GECK AI bug

[Mishaxhi]

I've come across a completely reproducable bug in the GECK that's driving me to my wits end, so I've decided to post here in the hope that somebody will understand what on earth is going on. I've alreadys earched high and low for an answer, and whilst there are queries that deal with similair symptoms, none deal with the exact chain of events that lead to the issue I'm having.

 

It relates to AI in interior cells and goes like this:

 

- make changes to cell in GECK

- load up game

- load save that is at the door to cell, just outside of it

- enter cell, everything works perfectly

 

- reload save to test cell again

- everything is now broken, and will not work again until I close and reload the entire game

 

When I say broken, I mean the AI. They can't move, and when they do, they just sort of float and skip across the cell in a bizzare fashion with no movement animations playing. The "floating NPC" bug is documented and there are a few methods to fix it, but none deal with this paticular issue.

The bug is entirely reproducable, this happens 100% of the time, for me anyway. The only way to get around it is to make a save whilst already inside of the cell, but this is less than desirable for a number of reasons.

 

- initial triggers will be broken

 

- you cannot rely on the player doing this

 

Things I've already done:

 

- reinstalled. Twice

 

- reduced the amount of scripted AI in an effort to reduce the "load" on the game

 

- played around with setting low level processing flags, persistent references, just about everything related to an actor that can be toggled on or off

 

- rebuilt the navmesh, multiple times

 

- cleared the game cache before entering each time

 

- used quicksaves, hard saves, CASM saves, loading a different save entirely before loading up the one from outside of the cell (the only way to "reset" the bug is to close the game completely)

 

- read every single tutorial on interior building that I can find in the hope that I just missed one niggling but critical step (I really hope that this is the answer)

 

If anybody has any idea what is going on, I will love you forever, as this one bug now has multiple well into production projects on hold.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Mishaxhi

[tomm434]

Have you marked your pluign as .esm?

Edited April 9, 2015 by tomm434

[Mishaxhi]

Have you marked your pluign as .esm?

 

No, it's just a regular .esp

[yourenotsupposedtobeinhere]

I don't know if any of this will help.

 

Selecting the solid triangle in the tool bar, then selecting a triangle in your mesh. Ctrl F to bring up tool to check errors in navmesh.

 

If a cell is duplicated, the navmesh is duplicated as well in the second cell, that could potentially be an issue.

 

How many NPC's do you have in the Cell?

 

How many have complicated packages, ie. more then just standing around.

 

Have you checked your editor errors when loading the GECK with your plugin? the one that is generated when you click all the "yes to all" things?

 

What is your NPC count in the cell.

What is your Basic and non-basic AI count in that cell.

[tomm434]

No, it's just a regular .esp

then make it esm! Sometimes for navmesh it matters.

[Mishaxhi]

I don't know if any of this will help.

 

Selecting the solid triangle in the tool bar, then selecting a triangle in your mesh. Ctrl F to bring up tool to check errors in navmesh.

 

If a cell is duplicated, the navmesh is duplicated as well in the second cell, that could potentially be an issue.

 

How many NPC's do you have in the Cell?

 

How many have complicated packages, ie. more then just standing around.

 

Have you checked your editor errors when loading the GECK with your plugin? the one that is generated when you click all the "yes to all" things?

 

What is your NPC count in the cell.

What is your Basic and non-basic AI count in that cell.

 

I'll answer what I can.

 

- the GECK is flagging up no navmesh issues

 

- one of the cells is duplicated and expanded upon but I've already taken what I believe to be all the necessary steps to alleviate problems. I should've noted this. I have three NPC'd cells this is happening to, and the other two and completely new. I tried separating them from the .esp containing the duplicate cell via TESSnip, problem persisted. I also build a completely clean test cell in a new .esp to see if it still happened, and it did.

 

- on average, 5 to 10, not all enabled at the same time

 

- in the largest cell, upwards of 20, but none are active by default, they are all called via the AddScriptPackage command. In the smallest, 0, they're just hostiles

 

- no editor errors currently flagged up

 

- I'm not entirely sure of the distinction between basic and none basic. All are hostiles and have no low level processing

Edited April 9, 2015 by Mishaxhi

[yourenotsupposedtobeinhere]

To me it sounds like processing. After Morrowind the editors Bethesda allows us to use get more complicated with processing. I have seen and experienced issues with AI in Oblivion, Fallout NV and Skyrim. Processing that is not dependant on the computer and the processor, but on the engine it self.

 

What I know; these games don't like to process a lot of NPCs. I know that 7 is the safe number in cell in Skyrim, anything more and weird things happen. NPC will disappear, not move, float under the cell. The engine processes all AI including dead NPC's.

 

Basic processing for non hostile would be not having an AI package, dropping the NPC, Sandbox, letting the NPC decide what to do. Average processing will be 2-3 packages, ie, sell from this tim to that time, go sit on this chair for 3 hours, then go to sleep. And avanced AI package would be something like, Before quest stage 10 go to this cell between 2 times, when not in those 2 times go to this other place and walk around, when neither of this are processed, go to sleep. part 2, if stage 10 is finished but have not advanced to stage 30 follow player and have a wait option, when waiting use these idles. Stage 3, When player is at stage 40 of the quest, NPC goes to area and shoots wall from 3am to 6am, then sleeps, then walks around, bla bla bla. The last one is an advanced AI package. All these things are added up with processing and the reason why a lot of places in all the games since Morrowind seem sort of, unpopulated.

