Will editing Vanilla Quests work?

[DWooT]

I have tried quite unsuccessfully to edit the CaravanBase Quest and have it work in-game. My end goal is to add guards to Carla's Caravan. My original attempts were as follows:

 

Using F04Edit I copied the quest as override into my plugin. I then added two Aliases. I essentially made two new caravan guards. I also updated Packages and other quests too. But when I start a new game and check sqv for dc8fb (the CaravanBase quest) all of the Refs are set to None. And the quest is not running.

 

So I stepped back and tried something super simple. I only added a single new Alias (Alias ID and Alias Name) but no extra data. By just adding that one Alias to the quest, the quest does not run in game. I made no edits to Packages or other quests. Just that one small change to the CaravanBase quest.

 

My bad results are the same. sqv shows all of the Refs=None and that the quest is not running.

 

So my first question is: Can I even edit vanilla quests and get them to work or is that a waste of time?

 

2nd Question: If editing vanilla quests will work, why is even one small change to the quest causing the game not to run the quest and thus also not set/create all of the Refs to the NPCs?

[DWooT]

Further tinkering...

 

Instead of changing the vanilla quest I instead copied as new record. I then ran the game with the vanilla quest and my new quest (unedited). Checking sqv, both quests were running and had matching REF data for NPCs.

 

Next, I edited a single alias in my new quest. I changed one of the existing guards to point to one of my new guards. Re-ran game. This time my new quest was broken again and not running.

 

Next, instead of editing any records, I instead removed one entire alias. So no new data, just removed existing data. Re-ran game. This time my new quest was running and showed all good REFs. And it lacked the REF to the alias I removed.

 

It seems like what I'm doing wrong should be obvious but I'm just not seeing some vital piece of the puzzle.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[EveningTide]

I think you could simply make a separate quest, put the guards in it, and give them guard packages. You'll have to handle "porting" them to Carla initially.

[DWooT]

Thanks for the input. I started down that path. Not sure I'm getting anywhere but moving in that direction.

[Magicockerel]

Not sure if it's much help, but I have successfully edited vanilla quests in the past (at least the script component). More specifically it was the quest controlling the vertibird fast travel system, I think it was just named "VFT".

[speedynl]

you can edit the caravan base i did it to make a extra stop at gorsky for cricket, but its a pain in the ass to get it working, also it din't trigger haf way the game, had to start a hole new game to get it working

 

take a look at the other traveling traders how those are set up, you can learn from it to add the guards to carla, but its a real pain to do it

[DWooT]

I've been using the other three traveling traders for comparison. They are all set-up nearly identical and almost matching Carla. In fact they pretty much use the same scripting. It looks like the two guards were "removed" from Carla at some point considering the similarities.

 

So at first it seemed straightforward to add the guards to CaravanBase Quest, the CaravanTradePostCarla Quest, and the various associated Packages (CaravanCarlaMove##Package, Heading, Rest). All without needing to edit the scripts. The biggest difference is Carla had the extra CarlaStayPackage, CarlaBrahminFolowPackage, and CarlaPatrolPackage. But having worked all of the above I'm still failing somewhere.

 

I really wanted to get this to work in order to make my upcoming "Carla's Caravan" mod more interesting and closer to the same style as my other mods. Guess I'll experiment and beat my head against the wall some more.