NPC Modding help please: a trigger to spawn custom NPC into the world

[0nehanklap]

I would greatly appreciate if anyone could point me in the direction of, or offer, some guidance to a new modder. I am dissatisfied with the scarcity of NPCs within the various factions of Skyrim, and would like to gently increase their numbers at the end of particular questlines: ie. adding 3-4 DB initiates who come and go from the dawnstar sanctuary at the end of the DB questline, Guild-based thieves who actually travel the holds, appearing in taverns from time to time after you become Guildmaster, new mages attracted to the college after you become Archmage, etc.

 

I have examined several official NPCs which function in this way, and looked for guidance in several tutorials/guides, but haven't found the keys to this. My NPCs either appear immediately, or don't appear at all. Thanks for any help.

[agerweb]

The way I do it is to use the ChangeLocationEvent in Story manager to trigger quests that spawn NPCs at certain markers. The quests starts when the player enters the specified Locations (Cells). I primarily use it to populate my Inns when the player enters them (in this case I delete them when the player leaves) and put bad guys in Caves or Exterior Cells when the player enters. The change location event can have any number of conditions including if a quest has been completed.

 

The trick is to spawn them outside the players eyeline otherwise it look weird.

 

You can also use trigger boxes and scripts.

[0nehanklap]

Thank you for the response, I will see what I can do with this. Any help is welcome as I am new at this.

I was considering creating a separate 'wait' cell to contain all the NPCs I want to add, then have them exit to the world after the appropriate quest is complete.

[agerweb]

No don't have spare cells with NPC's in try Story Manager. I have a tutorial that may help you:

 

https://shumer-a-new-world.wikia.com/wiki/Spawning_NPCs_Using_Story_Manager