[LE] Removing or hiding actors added by a mod

[Hoamaii]

Not to add to your stress but you really should be careful with that, even if it's just tweaking some other mod and not the base game itself.

 

Click on your Actor base in the CK and go for "Use Info" tab. That'll tell you where in the game that actor is being used and needed. If it's a quest, package ,scene or dialogue, I'd advise you don't touch it if you don't know how to modify these to cleanly remove your actor from them.

 

However if you find only 1 use for it, like it's placed in some cell for Editor Location, Load that cell in the CK, your actor's ref is probably linked to a marker just to make sure he spawns at the right place in game. What you can do then rather than disabling it, is move both the actor and the marker under the floor or behind the walls of your cell. That way, you'll no longer see him in your game, but the game should not complain about it.

 

One note about deleting forms in the CK (other than the "you should never do it if it's not your own mod" N° 1 rule): marking a form to Delete in the CK is like deleting objects in game (not recommended either unless placed at runtime), the program only really deletes them when you close it. So after marking a form for deletion in the CK, you need to exit the CK first. Next time you reload your mod in the CK, the deleted objects will be erased for good from your mod.

[cumbrianlad]

Edit: deleted.

 

I kind of think that the OP doesn't listen anyway, so what's the point?

[Poorman65]

@cumbrianlad Not sure why you would say that. I am trying to following the recommendations that you gave on how to hide them and I do appreciate the help.

 

@Hoamaii My original plan was similar to what you are suggesting. I was going to move them to a cell in the middle of nowhere, but that is when I hit the confusion about removing them from their current cell. I have checked and the only references for these actors is their cell location.

 

Thanks for the suggestions!!!

[Hoamaii]

@ Cumbrianlad: ah, I remember when I started modding, more often than not the modding jargon (like reference, instance, form, object, etc.) did not have a clear meaning to me... Takes time to get into it!.. :wink:

 

@ Poorman65: yup, exactly - that's why you don't want to move it into some other cell, you want to keep him and his spawn marker in its origin cell, but just under the floor if he bothers you so much. The origin cell of an NPC is just as important info to the game as the actor's Ref ID. An actor ID is a form ID, forms get never placed into the game, only instances of them (like copies of the original form if you prefer). If you click on an NPC in game, you'll see that the Ref ID you get is never the Form ID. At runtime, the game essentially deal with ref IDs. When you reference an actor as property in a script, the game needs both its origin cell and its ref ID to know what NPC you're pointing at.

 

For all the game cares, you could shrink it to 1/10 of its size and hide it under a bed, but whatever you do keep it in its origin location. Good luck!

[agerweb]

Have you made the Mod you are trying to amend a master? -That is change its Header in xEdit to Esm. If you don't do this before opening the CK any changes you make will not be saved in your esp.

[Poorman65]

@agerweb I figured that out about an hour ago and it all seems to be working now. Thanks!

[cumbrianlad]

Apologies for the comment about not listening. That was out of order on my part.

 

you're right to pull me up about it.

 

i'm pleased you're getting it sorted.

[Poorman65]

@Hoamaii It seems to be working but I have one last question to keep me out of trouble. When I move them, can they just be floating in space under the building or off to the side, or do they have to still be placed on a piece of the structure? I have this fear that they will be continuously falling!

[Hoamaii]

Oh yeah, excellent question!.. My bad, I should have been more explicit than that!..

Short answer: just to be safe, yes - just put a piece of floor static anywhere under the cell's current floor or beyond the walls, and move both the actor's REF and its marker on that piece of floor. But there's no real short answer to what you're tyring to do, so:

Not so short answer:

static objects are not subject to havok, so if you'd be moving a piece of static furniture or wall out of your way, they would have never budged from there in game. Best example of that is the Khajiit caravans' containers which lay underground under their camp - in some instances, they're positioned so close to the "surface" that you can activate them without even "seeing" them. They don't need to be placed on a piece of floor to remain in place, they have their own collision.
Actors, however, like armors, weapons, miscobjects, etc., are subject to havok when loaded in game and not disabled - I guess the best example of that is what we've all seen in the Vanilla game: some guard falling from the sky when we use "coc Riverwood" console command. Often, unique actors which first appear in game when called by a quest are set to be "initially disabled" in the CK, to be later enabled and teleported to their marker when the quest starts. In that case, preventing that quest to start is enough to keep he actor disabled forever. But if your modded actor is not enabled by a quest, yes, he'd very likely start falling forever the minute you load that cell until he finds some collision object to stop his plunge. So yes, if you move any non-static object outside the visible boundaries of a cell, do place him on some collision object.

EQUALLY IMPORTANT: make sure that actor is not going to run some package that'll get him to sandbox. So find that actor in your object window, double-click to open it and go to the "AI packages" tab. If they're any package in there, remove them. Now right-click in your now empty packages list and choose "add". In the list of packages to add you'll have to choose from, look for "MQ105DoNothing", select it, click "ok". Now double-click on that "MQ105DoNothing" package you've just added to your actor, that'll open the Package form which you'll rename to "_PM65_MyActorDoNothing", click ok, the CK will ask if you want to create a new form, click "yes" (NEVER edit a Vanilla asset, always create your own forms): you custom package has now been added to the package object window. Back to your actor's package list, now delete the "MQ105DoNothing" package (we just added it there to use it as some template), and add your newly created "_PM65_MyActorDoNothing" package. Double-click to open it again, make sure everything's unticked in the "flags" tab and that all schedules are set to "-any" in the schedule tab. Click ok, now your actor is set to never move from where you've placed him.

Finally, go to the "scripts" window on the left side of your actor's form, and make sure that your actor is not running any script - in other words, that window needs to be empty.

 

You should be ok, I guess, now - but again, I've never done this to my game (killing non-unique actors always seemed like an easy solution... :wink:) - and I'm not seeing what this mod you're editing does nor how it is built. Chances are the author created this actor for a reason, other than decoration... Like CumbrianLad said, do not edit the original mod, create your own plugin which edits that mod and make a clean save before you add it to your game, so you can return to that save in case your edit breaks anything. Often, edits like what you're trying to do do not induce immediate bugs, it may bug many saves later, when the original mod finally calls for that actor to do something...

 

Good luck!

[Poorman65]

Wow! Thanks for all of the detail. Just to be safe, I had placed the few that I had moved already onto an extended piece of floor, or a roof or some other object. I'll go back and follow your instructions to complete the process as you described.

 

I am creating a Patch mod to override the original mod. I am trying to prepare my install for a clean play through and I'm trying to clean up things I don't like from my first play through.

 

The mod that I am overriding simply places a boat load of female actors in the world to use as followers, wives, companions, cannon fodder or whatever. Just way too many for me and some of them are just odd looking!!!

 

I appreciate all the help that everyone has provided!!!