SSE Problem keeping enemies from fighting

[cumbrianlad]

Hi.

 

That's it in a nutshell. I have 'Friendly' Falmer who don't attack the player and shouldn't help the player as they are neutral to the player and only help allies. They are enemies of the Dwemer machines in the cell, but are set to 'unaggressive', so they shouldn't initiate combat.

 

When the cell loads the Dwemer actors are all in ambush furniture.

There is a locked door requiring key between the two factions (not a load door).

The editor locations of the Falmer are some distance from this door.

 

Every time I enter the cell (via a load door, not COC) one of the Falmer is in the entry hall and engages in combat with the Dwemer as soon as they emerge from ambush and attack him.

In the room closest to the locked door, there may be 1 or 2 Falmer waiting. Same thing happens as soon as the machines emerge and attack them.

This also happens in a similar area (Locked door needing key again) I find dead Falmer and dead machines when I get there.

 

See attached screenshot for more clarity.

 

This is really immersion-breaking because the player is told not to harm the Falmer and there is a penalty for killing them (but only if the player kills them). Still it spoils it.

 

Any ideas?

I could split these areas and put a load door between them but that's a mass of work.

 

 

Edit: I've made some progress by adding the 'DefaultNoEnemiesFollowDoor' script to all doors between the 2 sets of enemies. and not setting any allowed factions other than player and follower factions. I found 1 out of the 8 Falmer dead but previous runs it was 6 0r 7 dead out of 8. Complete reversal. I'll take a closer look at that one Falmer to see if I can tweak it in some way. Much better, if that happens consistently.

[maxarturo]

The cleanest way to do this is to make all actors 'custom made' (i mean create your own actors), then create 2 factions.

1) Falmers friend with dwemers and friend with player (they help nobody).

2) Dwemers friends with falmers and enemy to the player.

[cumbrianlad]

Sorry if I wasn't clear...

 

The Falmer are meant to be friendly towards the player but enemies of the Dwemer.

 

The Dwemer are enemies of both the player and Falmer.

 

They are all my own actors and the factions, aggression and confidence are set up to suit.

 

The Falmer never bother the player and they don't rush to help the player when the player is attacking the Dwemer, since they are neutral to the player and only help allies They are 'brave'. If the Dwemer do spot a Falmer they attack, as they should because they are very aggressive and 'foolhardy'.

 

It all works the way it should except that I've now tested right through twice and both times 1 Falmer was in the wrong place... different Falmer in the 2 different areas I mentioned in the OP.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if there's too much going on when the cell loads and they are simply getting plonked in the wrong place. Both dead Falmer were nowhere near their editor locations and they are all linked to patrols that shouldn't take them within around 2000 units of the Dwemer.

 

I'll keep trying things. What I've done so far is a big help, it's just not perfect. They shouldn't either want to get to the Dwemer or even get through the locked doors with the script on. Something else is going on. I've just improved it by stopping the rest of them them rushing through to help their ally.

[maxarturo]

Just a note:

Actors will spawn / be / head for / appear somewhere else from where the modder had initially placed them, if there is no NavMesh beneath them.

On Cell Load the actor / game engine will search for NavMesh to start / initialize the actor's AI.

...............................................................................

You can do 3 things:

1) Make for those falmers a "Sit On Target" package and place xMarkers where they should stay (allow wondering = False).

2) Have all falmers "Initially Disabled" and place a 'Trigger Box' on the door that needs a "key' to open, and "OnTriggerEnter()" enable he falmers, or instead of a 'Trigger Box' you can place to that door an "OnOpen()" function that it will enable those falmers.

* This is something that is the core function for all my actors (permanently living or spawning actors) in ACT II, the reason for this is that it has 2 big advantages:

a) You avoid stupid issues like the one you are facing and others like it.

b) And the most important one :

When a cell it's loaded and also all the actors inside it are loaded too, even if the game engine is not rendering them, they are still occupying / using CPU + RAM resources for their AI function, things like patroling or wondering... etc.

Since the player is not seen those actors there is no need for those actors to be active / enable and be using valuable system resources, and makes the system handling the specific esp far more stable and less vulnerable to issues like ctds, freezes... etc.

3) Do both of the above.

Have a happy modding

Edited July 14, 2020 by maxarturo

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks Maxarturo. I've just done a test before reading your last post, after trying an idea myself.

 

I had in mind 2 ideas.

 

1) use collision cubes around the door areas set to L_Navcut and have an x-marker as their enable parent. Disable the marker and collision cube when the player entered a nearby trigger or...

2) add an x-marker as the enable parent of the Falmer and make them initially disabled. set 'Allow disabled' on their aliases and simply enable them once I set a certain stage (a long while after the cell loads).

 

The second idea is similar to the one you suggest and is what I went with, because my gut-feeling was this was an issue with cell initialization of the cell. I've just tested and this time all Falmer were where they should be and none were dead. I'll need to test a number of different things for this quest because player actions mean very different outcomes including failing the quest, so I'll get to see if this isn't a one-off...

 

... signs are promising, though.

 

I could try the package idea but if this works, I'll stick with it.

 

Thanks again.

 

P.S. This cell is pretty heavilly loaded. I remember discussions that you had with others about this. I even joined in and stated that I'd never had a cell with more than 12 ambush actors. That was true then, now it isn't. This has 14., is showing as 36% in the render window and has12 actors with patrols, scripted objects etc.