Category talk:NPC

PC Level Offset

This desperately needs revision. The current description is very poor:

"Changes the Health, Spell points, Fatigue, Combat, Magic, Stealth, and Attack Damage into level based multipliers. "

This looks almost like it was copied from the creatures category even though NPC stats are completely different from creature stats. --dev_akm 07:13, 20 October 2008 (EDT)

Summonable Flag

EXCERPT : Summonable: If checked, the NPC will appear in the list of actors for any summon effect; that NPC can be summoned with a summoning spell.

........ Since we can always use MoveTo function over a reference.CreateFullActorCopy for a summon spell, I was wondering about the use of such an NPC parameter. NOTE: for my mod currently under construction, I've included a magic apparatus that casts an Area spell, teleporting any creature/NPC within that area to some other place, and it works flawlessly without NPCs having this parameter set. Same thing for another spell I've created to summon myself from another persistent activator placed anywhere in the World. There's also a mod adding a teleport companion spell, and you can set ANY NPC to be "summonable" that way, without ever using that "summonable" parameter (Cast a spell to associate a "slot" to an NPC, and then after cast another spell to summon that "registered" NPC).

Thus my questions:

- Is this related to the possibility of creating multiple references/instances of the same base NPC object within the game (actually acting like a PlaceAtMe command when solely considering the fact that it is a copy of the original base object that is created)?

- And what about the CreateFullActorCopy on a reference you could then MoveTo anywhere : my mod also includes a statue creation procedure, involving a real sculptor (note: which is more realistic than have your statue appear out of nowhere - Who was the model since you never saw any sculptor? ;)...). I initialise a ref local var from this sculptor's OnLoad script to associate a cratefullactorcopy of the player, and then bingo I have a new NPC independant from myself AND the sculptor (if I "kill" the statue, no one else is "killed").. Currently I have problems with this functionality, as I'd like to be able to remove/recreate the statue, but I end up not being able to make the statue Disappear : any new statue becomes FUSIONED with the old statue, and it becomes quite ridiculous in the end..lol. I think there are issues with CreateFullActorCopy / DeleteFullActorCopy, unfortunately I've been unable to find any thorough and detailed information about this - and no, the current Bruma script does not help at all in understanding the logic behind (it involves a unique creation, so it can't really assert the full range of behaviours and limitations of those commands).

Note in regards to the statue above-mentioned : maybe I'd need to actually Kill the sculptor to be able to make it's local ref var get also killed (which would represent a bug or a glitch of those "ActorCopy" functions, since I set another reference var within an activator script to actually create that statue reference), I think I'll try this : use a dummy NPC from a buffer cell for the CreateFullActorCopy function, instead of the sculptor, so that I could have a script kill it before creating a new instance of a statue... But this is quite tedious and annoying in the end, when the mechanics under the hood of those functions aren't documented anywhere : it takes much time to test and test and test... pfiew!... --HawkFest 18:56, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

Notes

Added a few notes about the CS face-generator, sprucing the article as I go, just as I did for the creature article. --Relax and Play 21:33, 24 October 2008 (EDT)

Very good changes, man. Thanks! --dev_akm 00:05, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Auto calc stats

Did anyone notice that when selecting "Auto calc stats" checkbox you can no longer select any checkboxes for what the NPC is buy/selling in the "AI" dialog? Is this the normal behaviour or I've done something odd?

If it's normal then perhaps a mention on the page would be nice as I deleted two npcs thinking I was messing up the npc before finding out the checkbox was causing this, or if it's written out somewhere already point me to it.

The same goes for selecting PC Level Offset --Irwiss 14:16, 22 December 2008 (EST)

I've never heard of that problem... maybe ask on the Forums, and report back if you can confirm that this is how it works for everyone? Seems to me that that sounds like a bug...

Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:53, 22 December 2008 (EST)

I can confirm, and that's the way it works for all NPCs: if you enable "Auto Calc Stats" on the Stats tab, then clicking the AI button for that NPC will show an AI window where the "Buy / Sells" section is disabled on the interface (inaccessible for the manual setting of their values). The same goes on when specifying an offset from the PC: all the NPC's parameters thus become "Auto Calc", like if the offset was applied to all its attributes using their default values as a base (not just its leveling, however I wonder if this really takes place while playing), hence the NPC's AI dialog will not allow for manual editing of the "Buy / Sells" section nor of the "Auto-Calc Other" section.... I agree with DragoonWraith, IMHO this is a design flaw, since trading capabilities should not (and actually is not) be impacted by the NPC's attributes and skills. Note: mercantile skill has nothing to do with some stock diversity or merchant's starting barter gold - maybe solely over the availability of what a merchant can trade (i.e. if some combination between mercantile and personality skills is low, than the merchant could trade this or that item type, but his low skill would also have an impact over his actual stock for sale, not solely on the pricing of stuff... Anyways the game's engine doesn't seem to render trading as such, it's a very basic and flawed heuristic that's in use).

--HawkFest 09:21, 23 December 2008 (EST)

So I gather there is no way to make merchant's mercantile skill climb as the player advances without resorting to scripting, right? --Irwiss 14:34, 23 December 2008 (EST)

I doubt that scripting is necessary. If mercantile is one of the primary skills for the NPC's class, and the NPC is set for PC Level Offset, then the NPC's mercantile skill should advance along with the player.

--dev_akm 15:18, 23 December 2008 (EST)