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JaeDL - Starborn Royalty KnightsUploaded by
JaeDLVirus scan
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About this mod
Revamped by hand the terrible Artifact Cave that in vanilla has 3 turrets and nothing else. It should now spawn biome relevant predators and prey.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
Takes one of the Empty Artifact Cave Encounters and Gives it Aliens From the Relevant Planet... unless it spawns on a lifeless planet, in which case it will still be bad. =)
I will continue to other locations and artifact caves based on interest (from myself and others lol).
Videos (I play embarrassingly poorly in both):
Cave run through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RA00sChzfY
Other cave run through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iHLWhLRxc4
Yes, I can and will improve the AI of the specific aliens included in the next release of Royal Aliens or even specific tweaks just go with these. This planet had very peaceful floating balloons-- other planets will be more interesting.
Gotta let the medium herd carnivores jump in the future. As aliens haven't really been in caves before Venpi's awesome mod and my newer works-- lots of room to improve them for that.
Posting this as a standalone because:
a) I think this is an important mod to get right. I absolutely despise being sent to get an artifact, and I literally just run through an empty cave and grab it at the end. You only even get the (one, single) Starborn fight at the end after Neon.
b) I believe vanilla caves are bugged, based mostly on research by Venpi and my own perusing through them in xEdit.
The dungeon has listed BIOME PREDATOR and BIOME PREY as spawns. They are set to only spawn during radiant encounters, which is impossible when flagged for an artifact.
Running through an empty or nearly empty cave doesn't feel intentional
A further reason I think this is a bug: nothing I try to spawn in the cave works… except for the stuff that was already SUPPOSED to spawn in Vanilla. I can't add random ecliptic enemies, etc. But I can add the two alien biomes that show up in the vanilla list for this cave.
c) I'd love for people to test this out by installing right before an artifact cave, rather than just bundling this with other mods. It's possible interactions with some of my other works in progress (Royal Spawns or Royal Story Encounters) are what actually causes this to work, but I believe this stands alone.
d) If this works well for others and there is interest… this is probably something I will have to do for lots of empty or unfun locations.
For the initial release, I renamed the location from "Caverns" to "Abandoned Caverns" so you know if you're in the cave I tweaked.
I have only tested this in one location.
I don't normally track how long a mod takes, but I was dead set on playing the game today, not modding. But then I came across this empty cave about a half hour into playing while still drinking my first coffee… now it is 3:30 PM.
The original idea, following logically from the Vanguard Moara storyline, would be to have this cave guarded by Ecliptic. You would think that I could just hand place some ecliptic enemies. Absolutely not.
The radiant quest system actively blocks things from spawning that you try to place. I think the only reason these enemies CAN be placed in this cave is because they were originally intended to be a part of it.
They are included in the encounter list for this location. I could be wrong, though; we're all figuring out how this stuff works as we make it.
I think the best way to play Starfield right now, and experience the most unique encounters, is to rerun all the campaigns and then unity. Do random caves and PoIs when you're in the mood, but there is simply not enough hand-made content yet. So I prefer to replay the hand-made content that comes in the main story and particularly UC and Freestar campaigns.
The worst part of that experience is hunting down the miscellaneous artifacts without any story attachments, since, unless they spawn in a human POI, they are literally just empty caves. Traveling to a whole planet, landing, and running through the cave is an exercise in tedium.
I have literally been trying to get more aliens in caves and cooler, bigger aliens since October. Venpi figured out the bug and released the first initial fix, but I have kept trying my own ideas. All the stuff I've tried since October has failed, apart from the pieces that ended up posted in Royal WIPs.
My new encounters mod also tweaks some space encounters, such as adding the legendary Va'ruun ship to potential Serpentis spawns. My WIPs tend to include a LOT of stuff, that I then pare down into focused mods for release. Remember that I am tweaking a ton of things for my own game, often at the same time.
I don't just work on one thing at a time, but a TON, so my WIPs tend to include a big plugin with a ton of stuff as I am working on them.
That's why I'm releasing this one here instead of in my WIPs/betas-- it's just TWO things, standalone, that should work, without asking you to download a million other changes.
I've tested this for hours, but I obviously I can't confirm how it works on other planets with other aliens, other saves, etc. But nothing can be worse than the default spawn.
(New encounters is a WIP, will get a new name, etc. I am trying to get the caves not covered by Venpi, but worst case is 1-2 additional aliens to encounters he added. Load mine before Venpi's, but as of right now, there are 0 conflicts and it shouldn't matter unless something I tweak has a negative (or positive) effect on his changes. I am playing with both enabled, so anything I post works well, to my standards, with Venpi's... unless I make a mistake, in which case I'll fix it).
There is a lot of randomization and rules built in-- certain things won't spawn on certain planets. So the more stuff like this you install, the more permutations of encounters you can come across.
