NPCs randomly move at hyperspeed (clip included)

[Valfaun]

basically, some NPCs and creatures move extremely fast and twitch around the place, sometimes even launching themselves into the air and inevitably dying when hitting the ground. strange thing is, only some of them are affected while others around them are completely fine and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to which ones get hit.

i recorded a short clip to give an example:

a few seconds after i stopped the recording, i was informed that some quest failed and found that Sergeant Kilbron, one of the two dudes trapped in hyperspace there, has died while i wasn't looking. i guess he did the launch thing. all the other NPCs there are fine, though. so... this glitch is kind of a gamebreaker and occurs rather often.

 

any idea what might be the cause?

 

here's my mod load order: https://pastebin.com/SfC18354

i used NMM to install everything except for NVSE and its plugins. the load order is generally the one recommended for the PN - FOOK - Convergence mod. a different one, automatically sorted by LOOT, made no difference. neither did disabling Ragdolls, Awesome Crippling Effects and JIP.

 

 

also, my nvse.log spits out this chunk here over and over again:

Error in script 00001c16
Invalid array access - expected string index, received numeric.
    File: FalloutNV.esm Offset: 0x01CB Command: Let
Error in script 00001c16
Operator [ failed to evaluate to a valid result
    File: FalloutNV.esm Offset: 0x01CB Command: Let
Error in script 00001c16
Invalid array access - expected string index, received numeric.
    File: FalloutNV.esm Offset: 0x020B Command: Let
Error in script 00001c16
Operator [ failed to evaluate to a valid result
    File: FalloutNV.esm Offset: 0x020B Command: Let

[dubiousintent]

Please see the 'Third Rule: The Rule of One', 'Essentials for Getting Started', 'Towards Game Stability', and 'Merge Patch File' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article. All of those sections are pertinent to your issue, which is most likely the lack of a "merge patch file".

 

Once you have a "merge patch file" in place your hyper-speed issue should go away.

 

-Dubious-

[Valfaun]

thank you for the resources, dubiousintent. i read the sections you pointed out and decided to use Wrye Flash to make a bashed patch according to the generic instructions provided there. then i used FNVEdit to manually restore some records from the Convergence mod overwritten by the patch. launched the game to have a quick look around and also went towards Nipton since i hadn't been there yet. the game ran worse than before, so i also replaced LOOT's automatic load order with my custom one, keeping the bashed patch only below Nevada Skies which needs to be loaded the very last. performance went back to normal, but the hyperspeed NPCs still persist either way. moreover, i found that the issue isn't confined to newly spawned creatures but even spreads to those i've already seen and who were unaffected before

Edited July 1, 2017 by Valfaun

[dubiousintent]

It's very common for mod authors to say their mod should be placed last, as that ensures it wins any record level conflicts and also assumes you are not using a "merged patch" file. But there can only be one "last". The "bashed patch" file takes care of the record conflicts between plugins, in this case either by having "Nevada Skies" be the last of the conflicting records, or by giving it the appropriate "bash tag". (Please see the wiki "Bash Tags and the Wrye Bash Patch" article.) So far I have not seen anyone present a reason why "Nevada Skies" would require it to be placed after a BP or "merged patch" file. And doing so invokes "The Rule of One" again, negating the benefit of your BP.

 

Your hyper-speed issue appears (from the video clip) to be when the NPCs are executing their AI programs. It makes much more sense that all of them are being affected than just "newly spawned" ones. "Why" is the question. My suspicion is that you are attempting to play the game with too high of an FPS setting. The game was designed for only 60 FPS. Higher rates create problems. Please see the 'Solutions to Performance problems' section in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide. While it is dealing with "under performance", the same settings would be involved. (In particular make sure you aren't clamping your Frame Rate in both Fallout INI and NVSR.)

 

Though I am concerned that the "others" initially didn't have the problem. This implies something triggered the effect. Can you pin down the point (reliably reproduce the steps) at which it initially appears if clamping your FPS doesn't resolve it? Is it only happening in one cell or randomly in any cell (interior or exterior)?

 

I did find one reference where having a monitor refresh rate of 144Hz caused a similar issue until it was set to 60Hz instead.

 

Not saying this is the cause, but "Nevada Skies" is known to create a "black hole" vortex effect under some circumstances. You might try a test with it disabled.

When you say "the game ran worse than before" after using LOOT, how do you measure that? In what way was it worse?

-Dubious-

Edited July 1, 2017 by dubiousintent

[Ricocco]

Have you found a fix yet? I have this same exact issue, and this is the only place I can find any knowledge on the bug.

[dubiousintent]

Not yet.

 

From another recent post:

For those reading this that are unaware there is an actor value called "speedmult" that does pretty much as the name implies, it's a multiplier for player and NPC movement speed. The default value is 100. In fact, its rare to see any humanoid with a speedmult greater than 100. So 700 is ridiculous, let alone 27000.

 

 

It's my guess that some mod or glitch is affecting this value if the previous suggestions are ineffective. AFAIK, this can only be set by script. The more "load orders" we get with this "hyper-speed" problem, the better the chances we can spot the common denominator plugin or circumstance.

 

Note that "too many plugins" cause strange problems (essentially "memory leaks") which are not the fault of any one mod. Please see the 'Smaller Plugin Cap' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article if you aren't familiar with this issue.

-Dubious-

Edited July 2, 2017 by dubiousintent

[Timmhaze]

Hi Valfaun, I have been having the same problem as you, in fact I posted my issue only about an hour before you lol

 

I took a look at both our load orders and did some testing and have reason to believe Awesome Crippling Effects is the cause. I'm not certain yet so lets not get the pitch forks har har but I do know that if it is the cause, your character has one of two options:

 

- Start again, as in delete current character or whatever and make a new one. This would be due to the fact that the speedmult modifier that is making the NPC's shoot around the place has already been set and is a vanilla variable.

