Custom companions disappearing

[anewacc]

Ive made some custom companions for myself, without a functional companion wheel, however Ive had problems with a deathclaw and a Dead Money Ghost companion, as whenever I fast travel or travel some distance away, they often completely disappear from the map, and I cant prid them either (however theyre console spawns so FF00). Any ideas as to why that happens?

[dubiousintent]

Too many "unknowns" to provide a definitive response. However, some suggestions:

 

When companions fail to follow, it's usually because they don't have a "Follow" AI package active. Please see the "Custom NPCs" section of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article. In particular see 'TIP: Making NPCs move (aka "AI Packages")' and 'TIP: AI Packages and Distance'.

 

How do you expect to give orders (such as "Follow" to trigger that AI package) to a companion without a "wheel"? See 'TIP: Companion Wheel' in that same section.

 

Companions need to have persistent references, which "spawned" actors (mod prefix "FF") do not have by default. Instead you should place them into a cell when the mod is initially loaded, and enable them to be "hired" (usually through dialog; though conceivably you could set it up so they are automatically "hired" when certain conditions are met). The initial location could be a "hidden" one (somewhere inaccessible such as below ground level or inside a "rock" or unused interior cell), where they wait until the proper circumstances would (currently) cause them to spawn, and you then simply move them from the hidden location to the player's current location. (Use "MoveTo" instead of "PlaceAtMe" for companions.)

 

Both the companions you mention are technically "creatures", which the game engine treats differently than "NPCs". Did you make "custom races" or just use standard creatures? You might want to look into some other mods (such as "Man's Best Friend ( Deathclaw Companion )" or "Rusty the Bear - Companion Mod") that do this to see how they handle it.

 

-Dubious-

[uhmattbravo]

I'm pretty sure just adding "SetPlayerTeammate 1" to the hiring dialogue (and SetPlayerTeammate 0 to firing) should fix the problem.

[madmongo]

I'm pretty sure just adding "SetPlayerTeammate 1" to the hiring dialogue (and SetPlayerTeammate 0 to firing) should fix the problem.

Probably not.

 

The main issue, as Dubious noted, was that a spawned creature is not a persistent reference.

 

If you create a human NPC companion, their reference is persistent by default. If you create a creature companion, the reference is not persistent by default, and you need to check the box for it in the reference. And if you just spawn an instance of the creature, like anewacc did, you'll definitely end up with a non-persistent reference.

 

You need to go into the GECK and place the creature somewhere (interior or exterior, doesn't matter), and double click on the creature to bring up the reference window, then check the persistent box.

[uhmattbravo]

Admittedly, I skimmed a little quickly through this though because typically, a single instance companion should be a persistent ref anyway, and I missed that part, instead thinking that the problem was them disappearing on fast travel, which iirc the teammate flag should help with.

 

For the record though, even though it doesn't apply to this situation, I have made script added multi instance generic creature companions before that lasted whole playthroughs without disappearing or resetting health/inventory/AI packages. I just unchecked 'no low level processing' (which greys out the persistent box when used on placed refs) and used tokens for different packages paired with an evp call from a script on the base forms. So it is possible to basically fake a persistent state.

Edited January 5, 2019 by uhmattbravo

[anewacc]

Oh darn, I don't even know how to reply to a post. Thanks Dubious! And sorry for the missing info. Every companion I create (the just use and dump ones with no wheel functions), I give the defaultfollowplayerfar package to in Geck, so they do have the package to follow (This ghost is going to be my first actual functional companion so he has the usual packages a full companion needs). As for the setplayerteammate I toggled that manually ingame for every other companion. And yes, the problem was that he wasn't a persistent reference, I placed him ingame and made him persistent and that works now. And no, Im not advanced enough to make a new creature type or race, most I do is do retextures and use custom meshes. Thanks again dubious.