Skyrim

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DefiniteIntegral

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DefiniteIntegral

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About this mod

This mod increases the number of enemy spawns as to allow more difficult combat scenarios.

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THIS IS NO LONGER BEING WORKED ON. Sorry but I just don't have time for Skyrim these days.


Nightmare: Increased enemy spawns
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OVERVIEW
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This mod increases the number of enemy spawns to allow more difficulty combat scenarios. It also allows respawning dead enemies as ghosts. The spawn settings are fully customizable and there are also 3 difficulty presets.

The additional spawning is done entirely via scripting. It primarily operates by copying existing enemies spawns to form squads - for example, squads of archers, squads of warriors, squads of draugr or wolves, etc. Due to leveled lists this does not mean multiple identical enemies, there are variations in race, gender and equipment, but the basic type remains the same.

Extra spawns occur gradually over time, so the longer you hang about the more enemies will appear. The effect will be much more noticeable on larger dungeons where the enemy population has time to build up. There is also a high degree of randomness. Sometimes there will be multiple small squads spread evenly about a dungeon and other times there might be just one or two areas with a large mob of enemies.

This mod uses persistent self-deleting actors as a preventative measure against the CTDs that are so common with extra spawn mods.

For a demonstration of this mod, here is a video of me getting smashed by hordes of wizards on a high difficulty level. Alternatively, this video shows various groups of enemies, such as Draugr, Warlocks, Skeletons and Dwemer automatons. Note the video and screenshots were taken on Custom difficulty settings.

A high end gaming PC is recommended for large numbers of spawns.

INSTALLATION
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-Install using Nexus Mod Manager, or extract the RAR file into Data/
-Cast "Nightmare: Select Difficulty" to choose difficulty and enable extra spawns. By default there are no additional spawns or respawns.

CONFIGURATION
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Cast the "Nightmare: Select Difficulty" spell to access the configuration menu.

The spell brings up the following options:
1) Normal: Vanilla Skyrim. No additional spawns or respawns. This is the default setting.
2) Hurt me plenty: 2 additional enemies every 32 seconds, no respawn. Max 20 spawns. Spawns 2 squads of 1 each pass.
3) Ultra-Violence: 6 additional enemies every 16 seconds, no respawn. Max 44 spawns. Spawns 3 squads of 2 each pass.
4) Nightmare: 12 additional enemies every 8 seconds. Max 76 spawns. Spawns 4 squads of 3 each pass. Respawns dead enemies, level 1 stat boost.
5) Custom: Apply user custom settings.
6) Edit: Modify user custom settings. See below.
7) Done: Exit menu

Note the times above are only estimates for time between spawning passes. A spawn pass can take some time depending on settings.

There are also a series other spells, for banning and unbanning Actor types, Locations, Worldspaces and Cells. Use these to stop Nightmare spawning for types and locations from other mods, eg town locations, guards, etc.

CUSTOM CONFIG
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The 'Edit' menu allows modify all settings. These settings are saved and can be applied by selecting 'Custom' in the main menu.

Edit menu:
1) Spawn: Select extra spawn settings
2) Respawn: Select respawn settings
3) Aggro: Select additional aggression settings per enemy class.
4) Limit: Select limit for max number of enemies in area.
5) Stat Boost: Select strength boost for enemies. Each level boosts HMS by 100, HMS regen by 25%, all skills by 5, armor by 30 and magic resistance by 10.
6) Misc: Contains miscellaneous settings.

Spawn menu:
1) On/Off: Toggle to enable/disable extra spawns
2) Time: Select time between spawn passes. Can choose from 2 to 64. Roughly in seconds, but Papyrus is slow so can be much longer in reality.
3) Squads: Select to control squad spawn parameters

Squads menu:
1) Squads: Select the max number of extra enemy squads to create per spawn pass. From 0 to 5.
2) Size: Select the number of extra enemies per spawn per squad. From 0 to 5. Can select per enemy class.

