Note: New revision of this mod is released, it can be found here. This mod is nowobsolete, and will not updated.
Commonwealth Spawns Extended


Survival too easy? Not challenging enough? Are you too OP from your high level and the enemies are too boring? Sick of walking all over commonwealth with an empty shell of a wasteland? Wish there were more things to kill?!? - Then this mod is for you!



Description

The main purpose of this mod is to bring more life to the Commonwealth wastes by adding new spawn points for enemy NPCs, animals, and creatures.  The addition of thousands of new spawned enemies makes the commonwealth much more chaotic and dangerous, while bringing in entirely new possibilities, including tactical game play and more difficult supplies management.  Depending on the spawn setting, the mod can offer a completely new game experience, from a slightly enhanced vanilla spawn system to the extreme hardcore.  This mod brings back enjoyment for game combat and mechanics, from lonesome wanderer in a desolate world, to the new dynamic and chaotic wasteland, where your in game choices, character build and tactical choices will matter more than in the vanilla game. This really makes you believe that the Commonwealth had those 200+ years for the mutants to reproduce and the humans to build a base of their presence in the area. 
FEATURES

• A complete spawn overhaul for Commonwealth exteriors, with addition of thousands of spawn points for enemy groups 
• Large variety of spawn settings, including density (number) and number of units in each spawned group 
• 40 completely different spawn positions grids for the Commonwealth area (personal for each spawn setting), and 18 new spawn point grids in the Glowing Sea  
• Each spawn grid has different spawn point placement positions and different factions/enemy types populating them
• Adjusted encounter zones, with increased enemy levels, while moving from the Sanctuary corner to the south, for the Quincy and Glowing Sea Area
• Remade Glowing Sea, including population by children of atom and a large contingent of Supermutants. The place is a hardcore warzone 
• Includes improved Glowing Sea soundtrack, featuring some amazing tracks from Mark Morgan, music designer for the original Fallout games
• Full spawn customization with the in game scripted menu: you can change any spawn setting at any time which is remembered
• Actual number of placed new NPC's may vary from 500 to more than 10000 with the ultimate spawn settings
• Non-cloning NPC spawn mechanic, allowing stable game play with little CTD problems and no save game corruption
  

General Advice on Mod Game Play

With a lot more enemies around, game play becomes much more resource and ammo demanding.  Ammo will be worth it's weight in gold.  Depending on the spawn setting, one will quickly realize that you can't kill everything, and that fighting one group of enemies can attract another, leading to you being surrounded and getting killed. That is where the true enjoyment part comes in, and it comes in the form of tactical game play, creating more decision making: who should you fight and when, should you retreat or risk being flanked or surrounded, do you have enough ammo and stims to reach your map destination and many more decisions like that. This leaves you with a vast variety of choices, that can literally cost you your life while exploring the wastes. So the main advice here is to use your head for route planning, use tactics and stealth to dispose or avoid enemy groups, use any of your perk advantages (like some good melee stats will save you a lot of ammo, aqua boy will allow water safe travel and so on), use your settlement not for decoration, but as a safe zones, where you can heal your wounds, resupply and rest. There are many ways to conquer the new wasteland hazards, and final choices are all up to you. 


General Tips

• You can change spawn settings, disable and enable them at any time you want using the in game scripted menu. This does not require any restarting or reloading and the effects will take place permanently
• When setting a high number of spawn densities and the amount of enemies in groups while new spawns are disabled, upon enabling new spawns you might find yourself immediately in the middle of a large battle between many different forces upon exiting the menu. If you want epic battles, this is good for you! However, if this is something that doesn't sound appealing to you, it's recommended that you make changes to this mod while within settlements
• Sometimes enemies will attack settlements when you're nearby. Don't worry about your settlers. They can take care of themselves (they are protected and can not be killed by the enemies, only by you). However, increasing settlement defenses might not be a bad idea. Disabling New Spawns in the Mod Configuration Menu when you're spending time building in settlements helps
• It's recommended that all players start on medium settings and adjust to a level that's right for your game play style. This is especially true for users on slower computers. When using this mod at its higher settings, slower computers might encounter severe framerate reduction due to the immense amount of pure chaos taking place within your game.  This can also lead to CTD issues if the game is overtaxed on slower PCs.  If you start having CTD issues, the first thing you should do is lower the spawn settings
• Don't try to wander into the glowing sea until you are ready, the place is a dangerous warzone and is hazardous even at high character levels
  

