As many of you know, I've been working on my Helgen Rebuilt project for several months now, and some of you know, because you have been kind enough to help me with a major problem I faced last week, that I've been fighting navmesh issues. So, after working my ass off all weekend rebuilding a month of work that was lost, I discovered that the start of the game STILL would not start as it should. This time however, I made NO edits to the navmesh whatsoever. NONE! However, just to make certain I was placing an XmarkerHeading on a proper navmesh because my NPC was not moving to it like he should, I did pull up the navmesh just to check it was meshed under my marker. (The navmesh in Helgen proper is really cut up.) After simply LOOKING at the navmesh, NOT editing it mind you, just looking, my plugin bugged the start of the game.

The final straw, was a test I decided I would run before I went any further. The results of which are simply depressing. I created a brand new empty plugin, created me a cell and added a few walls and a door, and a simple navmesh. I went to the HelgenExterior02 cell and placed a door to link my interior to, and set the link, also being VERY mindful not to bump any other objects. I reloaded my interior cell, ran the Check NavMeshes utility, found no errors and finalized my interior. I went back to the HelgenExterior02 to my linked door, made sure my yellow teleport marker was sitting on a nice big triangle, checked for errors, found none and finalized and saved my plugin.

I checked my Data files to be certain NO other plugins were loaded save my test, loaded the game and started a new character, and there I was, standing beside the wagon, just like in my Helgen Rebuilt plugin.

I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or just get drunk at this point. I mean, if that simple of a test breaks the intro then unless you guru's have any suggestions, I'm screwed. I can see only 2 options at this point. Just continue and say to hell with it, my mod will not be playable from a new character until after they finish the opening sequence, or scrap it entirely.

Signed,

Depressed.....

PS: If anyone would be so kind to test this for yourself and confirm I'm not an idiot, I'd appreciate it. it takes about 5 minutes.

I'd be happy to give it a test (er, I mean, if you can send me the test plugin you created. I've not done much with creating world elements and navmeshes yet, so recreating what you did would take me substantially longer than 5 minutes).

Created a plugin for the simplified test. New interior cell. Copied contents from one of the other test cells. Made a simple navmesh for it. Dropped a door in.

Went to HelgenExterior02. Dropped a door into the dirt just past the fence you see as you enter the village on the cart. Linked it to the new interior. Set the marker on the navmesh properly. Finalized HelgenExterior02 navmesh. Verified it had the green triangle.

Went back to the new interior, set that marker on the navmesh properly. Finalized it.

Loaded the game using LAL, started a Helgen scenario. The cart ride went fine up to the execution where I stopped it. Seems to be ok to me.

I hate to ask, but what version of the CK are you using, and what patch level is your game at?

Also, I don't know if it matters, but I included Update.esm as a master for it and placed the test plugin dead last in load order.

CK version 1.6.89.0
Game should be fully updated as I downloaded Dawnguard the other day. It was not checked in my load order, nor my test mod when I made it.

I did not have Update.esm checked when I made my plugin. Let me try one with it included.

OK, just tested with Update.esm included in my plugin and got the same thing. Arthmoor, please try starting a new game regularly, not through LAL and see what you get.

Here's the first one I made without Update.esm as a master:

http://ypdesign.com/skyrim/helgen/NavmeshTest.7z

I see the same thing as you, Balok, when I try with your Navmesh Test.esp loaded--the game starts with everyone standing outside the carriage. Using Skyrim 1.7.

I wonder if having a cell boundary between the portal and the marker has anything to do with it. Not saying it does, but just throwing it out there.

Right. Ok. Started with my own navmesh test with LAL out of the way. No dice. The cart ride is hosed. Same with your own test plugin.

Strangely enough though it seems starting WITH LAL active and using its Helgen option works just fine. Which I find confusing since nothing changes about the actual navmeshes that way.

Have you tried.... saving your game with the mod enable. And then immediatly reloading? With the latest (1.7.7.0.6 I think?) there is a bug where dialogues wont show up until the user saves the game with the mod enabled and reloads the game. I have often wondered if the dialogues were the only thing broken but my mod doesn't do any navmesh work.

There are also several posts talking about how Dawnguard broke their creation kit. I haven't read them all, but it has scared me enough that I have avoided buying dawnguard.

I'm just seeing your thread so probably not much for me to test (though I'd be happy to test anything else if you come up with it). Given the nature of your mod and that your tests are showing ANY change is causing problems, just state your mod isn't to be active until after they finish the intro. You know half the people wont pay attention, but seems like a better alternative than just throwing away your mod.

That's certainly an option. Plus alt-start users would still be able to enjoy it just fine since most of them don't go through Helgen anyway. At least the mod would still exist and if something ever comes along that can deal with this problem you'll still have it.

A couple other things to consider.
1. The navmesh doesn't extend to the external portal, so the AI may be bugging out because it's unreachable, even though you may not have any packages that need to path through it. Just going by stuff I ran into in Fallout.
2. If the starting cell is for the player only, you don't need a navmesh in there, so you can remove that complication. The player uses brain, mouse, and keyboard instead of navmesh. You don't need a navmesh for the portals to work for the player either. Just the portal markers. So you could just eliminate the navmesh path from the external cells to the internal one.

Balok, you have put a great deal of time and effort into this mod and it sounds like a really cool mod. Please don't give up. Hopefully you can find a solution to this issue but, if not, I think Sollar's advice sounds like a good way to move forward until a fix can be found.

Thanks guys, yeah, I can't throw in the towel now - not after the effort I've invested to get this far. It is what it, so people will simply have to understand it's not because of a dirty mod or anything. It's just something wonky with that group of cells.

One thing I have found interesting however, is that I pulled up my test plugin in TESsnip just to look at the records, and it showed NAVM records for HelgenExterior02 which I expected, since that's where the finalized teleport marker is. However, it also showed edited NAVM records for HelgenExterior05, 06 and 07. Now, I'm assuming that's because they border cell 02 and if 02 get's edited, it edits the others to account for what changed in 02?

Also, Arthmoor, what stage does your LAL set in MQ101 when the player starts the intro sequence? Are they teleported and placed on the wagon just like a vanilla start or somewhere after the execution scene starts?

The last question I have is that if you look at the navmeshes in Helgen, there is clearly an island navmesh that the wagons go through to get to the execution area. After you go through the gate and take a left to head around by the Inn, there's a whole section with no navmesh where some rubble piles will later be enabled. I always thought that NPC's would just stop when there is a break in the navmesh. How did they make the horses and wagons cross that island navmesh? Is this scripted somewhere in MQ101 that I missed?

If you finalize the navmesh in a cell it will typically create records for the four bordering cells as well. I think it may be due to the creation of the "links" (thick green lines) between the navmeshes (but I don't know for sure).

And I am glad to hear you aren't giving up.

MQ101 is interrupted at stage 0, LAL does its thing, and if they choose Helgen, control is given back to MQ101 by calling stage 10. Stage 10 handles everything as far as getting the player to the start marker and setting up the whole cart ride.

All stage 0 does is change the time of day and call stage 10 under vanilla conditions. So I've not done anything out of the ordinary there.