Intro

While working on a major update of NPCs Learn Skills and Spells I've tried to figure out how to make Eagle Eye and Steady Hands useful for NPCs, one thing led to another and here it is - NPCs Learn to Aim :)

DISCLAIMER
This mod also can work on Player. I feel like name might be a bit deceptive in this regard :)
I created this mod as part of NPCs Learn series, so I really wanted to preserve the name, but at the same time the emerged opportunity to support Player's aim was too tempting and I couldn't discard it.

Overview

NPCs Learn to Aim is an SKSE mod that refines existing Vanilla mechanic for NPC archers while also expanding it to mages and the Player. Each NPC will have a notable accuracy difference depending on their level in corresponding skill. This enables a few new tactics where you could debuff NPC's aiming skill (like Archery) and decreasing their threat, by making them miss most of the shots.

It also makes each ranged specialization (bows, crossbows, spells, staves) mechanic feel more unique. Bows are easy to use, but harder to master, Crossbows simplify shooting, but harder to use compared to bows, staves are a bit more difficult to aim than spells with your barehand.

The mod comes with a very detailed INI configuration where you can disable or enable aiming for individual ranged specializations as well as tweak how much skill affects the accuracy. See Customization section for details.

In NPCs Learn to Aim NPC's accuracy is determined by two factors:

• Aim - ability to accurately point the weapon at the target
• Release - ability to fire a projectile at the desired aim point (this is what Vanilla game has for archers)
  

To make each ranged specialization feel more unique, each type has different difficulty for Aim and Release. So, for example, an NPC with Archery level 30 would shoot fairly poorly with a Bow but would show much better accuracy if given a crossbow.


NPCs Learn

Bows

Bows are the most common ranged weapon in Skyrim. They are quite straightforward when it comes to aiming, but require more skill to properly release the arrow to hit the desired target.



Crossbows

Crossbows are meant to eliminate the problem of poor release and drastically reduce the entry skill level required to decently shoot at targets. However, they are a bit bulkier than bows and aiming requires some practice.



Spells

Spells, being casted with your hands, make aiming feel very natural, thus easy. However, controlling magic projectiles and releasing them at the right point takes some skill.



Staves

Staves, being great ready-to-use pre-charged spells, come in handy as they don't require any magicka from a mage. Aiming them might feel a bit weird and requires getting used to. But projectile release is notably easier than hand-casted spells, since staff handles it consistently.




Player Learns

While main focus of the mod is to add some depth to NPCs, the way it's implemented automatically makes it work for Player. So, if you want to experience what NPCs have to deal with you can enable this feature (you can pick a preset during FOMOD installation or manually enable/disable this feature in INI file).

Only release factor is dependent on Player's character skill. While aiming is a pure Player's skill. To make it a bit more challenging you can disable crosshair and learn to aim the hard way :)

NOTE
For Player's sake the mod's effect is tuned down for Player, compared to what NPCs go through, so that stray shots are less annoying.

You can increase or decrease it further in the INI file.

Bows

While aiming purely depends on Player, releasing arrows will take practice (e.g. progressing Archery), so that unless you invest in Archery you won't be able to become a sniper right at the beginning of the game.
 



Crossbows

Given that crossbows provide near perfect release (by default), once you figure out how to aim with crossbows, they become a perfect way of leveling up Archery with much less random shots :) however, since they are less common to come across, it might be harder to have enough bolts supplies.




Spells

Pretty much the same as bows. You figure out how to aim with hands and practice your release (skill) until it becomes second nature to your character.

NOTE
By default, accuracy is calculated based on the magic skill associated with the spell being casted.
So that while mastering Destruction skill will give you near perfect release of Destruction spells,
you'd struggle with releasing Restoration spells, unless you level up Restoration skill too.

This can also be customized in INI.

Staves

Staves have a slightly better release than spells for the Player.




Customization

You can customize just about any aspect of the mod. INI configuration with detailed comments is included with the mod, so you can explore and experiment with it :) Note, that mod does not reload the settings so you'll have to restart the game after you change them.

First of all, NPCs Learn to Aim is built (and balanced) around Vanilla game settings, so by changing them you can globally control mod's effect on both NPCs and the Player:

• fCombatRangedAimVariance (default: 0.9) - a maximum multiplier for aiming offsets. Changing it only affects NPCs. Decrease it to make aiming less disperse, 0 value will effectively disable the aiming factor on NPCs. In the mod this is multiplier is further affected by skill factor, but generally value of this setting corresponds an aim multiplier at skill level 40. The multiplier is twice of that value at skill level 10.
  

• fCombatAimProjectileRandomOffset (default: 16) - a flat aiming offset that will be further multiplied by a random multiplier based on skill and fCombatRangedAimVariance. Changing it only affects NPCs. Increasing this value will affect by how much NPC's aim will be offseted from the perfect aim point.
  

• fBowNPCSpreadAngle (default: 4) - a maximum angle (in degrees) of projectile's deflection upon release. Changing this setting will affect both NPCs and the Player. This has a similar effect as aiming offset, but controls specifically release factor. Decreasing it will reduce projectile's spread. 0 value will guarantee perfect shots at aiming point.
  

NOTE
All INI settings can be set separately for Player and NPCs

Use highest magic skill

Spells and staves can use the highest magic skill for all spells, rather than requiring to level up magic skill associated with the spell. For example, once you're master of Destruction you can just as accurately cast Restoration, Illusion or other spells.

This option is disabled by default.


Staves use Enchanting skill

Makes staves accuracy depend on wielder's Enchanting skill, rather than magic skill associated with the spell (or highest magic skill). This option makes less sense for NPCs since there aren't many NPCs that invest in Enchanting skill. However, for the Player this might be an interesting flavor.

This option is disabled by default.


Skill multipliers

If global settings are too broad or sensitive for your needs, you can further customize how much skill affects accuracy of each individual ranged specialization, both for NPCs and the Player.


Blindness

Cool feature that po3 suggested :) NPCs that are blind will have a severe debuff on aiming, requiring them to have much higher skill to be able to aim properly. However, their release is slightly buffed to depict improved other senses. Albeit, there are not many blind NPCs, especially archers (hopefully some other mods make use of blindness effect). You can still customize the impact of Blindness on NPC's accuracy.


Compatibility

NPCs Learn to Aim should be compatible with pretty much everything.

It also comes with a handy way to include/exclude certain NPCs using keywords. By default, mod is enabled for all NPCs with ActorTypeNPC (which should be all playable races). Providing custom keywords in sIncludeKeywords or sExcludeKeywords in the INI to enable or disable individual NPCs. Use power of SPID to provide any logic you'd like.

True Directional Movement's Target Lock feature is incompatible with Player Learns module :) once you've locked a target TDM takes over projectile trajectory calculations and makes it always a perfect hit.


Support
Thank you for using my mods! If you enjoy them and would like to support me, you can use the links below.