Return to Shady Sands

[Archonon]

Sounds terrific BadPenney, if there are no other detectable problems then you might be seeing a release on the horizon.

 

I wanted to let you know that patch 1.7 was very recently released over GFWL (Games For Windows Live), they have not uploaded the file to the site just yet but are working on it. I haven't gotten it yet but will in a few minutes, there have been no patch notes released so I don't know if it fixes any bugs or resolves the skin issue of modded npcs, all I know for certain is that it adds the achivements (And maybe perks) for MZ.

 

I asked on the forums if anyone who installed the patch already knows if the skin issue is fixed but have not received an answer yet. So I'll let you know as soon as I know, unless you get the patch yourself.

 

Anyway keep you updated and congrats on squashing the dialogue bug! :thumbsup:

[BadPenney]

Sounds terrific BadPenney, if there are no other detectable problems then you might be seeing a release on the horizon.

There is another bug that I am wrestling with and I think that I've narrowed its occurance down, but I am at a loss as to what is causing it.

 

In the second main quest an NPC gives the player information that advances the quest to the next stage. While still in town everything looks okay, but somewhere along the path that the player has to take outside of town an event or events occur that cause some NPCs back in town to lose their AI packages and just stand around.

 

I really don't have a clue what is going on at this point, since the player is just moving through vanilla terrain when it seems to be happening. It doesn't seem to matter what time of day the player travels.

 

I may have to back up to see if it happens in the same area at earlier quest stages. There are random encounter triggers in the area, though I don't know why they would have any effect.

 

Making this mod has turned into a bigger mystery than playing it.

[BadPenney]

Tested again by travelling to the area of the Reclining Resort Rest Homes southeast of Shady Sands during a point in the mod when none of my quests were running and it still seems to affect my NPCs. Particularly the ones who are in the exterior Wasteland worldspace get wonky. Not only do they come to a dead stop, but some are relocated into locations that their patrols don't even take them.

 

I don't understand how I could have modded in this glitch and I'm wondering if is known whether vanilla Random Encounter triggers can cause this sort of havoc with mod NPCs. Unless there is a patch that cures this effect, the only thing I can think of to remedy it is to write a script that repositions NPCs and resets their AI whenever the player gets within a certain range of town. Hopefully that would put them back on track.

 

Players need to move though this area for the Far Go Trader quest and the Caravan Guard quest.

 

Any knowledgeable suggestions would be appreciated.

[Quetzlsacatanango]

Are the NPCs marked as 'no low level processing'? That will stop their AI while you're in a different cell.

[Archonon]

Hmm I remember running into a similar problem when playing Oblivion. Basically what would happen is that all npcs (Modded and vanilla) would suddenly stop on their tracks after I got a certain distance away from them; once I got within a certain range closer, they would continue about their business as usual.

 

The problem I had it identified as the number of companions I had active within the game (Not necessarily with me, just active) and the number was above 8. Apparently there is some sore of problem with having so many scripts and AI packages running at the same time (In addition to all the regular game ones) and that would make them freeze. I found that if I kept my activated companions at 8 or less, the problem would go away.

 

I know that this isn't the same but I wonder if it has something to do with the AI of your caravan escort quests? Maybe you don't even need to be doing the quest, maybe just having the quest or the scripts/AI for it ingame is enough to affect it?

 

Mind you I know nothing about AI or anything like that, all this is speculation based on similar circumstances I had previosuly seen on the same game engine.

 

On a possibly more positive note, a fellow board member suggested a way to fix the skin tone issue without having to use the FO3Edit method. Here's what he said:

 

You can fix that one easily. Go to your documents folder, then to the my games folder in

that, then the Fallout 3 folder. Open the file that is called Fallout. Press Ctrl and F

at the same time and search for general. Once you find that section, add this line under

it: "bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1" (No quotation marks)

 

Then it should be fixed.

 

If you want to try that, I hope it helps. I also hope you can resolve that problem with the AI soon, what a pain some of this stuff is... :wallbash:

[BadPenney]

Are the NPCs marked as 'no low level processing'? That will stop their AI while you're in a different cell.

No, they are not. I ran into problems early with that box checked so I deselected it from all of my NPCs.

 

Hmm I remember running into a similar problem when playing Oblivion. Basically what would happen is that all npcs (Modded and vanilla) would suddenly stop on their tracks after I got a certain distance away from them; once I got within a certain range closer, they would continue about their business as usual.

I had 2 followers waiting back in my Megaton house.

 

I wouldn't have a problem with the NPCs stopping while I'm gone, as long as they get moving again when I come back, but they wouldn't move. The NPCs that are placed outdoors in the GECK seem to be the most affected, like the sentry bot, the town dog and the tower guards. They sometimes get relocated to odd places and stalled, NPCs that originate within interior cells and travel outside just get stuck in transit.

