Help? Equip item looted to advance quest stage

[scrivener07]

http://www.creationkit.com/Scene

http://www.creationkit.com/Conditions

http://www.creationkit.com/Packages

You should give these a thorough read.

 

Its sounds like most of the pieces are in place but your timing is off. I think you just need to fine tune your conditions and AI package priorities. Ill go over how I think the priorities for actors work but I might be wrong on a few details because I almost never work with scenes or actors.

 

Actors

Okay so everything starts with the actors. First, lets get the lingo straight. When you make a new actor in the Object Window (The big list not the Render Window) this is called the ActorBase. It doesnt come with any AI out of the box so if you drag and drop the new actor into the Render Window, the actor will just stand there and never do anything forever. The moment you add an ActorBase to the render window it becomes an ActorReference to the parent ActorBase. The point in the game world you added the ActorReference to is called the Editor Location (fun fact). So if you wanted to add an AI Package later you would edit the ActorBase and every ActorReference to it would automatically inherit the new change.

 

Package Stack

1. By default actors will carry out their AI Packages according to the package stack on their ActorBase. As far as they are concerned their package stack is the most important thing in the world to them.. unless soemthing with higher priority wants to override it, which is a lot of things.

 

Alias

2. The next level of priority is for actors that get put into a quest alias. If the quest alias has AI Packages attached to it, these will override the actors default everyday AI. The VM is telling the actor "Hey! I need you to stop what your doing and do THIS because your in a quest and the player is watching". When the quest has stopped the actor is released from the Quest Alias and the actor continues their Package Stack that is defined on their ActorBase. But theirs something even more important than an alias package and thats if a Scene on a quests needs the actor to do something.

 

Scene

In a quest scene you cant control an ActorReference directly. You will notice you can only add an Actor Alias to a scene. Thats because there is a hierarchy to these things. You add you actor alias to a scene phase and then apply an action for them to complete. This action overrides whatever the hell the actor is doing. There is 3 types of action. Timer (actor must wait), Dialogue (Say Something), and package (Do Something). These scene packages can be simple or complex depending on what you want them to do, but most of the time its something simple like walk across the room. When all actions are complete and the phase conditions are true the next phase starts.

 

What I think is happening is your conditions for moving from one scene phase to the next arent tight enough and the scene finishes so fast its like its started as finished.

 

 

Hope that makes sense, I wrote it in one breath :tongue:

[QaxeIsKaze]

EDIT: WHOOPS! You replied as I was typing! Nice timing eh?

 

Yes, what you wrote makes a lot of sense. And it just happens that I did find those wiki pages to be really helpful. Between the Scenes page and looking at the Olaf's Festival Scene I was pretty much able to make a scene...though it doesn't work yet. Sob.

 

Something in my actor's package stack is causing them to ignore their usual AIPackages and sending them right to the castle before I start the quest. I was hoping the scene would fix that, but not yet apparently. And this makes me think that I should try separating the quest file that carries the stages from the file that contains the ceremony info. Perhaps I should try it out.

 

The good news is that with the scene, the npc who I speak to after killing the boss, waits in his building for me to come talk to him, then he goes to the ceremony location as he should. Bad news is that he does not give the speech I set up for him in the scene at all. The only part that works well is the part where I put the crown on my head and get the gold. The Stop() line at stage 90 sends everyone away as it should....even though the scene doesn't start correctly, it ends fine.

 

So trying to figure out how the heck to I get the scene to fire off, and at the right time, is where I'm at. The scene is in 7 stages (hope I got that term right) with timing, packages and dialogue. It "looks" correct comparatively speaking, but still missing some timing settings.

 

I'm going to attach my Quest Stages log here in case it will help, although I'm not sure if a screen shot of the Scene is going to do any good since it's inside the dialogue sections of the scene where the set/get/own commands are needed. Anyway... Thanks for the continual support. You're very supportive.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Ahondara

[scrivener07]

So now how the heck to I get the scene to fire off, and at the right time, is where I'm at. The scene is in 7 stages (hope I got that term right) with timing, packages and dialogue. It "looks" correct comparatively speaking, but still missing some timing settings.

 

Add a completion condition to the first phase by right clicking phase > edit and add something like

S GetStageDone Quest: 'yourQuestName' , 60 == 1

Its means dont go past phase 1 unless stage 60 is done. You dont want to add it as a start condition because a start condition is just skipped and the next phase starts if the condition is false. Phase one is like a waiting to start stage. Then for each phase that has an action that needs to finish like walking to the celebration, add a completion condition that says all actions must be completed before moving on.

S IsSceneActionComplete Scene: 'youSceneName' == 1

In these cases 1 means true and 0 means false.

[QaxeIsKaze]

Add a completion condition to the first phase

 

Ah yes, I actually saw completion conditions in the stages on another quest, but I couldn't wrap my head around why they were saying "complete" when to me everything wasn't done yet. It's completion of 1 phase, not everything. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

I have added these "IsSceneActionComplete" conditions. But the scene still doesn't fire off at all. People show up too early, and when the speaker for the festival shows up he says nothing. No ceremony at all. I'm thinking that there is a reason why MS05 is split into the quest and MSO5OlafsFestival. One has the quest stage info, the other is strictly festival related. Maybe without this setup, the actors do stuff they aren't meant to. I'm going to try splitting my quest up like MS05 and see it that helps.

