SSE Exterior Navemesh Woes

[NexBeth]

Well, thought I knew how to do ext. navmesh. I've done it twice before across several exterior cells. Not sure if this is an issue with the new AE version but now I'm having a big problem I can't figure out.

 

My first house mod made for original skyrim had deleted exterior navs that I never fixed. Now I have updated that old mod for SSE and decided to fix this problem by just redoing all of exterior cells by hand. So, I deleted the old navmesh that I had edited before. Then I returned the game's navmeshes to its original state. All went well. I did what I did in my last mod and dropped the original untouched navmeshes down below the terrain. Then, I recreated my own navmeshes and linked them up to adjacent cells' vanilla navmeshes.

 

Problem is, NPCs will not cross over from my modified cells to the vanilla cells. There are no errors in Xedit. All of my boarders are linked up correctly and showing the green bridges.

 

Looking around, I see that people use a navmesh cutting technique which I did not do. I simply dropped the vanilla navs down below the terrain and created my own navs on the terrain.

 

Any insights would be appreciated!

[maxarturo]

Select vanilla NavMesh and "Move Selection To Separate NavMesh", the engine can't draw path when the NavMesh has 2 layers at the same NavMesh Edges/Spline.

[NexBeth]

Not sure what you mean, maxarturo. Are you saying to move the vanilla navmeshes I moved below the terrain further away?

[maxarturo]

Nope my friend.

When you have selected the NavMesh you want to move, and then you go to the toolbar up the top in CK (not in the NavMesh tool) > NAVMESH > "Move Selection To Separate NavMesh"

This will cut the selected NavMesh from its source as a 'selection' of the existing one, then you move that selection bellow ground.

That selection once you add your own NavMesh and connect it to the existing/vanilla NavMesh will no longer be a part of the 'Finalized' NavMesh, so the engine will be able to draw path from the old to your new NavMesh since the vanilla NavMesh that it's in its own 'selection' is no longer part of the finalized one.

Edited June 8, 2023 by maxarturo

[NexBeth]

Well, I've already moved the originals below ground and placed my own navs, redoing entire navs in these cells. I tried to go ahead and do this nav cutting procedure on one of the cells that I moved below ground, but NPCs still not crossing the boarders.

 

Am going to have to delete all navs, including my custom nav and vanilla. reinstate vanilla and start the process over? There are 7 cells....Strange thing is, why has what I normally do (just move cells below the terrain) work in the past?

[maxarturo]

Stupid but relevant question, did you finalize the NavMesh?

Your issue could be releated to a number of reasons, for example:

- You edit a NavMesh in cell A

- Then in your load order there is a mod that load after yours and restores or modify cell's A NavMesh

Still, the method I mentioned works just fine in SSE (I've checked it recently), and it's the recommended method to edit the vanilla NavMesh.

[NexBeth]

Definitely finalized. No other mods have anything to do with these cells. I just deleted all vanilla navs I dragged below terrain. Will finalize my own navs again and test. We'll see.

[NexBeth]

That failed. I'm going to test some published mods to see what happens.

 

So, do you think the problem is not using the entire vanilla navs? The area I'm working with is huge and has massive edits to terrain by me, which is why its near impossible using vanilla navs.

 

Also, I uninstalled all mod except for a texture mod, SkyIU, SKSE, and the Unofficial Patch. The only mod that may have edited a nav, but not in my area, is Point the Way which adds additional directional signposts. I didn't have building mods installed.

 

Thanks for input!

[maxarturo]

You may not wanna hear this, but I would mostly and firstly start by uninstalling the unofficial patch, I wouldn't be surprised if the cause of your issue is that mod.

The said mod advertises itself as a fixer of the game's bugs, but in reality it doesn't address not a single one of them, instead the only thing it does is to move things around, if a bottle is not touching the table it will move it to touch the table, if a rock leaves a hole in the terrain it will move the rock, if a mesh has a missing flag it will add that flag, etc.... Look at it in xEdit, it has a billion dirty edits.

Do yourself a favor and disable ALL mods except yours (texture mods, SKSE and SkyIU do not actually interfere with the game, so they are ok), and test it by not using an existing save, but either start a new game or 'COC' from the game's Main Menu. If the issue persist after this, then you will be sure that the issue is only related to your mod.

Plus, except that you will have eliminated one possible culprit, it's a test you can do in literally 2 minutes.

Edited June 9, 2023 by maxarturo

[NexBeth]

Well, I did as you suggested and still have problem. I did check other house mods, and they don't have the problem.

 

The only thing left to do is delete all custom navs, reinstate all vanilla navs (7cells!) and then follow the procedure for cutting the vanilla navs and work from there, as you suggested above. That should keep me business for a good amt of time!

 

Also, for anyone else experiencing this issue in future, there is a vid by Darkfox on this:

Creation Kit (Navmesh Cutting) - YouTube

 

Thanks maxarturo!