The Dark Side of Neon - An Ebbside Overhaul
By FlippingEggs
Turns Ebbside into the dark and dangerous place it is supposed to be according to lore. Designed for maximum compatibility. Adds enemies, loot, and flavor NPCs
Community Rating
Features
9 hidden Aurora stashes for you to find on the rooftops of Ebbside
5 stashes with contraband and legendary loot, guarded by the Syndicate and Disciples
Adds unnamed Striker gang members to the inside and outside of Madame Sauvages Place and Euphorika. Now the 4 named Strikers aren't the only ones in the gang. They will defend their turf if any Disciples chase you into the area.
Dynamic crowds - crowds start disabled in Ebbside (Neon Core is unaffected) to reflect the dangerous state of Ebbside before the player arrives. If you complete the Ebbside Strikers quest line and side with the Strikers, crowds will return to Ebbside as a result of it becoming a safer place. If you side with the Disciples, crowds will stay disabled. This does apply retroactively to save files if you have already completed the quests.
Supporting Lore
I tried to base this mod on what we learn through dialogue with various Neon NPCs. We are told that Ebbside is a dangerous place, and that the Disciples have the Strikers penned up in Madame Sauvage's place, and kill people for fun. The Disciples control the east of Ebbside, stopping at Ryujin Tower.
Meanwhile, the Syndicate defends their holdings on the west side of town, protecting the rooftops near the Trade Tower and their hideout near Frankie's Grab and Go.
The only people on the streets of Ebbside are beggars and Aurora addicts, too poor to afford to live anywhere else.
If you choose certain dialogue options during the Crimson Fleet quest line, Myka tells you that she uses the Ebbside Strikers as muscle to deal with unruly patrons. The Strikers now have a small presence inside and just outside of Euphorika.
Load Order
This is mostly load order neutral, but you should make sure to load it above any other mods that affect Neon and contain deleted references.
Compatibility
This mod is designed to be lightweight and compatible. 90% of what is does is adding new NPCs and new loot containers. I have minimized vanilla form edits as much as possible. It does not touch Neon Core, only Ebbside.
Starfield Community Patch - Yes
Rabbit's Real Lights Neon - Yes, load it below this
Neon player homes, both vanilla and modded - Yes
Neon Vertigo - Yes, load it below this
Expanded Cities - Yes, load it below this
Gameplay Notes
I have tested this on saves both before and after completing the Ebbside Strikers quest. If you install this on a save where you have already completed the quest line by siding with the Strikers, there will be some narrative dissonance, because this adds Disciples to different areas of Ebbside. If you install this on a save where you are in the middle of or haven't started the Strikers quests, the narrative will work fine.
I have hand placed all new hostile NPCs to avoid directly interfering with any vanilla quest NPCs. However, this doesn't mean you won't have to get past bad guys to get to a quest objective.
The Syndicate and Disciples added by this mod will not immediately aggro on you. If you approach, they will warn you to go away and give you a narrow window of opportunity to leave. If you do aggro them by getting too close, or by not leaving the area, they will attack and alert any friends they have nearby.
If you are in [DANGER], enemies can and will follow you through load screens. This is vanilla behavior and not controlled by this mod. It is possible to lure Disciples into Striker territory, and vice versa. If you like chaos, you can even get them to chase you into Neon Core. If you are feeling cheesy, you can put landmines in front of the doors right after you go through.
All Disciples, Syndicate, and Strikers are leveled to the player, so expect them to put up a decent fight. There are no conflicts with NPC leveling mods because this mod uses custom NPC records.
Technical Details
The change to the position of a lamp post inside Madame Sauvage's is intentional, it was interfering with NPC pathfinding.
All added NPCs are not flagged persistent, and are not set to respawn, so bodies should get cleaned up when the cell resets. However, the Disciples that spawn as part of vanilla quests are flagged for respawn by Bethesda, and I have not changed this behavior in the spirit of minimizing vanilla edits.
Credits
Bethesda for CK jmpz11 for Plugin Bridge Elminster and crew for xEdit JRamos, his tutorials showed me how to get the "warn, but don't attack" behavior working for enemies, as well as sandboxing 510deshawn and Darkfox127 for more CK tutorial vids
Release notes
Xbox
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1.2.1-- Disciple, Syndicate and Striker NPCs no longer use Spacer leveled lists for their spacesuits. They now use the Shocktroop spacesuit. This should allow patchless compatibility with Zone79's Spacer Overhaul
-- If you have already visited Ebbside prior to installing this update, these changes may not take effect. A new game or NG+ may be required to reset NPCs' spacesuits.
