GECK Enable a Dead Npc Actor

[clanky4]

I am writing a little quest that involves having a dead NPC, holding a quest item, appear at a certain point in the quest. What I am currently doing is placing the dead NPC, setting them to Initially Disabled, and then having the quest enable them at the appropriate stage in the quest. The only issue is that they at least don't seem to actually be being enabled. The quest marker will point to where they were placed but there will be nothing there.

 

In order to test whether or not this was an issue with scripting I made the NPC not dead at which point they were enabling just fine.

 

TLDR:

How do you enable a dead Initially Disabled NPC?

[Jokerine]

Hm, I had this issue too in the mod I'm making, where a dead NPC wouldn't be enabled. Have you tried just giving them very low health, enabling them (while alive) and then killing them off with script? You wouldn't get to control exactly how they look as they flop down - which is always fun - but it should work :)

[Mktavish]

To preserve their body position , you can use "MyDeadNpcRef.MoveTo MyXmarker"

 

You can put another piece of floor below the ground , or place them inside a building if out doors. They don't need to be on navmesh.

 

Just try to place , havoc drop and arrange them on similar ground they will be moving to.

And make sure they and the xmarker are rotated the same if you rotate their orientation from drag drop in.

 

Depending on the terrain you may have some issues with one of their limbs getting stuck in the ground when attempting to drag the body. Just keep testing adjusting to fix that if you care.

[clanky4]

Would those methods have the havok run on the actor? Or would the actor's body just sort of float there until the player bumps into it?

 

Thanks for the help. :)

[Jokerine]

Hm, I'm not sure actually. You could always test :wink: If the NPC just stands there you can have havok kick in if you place a small dummy explosion by the freshly enabled NPC. I wrote about that here. You could probably copy the same script I wrote there and give it to your NPC. Please report back if you get to try! :smile:

[Mktavish]

Just tested myself by moving the X marker above ground ... they then showed up in the position previously arranged floating in air ...and appears the havok does not run on it , until using grab key , or shooting with gun.

Was able to walk right through the body before then , as if there is no collision plane enabled yet.

 

Haven't tested with them holding an item yet ... what sort of item are you wanting to have them holding ?

[madmongo]

What I've done is have the NPC alive in a temp holding cell, then move them to where you want them to end up and kill them. If you do it that way, they'll havoc and drop in some random-ish fashion, though not too random since when I've done it with several NPCs they mostly ended up in the same position on the floor. If you have the NPC move to a small room when the player enters the room, the player will see the NPC appear and then fall to the ground, so best to do this out of sight of the player if possible.

 

Dead NPCs can be havoc'ed in the GECK, though like much in the GECK that seems to be a bit buggy at times. Dead NPCs will spawn as you leave them though, so if you leave them just standing there in the GECK, then they'll just be standing there when the player finds them.

 

Live NPCs won't havoc in the GECK, but if you kill them when they spawn or kill them when a player approaches, they'll havoc and fall and will end up in some random-ish position when the player finds them.

[Jokerine]

So I guess I was correct in my assumption. I'm proud of meself :P

[rickerhk]

Did you flag the dead NPC object as a quest item so they don't get cleaned up on the cell reset?

[Jokerine]

Mine was a quest object and persistent, but it still didn't show up.