Less so with Zan's because it issues PCBs in situations where the game itself would not.Įdited by Athelbras, 09 April 2015 - 04:51 pm. So my current conclusion is that disabled thingies that are executing their own scripts can't be absolutely relied upon, because a PurgeCellBuffers call (either via the game's own mechanisms or via a mod like Zan's) can potentially render them non-responsive/non-functional. It only matters when in a different cell location. Note also that issuing PurgeCellBuffers while simply remaining in the area has no effect. Note that relatively local travel via COC and the map does not necessarily result in the game issuing a PCB, and so the NPC may still be active. Upon return the NPC is again no longer responsive: the messages do not resume and the encounter won't trigger. This can be done by travelling to a sufficiently distant location (via COC or regular map travel). And the encounter won't trigger.Ĭreating a circumstance where the game issues its own PCB has the same negative results. If I do the step in and out with Zan's enabled. If I step into the building and issue the PurgeCellBuffers (PCB) console command, then step back outside again. I can repeat the step in and step out as much as desired, and then walk over to be within trigger range and the encounter occurs. When I step back outside, the messages resume. Without Zan's, once the messages begin to appear, I can step into that nearby building to transition into a new cell, and the messages temporarily stop - because I am no longer in that NPC's world space which is correct behavior. So as long as the NPC is present and "active" (as in still disabled but also still running its script), the message is seen in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Since scripts do intentionally run on disabled thingies, I inserted passive message calls within the NPC's script as a kind of "I'm still here!" notifier. It is not clear whether it has been "deleted". In essence, issuing a PurgeCellBuffers command while in a separate zone/cell results in the disabled NPC (which has an active script) no longer being "functional" when you return to the outside world where it is positioned. I am able to recreate the problem manually. But of course am willing to learn that I am misinterpreting results if someone else has better insight into what is taking place.Įdited by Athelbras, 09 April 2015 - 05:05 pm. It is the mods (and modders) having no knowledge of Zan's behavior that are at risk.Ĭaveat: I have exactly the situation described as a test case. Knowing that behavioral characteristic of Zan's, one can of course use an alternative implementation to entirely avoid the issue. With Zan's removed, the encounter plays out successfully, regardless of the player's actions, movements, and transitions. And flagging the NPC as Quest Item / Persistent does not prevent it. In doing so, that zone/cell transition invokes a purge by Zan's which causes the lurking NPC to cease to exist. One such circumstance is the Player character being outdoors and nearing that lurking NPC, but suddenly ducking into a building to check for other enemies before proceeding onward, then coming back out again. This potentially causes problems.įor example, if a mod has an NPC set to Disabled in order for it to be both inactive and invisible until triggered (perhaps with its own scripted Enable springing it into action), that NPC could then be unexpectedly flushed/purged/deleted before coming into play. Zan's minimizes out-of-memory conditions by periodically forcing the game to flush "old" data from memory, and does so much more aggressively than the game engine normally would. The Essence: "disabled" thingies can be unexpectedly purged/deleted without your knowledge or desire if a player uses Zan's AutoPurge (or a similar data flusher). So if nothing else, this is an FYI to others not yet in the know. In fact my approach may even be a known bad thing to do. The issue that I am about to describe may be quite obvious to more experienced modders.
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