AggroKit

📖 Full documentation: AggroKit wiki page

Reusable aggro/threat-control tooling for people writing BepInEx 5 mods for Outward: Definitive Edition. It doesn't add anything a player sees on its own — it's a library dependency other mods (CompanionKit, and anything built on top of it) pull in, and other modders are welcome to build on it too.

Requires: BepInEx 5 (Outward's Mono branch — see Compatibility below) + ForgeKit (hard dependency, installed automatically).

What's in it

Piece	What it gives you
AggroTools	Patch-free primitives for reading/adjusting engine aggro state without a Harmony patch of your own.
TargetableOverrides	A per-pair targetability gate — make one specific character untargetable to one specific other character, without touching the game's global targeting rules.
AggroEvents	Observability hooks (opt-in, off by default) plus an opt-in squad-self-target guard (also off by default — see BlockSquadSelfTarget).

Installing (for players)

Drop the AggroKit folder into BepInEx/plugins/. It has no effect by itself — install it because another mod you're using declares it as a dependency.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/cobalt.aggrokit.cfg (generated on first launch):

[Dev]
## Poll BepInEx/config/ak_cmd.txt for dev commands (aggrodump/forcetarget/taunt/calm/...).
EnableCommandFile = true

## Whether DumpKey logs an aggro dump of all AI characters near the player.
EnableDumpKey = true

## Key that logs an aggro dump of all AI characters near the player (needs EnableDumpKey=true).
# Default value: F3
DumpKey = F3

[Research]
## Re-arm AggroEvents' purely-observational Harmony taps that record the event buffer. OFF by
## default so these hot AI-tick paths stay un-patched. With EnablePatches on, the detection-side
## control patches and the targetability override gate are installed regardless of this key — they're
## inert until a verb activates them.
EnableObservation = false

[Fixes]
## Master switch for EVERY Harmony patch AggroKit installs. Off = it patches nothing at all, while
## the library calls and the ak_cmd.txt verbs keep working — so AggroKit can be ruled in or out of a
## mod-conflict bisection without uninstalling it. Applied at load; changing it needs a relaunch.
EnablePatches = true

## Opt-in fix for a squad-contagion self-target assignment in AISCombat.SetPreferredTarget.
## DEFAULT OFF: the case is unreachable in vanilla, and the block is a skipping Harmony prefix, which
## also suppresses any other mod's prefix on the same method. Read live — no relaunch needed.
BlockSquadSelfTarget = false

Dev verbs

AggroKit polls BepInEx/config/ak_cmd.txt (write a line, it runs on the next poll — works while the game is paused). [Dev] EnableCommandFile = false turns the channel off.

Verb	What it does
aggrodump [radius]	Aggro dump of every AI near the player, plus the player's targetability state
aistates [name|nearest]	Dump one AI's state machine
aggrolog [n|on|off|clear]	The [AGGRO] event buffer
watch <name|nearest|off>	Watch an AI's (state, target) changes
forcetarget [name|nearest]	Force an AI onto the player, and auto-watch it
feud <A> <B> [nooverride|both]	Make any two AIs fight each other
taunt [radius] / calm [radius]	Pull every AI in radius onto the player / calm them
untargetable / targetable	Toggle the player's QuestNonTargetable
undetectable / detectable	Toggle the player's DetectabilityMult
shieldme / unshieldme	Toggle incoming-aggro shielding on the player
stealthme [off]	Veto AI detection of the player
decoy <name>|off	Redirect detections of the player onto another AI
noaggro [off]	The player's hits generate no aggro
clearoverrides	Clear all targetability overrides
status	One glance: player flags, overrides, controls, watches, aggrolog
restore	Undo everything — targetable + detectable, all overrides/controls/watches cleared
selftest	Zero-interaction environment checks ([SELFTEST] PASS/FAIL … DONE)

The [Dev] DumpKey bind (default F3) runs aggrodump without the channel. Keys are a cross-mod resource in this workspace — AggroKit claims its bind through ForgeKit.Keybinds so a collision with another mod is reported rather than silently firing both.

Using it (for modders)

<!-- your .csproj -->
<ProjectReference Include="path\to\AggroKit\AggroKit.csproj" Private="false" />

[BepInPlugin(GUID, NAME, VERSION)]
[BepInDependency(AggroKit.Plugin.GUID)]
public class Plugin : BaseUnityPlugin
{
    // AggroTools / TargetableOverrides / AggroEvents are static entry points —
    // call them directly once AggroKit has loaded (declare it as a dependency above).
}

Private="false" matters — it stops MSBuild from copying a second AggroKit.dll into your mod's own output folder. The kit ships from its own BepInEx/plugins/AggroKit/ folder; your mod just references it and declares the dependency so BepInEx loads it first.

Compatibility

Outward must be on its Mono Steam beta branch, not the default IL2CPP build — like every BepInEx 5 mod for this game. If your game runs but no BepInEx mods load and there's no crash log, this is almost always why (Properties → Betas → select mono in Steam).

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE in the repository root. You may use, modify, and redistribute this kit (including in commercial mods) provided you keep the copyright/license notice; see the license text for the full terms.