 

The Caravan quest is actually pretty simple. The caravan boss has a patrol to follow, and the caravan guard and brahmin just have AI packages to follow her. As long as the player doesn't get more than 3000 units away and out of Line of Sight of the boss he stays on the payroll. If the boss doesn't die and you get all the way to her patrol termination trigger without going AWOL then you succeed with the quest.

 

I've written a script that makes vulnerable NPCs evaluate their AI packages and moves the exterior NPCs to places where their patrols originate before evp, when the player gets within 5000 units of the town center marker. It also resets the doOnce type condition when the player gets more than 5000 away from the center as long as he is still in an exterior cell. That seems to be working for me.

 

I don't know if I have too many scripts and packages running in too small an area to maintain. That may be a possibility. But then Rivet City has a lot going on too. Probably more.

 

At one point I got frustrated by finding NPCs hanging around in areas long after their packages should have told them to go elsewhere, so I made a sort of 24 hour clock quest that would give NPCs an evp nudge right after their packages had changed. It seemed to have helped. I stopped finding folks hanging out in the bar at 6 am (rotten bludgers) but I may have stressed the program by doing it. Right now it seems that things are running relatively smoothly though.

 

I'll try the bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1 method, though I assume that will not transfer to the mod, so any users would have to do the same thing. It seems that making the .esp into a masterfile will cure the NPC moontan for the mod itself.

 

Anyway, just bought a new laptop with a nice 1Gb graphics card and 6Gb RAM. I'm going to pack up all my mod files, master the latest .esp and load them onto the new comp and see how it plays.

[Archonon]

Well here is a description on one of the oldest vanilla glitches that might not have been solved with patches maybe this is related to the problem somehow?

 

Sometimes the NPCs will go off the track of their movement and wander around the wasteland. This is usually caused by going back and forth through two areas which will load them in a different spot. Or attacking them in combat and leaving the area or having them chase you out of the area.

 

I realize it doesn't strictly mention them freezing but it could be that when they respawn in a different area they become stuck somehow?

 

Well I also know that sometimes modders need to get a little creative with workarounds for one limitation or another, so if something is currently working to have the npcs get back to their routines and not freeze up then that's probably the best way to go.

 

On companions that I mentioned for Oblivion, I should mention that they were modded companions which would have the limit I spoke of. Technically speaking there were no real vanilla companions, unlike Fallout 3, so honestly I don't know how or even if the limitation of 8 companions I mentioned still applies here. I just spoke of it because it was similar in that all npcs froze on their tracks when I had more than 8 companions checked and as soon as I unchecked 1 and was back to 8 or less the frozen npcs would suddenly continue normally again.

 

Sorry I can't be of more help but I know nothing of scripting or AI. :confused:

 

Keep us posted if you manage to get all of it working.

 

PS. If you go get 1.7 remember that FOSE has no yet been updated for compatibility with it. I assume you have the last version which was a compatible beta for 1.6 and it wouldn't work with 1.7

[BadPenney]

PS. If you go get 1.7 remember that FOSE has no yet been updated for compatibility with it. I assume you have the last version which was a compatible beta for 1.6 and it wouldn't work with 1.7

I haven't downloaded FOSE yet, and have not made its use a requirement for RTSS. Ideally, I wanted RTSS to be usable without needing any other programs than Fallout 3, although ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated! is needed, like most mods.

[Archonon]

Sorry I could have sworn I read in one of your posts that you use FOSE and as that would conflict with the new patch I thought to warn you. Nevermind then, my mistake :unsure:

 

Anyway good luck trying to stomp those last few bugs!

 

Btw, I don't know if you visit the Bethesda forums but the author of the Canterbury Commons Embiggened is doing a big town mod just like you are, if you have any questions regarding the problems that you are having and would like me to ask him on your behalf to see if he can provide any solutions then let me know what you would like me to ask. If you haven't found a solution to the AI problem for example (And God knows I hope you already have) I can ask if he has a clue what's going on, just let me know exactly what you want to know and I'll pass it along...of course if you go there you can PM FunkmastaD yourself hehe.

[BadPenney]

It remains to be seen whether Shady Sands is bugless yet, but I am guardedly optimiistic. I've got my files transferred over to the new comp and things look smooth. I probably moved a few more than I need, so I'm going to try to cull them down to a minimum before compressing them. Really enjoying the NVidia GTX 260m graphics. Looks much crisper than my old 9800.

 

I transferred a clean savegame from right outside of town, which had an unintended consequence. While standing there without my .esp enabled, a yao guai spawned inside the future city limits. After enabling the mod he killed one of the residents before I could get to him. Had to shut down the mod again and hunt him down before enabling it again. I recommend enabling the mod from a good distance away.

 

Playing through on the new laptop should give me a good idea whether it is ready for upload. I'm still planning on early August; Saturday if I run into no more problems.