Kiddo’s World Wildlife Weather and Visuals v1.01
Environment overhaul for realism and immersion.
For those of you who use my mods, you know I like subtlety! This is a small personal collection of gameplay changes that create a more realistic and immersive environment. It contains everything from darker nights, perceptive wildlife, seamless weather, persistent dirt, slower reload, no forced scopes, and a whole variety of other quality-of-life tweaks.
- This mod comes as an ‘all-in-one’ package, sparing new players time and frustration searching for all of these changes individually or merging code, and players can easily pick and choose which features they would like to keep or discard!
- This mod is very vanilla-friendly, as I don’t like to ‘over-mod’ my game. For compatibility options with other visual mods, see the pinned top comments!
- Huge thankyou to the modders who directly contributed, helped me understand code, or were the inspiration for this project! Credits below.
DARKNESS & TIMESCALE
Late Night is now enveloped by a deeper darkness. Moonlight is a saving grace on clear nights, but intense weather and dense forests may require a lantern to navigate. Encountering wild predators, ambushers or bounty hunters is now difficult and dangerous. Exposure changes also limit Deadeye and Eagle-eye ‘lighting-up-the-night’ during late hours, making herbs, animals and enemies harder to identify.
Timescale by WickedHorseMan. Time is now 2.5x longer than vanilla, allowing the player to get more done during the day, enjoy a sunset for longer, then head into the night for a horror aesthetic or nocturnal hunt. Much like real life, going to sleep now has environmental and functional relevance. In vanilla, the sun often rose before the player had time to discover an Owl, Racoon, or similar nocturnal animal.
Bloom Adaption has been slowed by 2x, adding realism to natural eye adjustment when the player moves from dark to light, indoors to outdoors or vice versa.
Lanterns now have a warmer tone, since they are technically an oil powered fire source. Still not as orange as the Electric Lantern.
VISUALS
Vignette has been removed. No more dark shadow at the screen edge.
Weapon Pickup Glow has been removed. No more flashing weapons in the dark.
Artificial Indoor Light has been corrected to prevent unnatural white light showing up in caves and interiors.
Drying Time for both player and environment has been slowed and scaled based on temperature, allowing wet clothing and puddles to persist longer after wet weather. 40 seconds –> 2 to 5 minutes.
Persistent & Natural Dirt. The player will now properly accumulate dirt, mud and bloodstains on clothing, and they will not fully disappear until the player baths, swims, changes clothes, or rides through the rain. Natural dirt accumulation has been slowed by 3x from the original mod, to prevent red dirt appearing too quickly if you wander through Rhodes for example.
Horse Dirt accumulation slowed by 5x, preventing your horse from becoming instantly muddy when you walk through town. Dirt and Mud now primarily accumulate on the legs and underbelly, and often dry up before splattering on the haunch.
TAA Sharpening improved, particularly for objects in the far distance while not in motion. This is gentle compared to other TAA mods.
Stars & Constellations improved. Stars twinkle less abrasively, with stars and milky way both fractionally increased in size and visibility.
Rivers & Streams have a 20% faster current.
Horse Sweat will appear more slowly.
WILDLIFE & PERCEPTION
Animal Perception including sight, smell and hearing have increased sensitivity, which makes for more realistic hunting. Animals and Birds will detect you earlier, and mammals will flee slightly further away when frightened, making Cover Scent and stealth crouching more relevant. No more accidentally trampling over Deer that didn’t hear you coming.
Law & NPC Perception has been significantly reduced at night, with a further reduction in visibility and noise detection for rainfall and weather events. Hiding from Bounty Hunters at night allows for better preparation and execution, permitting the player the occasional chance at a stealth kill before being detected.
Animals have a 2% increased ground spawn rate. This is very small, but enough to see an extra mammal in a herd, or increase the possibility of a predator attack. Grizzly Bears and Cougars now appear in spawn locations I’ve never seen before, adding variety and removing predictability!
Animal Behavior has seen a subtle overhaul, with reduced duration for basic idling, and more potential for activities such as drinking, grazing, playing, hunting, howling and more. Animals become hungry 30% more often, and behaviors last longer.
Birds have a 20% increased spawn rate, allowing for realistic flock sizes and more tiny birds flying out of bushes. This change is purely aesthetic, but comes with the added potential for birds such as Woodpeckers and Owls to appear in new places, as they previously had very limited spawn locations.
Prey Birds circle around corpses for longer before landing, and eat for longer.
Fish now school together more frequently, and jump out of the water 25% more often.
Dogs now bark 50% less often when in a non-aggressive state. This may also have some subtle benefit for players who use the mod ‘Immersive Dog’, but it requires more playtesting.
TEMPERATURE & WEATHER
Huge Thankyou to WhyStopNow for his direct contribution to Weather and Rain Particle Effects!
Temperature maximum threshold has been reduced by 1 to 4 degrees in mid-northern regions such as Roanoke Ridge, New Hanover and East Grizzlies, allowing the player to wear warm coats and clothing in more regions, more often. Sunny/High Pressure at midday is now the only time these areas should cross the warmth threshold.
Weather events now last 3x longer, and transition speeds are now 5x to 10x slower. Rain will gently spit before a full downpour, cloud formation is much slower, and certain weather events have more noticeable and higher wind speeds. Weather events will no longer appear or disappear suddenly.
Rain Particle Fix prevents the vanilla rain particles appearing like milk when seen through light shafts.
WEAPONS
Reload Speed has been reduced by 25% for all weapons, adding realistic tension to gunfights.
Carcano & Rolling Block Rifle are no longer forced to look down the scope, and have appropriate heavy recoil like the rest of the rifles.
Grip Carvings on Shotguns, Repeaters and Rifles now apply a secret 10% bonus to weapon damage. 40 damage becomes 44.
LAW
Will be adding more in future updates if I am happy with the results!
Train Robberies have an increased delay for law arrival, preventing them from appearing on top of you unrealistically. The wanted delay time scales based on proximity to the closest town, with rural areas taking longer to trigger law attention. Wanted status should now occur once the player has nearly completed a more extensive robbery, allowing you a chance to escape if you’re efficient.
