[LE] Unacessible rooms for npcs to spawn in

[Russia2012]

Is there any advantage of creating rooms with door that the Dragonborn cannot access where npcs are able to spawn from? I was considering trying this due to my understanding that if I enter a cell the npcs will not spawn. I am also aware that unless the NPC is killed it will not be respawned as every npc has a id. My idea would allow me to keep track of where my nps are so if there is a problem I can easily deal with it. It also would mean my npcs will always spawn regardless of where I am. Any advice on this?

[Tasheni]

I don't understand what you exactly want to do, but you can create a dummy cell, put your npcs into it and spawn them from there.

[Russia2012]

My understanding of NPCS is that what they do is based on their package. If they are suppose to be at Riften Imperial camp at 8pm than the npc will be at riftenimperialcamp at 8pm unless they were killed, paralyzed, captured, or some other event . My understanding is if I created a dummy cell for all my imperial soldiers and have it where each group travels from the imperial camp to that holds fort and they would return to the camp two days later this is what they will do. Ihave the issue that the mod I am creating is complex and I find when there is a problem with npcs I sometimes do not remember where I put them. Usually I want the imperials hanging out at the imperial camp and then travel to the holds fort. I want stormcloaks to do the same thing. I want bandit hunters to hang out in their lodge until each group goes out to attack bandits camps. I want bandits to hang around bandit camps except when they are scouting for prey. I want Inquisitors to stay in during the day and then go out at night to look for undead or magic users. I want amazons to maraud during the day and sleep during the night. I was Charus, Wolves, Spiders, and sabercats to hunt at night like they would normally have done. I want draugrs to attack settements at night and before sunrise return to their barrow. I want Draconians and their dragons to attack everyone they come accross. I think you are getting the picture of what I am trying to do. I was getting the idea of simply placing them in a dummy cell and have their packages tell them what they are to do. The dummy cell is not a place I would enter. and the only one s who would be in their would be npcs who have spawned who are reading to go to their location. I do not know if dummy cells need doors.

[Tasheni]

No, that won't work. The dummy cell is only for npcs that should spawn through a script at a given marker and then do the stuff the packages or scripts tell them and after that if they should vanish, a script sends them back into the dummy cell - out of the world.

If you need to track down actors you could put a mapmarker on them. But with lots of actors I see the only way to write down the cells you've put them in. You can rename wilderness cells your npcs are in to a name of your own to find it without problems in the render window.

You can assign lots of packages to each actor. To have a daily schedule you could use different packages like sandbox, working multiple locations or patrol and guard and set explicit the day and starting hour and the duration of the package for each. The package stack will always be checked from top to down and the first package that has matching conditions on it will fire. I use a formlist that includes several packages for a whole daily schedule and put this at the actor. You can use package templates if you have multiple actors that should do the same procedures but with different values in it.

To give packages time conditions works pretty nice as long as you do not teleport. Teleporting breaks the schedule completely.