Help With My Mod

[CommandoBrando]

So I started to make a mod just for fun and to learn how to do so and I ended up with something that could potentially be neat. Basically the idea is that you learn of a small town having trouble with dissapearances so you go and investigate this little town I made and find theres someone sneaking into town casting a spell that steals the npcs and yourself if your not careful. Once the person is killed theres instructions to find a key and directions to a hidden door for the key. Inside is what will be a fairly large city (its a decent size right now however not all buildings have npcs or interiors) thats very dark and kinda creepy. The whole idea is for this city to be real weird and messed up (hence dead corpses hanging from trees and fires full of dead bodies). Although I havnt finished the story the idea is to find out why this person was kidnapping people from the small town. I do have some screenshots of some stuff like my giant trap of swinging axes or my skyscraper done oblivion style however im too much of a noob I guess to know how to include them in my post.

 

This isnt really a crazy mod, theres no new textures or anything, but im looking for anyone who would be interested in testing it and possibly helping me with some problems that arise as this is my first mod and Im slowly but surely going insane. For example, I have this npc who is an assassin and he has a strong chameleon and is hard to see and his ai tells him to find you and kill you which is usually kinda fun because he has one hit kill arrows and in the dark crowded streets he can hide quite well. Now the problem im having with him is that he wont stay in the cell and keeps wondering into tamriel and you will be walking along one day and all of a sudden an arrow flies into the back of your face and your dead. Theres even some simple things I just cant quite figure out like some landscaping things in my town, I cant seem to get rid of all the tall grass :glare: . Oh and I dont know how to make quests so everything is done by finding notes instead of journal updates as that was far to complicated for me which also creates the problem of the compass not being able to tell you were to find stuff for the quest which is another reason I need testers. Its just like back in the old days on Morrowind when we didnt have fancy devices like a compass and had to find everything on our own. Anyways im sure that was more then anyone wanted to read so the idea is i could use help with things like ai problems, landscapping, testing, and helping me do some interiors so if your interested let me know.

[Vagrant0]

The assassin comes and finds you wherever you are because you're telling him to. Try adjusting the conditions of the package so that he'll only come find you durring a specific time (one of those places quest stages would be useful), or if the player is in a specific cell. You should however keep in mind that NPCs don't do anything in cells which the player isn't currently in unless the player is sleeping or waiting. Meaning that if you tell the NPC to travel to the player when the player is within a different cell than the NPC, the player would have to do comething like sleep or wait while the conditions of that package are still valid for that NPC to do anything. Your best bet would probably to just have the assassin wandering around various places in town at certain times, and only become aggressive to the player durring a point where you want the player attacked (triggered through setting aggression through scripting). Just make sure all his packages have him sneaking, and he has "no rumors" checked so that towns people won't likely approach him for conversation.

[LordMindas]

i cant really help with any ai problems but i will happy test it out and tell you if i find any bugs

[CommandoBrando]

Well what I did for the assassin was set him to find the player when ever the player enters the city which is inside a building. He is also set to -100 player faction disposition and is very agressive so when he comes near you he pulls out his bow. The door to leave the cell is even locked with a key so I just cant figure out how this tricky fella keeps leaving the cell and roaming tamriel when you sleep.

[CommandoBrando]

What exactly is a good method for making it so people can download the .esp file for my mod? I figured you could put it in a post using the upload thing but it doesnt like me much.

[PanzerOfGod]

I don't think locks matter to NPC's, just the player.

[Vagrant0]

I don't think locks matter to NPC's, just the player.

Pretty much... If there is a door which links the cell an NPC is in to the rest of the world, the NPC will be able to get out to the rest of the world if that is where he is being told to go. This is why I suggested changing some of the conditionals on the package... so that the NPC only attempts to travel to the player if the player is within a place you want that NPC to go. The suggestion of having the aggression triggered by scripting, rather than having it instantanious was so that you could use a variety of different packages on the NPC to randomize where he'll be, so that later, when triggered, he could attack from any one of those locations without the player having any way to plan for it (should they know about it). Whereas with just a travel package, a savy player could just have a summon following him around to act as a guard dog (and probably take the hit first since you're having combat initiated through disposition rather than scripting).

 

As for uploading it, you should probably throw it into a .rar archive with a basic readme explaining what the mod is and how to start whatever.

[CommandoBrando]

I finally uploaded a BETA version of the mod so anyone interested can find the file here http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=12861