[MOD] Mercenaries

A curated forum for compatible and maintained mods. Users are unable to create new topics in this forum but can reply to existing topics. Please message a moderator to have your mod moved into this forum area.
imsobadatnicknames
Posts: 371
Joined: Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:28 pm
Location: Colombia

[MOD] Mercenaries

Post by imsobadatnicknames »

Having trouble with monsters and bandits? Why not hire a little help?

This mod gives the player the ability to hire mercenaries at certain taverns, both to healp with though fights and to serve as a moneysink for you to spend all that hoarded gold on.
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

How does it work?

This mod uses the quests system to occasionally spawn an NPC in random taverns who will sell you a "mercenary contract". They will spawn 6 hours after you enter any city, hamlet, village or inn, and they will be despawned and replaced with another npc at a different tavern (if possible) every 6 hours. Activating this contract from your inventory will cause 4 adventurer NPCs to spawn and fight by your side. As these mercenaries will be tied to your level, the cost will increase as your level increases. The cost will start at 1000 and will increase by 1000 for every 3 level ups, up until 10000 at level 27. Asking around for rumors can help you find what tavern this NPC is at.

Have in mind that the contract can only be used once and NPCs summoned with this method will do nothing if there's nothing for them to fight, and they can't move from exterior to interior locations or viceverse, so if you use this contract at a location where there are no enemies you essentially wasted your money. Have in mind too that most quest enemies don't have infighting activated, so they probably won't get attacked by these mercenaries (two enemies will only fight each other if they have infighting activated and they're assigned to different teams). Sadly, short of editing every quest to activate infighting for every quest enemy, there's not much I can do about it.

UPDATE for version 2.0
I updated the mechanics to make it so that you'll be able to summon the mercenaries more than once. Now you'll be able to hire the mercenaries for a month, and you'll be able to summon them into battle up to 30 times within that month. However, you will only get a new contract to summon them into battle again if you enter/exit any world location (city, hamlet, village, dungeon, etc) to prevent you from just summoning them several times in a row to have an army.

I think that's as good as I can make it with the quest system as it currently exists. It's still got some problems, like being able to summon the mercenaries again after you've seen them die (i tried to somewhat remedy this by displaying a popup message that says they're "incapacitated") and mercenaries randomly switching genders every time you summon them (this is an inevitable quirk of the DFU quest system, as the gender of human foes will always be random)
Also, mercenaries now talk to you if you click them :D


UPDATE for version 2.1
Okay so... after playing around for a bit with version 2.0, I realized how clumsy the "get a new contract to summon the mercenaries again every time you enter/exit a site" thing was, as you'd inevitably end up with multiple copies of the contract from repeatedly entering and exiting sites (especially if you use Tedious Travel), so I decided to just allow the player to summon the mercenaries once a day for 30 days. Every day you will get a new contract in your inventory to summon them, and the contract from the previous day will disappear if unused. I think that's a much more elegant solution than the one I implemented in version 2.0, even if it means I had to buffer the quest out with 30 different timers :p

UPDATE for version 2.2
Replaced the flats for the NPC that sells you the contract for more appropriate ones

UPDATE for version 2.3
I finally addressed the biggest problem with this mod. Everyone knows by now it's very annoying when you summon your allies, but after they've finished helping you they keep teleporting to your location, interrupting your fast travel, and preventing you from resting. That's over now. Now when you use your mercenary contract, you'll receive a bell in your inventory. You can ring this bell to give your allies the order to retreat. They won't disappear right away, but they will stop teleporting to you location and preventing you from tavelling/resting.

Image


Image
Image
Image
Image


Installation

1. Download the file.
2. Unzip the file inside StreamingAssets/Questpacks
3. If you're starting a new game, it should start working right away. If you're using it on a game you already started, you'll need to open up the console and type startquest MCMASTER to get it running. If this doesn't work, your version of DFU might only be able to start quests inside StreamingAssets/Quests from the console, so try moving the contents of the folder to StreamingAssets/Quests and try again.

You can download it at the Nexus https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/111/

Or simply get it from this post!
Attachments
Mercenaries 2.3.rar
(13.88 KiB) Downloaded 133 times
Mercenaries v2.1 .rar
(13.67 KiB) Downloaded 215 times
Mercenaries v2.0 .rar
(15.57 KiB) Downloaded 181 times
Last edited by imsobadatnicknames on Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:33 am, edited 8 times in total.
Released mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/users/5141135 ... files&BH=0
Daggerfall isn't the only ridiculously intrincate fantasy world simulator with the initials DF that I make mods for: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=177071.0

User avatar
emmathepony
Posts: 248
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2019 5:26 pm

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by emmathepony »

Very interesting take for companions, will keep an eye on it!

