Moving An NPC To A New Location By Editing AI Packages?

[Kualan]

Hey there!

 

I'm working on a mod, and it involves replacing a lot of the game's vanilla NPCs with new characters. One such character I wish to replace is Vignar Gray-Mane, the old man who hangs out in the Companions Hall in Whiterun and replaces Balgruuf if the player sides with the Stormcloaks in the Civil War.

 

For the purposes of my mod, I want the man who replaces Balgruuf to be someone else; let's call the guy Bob. So through the CK, I change Vignar's name to 'Bob' and alter his appearance, outfit, etc to what I envision Bob to look like. All good so far.

 

Now comes the tricky part. I don't want Bob to spend all his time prior to becoming Jarl hanging out in the Companions Hall. I don't even want him in Whiterun. I want him in an entirely new location (one not in the original game, as it happens), but I can't simply drag-and-drop him from Whiterun to the new location because this would change his RefID, and it is that ID that who-knows-how-many quest scripts rely on to place him on the Jarl's throne when the time comes.

 

After a lot of head-scratching, I decided to look at Vignar's AI Packages in the Creation Kit. In the AI Packages tab when double-clicking on his listing under 'Actors', I can see that Vignar has packages for when he goes to sleep, when he walks around the city, when he visits the Bannered Mare, etc. All normal AI routine stuff. The walking-around-the-city once looks promising, so I decide to delete the others and make that one 24-hours long. I then edit the location cell listed in the package from one of Whiterun's districts to my brand new location.

 

My theory is that Vignar/Bob will now spend his time walking around the new location sandbox-style until the quest scripts for the Stormcloak takeover of Whiterun require him to jump ship to the Jarls' role.

 

Except it doesn't.

 

Despite the only AI Package assigned to him being to walk around this new cell, Vignar/Bob still does nothing but sit around the Companions Hall in Whiterun, moaning about Battle-Borns and Imperials in his usual cantankerous old way.

 

Anybody have any idea where I'm going wrong? How do I get the guy to change his location to a completely different one whilst maintaining his current RefID for the purposes of scripts that need it?

Edited April 28, 2013 by Kualan

[Ashenfire]

I am learning this too. I do know that the packages are only conditional. They don't MAKE things happen, they just take advantage of something in a radius. That is why changing to your new cell location won't work. Changing it in the AI package just means he will do stuff when he gets there.

 

Check for packages that show an NPC wandering from one location to another, for the purpose of tending to their crops, brewery; etc. They might

meet you during travel. This means they change cell locations or world locations. If you can't find those packages then you have to create one where

you tell the npc to walk to the new location. When I get up tomorrow, I will browse the internet and see if I can remember where I saw that tutorial.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Ashenfire

[Kualan]

Thanks for the tips Ashenfire, am experimenting with travel packages as we speak but having no luck so far. Will let you know if luck changes.

[Kualan]

I managed to achieve the result I wanted, though it is a bit of a mish-mash job. For any who find this topic whilst looking to achieve something similar, this is what I did;

 

Found the NPC Ref in the Cell View (in this case Vignar in Jorvasskr).

Changed his 'Enable' properties to run during a random trigger in the Battle of Whiterun - what this means is that Vignar won't be present in the Companions Hall until that trigger is activated.

Since you can't access the Companions Hall during the Battle of Whiterun, and by the end of it (if playing as the Stormcloaks) he is transferred to the Jarlship, he is effectively never in the Companions Hall.

[Ashenfire]

For starters that will probably do. It seems a bit much though. Just be careful changing core actors, items, etc.

[BotOwned]

This may seem like a silly question but the most common error I see with packaging is incorrect order where did you add the package to? Also is this your own Custom Package Template or are you using the Default Sandbox one? Also another thing if a NPC cannot Path to a location the package will just keep on trying to run since it's the first valid package making the NPC actually do nothing. So always check for a valid path to your destination.

Edited May 1, 2013 by BotOwned