Patrolling NPC stops at a door and turns around

[terickson227]

A patrolling NPC goes through one door fine, then stops at another door later. Next he turns around, then walks back to where he started.

[GrindedStone]

Navmesh or the door is locked?

 

Is it a animated door?

[terickson227]

Navmesh or the door is locked?

 

Is it a animated door?

 

The door is animated and has navmesh based on the BethSoft tutorial. The NPC managed to complete the patrol once, but after a few tests he stopped.

[hikky71]

In my experience, navmeshes in ESP plugins tend to break after changing cells a few times (fasttravel, walking through interior/exterior doors). Setting the ESM flag in the plugin file header with FO3Edit usually fixes it (unless the navmeshes/door connections really are bugged).

 

It's a bit annoying having to switch between ESM/ESP all the time while building a mod, so once the environment and navmesh is done, I set the ESM flag on its plugin and work on NPCs and AI behavior using one or more secondary plugins (that has the first one as it's master). Once I'm happy with the result, I merge them together into a single plugin with FO3 Plugin Utility.

 

Works for me.

[GrindedStone]

I've never had to do that, you should try getting out of the habbit for less work. It's probably that the mod is dirty an needs to be cleaned. Create new content inside a .esm, then place that content in the world with .esp, but you can create new content inside a .esp an place it, so why bother messing with .esm when it does nothing an only makes things a mess. Case in point the DLC's for example. Just try it because there are a lot of people that would argue that .esp is cleaner. I'm just saying.

 

The navmesh isn't really rocket science. Try to avoid spider webs, finalize it, check that it picked up teliport markers/borders. There's find cover but you don't use it much even though it's pretty cool. Most NPC's Combat Style has cover on the back burner, an end up in flee or looking for a weapon instead. I think a big problem when you first start navmeshing is that you make the triangles too small an too detailed, overthinking it. Rather than having it created fast in primitive chunks. Practice more.

 

The patrol sounds like it's related to packages, or the order of packages in the NPC's settings. I've always used FO3 edit or FNV edit to do a lot of the mod edits. Once you get the hang of it, many things can be done much quicker as well as things that GECK just won't allow you to do. Here the NPC has packages in it's settings, it scans those top to bottom looking for one to complete, once one finishes it scans it again, so patrol NPC's will have the patrol package first, depending on what you want them to do you might need to create a new patrol package.

[terickson227]

I've never had to do that, you should try getting out of the habbit for less work. It's probably that the mod is dirty an needs to be cleaned. Create new content inside a .esm, then place that content in the world with .esp, but you can create new content inside a .esp an place it, so why bother messing with .esm when it does nothing an only makes things a mess. Case in point the DLC's for example. Just try it because there are a lot of people that would argue that .esp is cleaner. I'm just saying.

 

The navmesh isn't really rocket science. Try to avoid spider webs, finalize it, check that it picked up teliport markers/borders. There's find cover but you don't use it much even though it's pretty cool. Most NPC's Combat Style has cover on the back burner, an end up in flee or looking for a weapon instead. I think a big problem when you first start navmeshing is that you make the triangles too small an too detailed, overthinking it. Rather than having it created fast in primitive chunks. Practice more.

 

The patrol sounds like it's related to packages, or the order of packages in the NPC's settings. I've always used FO3 edit or FNV edit to do a lot of the mod edits. Once you get the hang of it, many things can be done much quicker as well as things that GECK just won't allow you to do. Here the NPC has packages in it's settings, it scans those top to bottom looking for one to complete, once one finishes it scans it again, so patrol NPC's will have the patrol package first, depending on what you want them to do you might need to create a new patrol package.

 

I try to make nashmesh as simple as possible, but the GECK crashes when I save unless I go to Navmesh > Advanced Navmesh Gen and click Cleanup, Remove Unwalkable, and Remove Overlapping. After that I can save, but it messes up my navmesh in some areas. It basically does to my navmesh exactly what you said I should avoid doing.

[hikky71]

Are you using the automated tools to generate navmeshes? They have never worked very well for me (especially in exteriors). The result is almost always messy with too much cleanup to do afterwards. I always navmesh manually by "walking the dog" (first placing two vertices and then Ctrl+right-click to place a third while the first two are hilighted). Unless the level is huge or extremely complex, it's faster doing it by hand.