User avatar
Baler
Posts: 225
Joined: Thu May 23, 2019 1:39 am
Location: Earth

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by Baler »

OH now this I like! :D

Thanks for sharing with us! (thanks for putting it on nexus)
great work

'compansions' in the later elder scrolls games are a massive part of the game for many. While i'm a loaner, I know people spend hours perfecting their hirelings.

imsobadatnicknames
Posts: 371
Joined: Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:28 pm
Location: Colombia

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by imsobadatnicknames »

Thank you all for the positive feedback:
To be quite honest, eve afer posting his I wasn't happy with the way I implemented it. My original idea for this was that you'd hire the mercenaries for a month and you'd be able to summon them as many times as you want within that one-month timeframe, with a cooldown time to prevent you from just summoning them 10 times in a row and having a giant army. However, since the lack of resetable timers in the quest system makes this pretty much impossible to implement, I ended up going with the version you see above.

However, In the last two days I came up with a better implementation and rewrote the whole thing.
Now you'll be able to hire the mercenaries for a month, and you'll be able to summon them into battle up to 30 times within that month. However, you will only get a new contract to summon them into battle again if you enter/exit any world location (city, hamlet, village, dungeon, etc) to prevent you from just summoning them several times in a row.

Of course, this is still not the way I wanted to implement it, but it's a lot closer than the previous version, and it's as good as I can make it with the quest system as it currently exists. It's still got some problems, like being able to summon the mercenaries again after you've seen them die (i tried to somewhat remedy this by displaying a popup message that says they're "incapacitated") and mercenaries randomly switching genders every time you summon them (this is an inevitable quirk of the DFU quest system, as the gender of human foes will always be random)

Also, mercenaries now talk to you if you click them :D

Image
Image
Image
Image
Attachments
Mercenaries v2.0 .rar
(15.57 KiB) Downloaded 172 times
Released mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/users/5141135 ... files&BH=0
Daggerfall isn't the only ridiculously intrincate fantasy world simulator with the initials DF that I make mods for: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=177071.0

beastdrew111
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2020 9:01 pm

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by beastdrew111 »

I downloaded the mod on Daggerfall workshop and Nexus Mods. But when i download it and extract the file there is no .dfmod packeges. Was there an extra thing to do? :|

User avatar
NikitaTheTanner
Posts: 366
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2015 7:57 pm

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

Hey, beastdrew111! This mod actually comes as a number of quests, rather than a separate .dfmod package. It doesn't need to be activated or anything, just unpack the archive inside of [Path to DF_Unity]\DaggerfallUnity_Data\StreamingAssets\QuestPacks and you should be good. No need to get quest files out of the Mercenaries folder, it should work as is.

beastdrew111
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2020 9:01 pm

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by beastdrew111 »

NikitaTheTanner wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 9:19 pm Hey, beastdrew111! This mod actually comes as a number of quests, rather than a separate .dfmod package. It doesn't need to be activated or anything, just unpack the archive inside of [Path to DF_Unity]\DaggerfallUnity_Data\StreamingAssets\QuestPacks and you should be good. No need to get quest files out of the Mercenaries folder, it should work as is.
Thank you, i just reread the original post and realized it.

beastdrew111
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2020 9:01 pm

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by beastdrew111 »

so I put the file into the quest packs and loaded the game and since I had already started I did the console command startquest MCMASTER. Was it supposed to be in the quest log as well? If not what do i do.
ah it just dawned on me that maybe there is no log and i just got to got to a tavern.

imsobadatnicknames
Posts: 371
Joined: Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:28 pm
Location: Colombia

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by imsobadatnicknames »

beastdrew111 wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 9:52 pm so I put the file into the quest packs and loaded the game and since I had already started I did the console command startquest MCMASTER. Was it supposed to be in the quest log as well? If not what do i do.
ah it just dawned on me that maybe there is no log and i just got to got to a tavern.
It doesn't appear on your quest log. Whenever you enter a city, the NPC that sells you the mercenary contract is spawned in a random tavern in the city. Sometimes you can find out their location by asking about rumors or news (NPCs will sometimes tell you "There's a group of mercenaries at <tavern name> looking for work" when asked about news), but it's not guaranteed. Usually you'll just eventually run into them after visiting a few taverns.
Released mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/users/5141135 ... files&BH=0
Daggerfall isn't the only ridiculously intrincate fantasy world simulator with the initials DF that I make mods for: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=177071.0

User avatar
Kamer
Posts: 583
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:26 pm

Re: [MOD] Mercenaries

Post by Kamer »

Finally started playing Daggerfall again. This is a pretty neat mod but not being able to rest around your allies is annoying. Mind if I take a crack at it to see if I can enable this? It really breaks the experience.

Post Reply