-- The radius within which enemies will aim their guns at you and warn you to go away has been reduced from 20 meters to 15 meters -
1.2-- Disabled the 2 Strikers in the Euphorika Members' Lounge to maintain compatibility with Legacy's End - Wild Card
-- Added daily schedules to the 2 citizen NPCs who were previously at Chunks 24/7
-- Fixed an issue where the Chunks employee would run away from combat happening nearby, and then never return to the Chunks
-- Fixed an issue where the Strikers gang member on the lower level of Euphorika was not sandboxing properly
-- The dead bodies and blood stains on street level will now be cleaned up upon completing the Ebbside Strikers questline, only if you side with the Strikers. See the sticky post on the Nexus version of this mod for instructions on how to clean up the bodies and blood retroactively if you have already completed the quest
-- Removed the "Use Planet Gravity" flag from the interiors of Euphorika and Madame Sauvages, to match the Community Patch
-- Added some variety to the Strikers' weapons and voice types
-- Reverted the AI package changes to the generic fishmonger NPCs outside Euphorika, to maintain compatibility with Legacy's End - Wild Card
-- Cleaned un-necessary ITMs -
1.1.03Uploaded for Xbox
Xbox
-
1.2.1-- Disciple, Syndicate and Striker NPCs no longer use Spacer leveled lists for their spacesuits. They now use the Shocktroop spacesuit. This should allow patchless compatibility with Zone79's Spacer Overhaul
-- If you have already visited Ebbside prior to installing this update, these changes may not take effect. A new game or NG+ may be required to reset NPCs' spacesuits.
-- The radius within which enemies will aim their guns at you and warn you to go away has been reduced from 20 meters to 15 meters -
1.2-- Disabled the 2 Strikers in the Euphorika Members' Lounge to maintain compatibility with Legacy's End - Wild Card
-- Added daily schedules to the 2 citizen NPCs who were previously at Chunks 24/7
-- Fixed an issue where the Chunks employee would run away from combat happening nearby, and then never return to the Chunks
-- Fixed an issue where the Strikers gang member on the lower level of Euphorika was not sandboxing properly
-- The dead bodies and blood stains on street level will now be cleaned up upon completing the Ebbside Strikers questline, only if you side with the Strikers. See the sticky post on the Nexus version of this mod for instructions on how to clean up the bodies and blood retroactively if you have already completed the quest
-- Removed the "Use Planet Gravity" flag from the interiors of Euphorika and Madame Sauvages, to match the Community Patch
-- Added some variety to the Strikers' weapons and voice types
-- Reverted the AI package changes to the generic fishmonger NPCs outside Euphorika, to maintain compatibility with Legacy's End - Wild Card
-- Cleaned un-necessary ITMs -
1.1.03Uploaded for Xbox
PC
-
1.2.1-- Disciple, Syndicate and Striker NPCs no longer use Spacer leveled lists for their spacesuits. They now use the Shocktroop spacesuit. This should allow patchless compatibility with Zone79's Spacer Overhaul
-- If you have already visited Ebbside prior to installing this update, these changes may not take effect. A new game or NG+ may be required to reset NPCs' spacesuits.
-- The radius within which enemies will aim their guns at you and warn you to go away has been reduced from 20 meters to 15 meters -
1.2-- Disabled the 2 Strikers in the Euphorika Members' Lounge to maintain compatibility with Legacy's End - Wild Card
-- Added daily schedules to the 2 citizen NPCs who were previously at Chunks 24/7
-- Fixed an issue where the Chunks employee would run away from combat happening nearby, and then never return to the Chunks
-- Fixed an issue where the Strikers gang member on the lower level of Euphorika was not sandboxing properly
-- The dead bodies and blood stains on street level will now be cleaned up upon completing the Ebbside Strikers questline, only if you side with the Strikers. See the sticky post on the Nexus version of this mod for instructions on how to clean up the bodies and blood retroactively if you have already completed the quest
-- Removed the "Use Planet Gravity" flag from the interiors of Euphorika and Madame Sauvages, to match the Community Patch
-- Added some variety to the Strikers' weapons and voice types
-- Reverted the AI package changes to the generic fishmonger NPCs outside Euphorika, to maintain compatibility with Legacy's End - Wild Card
-- Cleaned un-necessary ITMs -
1.1.03Uploaded for Xbox
-
1.1.02Re-saved the plugin with the updated Creation Kit and tested it against the Shattered Space update
-
1.1.01Minor buffs to NPC health
Found some ITMs that were safe to clean and cleaned them
Slightly decreased crowd density, if crowds are currently enabled by the mod -
1.1Added loner street rat NPCs to a few of the empty areas. They will be there whether or not crowds are currently enabled. They are slightly territorial
Removed beggars and addicts from the Neon Crime Faction, because Neon Security doesn't care about them. Now you will not get a bounty for stealing from them or assaulting them. However, Aurora addicts are possessive of their stashes. If they catch you stealing, they will try to take their drugs back
Slightly toned down hostile NPCs ability to detect combat and come to the aid of fellow faction members. I did this to try to prevent getting dogpiled by 20 enemies at once. This applies only to NPCs added by this mod, no base-game hostiles are affected by this
Non-hostile NPCs should now react properly to combat and run away
Strikers should now not run away from combat between factions they are neutral to
Added boost packs to Disciples, Syndicate, and Strikers, to allow them to get un-stuck if they fall into certain areas. Boost packs won't be visible unless they are actively using them
Fixed clipping issues with Strikers idle animations
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1.00Initial release
Additional Screenshots Available
This mod has 12 additional screenshots available on the official Bethesda.net page.
View All Screenshots on Bethesda.netYouTube Videos
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Mod Information
- Published
- Sep 28, 2024
- Last Updated
- Sep 29, 2025
- Platforms
- PC, Xbox
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