I'm having trouble with these two things.

I've been able to create all sorts of merchants except the Hostler. There's something different about selling horses to the player.

I been to all the different stables in Tamriel and I just don't see what it is that I am missing to getting it to work.

I have the markers set up, the location and faction and all that. But the seller refuses to go into sell mode.

The other problem is getting an NPC to shoot arrows at a combat dummy.

I see it up as I did to get another NPC to melee against the dummies and make changes in regards to using "missles". But not luck!

I've searched all over and can't find a tut to help me with these.

Any help would be appreciated!

Does anyone know how to make a merchant sell a horse?

Just make a dialog with a resulting script where a horse ownership is granted to the player and some money is removed.

About the dummies, use a use weapon AI package, selecting ranged weapon on it (ensure that the NPCs have a ranged weapon).

I have tried the AI package "LamplightMaarkUseWeapon7x12Package" (renamed to the mod name and NPC, Maark) and it works for melee against the combat dummies. But it won't work when set to ranged and given bows and arrows.

As for the horse selling, I've tried all sorts of stuff. Including scripting it. I'm sure there's a list of buyable horses somewhere or something. I've searched through the FormLists and other places. I'd much rather it be tied in with the game so as not to cause anything unexpected like using a script may do.

I must admit that I didn't use a use weapon package yet, but you should try with a more generic package or even create your own pakcage using a use weapon procedure.

About horses, I doubt there is a list. Vendors in game just use a dialog, there is no vending screen. If you use scripted dialogs you will be doing the same vanilla game does.

I got the archery to work just now...but I had to use something I came across accidentally.

The package name was "dunCGUseWeaponArcher". I changed the name of it and set the variables to my liking and it is working.

(I always thought 'dun' meant dungeon....doesn't it?)

Now on to the selling horses problem.

I forgot to mention that I haven't found any scripts on the horse sellers in Tamriel.

So it's either something else, hard coded or whatever

They don't need to have a script, the script will surelly be bond to the dialog, wich you won't be able to find by it's name as dialogs have 'tif_number' like names.

Just grant the horse ownership to the player and remove the money. It's easy and clean and surelly is the method used in vanilla (it would be really moronic to spent time in making something like that hard coded).

I just looked all through the dialogs for Whiterun and there's nothing there about selling a horse.

So, I guess it's something I'll either not do or see if I stumble on it at some point in time.

Thanks for your help

I left out a response to that.

I don't know Pap well enough to do that yet :/

All of the horse merchants and even the dog that's for sale are handled by the stables quest.

The one place I didn't look.

I was hoping to get into quest making after I completed the buildings in Lamplight.

But I went ahead and delved into the Stables quest.

I added the aliases by copying those that were already there and making the changes to point to my NPCs and all seems well. One problem though is I don't know how to trigger the quest.

The horse seller (hostler) in the cities aren't obvious on how the quest is initiated.

Can you help me get the quest started?

I would appreciate it!

Did you check the box on the quest data tab for "Start Game Enabled"? Also, if your aliases are not filling the quest won't start, either.

All I did was take the Stables quest and duped the entries for Hostler, Horse and Hostler Backup and changed the duped entries to point to my NPCs and Horse. (I also created a backup NPC to match what's in the quest)

I then went into the scripts that are attached to the hostler and the backup and ensured my NPCs and horse were included in the list under the sripts properties.

So, as far as I can tell all the things have been added to get my two horse sellers and the horse listed within the quest. But when activating (talking to) the hostler and the backup hostler the dialog for selling the horse doesn't show.

[ rant]As I've said a few time on these forums, I have some kind of mental block when dealing with quest making. I'm beginning to think my agoraphobia is actually carrying over into my online activities lol

I have some HUGE ideas I want to do with the mod (like the beginning sequence when you first enter the town you are attack and it fades to black and you awake in a jail, imprisoned like most TES games start. This quest will definitely need a lot of scripting and voice acting to accomplish....I fear for my mod because of my mental block on learning to make quest.

So What I'm saying is that I really appreciate all the help I can get until I can break through and learn quest making. [ /rant]

If I could just get these NPCs to respond with the appropriate dialog It will be all set.

And..thank you for your help

Have a look in the vanilla horse sellers and see if they have any "services" factions? Perhaps the conditions for the dialogue in the stables quest may require the NPC to be in something like this

I am at work at the moment, so I have not got the ck in front of me to have a poke around

- Hypno

Actually I duplicated the seller, Skulvar, in the Whiterun stables to make my NPCs.

That's what has be perplexed. I don't see anything at all that tells me there is a quest related, excepte one for the CW battle of Whiterun.

BTW....I really want to get this to work because I would love to ride a horse named "One Lass Heist" lol

No services faction but they do have a WhiterunStablesFaction that includes the horse, hostler and the hostlerbackup, which I have duped and renamed to LamplightStablesFaction with my own horse and hostlers.

Hmmm, I'm not too sure what to suggest. I'm going to be making a custom hostler in my mod so I'm interested in how this thread turns out. When I get home I'll have a look into it. I'll post if I get something working

- Hypno

I just took a brief look over the "stables" quest and it seems this is a place the developers used to keep all dialogue and aliases related to the various stables selling horses. The reason you have been having no luck is because most of it is handled through the use of aliases. I may be wrong in this but it seems the best way to have this vanilla function in a mod and have it 100% compatable with other mods that also sell horses (regardless how they have been set up) would be to recreate your own custom version of this quest.

I had to do something similar when I wanted to recreate the house upgrades dialogues. What I did then (and probably what I'll end up doing with this) is to go through every tab in the vanilla quest one by one and then reproduce everything I see there in my own quest. It is a time consuming process which can become quite confusing at times, but it is a good way to learn the ways developers approach and accomplish the various parts of the game. Plus you are guaranteed that it will work because you already know it does

- Hypno

Ok last night I finished off recreating the vanilla stables quest for my custom hostler. Unfortunately, by the time I finished it was pretty late (had to go sleep, had work this morning) so I couldn't test it. In theory it looks like it should work. Once I confirm that it does I'll write up a step by step tut so you can do the same thing.

The only thing that puzzles me is how the game knows when to use the "hostlerbackup". I couldn't see anything relating to it during my copying process. Perhaps it's handled in the story manager? (to be honest, I havnt really explored how this thing works so I never had a look into it with regards to the hostlers)

Can anybody who is a bit more experienced care to shed some light on this?

- Hypno

I didn't understand the Hostler Backup either. But I created one since the quest seems to require them.

What I was doing was copying the lines in the quest and pointing the dupes to my stables, horse etc.

I'll be looking forward for word from you whether you got this running.

Hypno

Have you worked on the hostler any more?

Sorry mate, been a bit busy with work and life in general recently. Hopefully I should be able to check out the hostler when I get home tonight. If it working I'll write up a step by step tutorial

- Hypno

Thanks hypno!

I'll be looking forward to it

Just letting you know mate I managed to get a hostlertest.esp up and running successfully. I didn't bother with the hostler backup. It'll work ok without him.

I am just typing up the tut now. It shouldn't take me too long. I'll probably upload it to the nexus as a txt doc along with the test.esp file just in case you want to have a look in the ck how I set it up

- Hypno

EDIT: Here you go

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/download.php?id=61555