Tactical Advice

• When facing weak mobs, it may be wise to conserve your ammo and use melee weapons instead. Use area attacks to break clustered enemies, your grenades and explosives are much more valuable here
• With the level of difficulty this mod provides, try to avoid enemies or disengage from a fight when you feel drastically outnumbered/outgunned/surrounded
• Take care to listen to your surroundings for distant gunfire, that may tell you where you should go, and what area you wish to avoid. Try to stay alert and do some recon before you enter large open land areas
• Always use terrain to your advantage, don't take a stand in a place with no cover. Use a jetpack to get to positions unreachable by the enemy, use mines and lure. Protect your flanks and back. Always be on the lookout for the places which can be useful in making a stand in case of facing overwhelming odds, and for possible escape routes
• Keep in mind that you don't have to fight every enemy you see or hear. They'll usually fight it out amongst another group nearby, this might give you the opportunity to sneak by undetected, or possibly lure one group of enemies into another while you collect whats left after they kill each other 
• Flank enemy groups engaging each other, selecting the side intended to win as your target. When the fight is coming to the end, shoot them in their backs, to eliminate all remaining resistance if necessary
• Use your settlements to your advantage. Settlements with good defenses set up can be excellent way to defeat grouped enemies by luring them to your settlement. Use them as safe zones where you can rest, replenish ammo at shops, use your settlement doctor to heal you up, etc. Use your settlement artillery to cluster/break enemy groups, or as way to clean  a passage through the area
  

INSTALLATION

If you are unfamiliar with modding, please read this to learn how to enable mods. 

• Otherwise, simply extract the contents of the provided mod archive into your Fallout4/Data folder 
• Navigate to /Users/Username/AppData/local/Fallout4
• Right-click on plugins.txt and remove the Read Only flag
• Edit plugins.txt and add this mod to the list
• Re-flag plugins.txt as Read Only
  
  

Also, due to the changes in game play, it is imperative to address the sprint problem, caused by changing game cells, which is encountered in any mod changing them. To fix this place the following entry in your Fallou4.ini and Fallout4Custom.ini, located in /Documents/My Games/Fallout4.

[Gameplay]
fPlayerDisableSprintingLoadingCellDistance=0

Note: You may find that the first new spawns will not play the proper animations. This happens when you load a save with the local area already cached by the game, if you travel a long away from that spot so the game can read new cells it will work just fine, fast travel also fixes that. It will also work perfect if you are visiting the area for the first time. This is not a bug, but normal game engine behavior.  You can also fix all cells by setting the options for the mod, enabling the new spawns, and then resting until all the cells reset normally.  For this reason I highly recommend using a mod that decreases the time it takes for cells to reset.


COMPATIBILITY

Due to the nature of the mod, it does not edit any game assets, it only adds new spawn points to the game. This should make the mod compatible with any other mod out there, regardless of it's nature. However, since this mod does alter encounter zone records, there may be a conflict with mods editing the same settings. Please not that this mod IS COMPATIBLE with another spawn mod More Spawns made by Varx but it could bring down game stability since More Spawns is known to cause CTD's.

NOTE: IF YOU ARE STARTING A NEW GAME, ACTIVATE THIS MOD AFTER LEAVING THE VAULT.


Recommended Mods

For good hardcore immersion I highly recommend that you use my mod in combination with the following mods:

1. More Spawns Mod by Varx
2. Re-Ballistic - Realistic Weapons and Ammo Overhaul by Tomdboss (Normal variant).
3. Enhanced Super Mutants Mod by me, with Re-Ballistic Core Fixed and Improved NPC rebalancer.
4. Bullet Time - Slow Time Mod by registrator2000
3. Faster respawn rate for NPCs and loots Configurable by Lordn00ke
4. Classic Power Armor Rebalance by Guapscotch
5. Worsin's Immersive Power Armor Garage by Worsin
6. 50 cal Lovin
7. Any indestructible power armor mod.

CREDITS

Varx (author of More Spawns Mod) for collaboration and input on general MOD idea; CrushBoss for help with description and testing; minimacdaddy, VATROU, astrobrain, ipodtim4ik, Sych224 for Mod testing and zilav for help with FO4Edit issues.