README - Horatio's NPC Enhanced 1.2
by Horatio
REQUIRES Aerelorn's Morrowind Enhanced V1.20 or later
You can get the latest version of it at: http://www.tessource.net/files/details.php?file=1297

contact: PM RevengeOfHoratio in the Elder Scrolls Forums. All feedback is welcome. Except complaints that it makes the game too hard.

NOTE: this mod contains Wakim's tweaks to NPC Flee AI. These values were taken from Wakim's Game Improvements. A fantastic mod. It will cause NPCs to flee when badly injured.

ANOTHER NOTE: I highly recommend using Morrowind Comes Alive (MCA) and PirateLord's Creatures mod with this plugin. MCA gives you a lot more random NPCs to fight and Creatures adds all sorts of Dreamer NPCs to Sixth house strongholds making them much more entertaining. Pretty much any mod that adds NPCs to fight works great with this.

1. OVERVIEW:
The purpose of this mod is to make combat with NPCs in Morrowind more interesting and challenging. The mod does this by giving NPCs new items (level based potions and marksman weapons) and abilities (hearing, sneaking, weapon switching). These changes will affect any NPC you fight. Including those added by other plugins. But only the vanilla NPC races are affected. Creatures are not affected. 


2. INSTALLATION:
This mod REQUIRES Aerelorn's Morrowind Enhanced V1.20 or later. Big props to Aerelorn for putting that together. Otherwise just put the appropriate esp in your data files directory and select it in the launcher. There are 3 esps to choose from (use only ONE of them):

Tribunal REQUIRED version:

HoratioNPCEnhanced12-Trib.esp

Bloodmoon REQUIRED version:

HoratioNPCEnhanced12-BM.esp

-this version adds a check for werewolves, which will not be affected by the scripts.
-this version also gives BM specific summoning potions (bonewolves, bears, etc) to nords. 

Cortex's Vampire Embrace version:

HoratioNPCEnhanced12-VE.esp

-Use this if you are running Vampire Embrace.
-Identical to the bloodmoon version, except that it will disable NPC mugging when you are in "Vampire Bite Mode".

If you have BOTH expansions, use ONLY the bloodmoon version or Vampire Embrace version.

***Either Tribunal or Bloodmoon is required for this mod to work.***


NEW FEATURES IN V1.1:

MUGGING:
NPCs can now be mugged when they're unconscious (this was actually in the first release of morrowind and removed, probably as the side effect of another fix, in a patch). 

EXISTING FEATURES:

3.1. NPC HEARING: 
NPCs in Morrwoind are no longer deaf. If you initiate combat with a NPC, after a period of time (approximately 10 seconds) any nearby NPCs which would normally attack the PC on sight will come running. The default 'hearing' distance is 2000 units (28.4 meters). This can be adjusted. Fleeing NPCs will alert other NPCs as they flee. The scripts can track 3 different 'noises' at once. Which should hopefully be enough.

**IMPORTANT NOTE** This change makes the game MUCH, MUCH, MUCH HARDER. I'm serious. If you don't take out a NPC quickly all hell will break loose. Especially if they run away and alert everyone. Do not send me emails complaining that it is too HARD. You have been warned. If it's too much you can alter the settings (detailed below).

3.2. NPC SNEAKING: 
Any NPC with sneak as a primary skill will go into "sneak mode" whenever they are out of sight of the PC. "Sneak mode" forces the NPC to use the sneak animation and gives the NPC a chameleon effect and increases their damage and chance to hit. It also makes them much easier to hit. As soon as any damage is done to the NPC, they will leave sneak mode until they lose line of sight with the player. Be careful of archers in sneak mode, they can be very deadly.

3.3. NPC POTIONS: 
All NPCs have a chance of getting various potions based on their level. The potions include: bound weapons, shield, healing, restore fatigue, reflect, and various summoning potions. High level NPCs may get some powerful speed boosting potions. I stayed away from most other effects (sanctuary, fortify strength, resist magicka etc) as they're visually uninteresting. NPC will usually drink the potions at appropriate times. Mage and Nord (Bloodmoon version only) NPCs will get slightly different potions.

3.4. NPC MARKSMAN ITEMS: 
Any NPC with marksman as a primary skill will be given level based marksman items. NPCs with marksman as a secondary skill have a base 50% chance of getting them, although this chance will increase with NPC level. As a result, most high level NPCs will have a ranged weapon available. This, combined with NPC hearing, makes for some interesting and rather lethal battles.

3.5. NPC WEAPON SWITCHING: 
NPCs with marksman weapons will switch to them if the PC is distant and switch back when the PC gets close. Occasionally they will whip out a bow when they're close to the PC but they'll usually switch back to melee after a shot or two. 

3.6. NPC "UNSTICKING": 
NPCs can detect if they are stuck on a terrain feature. They will try and jump towards the PC for a few seconds in order to get "unstuck". This feature doesn't always work perfectly. But hey, it's better than nothing. You'll appreciate it more the first time you have an Orc jump over a table to hit you with an axe.

