Description

An overhaul of the police and guard response systems with a focus on stealth and evidence based responses. The goal of this mod is to make stealth as useful and easy as possible when wanted by the police or guard groups.

Stealth Improvements

Pursuing police and town guard groups are unable to automatically locate the player or infer their location without evidence.
The player will be harder to see when crouched or standing.
Peripheral vision has been greatly reduced.
Forward facing and elevation based vision has been narrowed.
Police need to be closer to see and identify the player.
The player can become unseen from pursuits more quickly.
Footstep and foliage sound detection has been greatly reduced.
Hiding places are less likely to be searched.
Near-misses or nearby kills with arrows and knives usually won’t trigger detections when police have their guard down during a search.
Explosive arrows and dynamite can be used as distractions or as stealth weapons…in moderation.
The player can become unseen from shootouts without moving, if hidden well.
Police will look behind them less often.
Nighttime now has greater benefits to stealth, and daytime effects have been lessened.
If nearby police are not able to see the player when they fire their weapon, they generally will not be able to infer their exact location.
During known wanted levels, cops will give bounties for killed unaware cops only once they or a witness see the body.
(New to 4.3.2!) Cops may be totally bombarded with explosions during the searching phase without revealing your exact location. Identity detections may vary.

Behavior Adjustments

Police behavior has been modified in various ways to keep responses to crime based on evidence.
Train robberies have a short window before police are notified in the wilderness.
Stores can be robbed more easily without detection.
It’s possible to wipe out a town’s police as an “Unknown Suspect”, especially if all investigating police have been silently killed without seeing each other die.
Police stay more localized to the area where the crime occurred when the player disappears.
Police now need sight to locate evidence, and cannot automatically gravitate to things like hidden dead bodies.
Police are less likely to immediately use lethal force when confronting the player, even during some violent situations.
Police and guard grouping probabilities, behaviors, and search patterns have been modified to enhance flanking.
Police generally pursue at the level of annoyance to which we’ve all become accustomed, but can lose sight nearly immediately.
Police response times have been delayed, placed farther away, and randomized to allow time to run or hide after a shootout.
Time needed to escape a wanted level has been increased, unless the player was unseen from the start.
Projectile reactions have been lessened.
Police can dismount horses farther away from a crime scene.
Witness emotions were modified to have a higher likelihood to go to the police.
Witnesses have a lower chance to identify the player.

The above effects apply to all difficulties, with varying rates to some based on difficulty.

Easy Difficulty

Lower law numbers.
Longer spawn delays.
Greatly reduced grouping patterns.

Standard Difficulty

Default law numbers.
Delayed spawn rates.
Reduced grouping patterns.

Challenging Difficulty

Higher law numbers.
Faster spawn rates.
Tighter grouping patterns.

Extra Notes

Random gangs and encounters are not affected by all changes listed above, and have not been thoroughly tested.
The above effects are mostly for police and town guard groups only. However, some vision changes appear to affect all NPCs.
Animal perception levels have been excluded for now.

Stealth Tips

The player icon in the center of the mini-map turns dark grey when in stealth mode, and white when not.
Police and witness blips will turn bright red if they’ve seen your location, and dark red if not.
Wanted levels can get a bit glitchy with the UI because while many of the additional auto-detections have been removed, some of the game is convinced they’re still working. As a result, bright red icons, the identified wanted sign, and even a bounty count for the right side bounty logo and mini-map may appear for cops without them actually knowing who you are or applying the bounty. This problem does not affect your actual bounty or detection, assuming you’re hidden well and the bounty count in the top center of the screen is the same as before the events. The bounty sign on the right side is typically the one that glitches.
Arrows and knives can trigger detections with near-misses or killing one in a tightly packed group. The chances of this happening are reduced when police have their guard down and are investigating a crime.
Non-police law groups are more aware when their partners die. Killing them in quick succession when alerted will reduce the risk of being identified in time.
Improved arrows may be worse for detection due to their ability to penetrate and alert the cops behind the one shot more easily.
It’s best to wait for cops to physically turn their heads away from you before moving.
When picking off cops with a bow or throwing knife, waiting for one to split off from the group a bit or otherwise targeting a cop without another cop behind them will grant the best results. Tightly packed groups may hear their partners die, and killing a cop directly in front of another raises additional risks of your hiding place being suspected.
Regular arrows and flaming arrows are the best. Explosive arrows usually won’t reveal your location unless they damage a cop without killing them.
Excessive explosions or having the explosion as the initial crime very close to cops may also lead to detection.
Moving forward or changing directions slightly while hiding in bushes will keep your head low, and reduce the risk of being seen.
Being unseen isn’t always shown by the searching phase of wanted levels, and being seen isn’t always shown by cops shooting in your direction. Sometimes cops may get scared and start blindly firing towards your direction after enough die.
It’s easier to remain an “Unknown Suspect” when dealing with smaller police departments.
While most of their auto-detection for fast movements have been disabled, police may still see you if you crouch sprint too close behind them.
Cloth masks are more effective than full masks for now, as in vanilla. I don’t know how to change this yet.
Roofs are good hiding places, but not the best for extended direct engagement with the police. Using moderation in these situations will

reduce detection.

Controller Controls

A controller is best for the easiest stealth melee experience.
Controllers don’t continuously sprint while crouching if the analog stick is only held partially down, allowing for easily paced approaches behind moving targets without concerns of alerting them.
If you prefer using a keyboard as I do, there are sprint tapping options in settings, but they don’t seem to work at all in my case (with or without this mod).
When sneaking up behind an officer, tapping A or X at a light pace with the analog stick held only partially forward will have the character crouch sprint in small intervals while leaving the player icon grey. This is the ideal method for stealth melee attacks.

Keyboard Controls

For keyboard, holding W then Shift, then quickly releasing W at short intervals behind a moving officer will more awkwardly accomplish the same goal.
I basically only use keyboard, and I stealth melee all the time now. With recent updates, things have gotten a bit easier.

To Install
1. Install Lenny’s Mod Loader.
2. Drag the “lml” folder into the root directory of RDR 2.

Credits
For the challenge of making separate difficulties and modifying much of the necessary behavior en masse, automated code was used to recalculate and rewrite specific values in some of the files. Thank you to GPT for its help in this area.

Compatibility
The issue of compatibility with Lenny’s Mod Loader isn’t a major concern, as it can handle conflicts. However, this mod will conflict with LAW and Crime and Law Rebalance and Enhancement. They can all be installed together, but if this is last in the load order, you probably won’t see any effects from other law mods. As of 4.3, this mod replaces 78 law and combat specific files, nearly all that would be relevant to any other law mod.

Thank You
This was a lot of fun to make, and the comments you all have left have been very supportive. 4.3 has become everything I was aiming for barring some largely avoidable cases of near-miss and initial explosion auto-bounties. I unfortunately lost my job recently, so I will have to focus on fixing my situation for a while. Making this mod and seeing you all enjoy playing the game in a new way has become very therapeutic and hopeful for me in light of things, but it is simply too time consuming to update on my usual constant schedule. I’ll still be updating when I can, and I’ve remembered the unfulfilled requests in the comments. Once my life gets into better shape, I’ll look into making more versions for everyone. All that said, thank you. I appreciate you all, and I hope you enjoy this mod as much as I do.

Author: Llama

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