Better Combat AI module, if you want to use that one you need to put FADE after it. FADE has specific changes that cause NPC reaction time to be as fast as possible, which the Better Combat AI module doesn't have. If you feel that FADE NPCs throw too many grenades, try the Less Grenade Spam module.
So now that I have the fanbase of all these mods ready to slit my throat, what does FADE do that sets it apart? I'm going to explain to you in more detail than you want exactly what it does. FADE only effects the Combat Styles record. Here are the most important entries effected by FADE, both their names and what they do:
- Offensive Mult - Determines enemy aggression. FADE sets it to 1 (maximum) for every NPC. This and another mult discussed later are the crux of this mod.
- Defensive Mult - Determines how often melee enemies block and bash. FADE lowers this mult on all NPCs, so they can still block and bash, but do it less often.
- Ranged Accuracy Mult - Determines the size of the firing cone when NPCs fire their weapons. This is set according to both race and faction. Snipers and all robots and synths have near perfect accuracy. BoS and Gunners are a step below that. Super Mutants, Raiders and anyone wearing Power Armor are at the bottom. Don't think this means their accuracy is bad, every NPC has gotten a considerable boost from vanilla. But it's not just cranking all dials to 11, Raiders will absolutely have worse accuracy than Synth, as they should. And don't worry, every other faction and race was changed similarly as well, but these are the most important.
- Wait Mult - The other mult that is the crux of this mod. This mult tells the NPC how long to wait before making any decision. In reality, every NPC in the game knows what to do instantly. This mult artificially extends the process of decision making. I set this mult to 0 on every NPC.
- Cover Search Distance Mult - This mult determines how far an NPC will run to get to cover. I've doubled this mult, meaning NPCs will do it a lot more often.
- Dueling or Flanking Flag - A dueling enemy will path directly to the player. A flanking enemy will travel sideways instead, attempting to flank the player. All melee and power armor NPCs are set to dueling, all ranged NPCs are set to flanking.
What all this amounts to is, every NPC that is affected by FADE will be more aggressive and have better reaction speed than any other AI mod out there. NPCs actually want to kill you, they don't take it easy on you because they're fodder, they want you to die.
Creatures like bloatflies, anglers and other animals that fire projectiles were not affected. Mostly humanoid enemies with ranged weapons, robots and turrets.
In conclusion, I would recommend you use 4est Gimp's AI Edits and FADE together, and let FADE overwrite it. That way you get the good Game Settings improvements, and FADE's improvements as well. Throw him an endorsement if you choose to pair these mods.
By the way, I usually make mods for an overhaul called Horizon, you should check it out if you're tired of vanilla or other overhauls. If you decide to try it out, there is a required patch for 4estGimp's AI Edits on my Horizon 1.9 patch page, as well as a Horizon specific version of FADE to use instead of this one.