Npc Horses
Razor
NpcHorsesPro
Bring roaming mounted enemies to your Rust server with fully configurable NPC riders and horses. NpcHorsesPro creates armed riders that patrol the map, detect players, chase targets, fight from horseback, and drop configurable loot when killed.
The plugin includes an in-game configuration editor, profile-based spawning, custom rider and horse loadouts, safe spawning, performance controls, and support for Kits and AlphaLoot.
Main Features
- Armed NPCs that fight while riding horses
- Automatic roaming and player pursuit
- Support for Rust’s legacy and newer navigation systems
- Three ready-to-use default profiles
- Create unlimited additional profiles
- Automatic population management per profile
- Queued spawning to reduce server load during startup
- Configurable biome spawning
- Random rider names
- Random loadout selection
- Custom rider clothing and weapon loadouts
- Custom horse armor, horseshoes, and storage equipment
- Item skin ID support
- Optional uMod Kits integration
- Optional AlphaLoot corpse profiles
- Full in-game configuration UI
- Mouse-wheel scrolling throughout the editor
- Save or discard changes when closing
- Confirmation prompts before deleting profiles or loadouts
Profile Settings
Each horse and rider profile can configure:
- Enable or disable the profile
- Random rider display names
- Rider health
- Rider weapon damage multiplier
- Horse health
- Horse breed index
- Horse roaming speed
- Horse chase speed
- Rider vision distance
- Rider vision field of view
- Hearing distance
- Noise detection multiplier
- Whether sleeping players can be targeted
- Whether only hostile players can be targeted
- Allowed spawning biomes
- Maximum automatically spawned pairs
- Population check interval
- NpcHorsesPro loadouts available to the profile
- uMod Kits available to the rider
- AlphaLoot profiles used for the rider’s corpse
Available biome selections include:
- All
- Temperate
- Arid
- Tundra
- Arctic
Horse and Rider Loadouts
Create reusable loadouts containing:
- Rider weapons
- Rider clothing
- Horse armor
- Horseshoes
- Saddlebags and other supported horse equipment
- Individual skin IDs for each item
Profiles can have multiple selected loadouts. The plugin randomly chooses one when spawning a pair.
When a valid kit is selected, it is applied to the rider while the selected NpcHorsesPro loadout continues to supply the horse equipment.
Combat and Detection
Riders use Rust’s ScientistNPC sensing behavior with configurable vision and hearing.
Combat features include:
- Mounted aiming and shooting
- Automatic weapon reloading
- Configurable reserve ammunition
- Optional unlimited reserve ammunition
- Configurable weapon damage scaling
- Configurable attack and target-loss distances
- Configurable aiming and firing intervals
- Configurable aiming accuracy
- Detection through sight, hearing, and player-generated noise
- Immediate response when the rider or horse is attacked
Riders will not attack players inside safe zones. Existing targets are dropped when they enter a safe zone.
Navigation and Safety
NpcHorsesPro includes several protections designed specifically for mounted NPCs:
- Rejects spawn positions inside water
- Avoids deep water while roaming or chasing
- Checks several points ahead before entering water
- Returns horses to their last safe land position if they enter deep water
- Rejects monument bounds
- Rejects Tool Cupboard areas
- Rejects player bases and deployables
- Rejects rocks, cliffs, formations, and ore nodes
- Rejects steep slopes and cliff edges
- Detects hidden terrain underneath cliff geometry
- Prevents fatal invalid-dismount behavior
- Prevents horse and rider ragdoll
- Allows dismounted riders to run back to their horse and remount
Performance
The plugin can suspend horse and rider AI when no eligible players are within the configured network range.
Sleeping pairs stop:
- Target scanning
- Combat thinking
- Navigation updates
- Horse input processing
They periodically perform a lightweight player check and wake when an eligible player approaches or attacks them.
Death and Corpse Behavior
- Riders create ScientistNPC-style corpses
- Rider inventories are transferred to their corpses
- Optional AlphaLoot profiles can populate rider corpses
- Horses die normally and create horse corpses
- Horse corpse containers can optionally be locked
- The horse can optionally die when its rider is killed by another player
- Horse containers and rider corpse containers are handled separately
Commands
All commands require server administrator status or the npchorsespro.admin permission.
/npchorsespro config
Opens the complete in-game configuration editor.
Changes remain staged while editing. Closing the editor displays options to save, discard, or continue editing.
/npchorsespro spawn [profile]
Spawns a horse and rider using the specified profile at the position being viewed.
Example:
/npchorsespro spawn Set2
When no profile is provided, the command uses Set1.
The shorter command below also spawns Set1:
/npchorsespro
Manual spawning uses the same water, monument, terrain, building, deployable, cliff, and Tool Cupboard safety checks as automatic spawning.
/npchorsespro remove
Removes every active horse and rider pair managed by the plugin.
/npchorsespro status
Displays:
- Total active pairs
- Number of sleeping pairs
- Active population for each profile
- Number using newer navigation
- Number using legacy navigation
Permission
npchorsespro.admin
Allows a player to use every NpcHorsesPro command and access the configuration editor.
Server administrators automatically have command access.
Grant the permission to one player:
oxide.grant user STEAMID npchorsespro.admin
Grant it to an Oxide group:
oxide.grant group admin npchorsespro.admin
Revoke it from one player:
oxide.revoke user STEAMID npchorsespro.admin
Optional Integrations
Kits
Allows profiles to select one or more uMod Kits for their riders.
AlphaLoot
Allows profiles to select AlphaLoot profiles for rider corpse contents.
NpcHorsesPro operates without either optional plugin by using its internal loadout and ScientistNPC corpse systems.
Installation
- Place NpcHorsesPro.cs in the server’s oxide/plugins directory.
