tarsis31

Thanks Geno. I'm glad I got the opportunity to collaborate with you on the Institute Settlement mod, I learned a lot. I hope you find the peace you desire.

It pretty much stonewalled me at every attempt. I hadn't given up on it completely, but I just haven't any time now. I hope someone else takes interest in it.

OK, so someone has been doing some serious legwork for me on RRS, and determined that the ones that have been giving the most trouble have all had key components like workshopreftype and such as ACSR - Actor Cell Static Reference, instead of LCSR - Location Cell Static Reference. So, with that out of the way and way over my head, as far as I can recall, I've done all of the steps for the things the same, I've tried to look up what that means on the wiki page, but like all wiki pages on all my machines, they just eat RAM until I can no longer do my real job and I have to close them before I can learn anything. What does this signify? How can it be rectified or worked around?

Hey, dude, the mod is really cool and all, but did you know the backs of the heads of your NPC guys are all a funny texture/color? You should fix that.

@Caleb Excellent suggestion, thanks! I will certainly put that into use as well. @Geno Precombining the geometry just puts the parts together in a psuedo-whole. Precombining the visibility is where it does the calculations to reduce the graphics load, so I understand. It seemed to me that the previs stuff was superfluous with the availability of roombounds and occlusion planes, at least for interiors, until I did a larger "open" interior, where they were not feasible.

Bethesda's wonderful precombined geometry and previs system causes that. If you make changes, prepare to need to do it. Do it last though, or you get to do it a lot of times. It's slightly more fun than roombounds and portals, which I am coming to enjoy, I may use them on Kenmore.

Good, I can cross the fish packing plant off my list, yay! @Vormina I would follow Caleb68's advice about the doors in the same cell, if you have to, for immersion reasons, you could place a "dummy" door in a wall, with the portal, so the settlers go to the "door" and disappear to the linked "door" on the other side (lower level I suppose in this case). The "dummy" dorr is just one that ooks like a door but doesn't actually open for the player. I personally, still using Caleb's system, would just put the door portals near the entrance to the lift, and handwavium the lift not moving away as player convenience so it would stay where player left it (settlers sending it back or whatever floats your boat). I feel that would be the best way.

Different things, same function, two different ways to portal someone to somewhere. One is invisible, one is .... not. Call them portals and cover both.

Invisible door method is just that, put in two portals, one at either end of elevator, linked, they go in one, out the other. If you want time in between, you can have them go to an interior cell, travel then come out, but time spent on interior cell is rather arbitrary, see my WRVR if you want to see invisible doors in action to and from an interior cell as in vanilla.

Huge difference between sharing resources like scrap, and resources like beds. If you can make it so I can share beds between an interior and an exterior that'd be hmm great, yeah. EDIT: Also, elevators are fine, I don't get where the problem lies here, as long as they can zone away, lifts are bad though.

Have fun!

Yeah, Greek is right, and it is everywhere. That is why I so adamant about checking your location so thoroughly, and also, while working the Institute, I told you make sure your map marker was in an "empty" Wilderness cell. Be extra careful of built in "workshop" locations, they can be awful to deal with. RRS has two of them. Also, like Greek had, those map markers with the GIANT yellow circles often need to be shrunk down, I've avoided doing that to Lexington, but I think it's finally going to happen. Sometimes they are a mile in the sky, other times under the ground or inside a building. The marker for Mass Fusion Containment LOCATION is also under the North End Church Graveyard in vanilla... I suppose then, Geno, when your Disposal site comes out, you'll have to mention you were forced to fix Mass Gravel and Sand to make it work.

@speedy That was more of a rhetorical question for everyone to think about every time they fiddle with a location. I've already decided what to with the ones I encounter, Burn them all! Besides that, you aren't supposed to be pontificating to us, you are supposed to be sitting next to us, buying the next round, and saying, "Yeah, I understand, man." Then we may go about our merry way :hurr: (mostly the buying part)

They did similar stuff all over the game, for example General Atomics Galleria has 3 or 4 Wilderness (2 of them are in Tenpines Bluff build area IIRC) cells set to it's location for no reason I can decipher. If I set the locations on them to NONE, to get the cells out of the Location, and out of my bug testing, it puts up the "such and such cell was expected in such and such location but is no longer there" error that I haven't puzzled out how to fix yet. If I leave them in, I risk throwing out "Commonwealth" pipboy workshop entries and other "your mod is buggy" crap. I'm sure if I melt that one out I'll get the "such and such ref was expected to be found in such and such location, but you moved it and I don't like that" error report as well that I just can't seem to trace where it won't just let go of it all. I'm sure there is a trail of breadcrumbs somewhere, but they let the birds out first. Some of the Mass Fusion Containment Shed was put in the Milton Hospital Location, there is a random cell by the South Boston Red Rocket that is in the Vault 81 location (WTF?). I've seen several more. Do I fix every cell I find that pertains to the mod I'm currently making? Just the ones that are needed to make the mod work? I mean, it's no wonder we have bugs in mods we can't track down. The core game was thrown together haphazardly.