Respawn menu:
1) On/Off: Toggle to enable/disable respawns.
2) Time: Select time between respawn passes. Can choose from 2 to 64. Roughly in seconds.
3) Dead ratio: In grid-spawn mode, what % of enemies in a grid must be dead before allowing a respawn.
4) Actors: Select actors to enable/disable for respawns. Can select per enemy class.
5) Limit: Select the number of respawns to do per pass.

Aggro menu:
-Allows selecting extra aggression settings per enemy class
-Settings are cumulative, so aggro 3 includes changes from aggro 1+2
Aggro 0) No extra aggression
Aggro 1) All enemies set to assist allies
Aggro 2) All enemies put into common enemy faction so they work together
Aggro 3) All enemies attempt to engage player in combat immediately

Limit menu:
1) Cell limit: Choose the maximum number of extra spawns per cell transition
2) Grid limit: Choose maximum number of enemies in proximity or grid before restricting extra spawns in the area.
3) Interior scan: Choose % chance during a spawn pass for a proximity-scan spawn method instead of grid-based. Proximity scan generates more enemies in large groups, while grid will spread spawns more evenly but at a slightly slower rate.

Misc:
1) Crash fix ON/OFF: Toggly crash fix. If experiencing cell transition lag or other crashes, try enabling this. However, slows down spawn rate. Recommended to try without this first.
2) Grid 2D/3D: Toggle between 2D and 3D grid for interior spawning. Can affect interior spawn distribution and rate.
3) Vis FX ON/OFF: Whether to use spawn effects or not.
4) Spawn distance: The minimum spawn distance. Enemies closer than this will not be cloned into squads.

Note Misc settings apply across all difficulties including the presets.

Note that stat boost applies to all enemies found by the script, not just spawns or respawns. It is possible to enable Custom, but disable spawns/respawns, and the script will still slowly boost stats for random enemies over time.

UPDATING
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When updating to a new version, please do the following:

1) Cast "Nightmare: Select Difficulty" and select "Normal"
2) Go to a hold capital and wait about 4 minutes to give cleanup script time to finish.
3) Save game and exit.
4) Delete Nightmare.esp
5) Load game, save, exit again.
6) Update to new version.
7) Load game, cast "Nightmare: Select Difficulty" and select desired difficulty level.

PROBLEMS
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1) Spawns aren't working at all: Run through the Update procedure again
2) Lag or crashing: Enable crash fix
3) Explosion sounds: Disable spawn vis FX
4) Enemies spawning in line of sight: Increase minimum spawn distance
5) Spawns too slow: Change from 3D to 2D grid. Increase prox-scan vs grid-scan chance to higher percentage.

OTHER MODS
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tonycubed, author of the Sands of Time has incorporated Nightmare based extra spawns functionality directly into his mod. For those users, it is advised to use Nightmare OR Sands of Time extra spawns, but not both at the same time, lest you risk getting overpowered by a tidal wave of bandits or possibly game crashing.

Versions 0.3.0 and beyond are capable of spawning extra actors from other mods. To support this, Nightmare.esp should be loaded later in the load order than the mod from which you want extra spawns.

However, as this version uses an exclusion list instead of an inclusion list for spawn control, this means some types might be duplicated that should not be - eg guards, other friendlies, or unique bosses etc.

Use the Ban Location/Worldspace/Cell/Actor spells to ban types and locations that should not have extra spawns from other mods. This also needs to be done for official DLCs including Dawnguard.

BUGS
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-Aggression modifications will not be persistent between saves. Skyrim limitation and cannot be fixed.
-Sometimes enemies spawn in walls. This is due to lack of raycasting functionality and unreliable LOS checks.
-Many extra enemies can slow down AI processing. Sometimes enemies will take a long to to respond, but this is quite rare.
-Like all spawn mods, this can cause CTDs. However according to user feedback, this is far more stable than ASIS or MoMod More Spawns.