[LE] Question about NPC placement in world

[Omegacron]

I've been trying to change the templates for the Thalmor guards that patrol the Thalmor Embassy, but I'm running into a snag. When you visit the embassy in-game, there are over a dozen NPCs patrolling the walls & ground of the embassy - both mages and soldiers. Normally these NPCs would be placed using markers in the Creation Kit. However, when I look at the embassy in the CK, there are no NPC markers placed. I can see some X markers, which are used for the patrol routes, but nothing showing where the NPCs would spawn (or which NPCs should spawn).

 

I can easily drop my own NPCs into place and have them patrol the same routes, but then in-game both MY guards AND the vanilla ones show up. So apparently I have to replace the originals. This is not an interior cell, btw - this is in a Tamriel world-space cell such as ThalmorEmbassyExterior01 or some-such.

 

Can anyone tell me how to replace or delete these non-static guards at the Thalmor Embassy?

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited October 11, 2018 by Omegacron

[nayakri]

I don't have CK at the moment (not at home), but I think you should check if they are not inside the building or check if the quest itself isn't spawning them on those xmarkers when a certain stage starts. I'm pretty sure they are not created suddenly from the thin air, so they have to be somewhere.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

[AbelsSkyrim]

As far I understand it, NPCs are spawned as the player loads cells they could potentially exist in. I've actually followed a thalmor patrol to their embassy, and spectated them just standing there afterwards, doing nothing. I would assume those X markers are references to a location used by their patrol AI package (their destination). You can modify their behavior to not end up at the thalmor embassy through their AI packages. You can modify their items if that's the issue through the leveled lists. You can also modify their actor stats if that's an issue too.

 

If you really want to remove thalmor patrols from the game, you can fill their WIThalmorPatrol/EncThalmorPartol or what have you in the actor tab with a NULL reference. You can probably stick it somewhere that makes sense, like nulling their model file, or their actor template and they simply wouldn't exist. Of course, this leaves me wondering if their patrol data is still taking up VRAM, and if it even matters.

 

This would probably be done easiest in xEdit (SSEEdit). Just right click the thalmorpatrol entry in actor and copy as override into a new file, or into another esp you know you will load. Fill some entries with NULLs or just delete all the data in the fields (but make sure to keep that override in actor in your esp).

 

To be insanely thorough, you could download a mod that edits world encounters, and examine it in xEdit, and note the entries the modder changed. This would give you all the possible locations any "ThalmorPatrol" data would also exist, and searching those tabs until you eliminate it all.

 

Hope this helps!

[Omegacron]

As far I understand it, NPCs are spawned as the player loads cells they could potentially exist in. I've actually followed a thalmor patrol to their embassy, and spectated them just standing there afterwards, doing nothing. I would assume those X markers are references to a location used by their patrol AI package (their destination). You can modify their behavior to not end up at the thalmor embassy through their AI packages. You can modify their items if that's the issue through the leveled lists. You can also modify their actor stats if that's an issue too.

 

If you really want to remove thalmor patrols from the game, you can fill their WIThalmorPatrol/EncThalmorPartol or what have you in the actor tab with a NULL reference. You can probably stick it somewhere that makes sense, like nulling their model file, or their actor template and they simply wouldn't exist. Of course, this leaves me wondering if their patrol data is still taking up VRAM, and if it even matters.

 

This would probably be done easiest in xEdit (SSEEdit). Just right click the thalmorpatrol entry in actor and copy as override into a new file, or into another esp you know you will load. Fill some entries with NULLs or just delete all the data in the fields (but make sure to keep that override in actor in your esp).

 

To be insanely thorough, you could download a mod that edits world encounters, and examine it in xEdit, and note the entries the modder changed. This would give you all the possible locations any "ThalmorPatrol" data would also exist, and searching those tabs until you eliminate it all.

 

Hope this helps!

 

The end result I'm going for is to update the NPCs - both their armor and their stats. I've tried updating the existing leveled NPC and item lists, which works on a new game. On an existing game where the NPCs have already spawned, though, they're not using the new equipment or stats. I'm trying to find a way to force them, which I had hoped to do by replacing them altogether.

[masternoxx]

I love following Thalmor patrols and watching while they get attacked over and over until they have low health then shoot them in the back! Free elven armor at lv 4 buddy!

Usually they walk between two locations just back and forth aimlessly, I haven't been to the Embassy yet.

I would say some enemies especially respawning types are probably spawned by activators with leveled lists from which the spawn actors are chosen from randomly. In this case its essentially not random tho, because the thalmor guard is the only enemy on the list. It can be seen in "leveled lists" in the CK and usually starts with "LL" . The activator may not be in the same cell perhaps its in another area.

If you open the console and click on the guard you can find out many details about it, google doing that maybe.

It might be difficult or even impossible to change the thalmor gaurds to that area without changing other thalmor NPC's in the game.

Edited January 26, 2019 by masternoxx