I want to have an NPC strike the player, just once, and I'm not sure how to set it up.

I don't want to start combat, because I don't want the NPC's friends joining in, or followers getting excited.

Ideally, I'd just trigger the attack animation and script the damage from it.

Any thoughts on how to go about it?

If I recall the debug is Debug.SendAnimationEvent(theactor, "theanimation")

and I think to hurt the player it would be
Game.GetPlayer().DamageActorValue("Health", 1) ;1 can be any number you want.


If you're in the CK you can click on Gameplay at the top and then Animations. Go down to Character and look at the animations there. You want to set the ID of the animation as a property in your script and then call the animation (with SendAnimationEvent) by it's Anim Event name (these sometimes differ).


So the property for the punching animation once you find it would be Idle Property theanimation Auto

Hopefully this helps. I started scripting for the first time ever when the CK came out so I'm still new myself.

http://www.creationkit.com/UseWeapon_%28Procedure%29

Target (http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Package_Templates#Procedure_Parameter_Types): Specifies What to attack
RepeatFire (http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Package_Templates#Procedure_Parameter_Types): Actor will continue to fire as specified in Fire Rate. With this true, procedure has no "completed" state.
DoNoDamage (http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Package_Templates#Procedure_Parameter_Types): Attacks may hit target, but will not deal any damage.
AllowCombatStart (http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Package_Templates#Procedure_Parameter_Types): If true, starts normal combat when target is hit (or fired upon?).

Thats not needed. Using:

Debug.SendAnimationEvent(Reference, "attackStart")

will actually make him punch , and will hurt you if your in it's way. All damage will be calculated, for you.

So Simply do this:

Reference.SetLookAt(Game.GetPlayer())     Debug.SendAnimationEvent(Reference, "AttackStart")Reference.ClearLookAt()

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but setLookAt does nothing in regard of attacking. I just have Lydia 'startCombat' with my horse, and she wasn't 'looking' at anyone (tested with console). Combat was initiated as normal

Thanks guys. I think I'm going to try the UseWeapon procedure first, with doNoDamage = true and AllowCombatStart = false and see if I still get an OnHit event on the player. Even if I don't I can probably still script a health adjust as part of the procedure end script.

I'll let you know how I get on

My NPC doesn't move when i launch "attackStart"

SendEventAnimation(MyNPC, "attackStart")

IdleSalute, weapEquip are OK but not attackStart.

Im invoking code using a custom stage in a test quest

setstage myquest 5

and queststage 5 contains code to sendanimationevent

is there something special else to do on the actor ?

Ok i finally got it

Actor ref1 = MyActorAlias.GetReference() as Actor
ref1.SetAlert(true) ;make the actor in guard mode
Utility.Wait(3)
Debug.SendAnimationEvent(ref1, "attackStart")

This was always known. Animation Event's sometimes only work if the actor is in the right state. For example, AttackStart only works while the Actor has a weapon drawn.

Always known but not by me, now it's ok

The idea here is to make the NPC attack only once without initiating a combat though. As it will perform an animation, without taking into acount any other actor, if the setlookat command is not used, the attack could miss if the NPC is looking into another direction. Usually actors look at the player if near, but better be sure.

This.
The point of the SetLookAt() was to keep the Actor looking at the Target to keep from missing.