dead bodies not appearing or not dead?

[davidlallen]

I can place objects in wilderness cells fine. But, when I place corpses, either they don't start out dead, or they don't appear at all. It could be they appeared and wandered off so far I can't find them, I suppose.

 

There is an NPC, DEADWastelanderCM. Using GECK, I drag this into the cell and drop it next to another item I added previously. I load the game and walk to the location. The item is there. The NPC is there and he is not dead, he is walking around sandboxing. When I double click to edit this NPC in GECK, it clearly shows as 0 health. That means it should be dead. Is there something else I have to do to make a corpse successfully? I have investigated several of the corpses such as Johnny Five Aces, and there is nothing different I can see.

 

This may be a clue. Sometimes I have tried saving a game where I am standing right next to the location where I will place the corpse. Then, when I load the game, I can immediately see the NPC. I see him start standing up and immediately fall down dead. But when I load a game at a different location and walk there, the NPC is sandboxing. So perhaps something about me starting in this location is affecting whether the NPC dies successfully.

 

Any suggestions?

[Aragron]

place a script in the body.

 

begin onload

kill

end

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the suggestion, that is working. Still, the corpses in the game such as Johnny and others do not have this script and they are successfully dead. If anybody can suggest a step I missed, to avoid this script, I would appreciate it.

[davidlallen]

I've attached an example. The example is so trivial, there must be something I am missing. I dragged two objects of DeadWastelanderCM into Doc Mitchell's house. I did not change anything else. When I edit the objects I can see their health is 0. When I enter the house in-game, they are there sandboxing, clearly not dead.

 

I don't want to add an "onload kill" script to every corpse, I shouldn't need it. Is there some obvious setting I have missed to make my corpses like normal corpses?

[davidlallen]

-five day bump- Can anybody suggest a step I have missed, so that NPCs with zero health start out lying down instead of sandboxing?

[Ez0n3]

If there's only one, then you could make a little script like above to kill it.

 

If there are more than one, the way I've seen it set up usually is to have an activator (no mesh, like a trigger) in the cell with the corpses. It will have an OnLoad block that Activates the another activator. Each dead NPC will have a generic activator linked to it.

 

So, (make them all persistent, activators might need an activate sound)

 

MyActivatorOnLoad (NoMesh)

Script: GenericActivateOnLoad

Place anywhere in the cell

----

 

MyActivatorKillNPC01 (NoMesh)

Script: GenericDismembermentRandomMultiOnActivate

Place near NPC01

Set my Activator Parent to MyActivatorOnLoadREF

Set my Linked Ref to MyDeadNPC01REF

 

MyDeadNPC01

Script: None

--

 

MyActivatorKillNPC02 (NoMesh)

Script: GenericDismembermentRandomMultiOnActivate

Place near NPC02

Set my Activator Parent to MyActivatorOnLoadREF

Set my Linked Ref to MyDeadNPC02REF

 

MyDeadNPC02

Script: None

--

 

MyActivatorKillNPC03 (NoMesh)

Script: GenericDismembermentRandomMultiOnActivate

Place near NPC03

Set my Activator Parent to MyActivatorOnLoadREF

Set my Linked Ref to MyDeadNPC03REF

 

MyDeadNPC03

Script: None

--

 

etc...

 

Or set all the linked REFs up and then select all MyActivatorKillNPC... activators and hit "-" to batch set their Activate Parent to MyActivatorOnLoadREF - little quicker.

[davidlallen]

Thank you for the suggestions. This seems awfully complicated. I just want a dead body, which the player can search to get a note. I have traced out several corpses in the vanilla game, such as "Johnny Five Aces" (filter by johnny). I cannot find any such activators or scripts. The NPC is just a class variant of NVProspectorMale with 0 health. (There is an activator for the Wild Wasteland perk nearby but this is not related.)

 

Is it possible that my problem is, I just don't know how to place the NPC in a dead position? I just drag the NPC into the render window and use "F" to drop, then reposition. So he is standing. If there is a way to adjust his position to be lying down, maybe he wouldn't move.

[Ez0n3]

That NPC you mention doesn't start off dead, but is meant to die - I think that's why he has 0 health. If you just want to kill one NPC, do what Aragron said. But if you want to kill a lot, just telling you how Beth did it. It's really not that bad...

Drag a "GenericActivateOnLoad" activator into the scene and name it. Then drag a "GenericDismembermentRandomMultiOnActivate" activator in and name it. Set the GenericDismembermentRandomMultiOnActivate Linked Ref to the NPC and set its Activate Parent to the GenericActivateOnLoad activator - done. For each additional NPC, drag in a GenericDismembermentRandomMultiOnActivate activator for each one.

 

GenericActivateOnLoad - Count:1

GenericDismembermentRandomMultiOnActivate - Count:3

MyDeadNPC01 - Count:1

MyDeadNPC02 - Count:1

MyDeadNPC03 - Count:1

 

When you enter a cell for the first time and hear a "SPLAT" off in the distance, it's the OnLoad dismemberment.

 

In the FO3 town becAreful, there were two dead NPC's (West Family?) that kind of sound like what you're talking about, but they just displayed a note - don't know if it's possible to loot them like normal dead NPC's. Maybe if they were set up to be containers or something. Dunno.

 

I think you need the Havok button to "drop" the dead bodies and let the ragdoll do its thing. How to fix Lighting, Havok and Rendering Issues

[davidlallen]

I think you need the Havok button to "drop" the dead bodies and let the ragdoll do its thing. How to fix Lighting, Havok and Rendering Issues

 

I have no idea why turning off the display of multibounds, in a wilderness cell, makes any difference to havok sim. But when I change the ini file as recommended in that thread, the corpses now respond to the "world->run havok sim" menu, and ragdoll appropriately. My corpses are now dead, and no activator or "begin onload kill" is needed. Thanks for the suggestion!