Interior Cell Respawn Anchor

[Meizikyn]

(Uncertain if this is correct board)

I'm looking for a way to dynamically (meaning, ingame via console or means of a scripted item I can drop) a way to stop/start interior cells from respawning (both NPCs and placement of non-static items, such as food and clutter).

 

NOT Homestead, as it does not work!

 

Since it is impossible to disable cell-respawns on a per-cell basis from within the game, is there some kind of "World Anchor", such as a scripted item I can drop, that will "Visit" the cell for me, or set some kind of flag the resets the respawn timer for the particular cell(s) this Anchor is placed in.

 

I would love to see a mod that can do this, or point me in the right direction so that I might develop one and release it, as there are many other players that I'm certain would love a light-wight way to have custom player homes, which this would allow.

 

(Safe containers are not the issue, this is solved by a myriad of other mods)

[dalsio]

Best I can think of is to make two identical cells, one respawning and another static. Then in the script relink the door to the static cell (or disable the default door and enable an already made door that links to the other cell). This is a bit jank but it's all I know of. Plus, I don't think you can make a copy of a cell in scripts so if you want the player to be able to interact and change a cell before setting it to be static and have those changes reflected in the new cell, you would have to set up the static cell as empty (or at least remove any moveable objects) and then have the script systematically copy all the objects and their locations in the respawning cell to the static cell. When the cell needs to be respawning again, one would then have to do the same but in reverse, removing all objects from the respawning cell and replacing them with copies from the static cell.

 

Another method would be to make an SKSE plugin that is able to change cell properties but I wouldn't be able to help you there as I can't get Visual Studio to work on my PC.

 

I hope someone else knows a better alternative.

[Meizikyn]

That is a plausible solution, albeit very "dirty". It's my understanding cells have some kind of timestamp, or must have some variable attatched that a quest script can update every few days to "visit" cells for the player.

 

The question is, what variable, and how can it be modified in-game via script.

[dalsio]

Unfortunately, Cell forms have no functions in vanilla scripting and only 3 with SKSE. None of them appear to deal with a reset timer of any sort. I don't know how Skyrim does it's respawning in the first place but if I did, I could offer a better solution.