Improved Vampires (v19)

[AnonymousHero]

First off, I really like the improved vampires -- they're actually moderately challenging now. The only issue with the vampires themselves is the extremely long duration of the Drink Blood CON drain.

 

That said, there are a couple of bugs (or not, as the case may be) that struck me during my current playthrough:

 

- The "rats" called by the vampires often appear close to invisble characters and the rats tend to surround invisible characters even though they can't actually see them. Of course this may be a technical limitation of the engine, but it seems extremely odd and may lead to the character getting completely boxed in (through not fault of their own -- they're invisible for tactical reasons), especially in confined areas. Is it possible to change this?

- I've noticed that some vampires during the nighttime ambushes almost immediately turn into bats and simply disappear through nearby doors. (For example, in the bridge district when entering from the north the spawn point is near the door where you find the Horn of Valhalla. I find that at least one vampire usually escapes here.) This may of course be intentional behaviour, but it seems a little odd since they are the ones ambushing CHARNAME.

 

Anyway, thanks for a great mod, DavidW!

[Guest T]

- The "rats" called by the vampires often appear close to invisble characters and the rats tend to surround invisible characters even though they can't actually see them. Of course this may be a technical limitation of the engine, but it seems extremely odd and may lead to the character getting completely boxed in (through not fault of their own -- they're invisible for tactical reasons), especially in confined areas. Is it possible to change this?

 

I suspect it might be an engine issue. This type of pathway-tracking of an invisible character happens with other adversaries too.

[Ardanis]

It's possible to avoid, but needs quite more scripting.

 

Perhaps rats smell PC and then try to come to thier senses after being kicked by empty air?

[phordicus]

I suspect it might be an engine issue. This type of pathway-tracking of an invisible character happens with other adversaries too.

Why would you suspect the engine? This is all scripting here. The AI is being told to go to Player(x) or Player(rand) without checking or ignoring if it can See() him or not. It's also the reason SCS will send enemies after party members that are on the other side of the map and have no way of even knowing of their existence.

[AnonymousHero]

It's possible to avoid, but needs quite more scripting.

 

Perhaps rats smell PC and then try to come to thier senses after being kicked by empty air?

That rationalization doesn't really make sense to me in terms of the game's rules. No other monsters are able to smell characters, and there are several types which "should" have a very acute sense of smell (Werewolves, etc.).

 

Anyway, the main issue for me is getting boxed in because of the engine's limited collision detection. It's really annoying (and dangerous in no-reload) since no such limitation would exist IRL -- you'd simply step over the rats.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

I suspect it might be an engine issue. This type of pathway-tracking of an invisible character happens with other adversaries too.

 

No, this is purely a matter of scripting.

 

When enemies can't see any valid targets, they behave according to their search script. Some AI mods (i.e. Quest Pack, RR and aTweaks) let them walk around randomly until they stumble upon a valid target. Other mods (i.e. Tactics and SCS) script enemies to simply walk up to Player1, even if he's invisible or even on the other side of the map. This creates the aforementioned clutter behavior.

[Guest T]

Sorry guys; I'm no programmer. I just thought that since it seemed to happen to widely various adversaries that it was happening regardless of scripting. If you say it's because they share scripts then I believe you

[amanasleep]

IMO this is the only problem with SCS that I'd like addressed. Everything else is minor compared to this. Perhaps one day DavidW will return?

[phordicus]

Vanilla does this, too. The example I remember are the shadows that spawn post-lightgem grab in the temple of amaunator; their scripts say move to Player1 if they don't see any [PC]s. The same thing's happening here.

 

Can't recall now, but I think these search blocks are in David's shout scripts. Maybe check there in NI.