Observe dead override

[hereami]

At first, what is exact thing about "greet corpse" and ObserveDead? Look at dead bodies?

 

Have attached an override package to quest alias (flst and all such) and nothing happens. I can see companion still headtrack corpses, but no signs of the override taking control. Underlaying running package has interrupt flag "greet corpse behaviour" enabled, if that makes any difference at all. Any heavier tricks required here maybe?

 

Thanks.

Edited May 28, 2022 by hereami

[LarannKiar]

Actors headtrack other (even dead) actors by default.

 

To make an NPC "greet" a dead body, check the checkbox "Greet corpse behavior" (AI Package >> Flags).

 

To make them say something when they arrive at the body: add a Topic Info to their dialogue quest >> Misc >> NoticeCorpse. (Dialogue target is the body).

 

Note that this AI behavior is mostly hardcoded (aside from enabling/disabling and there might by Game Settings too) and controlled by the engine so you can't predict the time of when the NPC actually greets a corpse. If you want to specify the time and the greet chance, you may want to use a handler quest or a Magic Effect (Cloak) instead.

[hereami]

Good hint about specific dialogue support, thanks, could be a nice touch.

 

What you say means that not every corpse is corpsy enough to be greeted, i guess.. Gonna be pain to test without knowing exact prerequisites, both situational and technical (although at least Combat package doesn't seem to require secret flag combos). Hopefully, overriding possibility is not simply broken, it's important to get access to DeadRef from inside package only.

 

But also if built-in occurrence is very rare or maybe even preset, then loses major amount of attraction for my goals.

Edited May 28, 2022 by hereami

[LarannKiar]

What you say means that not every corpse is corpsy enough to be greeted, i guess.

 

Practically yes but the system only has a hardcoded timer. Any corpse can be greeted actually (even Bloatflies).

 

Forgot to mention the other approach, the SM Event Node. The Story Manager has an event called "On Actor Attach" (not listed on the Creation Kit wiki). This event is sent by the Story Manager so the timing is unpredictable (similarly to the AI equivalent).

 

However, theoretically, this event can be sent by the Keyword Script function SendStoryEvent() too. (Theoretically because I haven't used this function for On Actor Attach).

 

Quests started by SM Events as well as the SM events themselves can be conditionalized.

 

Some templates: REDeadActorAttachNode, RECorpseSwarmCreatorNode.

Edited May 29, 2022 by LarannKiar

[hereami]

Interesting. That all becomes overcomplicated though. Sounds much more simple in wiki "Actors who find a dead body enter a special, code-driven Observe Dead Body Behavior", then you catch this event by override and all done.

 

My companions currently can loot bodies just by regular packages, but i still wanted to easily hook into background task, which is processed by game anyway, thus release some processing load, especially since that's on ps4. Major benefit of the override would be that it filters out living actors, also there wouldn't be interference with search of containers in same package.