 

OR

 

- Select any NPC in who has this bug in the console and type "setav speedmult 100". This will set their speed back to the default value. You then have to either find a way to knock them down, or get them to crouch or something to update them to use the proper speed. I believe reloading the cell also works.

 

Hope you manage to get it sorted, cause I know, its really annoying xD

 

My post: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5775542-random-npcs-with-giant-speedmults/&do=findComment&comment=51449727

Edited July 2, 2017 by Timmhaze

[dubiousintent]

Aha. "Setav". Thanks for the tip.

 

-Dubious-

[Valfaun]

thanks for the valuable input everyone. i guess i have a new snippet of information now.

 

first, Dubious, i tried the performance related tweaks in the resources you linked and none had any noticable impact (except for one Fallout.ini change breaking the game, but reverting fixed it). i have a 60Hz panel and adaptive vsync enabled in the Nvidia settings, but apparently New Vegas does its own Vsync either way. setting the fpsclamp to 60 in NVSR exclusively did nothing noticable. according to its log file which occasionally reports framerates i don't even get 60fps anyway. limiting it to 30 seems more realistic. but yeah, your suspicion that it might be the AI acting up made me think the game engine was to blame, perhaps it really can't handle modern systems with multiple CPU cores or something. i tried diabling ThreadedAI and some other things in the Fallout.ini, also adding iNumHWThreads=2 to it, just in case the game doesn't like seeing all of my CPU threads.

also, i put the bashed patch back after Nevada Skies because, well, i did include it in Wrye Flash when making the patch and yeah, it still works. i played New Vegas before, a few years ago, and Nevada Skies worked exactly once and then just didn't anymore for some reason. so i guess i was being extra careful about it this time.

 

Ricocco, not yet, but we might have a clue. can you tell us which mods you use? that might help

 

Timmhaze, interesting you're seeing the same issue now. you don't seem to be using the Ragdolls mod, so that might be safe. but you are also using the JIP version of AwesomeCripplingEffects. that one had an update about 3 weeks ago, but JIP got one the other day. which version of JIP are you using? not sure if it matters, but eh.

the speedmult thing, though, yeah. i experimented with that for a bit earlier and gathered some insight:

 

i happened to have saved with an affected Raider in sight, so i used "setav speedmult 100" on them, which by itself didn't change anything. as you said, the value needs to be updated first, somehow. so i engaged the raider in hopes they would do something to trigger an update, which apparently they didn't. so i killed and resurrected them via console. that, however, somehow replaced the raider with a different model. i have no clue how or why. so i went to the Mojave outpost instead, where the body of an affected NPC hadn't been cleaned yet. i resurrected them, but surprisingly they didn't exhibit the problem anymore. kill and resurrect again, still normal. however, one of the commands, i forgot which one, prints out a lot of stuff in the console, Get commands. so i figured, if there's SetAV, there might also be GetAV, which you seem to have used but didn't mention. i went to Primm, where Beagle was going fast, and continued testing there.

used "GetAV speedmult" on Beagle and yeah, it was almost 1000. killing and resurrecting an NPC sometimes fixes the issue, it seems, but this time his value went even higher, into the 10000 range. then i just checked his speedmult every few seconds for a bit without killing him and saw that it was constantly increasing. 40000, 60000, 90000... the last value i got before stopping was >140000.

Dubious said this value can only be altered via scripts and Awesome Crippling Effects is a script mod. it's also one that we both use and one of the few mods that i didn't have when i played a few years ago.

additionally, as i mentioned in the first post, i'm constantly getting "Error in script 00001c16" outputs in the console and nvse.log file. do you have that, too, Timmhaze? CaR_HoPPeR in the Awesome Crippling Effects posts reports the same error output, although not mentioning anything about speedmult issues.

 

i'm gonna disable the JIP version of the mod, get the regular one, try to fix any currently affected NPCs and play for a while, see if the issue pops up again. if it does, i'll disable the mod altogether (unfortunately) and test again.

because tbh, i really don't want to start the game all over, which i had to do a couple times before

[Timmhaze]

Hey again, yes raiders are dynamically added from a levelled list so resurrect doesn't place the same one, it simply says "resurrect a raider" which will pull any raider from the levelled list. You can use the resurrect 1 command to resurrect an NPC as they are. To make an example, easy Pete is dead, you remove all his clothes for sick kinky reasons but want him alive again. You use resurrect and boom, he's alive but his inventory has been reset and he has his clothes again. Resurrect 1 on the other hand will simply male him stand up, as if he'd fallen over. Pretty useful, although it didn't reset NPC speedmults for me. Just to clarify on resetting an NPC, if you were to change Your Own speedmult it wouldn't take effect until you entered sneak mode or drew a weapon. This is handy for companions as they'll enter sneak mode with you, but npc's can be slightly harder to deal with. That being said, there are a myriad of ways and I'm sure with a little creativity we can find a simple one.

There is indeed a Getav command, and yes I did use that to get the speedmult Of The npc's, probably should have said that sooner lol.

While I haven't checked it myself, there is also the Getavinfo command That Won't just get the current value, but also any modifiers that are being applied to them. It won't show the source of it, but I imagine it will say something along the lines of base: 100 modifier: x number.

 

If you look at my post I've stated that removal of Awesome Crippling effects SEEMED to fix the problem on my end, however I didn't test it extensively enough to be certain. Unfortunately I have been in work all day and an extremely tired so I won't be able to post further troubleshooting until I play again xD

 

If you find a solution or if the non-jip version works Id be greatly obliged of you shared it with me :P

 

Thanks for the update.

 

Timmhaze