 

It also isn't necessary to make it very detailed unless you want to make it realistic in combat, hinting good spots for cover. For stairs/ramps make sure it doesn't get too steep. Otherwise it might be deleted when the navmesh is finalized. You also don't have to do each step, just drop a couple of vertices at each end and connect.

 

Before finalising while still in navmesh editing mode, search the navmesh for errors (Ctrl+F). Sometimes while adjusting the navmesh for obstacles, you may create triangles that overlap or is flipped the wrong way. Just delete it and redo it.

 

The tools Balance, Cut Object, Find Cover Edges, can be useful in interiors but I would avoid using them in exteriors (unless it's in my own worldspace) as they cause a lot of changes. That can cause compatibility issues with others mods in neighboring cells.

 

If you are just adding something small, like a hut or something to the wasteland, I would just delete the triangles closest to it and then fill in with new smaller ones. That way the cell edges will remain unchanged and it will be possible to delete the navmeshes for the neighboring cells that gets included with FO3Edit as they are unchanged, keeping the mods footprint as small as possible.

 

Using one of the automated tools such as "Cut selected object" in this situation will most likely force you to include navmeshes for neighboring cells which could conflict with neighboring mods.

 

 

@ GrindedStone

I've have had this issue with numerous mods, not just my own. While it could be my particular setup, many others share the same issue. I know my mod is clean (and I routinely clean any other mods I install unless I trust the author).

 

Are you using FO3Edit in MasterUpdate mode when installing mods? As this changes any ESPs into ESMs, you may not have been bitten by it (this also fixes the white-body issue on noncaucasian NPCs).

[terickson227]

Are you using the automated tools to generate navmeshes? They have never worked very well for me (especially in exteriors). The result is almost always messy with too much cleanup to do afterwards. I always navmesh manually by "walking the dog" (first placing two vertices and then Ctrl+right-click to place a third while the first two are hilighted). Unless the level is huge or extremely complex, it's faster doing it by hand.

 

It also isn't necessary to make it very detailed unless you want to make it realistic in combat, hinting good spots for cover. For stairs/ramps make sure it doesn't get too steep. Otherwise it might be deleted when the navmesh is finalized. You also don't have to do each step, just drop a couple of vertices at each end and connect.

 

Before finalising while still in navmesh editing mode, search the navmesh for errors (Ctrl+F). Sometimes while adjusting the navmesh for obstacles, you may create triangles that overlap or is flipped the wrong way. Just delete it and redo it.

 

The tools Balance, Cut Object, Find Cover Edges, can be useful in interiors but I would avoid using them in exteriors (unless it's in my own worldspace) as they cause a lot of changes. That can cause compatibility issues with others mods in neighboring cells.

 

If you are just adding something small, like a hut or something to the wasteland, I would just delete the triangles closest to it and then fill in with new smaller ones. That way the cell edges will remain unchanged and it will be possible to delete the navmeshes for the neighboring cells that gets included with FO3Edit as they are unchanged, keeping the mods footprint as small as possible.

 

Using one of the automated tools such as "Cut selected object" in this situation will most likely force you to include navmeshes for neighboring cells which could conflict with neighboring mods.

 

 

@ GrindedStone

I've have had this issue with numerous mods, not just my own. While it could be my particular setup, many others share the same issue. I know my mod is clean (and I routinely clean any other mods I install unless I trust the author).

 

Are you using FO3Edit in MasterUpdate mode when installing mods? As this changes any ESPs into ESMs, you may not have been bitten by it (this also fixes the white-body issue on noncaucasian NPCs).

 

I'm not sure how finalizing navmesh works. For me it just seems to turn a single triangle green.

[GrindedStone]

The green means it picked up on the teleport marker above it.

This also works for the borders between outdoor cells.

Green tells the NPC they can exit to another navmesh on this triangle.

 

Don't over think it, watch the how to create nav mesh video an practice that.

It's a primitive, meaning it doesn't need to be anything near an exact fit.

So with practice you should be able to create them very quickly.