- Allow the plugin to compile and load.
- Grant npchorsespro.admin to the appropriate administrators.
- Run /npchorsespro config.
- Configure the global settings, profiles, and loadouts.
- Save the changes from the editor.
The default configuration includes three profiles and three example horse-and-rider loadouts, allowing the plugin to begin populating the map immediately.
NpcHorsesPro.json
{
"Settings": {
"Profiles": {
"Set1": {
"Enabled": true,
"Display names": [
"Cowboy Bill",
"Dusty",
"Ranger"
],
"Rider health": 100.0,
"Rider weapon damage scale": 1.0,
"Rider can target sleeping players": false,
"Rider targets only hostile players": false,
"AlphaLoot profiles for rider corpse": [],
"Horse health": 400.0,
"Horse breed index (0 to 9)": 0,
"Horse roam speed (meters per second)": 4.0,
"Horse chase speed (meters per second)": 6.0,
"Horse and rider loadouts to use": [
"Set1Kit"
],
"uMod Kits plugin kit names": [],
"Vision range (1 to 300 meters)": 60.0,
"Vision field of view (1 to 360 degrees)": 200.0,
"Hearing range": 50.0,
"Noise range multiplier": 1.0,
"Allowed biomes": [
"Temperate"
],
"Maximum auto-spawned pairs": 3,
"Population check interval minutes": 5.0
},
"Set2": {
"Enabled": true,
"Display names": [
"Deadeye",
"Outlaw",
"Marshal"
],
"Rider health": 150.0,
"Rider weapon damage scale": 1.0,
"Rider can target sleeping players": false,
"Rider targets only hostile players": false,
"AlphaLoot profiles for rider corpse": [],
"Horse health": 400.0,
"Horse breed index (0 to 9)": 0,
"Horse roam speed (meters per second)": 4.0,
"Horse chase speed (meters per second)": 6.0,
"Horse and rider loadouts to use": [
"Set2Kit"
],
"uMod Kits plugin kit names": [],
"Vision range (1 to 300 meters)": 60.0,
"Vision field of view (1 to 360 degrees)": 200.0,
"Hearing range": 50.0,
"Noise range multiplier": 1.0,
"Allowed biomes": [
"Arid"
],
"Maximum auto-spawned pairs": 3,
"Population check interval minutes": 5.0
},
"Set3": {
"Enabled": true,
"Display names": [
"Frost",
"Northwind",
"Whiteout"
],
"Rider health": 200.0,
"Rider weapon damage scale": 1.0,
"Rider can target sleeping players": false,
"Rider targets only hostile players": false,
"AlphaLoot profiles for rider corpse": [],
"Horse health": 400.0,
"Horse breed index (0 to 9)": 0,
"Horse roam speed (meters per second)": 4.5,
"Horse chase speed (meters per second)": 7.0,
"Horse and rider loadouts to use": [
"Set3Kit"
],
"uMod Kits plugin kit names": [],
"Vision range (1 to 300 meters)": 60.0,
"Vision field of view (1 to 360 degrees)": 200.0,
"Hearing range": 50.0,
"Noise range multiplier": 1.0,
"Allowed biomes": [
"Tundra",
"Arctic"
],
"Maximum auto-spawned pairs": 3,
"Population check interval minutes": 5.0
}
},
"Horse and rider loadouts": {
"Set1Kit": {
"Weapon short names": [
"pistol.revolver"
],
"Weapon skin IDs by slot": [],
"Clothing short names": [
"hat.horsemask",
"shirt.collared",
"pants",
"shoes.boots"
],
"Clothing skin IDs by slot": [],
"Horse wear item short names": [
"horse.shoes.basic",
"horse.armor.wood"
],
"Horse wear skin IDs by slot": []
},
"Set2Kit": {
"Weapon short names": [
"rifle.semiauto"
],
"Weapon skin IDs by slot": [],
"Clothing short names": [
"hat.horsemask",
"shirt.collared",
"pants",
"shoes.boots"
],
"Clothing skin IDs by slot": [],
"Horse wear item short names": [
"horse.shoes.advanced",
"horse.armor.roadsign"
],
"Horse wear skin IDs by slot": []
},
"Set3Kit": {
"Weapon short names": [
"rifle.ak"
],
"Weapon skin IDs by slot": [],
"Clothing short names": [
"hat.horsemask",
"shirt.collared",
"pants",
"shoes.boots"
],
"Clothing skin IDs by slot": [],
"Horse wear item short names": [
"horse.shoes.advanced",
"horse.armor.roadsign"
],
"Horse wear skin IDs by slot": []
}
},
"Seconds between queued horse spawns": 2.5,
"Navigation settings": {
"Roam radius": 80.0,
"Stopping distance": 12.0,
"Repath interval seconds": 1.0,
"NavMesh sample distance": 8.0,
"Turn dead zone degrees": 5.0
},
"Combat settings": {
"Enabled": true,
"Attack range": 45.0,
"Target lost range": 65.0,
"Aim update interval seconds": 0.1,
"Fire check interval seconds": 0.02,
"Rider work queue budget milliseconds per server frame": 1.0,
"Aim cone scale": 1.5,
"Unlimited reserve ammunition": true,
"Reserve ammunition when unlimited is disabled": 120
},
"Sleep settings": {
"Sleep horse and rider AI when no players are nearby": true,
"Wake distance (50 to 1000 meters)": 250.0,
"Sleeping player check interval (1 to 30 seconds)": 3.0
},
"Corpse settings": {
"Lock horse corpse containers": false,
"Kill horse when rider is killed by another player": true
}
},
"Version": {
"Major": 5,
"Minor": 0,
"Patch": 1
}
}
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