Npcs Don't Use The Path Grid : IV

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:15 am

i created some NPCs with travel packages (e.g. guards). they should travel around a place in tamriel where i added path points.

but some of them don't use the path grid (or they don't use some of the path points), just walk into walls straight in direction to the target XMarker.

i can see the path grid in game, it is correct. the NPCs are not in combat and are currently using the travel package.

what's wrong??

SOLVED:

i loaded the mod for the first time while the PC was in one of the exterior cells the mod changed. the pathgrid didn't get updated then, even when i entered an interior and came back! ALTHOUGH tpg showed the pathgrid correctly, the NPCs did not use it!

i had to load the mod while the PC was in an interior!

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:27 am

i created some NPCs with travel packages (e.g. guards). they should travel around a place in tamriel where i added path points.

but some of them don't use the path grid (or they don't use some of the path points), just walk into walls straight in direction to the target XMarker.

i can see the path grid in game, it is correct. the NPCs are not in combat and are currently using the travel package.

what's wrong??

Did you make sure the pathgrids are correctly linked with each other (no grid connection going through walls etc)? In case you altered the landscape you should also make sure that no grid points hide below the ground. Sometimes you can't see some of them because they're below the landscape. Finally you should make sure that the pathgrids are sunk half into the ground (so only the upper part can be seen). If they float above or below the ground it causes issues.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:29 pm

(no grid connection going through walls etc)?

thank you for your help!

all path point are sunk half but in some situations the connections cross steps of a staircase. slightly. would this be a problem?

i will double check everything you mentioned now...

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:56 am

i don't know how much it can help you with your issue, I don't fully grasp the path thingy, but here something Arthmoor once told me about road records and stuff:

The road record is winner take all for the entire Tamriel worldspace. Patching it is not possible, you would basically need to to have several different combinations of mods set up to handle it with each combo generating its own record.

Doing this is pretty tricky though. You can't just jump in and tell the CS to generate because it will give you a really big mess for a result. What I end up doing for the UOP, OC, or NRB4 (and combos) is use an ESP where I've stripped the ENTIRE worldspace of path grids. Yes, it took a long time to pull that off. The reason being is that you can only use two blue path nodes per cell to get proper connections. Anything above that and the CS starts making shortcut connections through things you may not want it to. This is the reason the UOP even needed to do this, because Bethesda's own record is a giant mess with some paths leading NPCs to jump from bridges.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:22 pm

i don't know how much it can help you with your issue, I don't fully grasp the path thingy, but here something Arthmoor once told me about road records and stuff:

thank you!

i will try this (as far as i understood). but... are the shortcut connections INVISIBLE when i use tpg??

and it seems that the NPCs try to walk directly to the XMarker, not in random directions...

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:59 pm

ok, i solved it. edited the start post...

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:42 pm

Another thing to remember about is/are the EnableLinkedPathPoints and DisableLinkedPathPoints commands when you add or remove obstacles during play (in my case, I had a house built, but it's more often used for drawbridges and the like that are much more dynamic). Without these, NPC's will walk across bridges that aren't there any more, or try to walk through new walls.