Getting a dead npc to spawn into an in progress save

[LightLeaf476]

RESOLVED (see bottom edit for method)

 

I'm merging a few mods and doing some light editing. I'm combining Road Fighter Armor, the Road Fighter Dirty Brown retexture, and the clean Desert Ranger armor all found here on The Nexus. I've got the armor looking and working as intended. Last on my checklist is slightly changing the location of the armor and swapping out on object. In the original Road Fighter Armor mod the armor can be found in a sack next to a skeleton at the very front of Quarry Junction. What I'd like to do is get rid of the skeleton and instead have a dead npc that's wearing the armor, and put that dead npc and the sack in the back of the quarry as to encourage it's acquisition at a level where the Courier can clear the quarry.

 

I am sure this is a solved problem, but I just started modding my game last month and can't seem to find a working method for achieving this. The most relevant information I've come across on how to make this happen comes from these threads 1 2 3 and this video. I haven't tried a script or the power charge. If I give the RoadArmorNPC I created 0 health he is there and dead in a fresh save, but he is not there on an in progress save. The in progress save file I'm using is vanilla end game save found here on The Nexus. If I give the npc 1 health he is there and alive in both a fresh save and an in progress save, fine so far. The problem is that if I add 1000 rads or 1000 starvation to that npc he's still alive when I get there. Although admittedly the use Actor Effect is not checked off when i do this because if I check that box it resets to not having any effect. I assume not checking the box is fine because I also can't check the use inventory box but the npc is still wearing the armor I put in the inventory when I get there. I've tried saving the esp, checking, deleting the npc and saving again, then dragging another copy of the RoadArmorNPC into the cell view. That didn't work either. Last thing I tried was raising the NPC off of the ground enough to kill someone with 1 hp, but he just shows up higher on a cliff nearby or on top of machinery and doesn't fall and die.

 

Edit in case anyone comes across this in the future:

 

This was solved by creating an object script and attaching it to the NPC. To create a script just press the pencil button up on the top menu of the GECK. Select "script" and then "new" from the Script Edit menu that pops up, copy and paste

scn InstaDeathScript

Begin OnLoad

kill

End

 

then save. Then when you create your new NPC use the script dropdown (located under where you enter the character's name) and select "InstaDeathScript". And bam, your NPC should be present and also dead.

Edited January 14, 2023 by LightLeaf476

[vaanknight]

Actually, you might want to keep your plugins script free when they're not really necessary. A much cleaner way is to simply edit the NPC's entry in the GECK so its base health is 0, like so:

 

 

Do that and they'll load up dead no matter how when and where you put them. Mid-playthrough or not.