Import/Export NPCs

[jonahthex]

I know they're just electrons, but I have become attached occasionally to one of my npcs.  When I start a new game I lose them.  Was wondering if there was a mod like transfer settlements that would allow me to make a "blueprint" of my npc to export to a file and then import into a new game.  Best I've seen so far is to create a looksmenu preset, but even tho they look the same, they don't exhibit the same behavioral characteristics as the original.  Any and all thoughts welcome.  Thanx.

[NeinGaming]

What do you mean with "behavioral characteristics"? Are you talking about settlers?

[jonahthex]

I had an npc companion I named Helen and she was very standoffish, wouldn't stay together with me and the rest of my companions.  Also, Mollie Goodweather would go down in combat and would not get up again until I fast traveled, couldn't stimpak her.  Helen attached herself to Mollie and stayed right by her side during the entire time Mollie would sit on the ground.  I thought it unusual behavior, kinda outside her programming and it intrigued me.  I'd like to port her to my new game.

[NeinGaming]

But when you start a game, those companions would also still be there? Insofar that was a glitch it would probably not repeat, but making an NPC follow another isn't that hard, if that is what you want. But transferring the glitched out state of an NPC as such to another save game is probably not possible, you'd have to recreate it.

 

[ImmortalAbsol]

I love the sentiment here.

Kinda like Yui in SAO or a series of videos I saw where a youtuber gave a Skyrim NPC ”intelligence” with ChatGPT and then took the compatible Bethesda files and the personality and memory of the ChatGPT component and then pasted them all into Fallout 4 and then blew their "mind" giving a Skyrim NPC a tour of Diamond City

[BlazeStryker]

That should be a thing in its own right, The Further Adventures Of Recorder.

[NeinGaming]

A while when I was still playing with NPC Travel ago I had this raider chick (spawned via Nomads) as a settler in Covenant. She had a missile launcher, probably picked it up from somewhere. And twice while I was in Covenant, she suddenly got up and started muttering about how she doesn't like this, pulls out the missile launcher like she's looking for an enemy, and then she fired several missiles to the left of the gate (when you look at it from the inside), into the crop area (which I had walled off a bit as seen in the image), damaging some crops. After a bit she talked about there being no sign of them now etc. and sat back down.

Nobody else reacted at all. And it's Covenant, so there were over a dozen of people in a rather small area -- nobody else was in combat or anything, just this Raider that suddenly got antsy and fired at the crops. This happened twice, with quite some time in between, and I have no clue why. My guess was that maybe NPC Travel has some invisible NPC that leads or creates patrols or something and ends up on that location somehow, but then why would only that Nomad raider react to it?

But at any rate, I find the underlying game systems more interesting than the *illusion*. I'd rather have an NPC look for food and occasionally eat based on a simple system, than them talking about how they had such a great meal, or how hungry they are. Or imagine something like rendering a lo-res version of the game from their perspective, so they instantly see you when you walk by a white wall when dressed in black, but not when you're dressed in white... and when you edit the texture of the wall or the clothes, their reaction changes accordingly. And the same for picking out sounds from background noise. That would probably require a few leaps or two by some geniuses, but John Carmack is too busy making a robot that can play Pac Man, so that'll never happen.

Edited May 26 by NeinGaming

[hereami]

6 hours ago, NeinGaming said:

My guess was that maybe NPC Travel has some invisible NPC that leads or creates patrols or something and ends up on that location somehow, but then why would only that Nomad raider react to it?

There is Suspicious shooting Script event in game, happens when raiders chat and maybe else, could be triggered intentionally by mod.

6 hours ago, NeinGaming said:

I'd rather have an NPC look for food and occasionally eat based on a simple system, than them talking about how they had such a great meal, or how hungry they are.

I think companions could drink your supplies in New Vegas and that likely made players angry  ? Problem is they don't have a real vital need for doing so, besides stimpaks, and most likely it all would pass unnoticed. Still would be great to know they do something.

Edited May 26 by hereami

[NeinGaming]

2 hours ago, hereami said:

Problem is they don't have a real vital need for doing so, besides stimpaks, and most likely it all would pass unnoticed. Still would be great to know they do something.

Yeah, they don't get anything from food I think. Or from taking jet (and I guess many other if not most chems).

My dream kinda is to turn FO4 into a game where NPC run around and "actually do stuff", like a less intelligent version of Stalker's A-Life. Loot random containers, put things they don't need into containers, get debuffed when hungry or thirsty, maybe eat, maybe not. Not outright having needs and planning actions, but just more systems that affect probabilities of an NPC doing something, and that have an ever so slight gameplay effects the player can notice and exploit. It doesn't have to be realistic or complex, just not totally random and fake either, like sandboxing kinda is.

Edited May 26 by NeinGaming

[hereami]

On 5/27/2025 at 12:31 AM, NeinGaming said:

Yeah, they don't get anything from food I think. Or from taking jet (and I guess many other if not most chems).

If you feed'em something, npc will regenerate health. I didn't monitor other effects specifically, but likely too, although i don't quite understand if special stats play any vital role for npc, majority has zero stats originally and still feels fine. Besides healing it doesn't seem be practical.

That wouldn't hurt till certain degree. Maybe not every npc should fit as game could possibly just choke, but companions are without a question here. Should loot area while player is busy with staring at them.