I'm very interested in learning how spawn points and enemy armor ratings work in the game...I have some ideas of certain things I want to do with the in game spawn points...so I want to know from anyone who knows how do t hey work?

Certain key information I would like to know is:

Spawn Information:

1. How does the game specify what loads in certain geographical locations? Like if a Frost Atronach spawns in a cold area, or a black wolf spawns on the plains, how does the game know "Okay these enemies should spawn here, and nothing else should spawn here"?

2. Tied into 1: How does the game specify what coordinates in the world stand as a specific area type? Like how does it know that points 128, 128 -> 0,0 in a certain radius stand as "ice areas", or mountainous terrain, or w/e else.

3. If an enemy spawns in a specific place...such as Draugr/Skeletons in and near ruins, how does the game know which Draugr and Skeletons should spawn there?

4. If I wanted to add more enemy variants (with new meshes for example) in lists such as Draugr/Skeletons/Giants, what kind of record(s) should I be editing to make sure those variants can spawn alongside the original variants? Or alternatively, if I wanted those variants to only spawn in specific areas, how could I specify that?

5. If spawn points are placed in the world at various places (hand placing maybe?), how do you specify what can come out of that spawn point?

Armor Rating/NPC Information

1. If I create armor for an enemy, such as armor for Sabrecats, and its added onto the cat as an Outfit record (but I give the armor a specific armor rating), will the Sabercat gain "armor"? What about a humanoid type such as a Giant/Draugr? If no to both, how does the game calculate NPC armor ratings?

2. When changing the stats of an enemy, like health or skill values, what stats affect what in game? Do stats work the same as the Player character?

3. How does a person create a boss/leader type of enemy that has minions who follow it, and attack all hostile parties as a group?


That should be all... Thanks in advance!

Spawn points:
1. The spawn points in the world that were placed by the dev specifies what spawns there, to a certain point. They specifically place a leveled frost troll, or wolf etc.

2. As for how it knows what places are 'icy' and what-not (Even though that's not used in determining spawns), that could all be done with regions. (Weather is done with regions, for example)

3. Again, the developers specifically told the game to spawn draugr and skeletons there. The specific type is chosen from the difficulty set by the dev, and a levelled list.

4. Look at something like LvlBanditBoss, or find the Draugr equivalent (I'm not sure what it is, but it would be something like 'LvlDraugr*') then figure out the structure of the form lists. Then add your new models into the bottom, and it will choose from them in additional to the vanilla ones.

5. Yup, hand placed and you pick what spawns by placing a different object there. If you place a LvlBanditBoss, a Bandit Boss will spawn there. If you place a 'LvlDeer' there, a deer will spawn there.

Thanks for the response! Ah so all the spawn points are hand placed, but there are spawn lists for those spawn points...I see.

So if I wanted to add some new functionality such as custom enemies spawning in only specific areas, I'd have to add those spawn points myself then? If so, then is there any tutorials for placing stuff like that in the world safely? I've never edited the worldspace before so I'm a bit scared :X

Also, any information on the armor rating/NPC questions?