Genolune, you are thinking too hard again, look at your Locations, look in the cell tab, I keep talking about this all the time, and I don't think anyone quite hears me. This is about the most important tab of info you can have as a settlement builder. What do you see? Mass Gravel and Sand has 0 cells. Mass Fusion Disposal has 2 cells, and the Mass Gravel and Sand Cell.... Someone just put the gravel and sand cell location setting wrong. Just fix it. Haven't we walked this path? EDIT: May have been Turfy... Also, make sure to triple check the map markers on both LOCATION after fixing. They are wonky looking.

Now you are just being deliberately obtuse.

Do we have anything in the toolbox that can push, pull, drag an NPC from such a spot in a location that wouldn't require scripting? I mean, other than turning everything into a mortar I suppose. I find it extremely frustrating that I have to carefully nav mesh an area to make NPCs do anything players want, but I can't have a keep out sign, or a guard dog, or an electric fence that keeps them out of a spot the players do not want them to be. It's counter intuitive beyond normal software engineering.

Alright then, help me understand why.

As someone who has been working on settlements, watching them with no nav mesh, partial nav mesh, really badly done nav mesh, and getting better nav mesh, don't you think that's being more than a bit disingenuous? Yes, they teleport to any marker, yes they teleport to any nav mesh, yes, they teleport to jobs or furniture. They don't just randomly go to places without navmesh, without reason to be there. I watched Kenmore Station Settlement function for hours with absolutely 0 navmesh at all in the settlement. 75% of the location was never visited at all, idle markers and patrol markers would get a random settler who would wander a half step in any direction then turn around. I built stairs for them to go down to the track side areas, they would appear on the stairs and wander a half step at the top and bottom. They would stand next to a farm plot, maybe wander from one plant to the next, they would stand next to or on their bed. It wasn't until I started building floors that they started to go wandering around sandboxing as normal settlers do. What I am saying is, if they go wherever they want anyway, why does nav mesh matter? I mean, should they not be wandering around sandboxing in a location with no navmesh as easily as a fully navmeshed location if it has no effect? If you are saying it is not binary, then what is the cutoff point? Where is the difference? I've never seen a settler walk through a wall while I was in a settlement, so collision works but not nav mesh? Then lets just alter the phrasing and say I want invisible floors with collision boxes to stop settlers from going where I don't want them. Does that tickle your bird more in the direction of plausible rather than flat out impossible?

Yes, because you were there.. never mind. Forget it. Just do whatever.

Actually it does help. Yes, they will teleport, yes, I get that, but stop looking at the forest and see the trees man! They won't teleport TO a point with no navmesh right? They wont appear AT a point with no navmesh when you fast travel to the location right? Will it fix everything? No, Heaven above, it would take an entire engine rewrite to hit half of what I'd like fixed alone, and I'm not even picky. Just, for a moment Ethreon, try to see it in smaller pieces. (Why do I feel like I'm trying to make a point in a kindergarden coloring book to a college professor?) It'll just stop the settlers from dropping into those small specific locations I find especially problematic. IE: Inside those great big "solid" concrete foundations, under a wooden foundation that they shouldn't fit under anyway, on a pond they are supposed to admire, not slog through every day, things like this, not fix that settlers AI is fundamentally retarded. Is that really something to be poo-pooed as a foolish request like I dunno, invisible flags or something?

can do all I want and more with nav mesh in the CK. Then release my mod, then I'm playing it, and and whammo, I want nav mesh control as a player now.

I've done a bit of searching, but, my skills lie in other directions. What I've found is the need for "floor" pieces, and I hesitate to even call them that, which will cut the nav mech under them, like placing a wall or any other obstacle, to prevent NPCs from going there. Why? When building, we place a room out over the vanilla ground space, and sometimes, at certain heights, with the right nav mesh undulations, the NPCs just warp right through the floor we built and down onto the ground under the room. Now, we don't want to build the great honking concrete foundation there, which may solve the problem, or may put the NPC inside the foundation (nice one Bethesda). We may be ok with the wood foundation, but will only cut part of the nav mesh, and won't totally solve the issue. So, in essence, my idea is, a version of both foundations, which totally remove the nav mesh under them, and a "small floor" and "large floor" that would be snappy and have no nav mesh, and a invisible "small floor" and "large floor" (or rugs, or whatever) that would not be snappy, and would be able to be fit into places normal floors wouldn't go, to deprive the game engine of ever putting NPCs in the situation at all. Hell, I'd cover the roofs in sanctuary with them. Thoughts?

Possibly have a couple varieties? One linked to deadly radiation, one to strong, one to weak type of thing?

It's a very interesting prospect. I'm looking into it. If anyone has any hints, tips, ideas, please share. This is only tangentelly attached to my bailiwick.