Version 1.0 This mod is the merging of many of my creatures, NPC, and environmental rebalances all in one. The project is far from complete but this will give you a taste while I try to sort out my RL problems. *Vanilla Edition of the mod has been added as of 7/13.
Version 1.1 9/29 Vicious dog mod added to the rest of the ecosystem.
7/20 Big thanks to the handful of folks who have sent me donations and kind sentiments with it. It is truly appreciated! On a side note, testing current ongoing projects are taking a lot longer due to technical issues on my side so please be patient. Thank you. 7/25 The article was updated in regards to the current status of things. 8/10 Sorry for the snail's pace on updates but I won't release a mod til it hits 1.0 status.
8/23 Update: Well, my PC is officially dead so all projects have been put on permanent hold for PC and the other platforms. If you would like to help me scrounge up funds to continue modding. Hit this donations button. You can paypal.me/smgrinus if you want to help.
Hi, I don't know if it was this mod or not but at one point in the game around level 25 some of the NPCs were almost impossible to kill. And at milton general hospital Sinjin and his crew were 2 levels lower than me but tagged as being much higher level than me. So much higher level that it became ridiculous to try and kill. How the creatures in the optional download seems to be about where it should be.
That seems odd. The creatures' only optional download is the same data for creatures as what was included in the two main mods. Are you using other mods that are modifying NPCs and what difficulty are you playing on?
Does anyone know how the individual creature mods (e.g. Lethal Deathclaws, Stronger Behemoth) contained in Improved Ecosystems would work with Unique NPCs - Creatures and Monsters of the Commonwealth - AWKCR Free Version ?
That mod already edits the sizes of creatures, and at least some of Tekmage’s individual creature mods do the same.
I’m guessing they won’t work together but I’m hoping I’m wrong. I would only want the individual creature mods, not the framework. The framework looks good as well but will conflict with other mods I already have installed.
It doesn't look like it would conflict since the other mod seems to be building off non-replacer unique creatures and monsters. It also looks like whichever mod takes priority if the same references are used will override the other since my mod manually edits just the default monsters and creatures. I'm not sure how this would affect balancing but mechanically work okay.
Thank you. I asked the same question on the Nexus Fallout 4 forums and understood from the reply that if I let your mods overwrite Unique NPCs I would get your sizes and stat changes but keep Unique NPCs textures and species variants. That outcome would be fine by me. If I wanted to preserve the size variation which Unique NPCs introduces, I would need to make a patch. I hope I’ve understood this much correctly ?
All I want to do really is to buff the “major” creatures - probably just behemoths, deathclaws, yao guai, mirelurks and radscorpions. I’ve found quite a few mods on the Nexus which do this, but I think I like the look of your edits the best, and you cover seven different creatures. Unique NPCs does not alter any stats or combat behaviours, just sizes.
What I don’t really understand is whether your edits, seeing as they are manual edits of the unmodified, vanilla creatures, will get applied to the new variants introduced by Unique NPCs ? Perhaps you just explained that but I didn’t understand your meaning ? I think Unique NPCs restores the quantum deathclaws too, so I’m not sure how that would be affected ?
Anyway, thanks for replying tekmage. Great to get an answer from the actual mod author.
I'm going to guess that the ID for the unique creatures are new so it probably will not get applied to the new variants. However, if the mod author copied and simply renamed, it might get adjusted to the edits. From your explanation of Quantum Deathclaws, nothing from this mod will change the data for that.
I've been playing Starfield lately and looked at the Creation Kit and other modding tools again. I'm unsure if I'll do anything for Starfield, but there is a possibility that I finish editing the monsters I intended to balance since the new updates came to Fallout 4. I'll keep people updated if that does happen but only if I can allot a good amount of time for it. I hope that clarifies a bit.
I very much appreciate your thoughts (and doubts) here. I also have no idea whether the unique variants have their own IDs. I am wavering about keeping Unique NPCs actually. What the stripped down (non-AWKCR) version of the mod does is pretty cool, but also seems ultimately superficial. I’m thinking that maybe the easier, less risky route to take with creatures might be to stick with vanilla (perhaps with texture replacers) and use your mods to buff the “major” creatures, and perhaps add a few individual creature mods on top.
I’m only assuming that the quantum deathclaws has been restored by that mod, but maybe it has been introduced in a different manner ? I don’t know. Also, I believe there is a creature in there called a “Deathwing”, which I believe is a hybrid of a deathclaw and a stingwing (?) That sounds almost guaranteed to cause problems !
Anyway, it’s back to the drawing board I reckon. If you hadn’t shared your thoughts I might have made the wrong choices. This is not the easiest area of the game to mod. Cheers.
Does this mod change anything in the game's language/text? It's because I play in PTBR and I know very little English, so I'm wondering if this mod rebalance while messing with the game's translation (ptbr)
Aye Tek, hope all is well I know it's been a while and you're probably done with the fallout 4 modding scene. Do you ever plan on making an improvement for super mutants as well? Like making them stronger, more of a challenge like in the past titles.
Hey there. I've been focusing on my art and learning Unreal Engine/Blender, etc. I haven't been active in the scene and haven't had much time or motivation for Fallout 4. I am still hoping to return at some point to finish up what I wanted to do with the Ecosystems mod. For now, Fallout is uninstalled since I have very little room on my hard drive. Maybe, I'll get more motivation when Fallout London and other large mods release.
As for the Super Mutants, I was hoping I would be further along in Blender and some animation tools to redo the mutants that align more with the concept art design. Maybe, that is a possibility in the future.
