When Vampires Attack

A small mod that makes citizens in a village or city run indoors during a random vampire attack. This includes eclipse attacks as well.

This was born out of frustration at seeing the citizens all trying to be a hero and rushing headlong to their doom attacking master vampires. Instead, the citizens will run to safety like smart people should when faced with the horrors of the undead. NPCs who live in the attack location who own a home there will retreat to it. If the attack location has an inn, NPCs who don't live there will flee to the inn, along with any NPCs who live outdoors. If no inn is present the game picks a random interior from the surrounding area and those NPCs will flee there instead.

This should work for any NPCs added by mods as well, up to a limit of 150 in the area. After that, they're on their own. The NPCs chosen are first come, first serve by the game engine.

Guards, members of The Companions, Vigilants of Stendaar, the Dawnguard, and the player's followers/teammates will not run, they will stand and fight. Farm animals will not run either, because they're stupid. That includes your horse.

Download Locations

Skyrim Nexus - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/28235/
TES Alliance - http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/1404-when-vampires-attack/
Dark Creations - http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/files/file/544-when-vampires-attack/

Installation Requirements

Official Skyrim patch 1.8.151.0.7 or greater.
Official Dawnguard DLC.

Installation - Wrye Bash BAIN

Drop the archive into your Skyrim Mods\Bash Installers folder, then install as usual.
Make sure the mod is active in the Wrye Bash mods tab.

Installation - Nexus Mod Manager

Use the "Download with Manager" button on the When Vampires Attack page at Skyrim Nexus. The installer should take care of things from there.
Then simply make sure NMM has the mod activated.

Installation - Manual

Drop the When Vampires Attack.esp and When Vampires Attack.bsa files into your Data folder.
Activate the mod using whatever management tool suits you.

Uninstall

Remove the two files from the Data folder.

This mod has no continually updating scripts so the contamination of your save game will be minimal.

Known Issues

Sometimes it may appear as though NPCs are stuck. It is not known why this occurs, and it's unlikely the protection system has kicked in. This is probably due to an unknown incompatibility with another mod.

It is possible for Dawnguard to spawn a separate random attack in the same area as one of the eclipse attacks, resulting in two separate attack events. Efforts have been made to detect this, but it is not well tested and may not work entirely as expected.

If an attack location has more than 150 NPCs to protect, only the first 150 will fill the quest aliases. After that, any leftovers are on their own and can still be killed! 150 NPC slots is enough to protect all of Solitude running Open Cities Skyrim with 60 slots left open. That ought to be more than enough.

The alias fill casts a very wide net, do not be surprised if you see Khajiit from the caravans come in to seek shelter from an attack, or other NPCs who commonly live outside of a major city.

Compatibility

Fully compatible with the Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.

Tested and confirmed to work with Open Cities Skyrim.

Mods for Dawnguard which alter the following quests will not be compatible without a patch:

DLC1EclipseAttack1 - Eclipse Attack: Gargoyles
DLC1EclipseAttack2 - Eclipse Attack: Vampire and thralls
DLC1EclipseAttack3 - Eclipse Attack: Vampires and Gargoyles
DLC1EclipseAttack4 - Eclipse Attack: Death Hounds
DLC1EclipseAttack5 - Eclipse Attack: Vampires and Death Hounds
DLC1EclipseAttack6 - Eclipse Attack: Vampires, Gargoyles and Death Hounds (Oh, my)
DLC1RadiantDisguisedVampireLordSpawner - Disguised Vampire Lord - Change Location

How to Make it Work With Your Mod

In order for the system in place to work with a mod added location, a few things need to be set up.

1. A location should be established with the keyword LocTypeHabitation.
2. This location requires a marker with its location reference type set to LocationCenterMarker. This works best outdoors as close to the geographic center of your area as possible.
3a. If your settlement has an inn, you can have that become usable by flagging it as LocTypeInn. It must be set as a child location of the location in step 1.
3b. If you do not hav an inn, then you need at least one interior with the LocTypeDwelling keyword set. It must be a child location of the location from step 1.
4. In the interior from step 3, a marker with its location reference type set to LocationCenterMarker must be placed. This is the target the AI packs will look for.

When all 4 steps are complete, nothing further needs to be done. When vampires attack your village, settlement, city, or whatever, the citizens will flee. Where they go depends on a few things:

A. If they are already indoors, they will be made to stay there for the duration of the attack.
B. If they are outside and have a home in the city that is marked as LocTypeDwelling, they will go there.
C. If the city has an inn, any non-resident or outdoor living NPCs will go there.
D. If none of the above are true, the game will select a random interior from your area matching the LocTypeDwelling keyword and the NPCs will flee there.

For example, in Solitude, the city has an inn. Any NPCs in the area who don't have a home flee there consistently.

In a place like Darkwater Crossing, where there is no inn, the NPCs have two choices. Either the mine or the one house. More often than not, the game would choose the mine.

Neat