Anyone know how modders navigate their NPCs across long distances?

I would like to add a khajiit caravan, but I don't want to add a lot of nav markers (xrefs ir markers) to cells all over Skyrim, if I don't have to.

Do modders add those refs? use existing?

What is the "Best Practices" here?

Thanks!

The best practice is definately NOT to look at the vanilla Khajiit Caravans!

If I'm honest, either you assist the pathing-engine by laying down a fleet (if not a storm) of markers, or you leave it to the pathing system and laugh as your NPC bumbles about

Turn off AI detection and follow a caravan

coc WindhelmAttackStart05

and you'll see one just setting off.

And not only is long-range pathing a bit ... ... rubbish ... but the Follow-my-leader package is almost as bad. It's a riot watching the Windhelm to Solitude leg. Especially the swimming. Indeed, it's no wonder horses for the Caravans never made it in.


So yeah. Make a patrol route(s) of markers and setup your travel-packages and scripts/idles/quests around that. I did this for a wandering NPC and if you're prepared to play long enough, with markers, patrols, packages, schedules and scenes, you can do a lot of stuff very well.

(and yeah, it is a massive PITA!)





I should note: I could use many of the exiting vanilla markers ... and when I could I did. But if you are doing stuff through the wilderness then in some areas you need more markers than exist. So you have to make some trails (N / NE of Riften is a good example place ... with the fort). But this does mean if you plan to release you have edited an awful lot of cells (in a very small and non-dangerous way). So - for travel stuff - reuse whatever "thing" you can.




Oh: And, watchout for cities with big events, if you plan to have your caravan camp outside city walls. The Whiterun Caravan (and the markarth, I think) have to be scripted to not setup if the correct civil war battle is active.

One thing you can do to avoid this is script the placement of the markers. That is, put all the markers in a holding cell somewhere, and then when the mod is first installed, move each of them to the correct position via script, likely one that stores the markers themselves and their desired coordinates in arrays. More work up-front, but perhaps less work dealing with compatibility issues later on.

Thanks, all. Dream King - you are WAYY over my head in terms of scripting abilities (curtsies).

I think I will have to add my markers - Don't want to attach to vanilla links that may in turn be linked where I don't want to go / possibly mess up some vanilla quest's navigation.
Using packages with caravans is going to be so much more complicated anyways.

You can do what Dream says ... I attempted to do just that. But with so many markers eventually my hair started bleeding and I went for actual placement too (and I should note, abandonned any plans to release the work).


Don't be worried about using vanilla markers, where you can, if you are just pathing to them (not changing any parent-refs they have); no damage will be done.

And packages ... in the end you will need a couple of basic ones, I think ... It depends how involved you want to get with their daily activities and what they "do" when the player is near


Have fun

h4vent:
But if I chain link them to make a "patrol path" (per tutorials) for the caravan, won't that mess up navigation for vanilla NPCs, forcing them to use the same patrol path?
That would be my main concern.

Yes, if you change the linked-ref you will break the use in vanilla. So don't do that.


But you don't have to do an actual patrol - unless you have a very complex route? What cities are you planning to link? Or something else?

Anyway, you can simply use vanilla markers as a http://www.creationkit.com/PathToReference_-_Actor ... assuming you are using some type of Follow package then only on the leader. Script an idle or a scene, when they arrive at Marker1, or don't and move them straight on (new http://www.creationkit.com/PathToReference_-_Actor and Follow Packages).

Oh, by the way, if you are using multiple-markers like this for a journey, don't make it all one script. Break it up into a script for each leg (or a quest stage for each leg, with a script for thsat leg?).



If you are doing complex pathing - and you want it to work - then you will have to make your own patrol markers. Then you should think about Dream's suggestion of placing the markers via script (and so not making cell edits). But that may be quite challenging if you have lots of wilderness-type areas to nav and so lots of markers.