 

Take the thorn, exterior and interior. Lots of NPC's, non of them doing anything including Lucy, she just stands there, all the other NPC's just stand or sit and say some generic hello. Lets say that you go into the Thorn with 5 companions. Player + 5 Companions + Red Lucy + 10 - 15 Wasters, you now have approx 21 basic AI processes, not including your companions. The cell will probably lag a bit, or one of the low priority wasters might be disabled by the engine to free resources.

 

Legion attacks you in groups of 4, Fiends in Vegas Ruins, no more then 10 per cell. Vault 21 has always lagged for me.

 

If this is the issues. Have you tried testing it with only one NPC?

No hidden or disabled ones but literally 1 NPC

If there is only one NPC and you still have issues then it would seem that processing is not the problem and we would need to brainstorm other possibilities.

[Fallout2AM]

 

Have you marked your pluign as .esm?

 

No, it's just a regular .esp

 

 

This, first. Then you can re-do your tests :)

[Mishaxhi]

To me it sounds like processing. After Morrowind the editors Bethesda allows us to use get more complicated with processing. I have seen and experienced issues with AI in Oblivion, Fallout NV and Skyrim. Processing that is not dependant on the computer and the processor, but on the engine it self.

 

What I know; these games don't like to process a lot of NPCs. I know that 7 is the safe number in cell in Skyrim, anything more and weird things happen. NPC will disappear, not move, float under the cell. The engine processes all AI including dead NPC's.

 

Basic processing for non hostile would be not having an AI package, dropping the NPC, Sandbox, letting the NPC decide what to do. Average processing will be 2-3 packages, ie, sell from this tim to that time, go sit on this chair for 3 hours, then go to sleep. And avanced AI package would be something like, Before quest stage 10 go to this cell between 2 times, when not in those 2 times go to this other place and walk around, when neither of this are processed, go to sleep. part 2, if stage 10 is finished but have not advanced to stage 30 follow player and have a wait option, when waiting use these idles. Stage 3, When player is at stage 40 of the quest, NPC goes to area and shoots wall from 3am to 6am, then sleeps, then walks around, bla bla bla. The last one is an advanced AI package. All these things are added up with processing and the reason why a lot of places in all the games since Morrowind seem sort of, unpopulated.

 

Take the thorn, exterior and interior. Lots of NPC's, non of them doing anything including Lucy, she just stands there, all the other NPC's just stand or sit and say some generic hello. Lets say that you go into the Thorn with 5 companions. Player + 5 Companions + Red Lucy + 10 - 15 Wasters, you now have approx 21 basic AI processes, not including your companions. The cell will probably lag a bit, or one of the low priority wasters might be disabled by the engine to free resources.

 

Legion attacks you in groups of 4, Fiends in Vegas Ruins, no more then 10 per cell. Vault 21 has always lagged for me.

 

If this is the issues. Have you tried testing it with only one NPC?

No hidden or disabled ones but literally 1 NPC

If there is only one NPC and you still have issues then it would seem that processing is not the problem and we would need to brainstorm other possibilities.

 

It all sounds plausible, the only thing is the fact that it does work flawlessly the first time only. After that the game requires a reset, even flicking between saves in an attempt to clear the cache does nothing.

 

I'll give it a try anyway and see what happens.

[jcdenton2012]

Are the cells you created using duplicate data from the existing cells, and are both the duplicates and custom cells you created having these problems. Based upon what I've heard that appears to be the case, but I want to clarify this because if it isn't then you will likely have an entirely different problem from what I have listed down below.

 

When you duplicate an interior cell, even if it is just to use its pre-set lighting data before totally designing your own cell, you copy far more than the lighting data itself. For starters, the NPCs... if they are unique NPCs as opposed to cookie cutter enemies, and you copy the interior cell, you might also inadvertently clone their script data. So, you could end up with 2 of the same named NPCs running the same 'daily routine scripts.' This can and absolutely WILL break the game causing pretty much every error you have listed. This is also why if people ask me about creating interiors I pretty say to NEVER CLONE INTERIOR CELLS!! Sure, its the easy way out for presetting lighting, but duping a cell just to base the lighting data causes much more in the way of long term complications, even if you scalpel out most of the original content.

 

My advice would be to check the NPCs you are using and see how many their are in the actual game. If they are named NPCs like... Stevie Johnson, instead of RaiderGunAA, then check to see how many Stevie Johnsons there are in the game, if it says anything other than 1, then here's your problem. The Stevie Johnson you have in your interiors is conflicting with another Stevie Johnson somewhere else in the game, thus when you leave and return back inside the cell, the game is telling the cloned Stevie Johnson to do whatever the other Stevie Johnson is suppose to be doing. Consequently, this may may also cause the NPCs to stop movement animations because the game is suddenly finding itself with multiple AI's that are suppose to be performing the same functions.

 

Hope this helps.