3.7. NPC CALMING: 
If a calmed NPC suffers any damage while calmed they'll immediate become far less calm. They will also be impossible to calm afterwards unless you leave the cell and return. All NPCs have a 2*level chance of resisting the calm effect in general. So now you can use Calm Humanoid without feeling like you're cheating.

3.8. NPC AGGRESSIVENESS:
In vanilla Morrowind, NPCs would occasionally stop fighting and stand there doing nothing until the PC hits them again. This mod will detect if a NPC is in combat and has been standing motionless for a few seconds and force them to attack. Doesn't always work. Usually does.

3.9. NO OUTDOOR FLEEING: 
NPCs will only flee in interior cells. The reason for this is that most outdoor cells do not have path grids, which means that the fleeing NPC will run about 10ft away from the PC and then stop. If you still want NPCs to flee outdoors, type the following into the console:

set ho_flee_outside to 1


4. CHANGING MOD SETTINGS

4.1 DISABLING NPC BEHAVIOUR:
To turn off the enhanced NPC behaviour at any time, just type the following into the console:

set ho_stop_enhanced to 1

Set it to 0 to turn the behaviour back on.


4.2 CUSTOMIZING HEARING: 
To increase/reduce the amount of time you get before other NPCs start to hear you (after you've started combat with a NPC), type the following into the console:

set ho_noise_time to [# of seconds]

This value is set at 10 seconds by default. To increase it to 20 you'd type:

set ho_noise_time to 20

To increase/reduce the hearing range of NPCs. Type the following into the console:

set ho_listen_distance to [distance]

This value is set to 2000 game units by default. 1 unit is 1.42cm. Set it to zero if you want to disable the feature.


4.3 CUSTOMIZING POTION CHANCE:
To increase/reduce the chance of the NPCs getting various potions, type the following into the console:

set ho_potion_chance to [value]

The value is set to 1.00 by default. Setting it to 0.5 would make potions 50% as common.


5. KNOWN ISSUES/WARNINGS:
The scripts will only affect 10 NPCs at once. But if you're in combat with more than 10 NPCs you'll probably be reloading pretty soon anyway.

If you enter combat with an NPC and then somehow they become no longer hostile (calming, paying fines, etc) and you decide to pick their pockets DO NOT steal the "There is no spoon" spoons. These are used by the scripts to keep track of various things. I bear no responsibility for whatever weird behaviour occurs should you steal those spoons. 

Although it should be impossible you may somehow find a "There is no ring" on a corpse. This is used for the sneak effect (more reliable than spells). You can't wear it, but it is worth a lot of cash so you can sell it if you're feeling cheesy. But then you could just type player->additem "3 bazillion gold" if you really felt like it. 

Due to the complex nature of the scripts, on rare occasions a NPC will get confused and put away their weapon. After much testing I've only seen it happen a handful of times. Just poke them with something pointy to remind them they're in combat. 


6. CONFLICTS:
Some mods that have scripted NPC combat behaviour, which could cause problems. Please let me know if you find any. 

The mugging feature can cause problems with "boxing/barfighting mods" like the 'Broken Drum'. NPCs that should only be using hand-to-hand may suddenly whip out a crossbow. Disabling enhanced NPC behaviour (4.1) will fix any problems.

This mod has been thoroughly cleaned with TESAME and makes absolutely NO alterations to anything in the original game.


TO FELLOW MODDERS:
If you have concerns that this may conflict with your mod. Let me know and I'll try and make a compatibility patch or somesuch.


VERSION HISTORY:

V1.2

- final version. i'm wiping morrowind off my HDD. too much of a timesink.
- fixed a bug with combat scripts occasionally not working if you have a companion with you.
- hopefully fixed a bug with VE where hostiles you had "embraced" start attacking you. i don't use VE, so who knows?

V1.1

- added mugging back in. made it so vampire embrace users could turn it off.

VERSION 1

- removed mugging.
- NPCs switch to ranged weapons more frequently.
- Ranged weapon lists improved and chance now increases with NPC level.
- NPCs will resume attacking PC after a few seconds if they start to "space out".
- "Unsticking" code tweaked.

BETA 4

- restructured scripts to allow for different items for different NPC types.
- added mage specific potions
- added nord specific potions
- fixed rare crashes with scripts becoming untargeted after saving or 72 hours.
- fixed undeclared variable in the listening scripts
- tweaked potion/marksman item distribution
- 'listening' NPCs will now attack PC if he's making of noise in line of sight, even if the PC is out of hearing range.

BETA 3

- fixed a bug that caused non-hostile NPCs (e.g. Divath Fyr) to attack the player after casting a helpful spell
on the player.
- set really powerful potion selection to NPCs > 20 level, rather than > 19, so that most guards no longer have 
uber potions. 

BETA 2 

- Scripts no longer run on  companions, followers and escorts. 
- Scripts no longer run on werewolves.
- Added ho_stop_enhanced variable to kill scripts.

BETA 1 

- Initial BETA release

THANKS:

Thanks to all the modders out there. Especially to Aerelorn for creating MW Enhanced and Tonto_101 for putting together the MWE development kit. And to ps33 for all the beta feedback.