Honestly your mods are so underrated, small tweaks that make the world. My game got so much better and more fun with this one, your leveled list and balance tweaks to various weapons and your recoil overhaul. Thank you for sharing!
Not sure if it was intentional, but there's still a few edits to npcs in the creatures only version. It's easy enough to remove but I figured I should let you know.
Yeah, I left them in since I treat NPCs as creatures. It keeps the game better balanced this way. Definitely remove them in fo4edit if they are not to your liking.
Far as I know, this and that mod do not alter the same things so it should be okay. I've done no testing so I can't be certain but make a save before you try it. I recommend this when installing any mod, not just in this scenario. Do let me know if the two work fine or if it does not.
I did in fact try this mod at a new start with other game overhauls such as spitfire, Better location damage. The npcs were definitely a few more shots to kill than previously installing this; however, I didn't see the dmg value go up for pipe weapons. I checked a few different variants of pipe weapons and no changes. I am using Nina's pipe gun overhaul but it's a mesh only and doesn't edit any values. Maybe I am misunderstanding what this mod does for pipe weapons??
Edit: after going back to npc weapons mod and re-reading it I realized that I did in fact misunderstand what the mod does. I was under the impression that any npc that I loot I will benefit from that pipe weapons new dmg value but I realize now that the weapon will only affect the npc holding it.
I am glad there are no conflicts. I made no changes to vanilla weapons as I think that is a subjective thing. I do however have my favourite weapon mods that do have adjustments and tweaks. You can find those in my mod list if you want to check them out.
WOO, ive been overhauling my fallout 4 to have a better leveled list and variation of enemies. and you are completing that circle. i noticed theres the raider overhaul and the super mutants shall inherit the earth mods, and the stronger robots mod. but the creatures dont get much love or ghouls. i saw your article and if you are still working on covering all of those man im so excited. this mod gives the game the much needed feeling of progression it needs. I hope you continue to work on it. the problem with a mod that scales ALL enemies is that it kills the purpose of variety. no point in fighting a regular super mutant thats level 100 fighting a mutant warlord thats also level 100. that just defaces all enemies to be the same. This mod has the right idea. you have the right idea. I love you
I agree with you and also why these mods were created, to begin with. I will get back to working on the series at some point. RL is kinda in the way right now so I have not been very active. I just recently reinstalled a lot of software on my PC as my old one died on me. I'll update and continue as time allows. Take it easy.
No rush brother. You handle you IRL. I play fallout 4 off and on and the game will be here longer than we live. So ill just keep poking my head in once in a while see if progress is made :)
65 comments
This mod is the merging of many of my creatures, NPC, and environmental rebalances all in one. The project is far from complete but this will give you a taste while I try to sort out my RL problems.
*Vanilla Edition of the mod has been added as of 7/13.
Version 1.1
9/29 Vicious dog mod added to the rest of the ecosystem.
7/20 Big thanks to the handful of folks who have sent me donations and kind sentiments with it. It is truly appreciated! On a side note, testing current ongoing projects are taking a lot longer due to technical issues on my side so please be patient. Thank you.
7/25 The article was updated in regards to the current status of things.
8/10 Sorry for the snail's pace on updates but I won't release a mod til it hits 1.0 status.
8/23 Update: Well, my PC is officially dead so all projects have been put on permanent hold for PC and the other platforms.
If you would like to help me scrounge up funds to continue modding. Hit this donations button.
You can paypal.me/smgrinus if you want to help.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/48637
That mod already edits the sizes of creatures, and at least some of Tekmage’s individual creature mods do the same.
I’m guessing they won’t work together but I’m hoping I’m wrong. I would only want the individual creature mods, not the framework. The framework looks good as well but will conflict with other mods I already have installed.
All I want to do really is to buff the “major” creatures - probably just behemoths, deathclaws, yao guai, mirelurks and radscorpions. I’ve found quite a few mods on the Nexus which do this, but I think I like the look of your edits the best, and you cover seven different creatures. Unique NPCs does not alter any stats or combat behaviours, just sizes.
What I don’t really understand is whether your edits, seeing as they are manual edits of the unmodified, vanilla creatures, will get applied to the new variants introduced by Unique NPCs ? Perhaps you just explained that but I didn’t understand your meaning ? I think Unique NPCs restores the quantum deathclaws too, so I’m not sure how that would be affected ?
Anyway, thanks for replying tekmage. Great to get an answer from the actual mod author.
I've been playing Starfield lately and looked at the Creation Kit and other modding tools again. I'm unsure if I'll do anything for Starfield, but there is a possibility that I finish editing the monsters I intended to balance since the new updates came to Fallout 4. I'll keep people updated if that does happen but only if I can allot a good amount of time for it. I hope that clarifies a bit.
I’m only assuming that the quantum deathclaws has been restored by that mod, but maybe it has been introduced in a different manner ? I don’t know. Also, I believe there is a creature in there called a “Deathwing”, which I believe is a hybrid of a deathclaw and a stingwing (?) That sounds almost guaranteed to cause problems !
Anyway, it’s back to the drawing board I reckon. If you hadn’t shared your thoughts I might have made the wrong choices. This is not the easiest area of the game to mod. Cheers.
As for the Super Mutants, I was hoping I would be further along in Blender and some animation tools to redo the mutants that align more with the concept art design. Maybe, that is a possibility in the future.
Not sure if it was intentional, but there's still a few edits to npcs in the creatures only version. It's easy enough to remove but I figured I should let you know.
Edit: after going back to npc weapons mod and re-reading it I realized that I did in fact misunderstand what the mod does. I was under the impression that any npc that I loot I will benefit from that pipe weapons new dmg value but I realize now that the weapon will only affect the npc holding it.