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About this mod
Adds new spawn locations for both existing and new NPCs in the overworlds and dungeons, including the Shivering Isles.
- Requirements
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- Changelogs
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Overview
"Living Oblivion" adds roughly 866 new spawn locations from which both existing and new NPCs created by this mod can spawn (188 for the overworlds and 678 for the dungeons). It also covers the Shivering Isles. With this mod, the overabundant dungeons of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will be less monotonous, and you will no longer feel like the only person exploring the world. Furthermore, performance has been kept in mind: generally, affected dungeons have had no more than two new spawns added, and these only have a 25% chance of spawning NPCs (the exception to this is sewers, which have a spawn chance of 75%). Overworld spawns have a higher chance of spawning NPCs, but are more spread out and only spawn one copy of NPCs that would otherwise spawn in pairs.
New NPCs
While the new spawns have a small chance of spawning existing enemy types (e.g., necromancers, bandits, goblins, etc.), they mostly spawn new NPCs created for this mod:
Cyrodiil:
- Beggars (only found in the Imperial City sewers).
- Fighters Guild Apprentices.
- Forgotten Miners (only found in mines; spawns in pairs).
- Hunters (only found in the overworld. They can get into fights with the Imperial Legion. Maybe some of them are poachers?).
- Imperial Legion Soldiers (only found in the Imperial City sewers and outside Oblivion Gates).
- Impoverished Farmers (spawns in pairs).
- Mages Guild Field Researchers.
- Pirate Plunderers (hostile; spawns in pairs).
- Skooma Addicts.
Shivering Isles:
- Felldew Addicts (hostile).
- Wood Elf Tricksters (hostile).
Things to note
Balance
This is a big mod, and I am only one person. The balance may be slightly off, and the Shivering Isles portion has only been lightly playtested. Let me know if you experience any shenanigans.
Structure of the mod and customizability
The mod comes with three plugins:
- "LivingOblivionMaster.esm" is the master file that contains most of the new records except for the spawns themselves.
- "LivingOblivionDungeons.esp" contains all the dungeon spawns. It also edits the "AdventurerFaction" faction. Disable or delete it if you do not want the new dungeon spawns.
- "LivingOblivionOverworlds.esp" contains all the overworld spawns. It also edits the "LL1DaedricBeastOlivionGate100 [sic]" leveled creature. Disable or delete it if you do not want the new overworld spawns.
If you want to edit the spawn chances, open "LivingOblivionMaster.esm" in xEdit and change the "Chance None" value of any leveled creature with "Spawner" in its name. For example, a "Chance None" value of 75 means that there would be a 25% chance of an NPC spawning.
Struggling with performance?
Spoiler:
This section is primarily meant for people that feel that their performance is being impacted by this mod, and who wish to squeeze out some extra performance.
NPCs are notoriously expensive in Oblivion. Perhaps Bethesda added too many polygons to their head meshes, or perhaps the FaceGen code is needlessly complex. Either way, two of the easiest solutions include disabling actor shadows and turning down the Actor Fade slider. I recommend doing both: the former because actor shadows are not visually impactful enough to warrant their performance cost (in my opinion), and the latter because Oblivion does not have occlusion culling, which means that when you are in a dungeon, that entire dungeon is rendered, even the parts that you cannot see. Indeed, if you have the Actor Fade slider set to its maximum, and there are NPCs fighting each other deep in the dungeon (which is not an uncommon occurence with this mod), the game is still rendering all of that even if you cannot see it. This is made even worse if the NPCs are spellcasters, because their spells emit dynamic lights, with which the game's engine struggles. You may want to consider using my "No Spell Lights" mod if you are desperate for even more performance (found on the same page as my "Deadlier Spellcasters" mod). You can also try turning off the game's expensive water reflections, but it will make the water look awful. Most of all, I recommend trying out DXVK, which in my experience noticeably improves performance in these crappy DirectX 9 games.
I have provided an optional mod called "Lower Poly Heads" that uses seemingly unused, lower quality head meshes found in the game files to increase performance. With many NPCs present and the Actor Fade slider cranked to the maximum for testing purposes, I gain roughly 5-10 extra FPS in the Imperial City Market District. The quality loss is subtle enough to not bother me. It does not affect the beast races.
Your mileage may vary regarding all of this. Maybe you will not notice a performance impact at all with this mod, or maybe DXVK worsens instead of improves performance for you.
Show
This section is primarily meant for people that feel that their performance is being impacted by this mod, and who wish to squeeze out some extra performance.
NPCs are notoriously expensive in Oblivion. Perhaps Bethesda added too many polygons to their head meshes, or perhaps the FaceGen code is needlessly complex. Either way, two of the easiest solutions include disabling actor shadows and turning down the Actor Fade slider. I recommend doing both: the former because actor shadows are not visually impactful enough to warrant their performance cost (in my opinion), and the latter because Oblivion does not have occlusion culling, which means that when you are in a dungeon, that entire dungeon is rendered, even the parts that you cannot see. Indeed, if you have the Actor Fade slider set to its maximum, and there are NPCs fighting each other deep in the dungeon (which is not an uncommon occurence with this mod), the game is still rendering all of that even if you cannot see it. This is made even worse if the NPCs are spellcasters, because their spells emit dynamic lights, with which the game's engine struggles. You may want to consider using my "No Spell Lights" mod if you are desperate for even more performance (found on the same page as my "Deadlier Spellcasters" mod). You can also try turning off the game's expensive water reflections, but it will make the water look awful. Most of all, I recommend trying out DXVK, which in my experience noticeably improves performance in these crappy DirectX 9 games.
I have provided an optional mod called "Lower Poly Heads" that uses seemingly unused, lower quality head meshes found in the game files to increase performance. With many NPCs present and the Actor Fade slider cranked to the maximum for testing purposes, I gain roughly 5-10 extra FPS in the Imperial City Market District. The quality loss is subtle enough to not bother me. It does not affect the beast races.
Your mileage may vary regarding all of this. Maybe you will not notice a performance impact at all with this mod, or maybe DXVK worsens instead of improves performance for you.
Compatibility
This mod was made for vanilla and will likely conflict with mods like "Better Dungeons" and "Unique Landscapes." However, I imagine that the worst that can happen with those mods is just that some of my spawns might be placed inside of objects added by those mods.
Load this mod before mods that change the properties of many cells, such as lighting mods. In general, loading this mod high up should be fine, as it barely makes any changes to existing records. For "LivingOblivionMaster.esm," the load order is completely irrelevant as it exclusively contains new records.