 

By the way, I don't know if this is related or not, but there is a section in the MS05OlafFestival script that reads

(FestivalEndObject as FestivalEndScript).goToState("Listening")
Alias_MS05FestivalViarmo.GetActorRef().EvaluatePackage()

and I'm not sure what "listening" or "evaluate Package" mean. Wiki time perhaps... but these are probably important, I just don't know what purpose they serve.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Ahondara

[scrivener07]

I have added these "IsSceneActionComplete" conditions. But the scene still doesn't fire off at all. People show up too early, and when the speaker for the festival shows up he says nothing. No ceremony at all. I'm thinking that there is a reason why MS05 is split into the quest and MSO5OlafsFestival. One has the quest stage info, the other is strictly festival related. Maybe without this setup, the actors do stuff they aren't meant to. I'm going to try splitting my quest up like MS05 and see it that helps.

You focusing to hard on trying to copy ms05 bit for bit. This wont work because the web of dependencies and conditions is spread to far and wide. Also, I must be blind but at what point are you starting the scene with yourSceneName.Start(), Im just not sure how your scene is structured. You say its not running but your actors are still showing up? What actions are actually in your scene? How and when are you directing NPCs to show up at the castle? You should be asking your NPCs to travel to the castle within your scene. Unless the NPCs have their editor locations placed in the castle then you are just telling them to show up too early.

 

By the way, I don't know if this is related or not, but there is a section in the MS05OlafFestival script that reads

(FestivalEndObject as FestivalEndScript).goToState("Listening")
Alias_MS05FestivalViarmo.GetActorRef().EvaluatePackage()

and I'm not sure what "listening" or "evaluate Package" mean. Wiki time perhaps... but these are probably important, I just don't know what purpose they serve.

The translation is this.

Line1: In FestivalEndScript which is attached to FestivalEndObject(a trap marker).

Change the scripts state to listening. The script uses .isAttached() which I think means isCellLoaded. If the cell is loaded it sets MS05KingOlafsFestival to stage 200

Edit: This might be relevant because a cell is only loaded when the player enters it, so its one way of saying "When the player enters the cell > SetStage(200)"

 

Line2: Tell Viarmo to check if any AI packages are valid and if you find one, run it.

[QaxeIsKaze]

Hello again. I am thoroughly lost at the moment, and just a tad frustrated by my own lack of knowing which questions to ask.

 

Yes, I was following the MS05 quest files closely. The fact that they have 1 MS05 that holds the quest objectives and another MS05kingolafsfestival that only holds festival info confused me. The thing is, they had this long list of actors who were pointed to xmarker headings, and the actor's aliases are given Travel packages. But this isn't done in the Scenes tab, it's done in a quest stage. So when I tried to emulate that script, I think I just put it in the wrong place. However, even though I've moved the package info into the Scene, everyone still comes to the party before the quest begins.

 

To be more clear, I changed the quest so that the guest actors' and the "Speaker" Travel packages are now in the Scene itself. In Phase 1, I have a Completion Condition pointing to my quest, stage 60. I'm not sure if this is correct, but stage 60 is when I want people to start walking towards the place and come stand in the building. They stand there until phase 5 when they are supposed to clap (Action 14), and I've a "IsSceneActionComplete" set to my scene, 14. The speaker should give dialogue in there too. I'll put a screenshot in here in case it helps.

 

I added the ILQ01Ceremony_scene.Start() bit in my stage 60. So Stage 60 looks like this:

setObjectiveCompleted(50)
SetObjectiveDisplayed(60)
Alias_ILQCeremonyEnabler.GetRef().Enable()
;Stage set to stat ILQ01CeremonyScene
ILQ01Ceremony_scene.Start()
(BardSongs as BardSongsScript).PlaySong(alias_BardGirl.GetActorRef(),"Flute")
(BardSongs as BardSongsScript).Bard2PlaySong(alias_BardMale.GetActorRef(),"Drum")

 

Now, I don't actually have anything to start stage 60. I thought it would be weird to just have people "know" that the ceremony was happening when I was only just told myself in stage 50, and see them all walking toward the castle as I am going myself. No cell phones ya know. Eventually, I want to put a timer on this part so that the ceremony begins the next day...but for now, I have the quest pointer pointing at a spot in the castle, and placed a trigger box at the location with a "defaultsetstagealiasscript" . Perhaps this is unnecessary and I should just start the Scene in the same stage that I finish talking to the "Commander" fella.

 

I hoped that would make everything okay. But again...these townspeople and their sick need to die in the castle before the quest ever starts. When I walk towards the body, which is where the journal is that starts the quest, I see the actors walking into the castle, and I just want to shout at them. "Not yet you bastards!" lol

 

I wonder if somewhere in a .PEX file is some old mistake I made, clinging on.

[QaxeIsKaze]

always nice to attach the image...

[QaxeIsKaze]

Oh, btw... in the travel packages for actors going to a scene, under "conditions" ... if I say "GetStage Myquest stage50" The actors DON'T show up too early, but I'm wondering if this is the correct way to control the actors of if that is actually the job of the scene? I don't see any mention of the conditions tab in the Scene Tutorial on the Wiki page...

 

Also, I "guess" but should double check -- In the packages used by my audience in my scene, should I be selecting my quest in the drop-down "Owner quest" menu?

 

And here is the S.S. of my scene. Thanks again for taking your time to help.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Ahondara

[scrivener07]

Im on my way out the door but I can do this. Get your mod tidy'd up a bit, zip it up and upload it somewhere and Ill take a look at it when I get home in 10 hrs. Your scene looks like its setup perfect but theres 101 little things that could make it not work. This should be interesting. :ninja:

[QaxeIsKaze]

Wow. Color me surprised. Slightly embarrassed by my critical state of noobousity, but I appreciate the help big time.

I'm going to put the mod on the actual mod site, but it'll be marked "For testing only". The mod is up on the Nexus, but the version people are using has zero quests. I've always assumed I would have none, but this time a quest seemed necessary.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27646#content

 

Once you have it, let me know and I'll remove that file from the Nexus.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Ahondara