Strange Engine Bug?

[ashtonlp101]

So while playtesting my mod I have experienced what I believe to be a really weird engine-level bug. So I've been testing outcomes for my quest and I noticed that when I use one outcome which sets a short variable to say 1 to represent the desired outcome to be active, when I load the game the outcome actually follows over into my loaded game. So let me make an example here because it's hard to explain in words.

 

I hit a button which sets Short OutcomeA to 1

 

I walk into a trigger which does something if OutcomeA== 1

 

I load the game before I push to button to set outcomeA to 1

 

I walk into the trigger without pushing the button and the trigger's script acts as though I've pushed the button that sets outcomeA to 1.

 

Has anyone else experienced this glitch? I remember there being a glitch on Oblivion where you could save right before you leveled up and then load the game to continously level up on another saved game, so it seems as though loading the game does not reset your variables back to where they were at the time of the save you have loaded. This is actually really weird that Bethesda hadn't thought/caught onto such a glaring bug like this because it can seriously break the game.

[ashtonlp101]

Another bug I have noticed, when using high damage weapons like the Debug megapistol, scripting on an NPC/creature that utilizes the Begin OnDeath line will sometimes fail to function. I've noticed this especially upon mutilation on a character's death.

[Radioactivelad]

Probably related to the thing where mines blown up will be gone if you reload a game shortly after they explode (such as if said mine had killed you.). The game state doesn't seem to get 100% reset in some cases.

 

Does it persist between launches, or even just an extended amount of time between the action and reloading?

If not, I'd say just take Bethesda's lead and don't worry about it.

[dubiousintent]

The engine does not completely restore the entire game environment if you only exit back to the game "main menu" before reloading. The "exploded mines/tripped traps" mentioned are a proof of these circumstances. They will get restored to their "unexploded/untripped" case only if you exit the game session completely to the Windows Desktop. This is because not everything about the environment is preserved in the player's "save game" file. (AFAIK generally only things which the player "picks up". and places into their inventory or physically moves to another cell, along with quest variables, get "saved".)

 

When you think about it, menu "buttons" themselves are "transient" events. The stored result variable (i.e. "OutcomeA") is something that may persist depending upon where it is initially defined (e.g. within a block or outside of one, in a single frame or multi-frame block, with global scope, etc.) See 'TIP Block Types Multiple vs Single Frame processing' in the "Scripting" section of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article.

 

Also, note that you should always assume "case" of variable names is significant unless you have proven otherwise. "OutcomeA" does not equal "outcomeA" when case is significant. If nothing else, it can cause confusion. Note the function "SV_Compare" (added by NVSE) is not "case sensitive" by default but does provide the option. (This can be interpreted as implying that case sensitivity IS significant.)

 

-Dubious-

[ashtonlp101]

No, if I quit the game and reload it does a clean reset. It's only when I'm playtesting and I'm loading a save multiple times without exiting the game.

 

Probably related to the thing where mines blown up will be gone if you reload a game shortly after they explode (such as if said mine had killed you.). The game state doesn't seem to get 100% reset in some cases.

 

Does it persist between launches, or even just an extended amount of time between the action and reloading?

If not, I'd say just take Bethesda's lead and don't worry about it.

[madmongo]

Yeah, this is a known engine-level bug. The only thing that you can do to avoid it is to exit out of the game and restart it to get back to a clean load.

 

It's not just exploded mines and some variables. Animation states can also do this. For example, if you have gone through combat and your NPC follower has an angry face stuck (because that's another engine bug), then reloading will leave them with their angry face stuck, even if you load from before they went into combat. Exiting and reloading resets all of the facial animations. I have also had NPCs get stuck moonwalking backwards (which is kinda funny to watch, actually), and this was also only fixed by exiting and reloading.

 

NPC outfits can also get stuck. For example if you give an NPC a hat or you change their outfit, and then reload from when before they had the hat or the outfit change, they might show up still wearing the hat or the new outfit. A reset and reload will fix this, but also just going into their inventory will usually fix it.

 

Many of these engine bugs can be cleared just by exiting to the main menu and reloading. You don't necessarily have to completely exit the game. Some bugs won't be fixed by this though and a complete game exit and reload is required.