The big apex predator that spawns in this cave was not hand-placed by me; tweaking this setting simply allows it to spawn, whereas the vanilla game settings do not allow it to.
In the video/pictures above, everything I added is specific to this Artifact Cave (I believe). But the giant green dinosaur guy is actually added by Vanilla Starfield, just once I made a particular tweak.
This tweak will potentially allow Apex predators to spawn in plenty of caves throughout the entire game.
I will continue to other locations and artifact caves based on interest (from myself and others lol).
Videos (I play embarrassingly poorly in both):
Cave run through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RA00sChzfY
Other cave run through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iHLWhLRxc4
Yes, I can and will improve the AI of the specific aliens included in the next release of Royal Aliens or even specific tweaks just go with these. This planet had very peaceful floating balloons-- other planets will be more interesting.
Gotta let the medium herd carnivores jump in the future. As aliens haven't really been in caves before Venpi's awesome mod and my newer works-- lots of room to improve them for that.
Posting this as a standalone because:
a) I think this is an important mod to get right. I absolutely despise being sent to get an artifact, and I literally just run through an empty cave and grab it at the end. You only even get the (one, single) Starborn fight at the end after Neon.
b) I believe vanilla caves are bugged, based mostly on research by Venpi and my own perusing through them in xEdit.
The dungeon has listed BIOME PREDATOR and BIOME PREY as spawns. They are set to only spawn during radiant encounters, which is impossible when flagged for an artifact.
Running through an empty or nearly empty cave doesn't feel intentional
A further reason I think this is a bug: nothing I try to spawn in the cave works… except for the stuff that was already SUPPOSED to spawn in Vanilla. I can't add random ecliptic enemies, etc. But I can add the two alien biomes that show up in the vanilla list for this cave.
c) I'd love for people to test this out by installing right before an artifact cave, rather than just bundling this with other mods. It's possible interactions with some of my other works in progress (Royal Spawns or Royal Story Encounters) are what actually causes this to work, but I believe this stands alone.
d) If this works well for others and there is interest… this is probably something I will have to do for lots of empty or unfun locations.
For the initial release, I renamed the location from "Caverns" to "Abandoned Caverns" so you know if you're in the cave I tweaked.
I have only tested this in one location.
Questions:
Will the aliens change to match the planet?
Yes. Unless the planet is always locked to Piazzi-IV C
How did you get the spawns so perfectly placed?
Some of these spawn placements were done by Bethesda and when I "add" the NPC to the cave, it goes to the spot Bethesda wants it to.
Some of them I placed by hand or replaced something that existed.
Is this compatible with Venpi's Cave Overhaul?
Yes. If it were up to me, Venpi would just do all the caves because it is really hard and super tedious. But his implementation is careful NOT to touch certain story caves, which makes perfect sense.
But I spend a lot of time in this caves and I can't believe how bad they are.
If I thought anyone else was going to make this mod before Creation Kit, I would have waited them out, but most active modders seem focused on starships, space and new content.
Will this change other caves/dungeons?
I don't think so, but it might. Potentially in positive ways (more enemies).
It's hard to describe just how annoying making stuff show up in Caves/PoI is. I almost quit on this a few times.
Will the aliens change to match the planet?
Yes. Unless the planet is always locked to Piazzi-IV C
How did you get the spawns so perfectly placed?
Some of these spawn placements were done by Bethesda and when I "add" the NPC to the cave, it goes to the spot Bethesda wants it to.
Some of them I placed by hand or replaced something that existed.
Is this compatible with Venpi's Cave Overhaul?
Yes. If it were up to me, Venpi would just do all the caves because it is really hard and super tedious. But his implementation is careful NOT to touch certain story caves, which makes perfect sense.
But I spend a lot of time in this caves and I can't believe how bad they are.
If I thought anyone else was going to make this mod before Creation Kit, I would have waited them out, but most active modders seem focused on starships, space and new content.
Will this change other caves/dungeons?
I don't think so, but it might. Potentially in positive ways (more enemies).
It's hard to describe just how annoying making stuff show up in Caves/PoI is. I almost quit on this a few times.
How long did this take?
At least 9 hours, including reloading saves a million times to ensure everything was placed correctly and testing tons of things that didn't work out. I don't normally track how long a mod takes, but I was dead set on playing the game today, not modding. But then I came across this empty cave about a half hour into playing while still drinking my first coffee… now it is 3:30 PM.
The original idea, following logically from the Vanguard Moara storyline, would be to have this cave guarded by Ecliptic. You would think that I could just hand place some ecliptic enemies. Absolutely not.
The radiant quest system actively blocks things from spawning that you try to place. I think the only reason these enemies CAN be placed in this cave is because they were originally intended to be a part of it.
