I very, very, very much want to create a package for a follower that is waiting but also allows him to wander about a bit within a specified radius (as allowed on the package) and have his weapon out. I'm working with the Guard Package right now and it seems impossible. I can have one state (wait with no movement) or the other (wandering and weapon waving), but if I put it all together I just get the waiting with nothing else.

Is it impossible to have a waiting NPC wander? Will they just not do it? Does anyone know?

Thanks.

:) llama

Use a 'sandbox' package. There is a checkbox for weapon drawn. And you can make them use furniture and idle markers.

Thanks, WillieSea. I didn't think to even try a sandbox pkg because I don't want him to do anything but draw his weapon and walk around the defined area. I had forgotten you can tick/untick the choices for what a NPC can do with a sandbox package. Anyway, a sandbox package won't let me have him Wait and have his weapon out at the same time either.

I went ahead and solved the problem with a little bit of scripting.

Easiest way I can think to do this is to create a First Xmarker and stick it in the sky somewhere, I suggest in the worldspace Wasteland, and give it a First Ref Name. Then, make a second one and give it Second Ref Name, in about the same spot in the sky. You make your hybrid wait-sandbox AI package specify First Ref Name as the object to wander around. Then, when you fire the command for hybrid sandbox wait, make a moveto cause the First Xmarker Ref Name to be moved to the follower. Then when the follower is released from the command, you move First Ref Name back to Second Ref Name for safekeeping.

Hey, Tarrant, is great to see you around the forums again!

Thanks for the Xmarker-in-the-sky thing. I've read about sending X-markers around the Wasteland to use for packages, etc before but wondered where to put them when they weren't in use.

I've solved the other problem with a couple of lines of scripting. The problem was that the walking around/weapon drawn stuff wouldn't work if the waiting was set at the same time in the dialogue results script so I tried separating them by setting the waiting in a quest script and it seems to be working fine.

Did you EVP the follower after you set the variable in your result script?

(kinda bet you didn't).

Of course I did! (so indignant. lol)

That was my first reaction. But then I got what you meant. So ya, I moved the evp after the variable and set the wait after that in the results script and it worked like a charm. :blush:

You so smart. Thanks.

hehe cool.



For this thing, it is just extreme familiarity with it on my part (NPC behavior switching as a result of dialogue) but ehh thanks!!!! :>

Yeah, EVP is necessary. I use that in all my scripted cut-scenes to control NPC actions in the scene.