Failed attempt to customize the recruits around Fort Dawnguard

I'll keep this quick. The MCM Menu now works fully and the main group of Sentries are now able to be toggled between "essential" (for players on the side of Dawnguard who want maximum protection) and respawn only for those playing vampires or who want more realism / immersion.

Sentires have still tested neutral towards Vampire player characters who do NOT start fights, drain people or have a crime bounty in their hold. Likewise the essential toggle has tested fine in Whiterun and Riverwood for me.

FINALLY got an update to upload here. HUGE thanks to EnaiSaiion (maker of the Apocalypse Magic mod), for helping me solve my problems with the Workshop.

OK, so here's what's new... First, I've tweaked the Sentries AI yet again to try to resolve Engineer Alf's issue. They should be more aggressive towards dragons and NPC vampires, but have tested non-hostile toward the player and followers so long as you don't attack or go vampire on people. They're still guards, so if you have a crime bounty they may arrest or attack you.

The biggest change is the beginning of a whole new era for this mod. I got a MCM menu *shell* configured. FOR THE MOMENT, this means you'll see an empty MCM menu with the Dawnguard Sentries label. I already have figured out the Essentials toggle, and I'm working on a few other options. They'll all be implimented in the next update (coming SOON).

For the moment, this means Dawnguard Sentries now requires SKSE and SkyUI. Since these options only allow the MCM, you *might* be able to run Dawnguard Sentries without them (since the MCM is empty for the moment). ***IF*** that works, you'd get an error message and be able to use the mod with no MCM. If the game crashes though, get SKSE & SkyUI

OK, some big changes to the mod this time around.

In order to (hopefully) fix the random attacks bug a few people have been dealing with, AND allow Vampire players to make more use of the mod, I've simplified the Sentries AI package. Now they're operatiing with the exact same AI package as town guards.

This means they'll still jump on vampire raids and dragon attacks, but they will leave ALL player characters alone unless they catch them commiting a crime (including vampire drains and werewolf or vampire lord transformations). Not sure if they'll offer arrest options however. That might be a seperate script or AI package I need to add.

NOTE: The few Vigilant of Stendarr helpers in the mod still have their Vigilant AI, which means they're MAY hate anything shady, lol. The Vigilant AI package also seems to contain the Vigilant dialogue files, so I couldn't change them.

ALL Sentries are still set to respawn just like last update. The game (IIRC) takes three in-game days to respawn the dead, so if you lose a sentry and don't want to have an area undefended during that time, you may want to use the resurrect console command. When I can add an MCM Menu, then I'll have a toggle to choose from Essential and Respawn.

FaceGen data was repackaged and re-archived also. If any of you are still having grey face bug issues, hopefully this fixes it

Simple edit this time folks. I just made all the esential Sentries into respawn only.

Same sentry will respawn in each case, so consider any "killed" ones as dragged off to the temple for healing till they respawn. That's if you're a RP'er who like immersion and has to have everything make sense in that regard. :)

Took longer than I thought for this one.

OK, this one has an attempted script install on the still essential Sentries located in the hold capitals. For those who missed it, the sentries in Ivarstead, Riverwood, Shor's Stone and Dragon Bridge (NOT hold capitals) are respawn and the others are essential. It's an experiment to see which works better for players. Still waiting for feedback from people on that issue by the way.

OK, so getting back on track... The script is designed to put a 30 second delay on the recovery of essential sentries if they get knocked down and go into bleedout. This is not only a tiny bit more realistic than just getting back up after 3 or 4 seconds and being at full health, it also gives vampire characters an opportunity to escape safely

The script is experimental. Theoretically it SHLOUD work fine, but I had mixed results testing it in my game. Do enough beta testing of mods and the game is slow to apply updates though. Hence I'm again depending upon player feedback to let me know if this is working.

TGM after saving game, go to town on them and let me know the results. If it doesn't work or still isn't enough to keep vampire players sort of safe, I'll have to come up with another option.

