Hello, all. I've been having this problem with NPCs in my mod for a while, and I'd been ignoring it until now.

So, I can place a number of NPCs (unscripted, no AI), and some of them will be where I put them, and about half won't (in a custom made cell). I tried to search around the internet for a solution, but the only leads were things like: "You need a path grid (if they had wander AI)" or "Sometimes changes won't show up correctly unless you make a new character." Neither of these worked.

It's just so odd. I have about 24 NPCs, all nearly identical (but different FormID's for each). Low level processing makes no difference, persistent reference makes no difference, they're all enabled. Right now, I have them all just standing in a room. That's all I want them to do. But about half of them are simply gone.

I've used a pretty powerful Life Detect spell to see if they were placed under the floor or in the walls, but no life is detected.

I've seen them all before, so it's not a mesh problem (shouldn't be anyways, since they're all replicated from a common FormID, and some are perfectly fine while others are missing).

I found the actual reference ID for one of the problem NPCs, and I went into the game. The results are interesting, and I don't know what to make of it, what's causing it, or what's wrong. But...

When I use the .MoveTo Player command in the console, it teleports the NPC to me... But they are invisible. I know they're there, because the reticule changes from a crosshair to the option to speak. When I speak to the NPC, he becomes visible, like he's supposed to be.

But MoveTo only moves NPCs, and shouldn't affect their state of existence in the game. So... it just makes me think that my problem NPCs are invisible-floating in the ether in some location I never placed them.

This may be another instance of the same problem: In an earlier episode, I had placed an NPC in a cave room. When I playtested, the NPC wasn't where I placed him, but just outside the wall of the cave room (I found him with Detect Life). However, this NPC (unlike the ones I'm having trouble with now) was actually existent; just in an incorrect location.

Anyone else have this problem? I feel like I'm the only one on the entire internet with this problem. I can't find any other instances that aren't AI related.

Thanks in advance.

That sounds like a bug I've run into before. If you place too many NPCs in a cell, they won't always show up. If you put them in custom leveled lists and place the leveled lists in the cell instead of the NPCs, they should all show up.

I'll try that, thanks.