They are included in the encounter list for this location. I could be wrong, though; we're all figuring out how this stuff works as we make it.
Why spend so much time on one cave?
I think the best way to play Starfield right now, and experience the most unique encounters, is to rerun all the campaigns and then unity. Do random caves and PoIs when you're in the mood, but there is simply not enough hand-made content yet. So I prefer to replay the hand-made content that comes in the main story and particularly UC and Freestar campaigns.
The worst part of that experience is hunting down the miscellaneous artifacts without any story attachments, since, unless they spawn in a human POI, they are literally just empty caves. Traveling to a whole planet, landing, and running through the cave is an exercise in tedium.
Why is this two plugins:
I have literally been trying to get more aliens in caves and cooler, bigger aliens since October. Venpi figured out the bug and released the first initial fix, but I have kept trying my own ideas. All the stuff I've tried since October has failed, apart from the pieces that ended up posted in Royal WIPs.
What about the rest of the caves?
Venpi's Cave Overhaul
Everyone should install this. The methodology he did to make caves work better is insanely complex and also improves Vanilla overland PoIs.
New Encounters
My work in progress complementary effort to enhance caves and PoIs.
This is not included in that mod.
Eventually, I will split this up into multiple pieces and release it, of course. Currently, it touches land and space.
Venpi's Cave Overhaul
Everyone should install this. The methodology he did to make caves work better is insanely complex and also improves Vanilla overland PoIs.
New Encounters
My work in progress complementary effort to enhance caves and PoIs.
This is not included in that mod.
Eventually, I will split this up into multiple pieces and release it, of course. Currently, it touches land and space.
My new encounters mod also tweaks some space encounters, such as adding the legendary Va'ruun ship to potential Serpentis spawns. My WIPs tend to include a LOT of stuff, that I then pare down into focused mods for release. Remember that I am tweaking a ton of things for my own game, often at the same time.
I don't just work on one thing at a time, but a TON, so my WIPs tend to include a big plugin with a ton of stuff as I am working on them.
That's why I'm releasing this one here instead of in my WIPs/betas-- it's just TWO things, standalone, that should work, without asking you to download a million other changes.
I've tested this for hours, but I obviously I can't confirm how it works on other planets with other aliens, other saves, etc. But nothing can be worse than the default spawn.
(New encounters is a WIP, will get a new name, etc. I am trying to get the caves not covered by Venpi, but worst case is 1-2 additional aliens to encounters he added. Load mine before Venpi's, but as of right now, there are 0 conflicts and it shouldn't matter unless something I tweak has a negative (or positive) effect on his changes. I am playing with both enabled, so anything I post works well, to my standards, with Venpi's... unless I make a mistake, in which case I'll fix it).
There is a lot of randomization and rules built in-- certain things won't spawn on certain planets. So the more stuff like this you install, the more permutations of encounters you can come across.
Plugin 1: Artifact Cave Aliens
Tweaks to the specific Artifact Cave. Should hopefully always be the one that spawns right after you get Andreja, but I don't actually know for sure when/how the game decides.
I only got one Artifact Cave for now. It will be named "Abandoned Caverns" instead of "Caverns" so you know.
I am open to feedback, including placing more spawns, etc, but I wanted to get a functional version out to gauge interest and compatibility.
I also want to share the plugins as proof of concepts so that maybe other people can get to work on specific locations and making them better.
Please let me know if you are serious about finishing any other locations yourself and I will focus my efforts on other locations.
Plugin 2: Relaxed Alien Spawns
A tweak that allows the game's procedural generation to spawn creatures in caves with less restrictions. I've had this in my game for a while, but I never confirmed it was actually working until now.
Tweaks to the specific Artifact Cave. Should hopefully always be the one that spawns right after you get Andreja, but I don't actually know for sure when/how the game decides.
I only got one Artifact Cave for now. It will be named "Abandoned Caverns" instead of "Caverns" so you know.
I am open to feedback, including placing more spawns, etc, but I wanted to get a functional version out to gauge interest and compatibility.
I also want to share the plugins as proof of concepts so that maybe other people can get to work on specific locations and making them better.
Please let me know if you are serious about finishing any other locations yourself and I will focus my efforts on other locations.
Plugin 2: Relaxed Alien Spawns
A tweak that allows the game's procedural generation to spawn creatures in caves with less restrictions. I've had this in my game for a while, but I never confirmed it was actually working until now.
The big apex predator that spawns in this cave was not hand-placed by me; tweaking this setting simply allows it to spawn, whereas the vanilla game settings do not allow it to.
In the video/pictures above, everything I added is specific to this Artifact Cave (I believe). But the giant green dinosaur guy is actually added by Vanilla Starfield, just once I made a particular tweak.
This tweak will potentially allow Apex predators to spawn in plenty of caves throughout the entire game.