This one is an attempted quick fix, adjusting the Dawnguard faction.

Earlier I had added the 'PlayerCharacterVampireLord' faction to their list of enemies. My belief at the time was that the "faction" represented when a PC was transformed into a Vampire Lord.

Thinking that MAY not be the case now (the CK wiki doesn't say), I'm removing it to see if the mod will now let vampire PCs that are behaving go into towns to sell and such.

OK, HUGE progress this time. I'm finally getting the hang of this, lol.

Combo Sentry & Vigilant patrol teams are now set up in Ivarstead and Dragon Bridge, just like in yesterday's update to Riverwood. Dragon Bridge now has the first Khajitt Vifgilant of Stendarr I've seen. Shor's Stone, near Riften has it's own special protector - My made up right hand for (the now dead) Keeper Carcet, a Knight Vigilant of Stendarr using steel plate armor and a magical silver sword. Not as overpowered as he sounds, but he will put up a good fight.

As with the Riverwood update, all the new Sentries and Vigilants are killable but will respawn (they just went to the temple for medical treatment apparently, lol).

Per a request or two, I've also added nine "Dawnguard Recruits" roaming around outside of Fort Dawnguard. These are honestly intended to be cannon fodder for players using vampire characters. They even have the Editor ID Dawnguard Sentry Red Shirts, lol. If you're a Dawnguard player, it'll add a bit more immersion, making it feel like Isran is ecruiting people and making an effort to defend the Fort.

Fair warning Vampire players... The recruits are set to use their crossbows first. Standard crossbows and steel bolts only though. I'm not cruel, just mean, lol.

As an added note, in case anybody plays MadFrenchie's 'South Dragon Bridge' mod, I kept the Sentries on the vanilla side of the town so as not to cause any conflicts.

We now have a special batch of Sentries in Riverwood.

Check the freshly uploaded pics. Cyrus the Redguard (complete with unique sword), and his husky now patrol the main road through Riverwood. He's joined, (due to lack of Dawnguard manpower), by Vigilant Arabella.

Arabella is an Imperial, and a spellcaster. She has both offensive and healing spells, as befits a priest type character. Arabella and Cyrus SHOULD patrol fairly close to each other. Due to a (now corrected) error with Arabella's patrol mapping, she's a good distance away from Cyrus in my pics however.

I also re-packaged all the face mesh and texture folders for the mod. Hopefully this will correct the issue a few of you are having with the infamous grey face bug.

ALSO... Arabella and the Husky ARE killable but will respawn. I'm doing this as an experiment since there have been a few requests to make the sentries mortal. I've delayed doing something like this because it takes a few game days for killed actors to respawn (I hear 3, 5 & 10 from different sources). That's a fair amount of time to leave NPCs unprotected.


STILL COMING ASAP: Sentries for Ivarstead & Dragon Bridge, and some sentries added to the area outside Fort Dawnguard for immersion purposes, and MAYBE a few added random vampire attacks on the area to keep things fun.

After that, I start working on rotating shifts for sentries and getting them stationed in the guard barracks when off duty.

Last of the original Sentinels redone. EVERY patrol route has been tested, It's also been verified officialy that the Sentries will NOT interfere in Civil War sieges. Thanks to @McQuire for that greatly appreciated piece of play testing.

5 of the 32 Sentries now have spellcasting abilities also and will fight with a Spellsword AI. These are; Rallas Tharn in Solitude, Kalalain and Moira Starbreeze in Winterhold, Viconia D'Vir in Dawnstar, and Dances With Mudcrabs in Morthal.

Pictures have been updated too. They now better show the unique appearance of each Sentry and also there's a shot of Tharn using a torch.


I'm working on the new Sentries for smaller towns now, and hope to have them done within the next 24 hours. I'm sure a few of you are disappointed that some of your requests are taking time. Patience is appreciated, and I hope everyone realizes this is taking time becuase I'm play testing every change to make sure it's bug free and I'm delivering a quality product to all of you.