How to make raiders use custom weapons ?

[Vympel696]

Downloaded a bunch of custom weps any advice on how to incorporate so enemies use them?

 

Thx.

[Baelkin]

I haven't tried this out myself, but I can give you my theory on what I'd do to add items to already existing NPC types loot and usage lists. Essentially, from what I can gather from rummaging about the GECK, it breaks down to editing the item lists of the NPC's such that they correctly reference the item you want to add. Fallout 3 seems to use "embedded" lists, with a master list of lists on the first level of the inventory tab of the NPC UI, allowing the game to randomly generate what items an NPC carries from the sublists referenced from there.

 

Keep in mind that the following is untested but how I'd start out, if I had to add an item to already existing "random" NPC's.

 

In the Actors -> NPC tab there are several entries for raiders, one for each race (Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic and African) with subcategories for genders. Each gender has several subentries for the different raider types, as defined by the weapons and armour they carry. Depending on what you want to change, you can either opt to make a new subentry or alter an entire template - changing the subentries will only add items to a specific type of Raider, while altering a template will make the change for any Raider based on it, independent of the gender. The latter approach will save you for a lot of duplication work, unless you want to restrict the use of an item for a certain sub-group.

 

I'll use the AfricanAmericanRaider of the NPC list as the base of this theory. Select the AfricanAmericanRaider on the menu tree and find the "Raider1GunAAFTemplate" - for some reason Bethesda has designed the templates such that the NPC is a female, which then is overwritten when making the male version, however that is inconsequential for what we strice to do here.

 

Anyway, doubleclick the "Raider1GunAAFTemplate" and navigate to the inventory tab. You should see that the NPC template references several lists with items. These lists are used by any NPC based on the template:

• Raider1ArmorComplete
  
• Raider1WeaponGun
  
• Raider1WeaponGunBackup25
  
• RaiderLoot
  

The "Raider1WeaponGun" list looks like the primary weapon list for the corresponding NPC, so let's edit that one by doubleclicking it and start modifying stuff.

 

Once you are inside the list dialogue you should see more list entries:

• WithAmmo32CaliberPistolRaider
  
• WithAmmoChinesePistolRaider
  
• WithAmmo10mmPistolRaider
  

Right click this list and make a new entry (which will be an Abraxo Cleaner box per default). The list should now look like this:

• WithAmmo32CaliberPistolRaider
  
• WithAmmoChinesePistolRaider
  
• WithAmmo10mmPistolRaider
  
• Abraxo Cleaner
  

Doubleclick one of the old entries. For the sake of this example, pick the "WithAmmo32CaliberPistolRaider" and once inside the new dialogue rename the ID to "WithAmmoCustomWeapon1Raider" (so it's easy to find again, you can call it whatever you want though as long as it's not a duplicate of an entry already there). Exit the Raider1WeaponGun list (the GECK doesn't seem to update the dropdown menus on the fly) and enter it again to update the dropdown menus. Click your Abraxo Cleaner entry and find your newly made item ID list on the dropdown menu to the right. This should change the Abraxo Cleaner to "WithAmmoCustomWeapon1Raider". That was pretty easy and we are actually almost done already, just a little more list editing to do.

 

Doubleclick your new entry. You should see a number of items on it which, if you followed my directions to the letter, should look like this:

• Cond32CaliberPistolRaider
  
• Ammo32Caliber
  
• Ammo32Caliber75
  

Doubleclick the top entry and rename the ID to "CondCustomWeaponRaider". Inside the dialogue you should also see a number of list entries looking somewhat like this, with the percentage integer in a coulumn labeled "Health":

• Weap32CaliberPistol | 25%
  
• Weap32CaliberPistol | 30%
  
• Weap32CaliberPistol | 35%
  

For each entry on the list, click it and find the weapon you want to add to the NPC on the dropdown menu on the right. Selecting "CustomWeapon" should change the Form Editor ID of the items on the above list to this item. Do this for all the items on the list. Basically now your NPC canl be equipped with the item, with a randomly determined condition based on the previous list's heath values. He con't fire it or drop ammo for it yet though, so we need to fix that as well - so return to the previous list, which should now look like this:

• CondCustomWeaponRaider
  
• Ammo32Caliber
  
• Ammo32Caliber75
  

Doubleclick the "Ammo32Caliber" entry and change this to the ammo type of the weapon you just chaged on the list. Let's for the sake of example say you are adding a weapon using "Fluffy Bunnies" as ammo, so you'll want to change the ammo type here to "Fluffy Bunnies" from the dropdown list on the right, for the NPC to actually have that type of ammunition available.

 

Lastly doubleclick the "Ammo32Caliber75" entry, change the ID to "AmmoFluffyBunnies75" so we can find it again later - this entry basically governs the chance of the NPC dropping ammo for his weapon when killed. Inside this dialogue, change the ammo type on the list to "Fluffy Bunnies" (as with the Ammo32Caliber we just changed) and, if you want, change the "Chance None" to a different number - this is basically the chance of the Raider *not* dropping ammo when killed (ie. the reason the original Ammo entry was called "Ammo32Caliber75" was because there's a 25% chance of not dropping ammo).

 

Press ok on all dialogues up until the main NPC entry when you are done mucking about, and save your plugin.

 

This should theoretically cause raiders to use spawn with the weapon you just added to the list on a random basis depending on the raider type.

 

But as I wrote earlier, I have not tested this out and do not know a good way of actually testing it so if anyone with better insight on the topic could confirm or debunk this approach, I'd appreciate it. :)