So I made some fish, and noticed the wander packages don't seem to work at all... Following the lead of AliveWaters, I gave them AI packages to find the most common rock statics used underwater, to try to make them swim around, but still... they just float there, not moving at all. Heck, even when I punch them, they still don't move at all! I gave them an aggression of 90 and a confidence of 0, thinking surely they'd swim away for their lives if I punch them, but nope... they just float there doing nothing. Why are my fish so stupid???

Wander Packages attached to actors that do not have any Base(Non-Weapon) Movement animations do not function.

Best method to combat this is to give them travel packages moving between set markers or a find package looking for items that exist near their present location.

Personally I used Find Packages Randomed to Travel Packages so the creatures would travel to invis markers and to kelp/seashell/other items randomly so it did not feel like they were traveling in circles.

Thank you for the reply sir, but like I said - I did give them find packages. I gave them five different find packages, one for each of the five most common underwater rocks used in the game, in hopes they would swim back and forth to different rocks, but yet they still just float there doing nothing. Am I not understanding something? Also, why would they not even swim away when I punch them?

1) These FIsh are they Custom (Custom Skeleton, Animations) or Based on Slaughterfish or some other Oblivion Creature?

2) Do these creatures even have Swimming Movement animations? -> Yes, Are the Animations set up correctly to even function as movement animations?

3) Your find Packages they have a radius large enough to even evaluate far enough away to find one of the items they are looking for ? -> You set the Target -> Count larger then "0" as looking for "0" of something is the same as not looking at all !

4) Do you have an Actor Script on said fish interfering with the AI Packages?

5) Have you handed these out to someone else for testing?

1. They're from Sjors Boomschors' resource (http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25743) - they appear to use the slaughterfish animations but have their own skeletons & kf files.
2. Based on what I'm seeing in their mesh folders and in the CS - yes that would appear to be the case.
3. DOH!!! - I assumed that "0" meant infinity for the purpose of this function! Then I should probably set it to 99 or something. Hmmm...
4. Nope.
5. Nope.

WELL - sounds like I need to try out #3 when I get a chance... but still, that would only explain their lack of performing the AI packages, and not why they don't swim away from the player at all or even when they are attacked. I set their confidence to 0 and their aggression to 99, so they should swim away every time the player approaches, right?

Set the target count to 999 and confirmed they still do absolutely nothing except float there remaining perfectly still. If I push one out of the water it will flop around, but then the moment it falls back into the water, it goes back to remaining still.

Their aggression will make them attack if their disposition is less, which it will be. I'd set their AI values to be the same as slaughterfish, except make their aggression 5 if you don't want them attacking the player on sight. I suspect you have their energy too low.

They were made by duplicating the standard slaughterfish and then changing things from there, so they started out being exactly the same as slaughterfish. From there I changed the mesh, stats, etc... The AI has been changed so that their aggression is 99 and their confidence is 1. These settings would typically make any other creature flee the moment it notices the player, but not these creatures. These creatures just float in place and never, EVER move. They never flee, they never react to being attacked, and they never perform their AI packages I gave them which tell them to look for rocks or containers. They will let me just push them around if I want, including letting me push them right out of the water to make them start flopping around on land. I'm pulling my hair out over this. I wish I could figure out why my fish are so stupid.

I would check that you have the right animations then. Although animals that flee, like deer, have an aggression of 100 and a confidence of 0. Confidence is a threshold of the amount of damage a creature takes before it flees. So if you want them to flee immediately, their confidence needs to be 0. What is their energy set to? If it's still set to 50, that should be fine.

You might want to give them the default slaughterfish AI packages to see if those work. I suspect they won't and then you need to check to see if you have the animations set up properly.

Okay just confirmed it has nothing to do with my custom fish.
I did a simple test:
- duplicated a standard slaughterfish, set his agression to 100, his confidence to 0, and his energy to 80
- stuck this cowardly slaughterfish in the water
- swam up to this slaughterfish
- NOTHING. he just floats there doing absolutely nothing. you can push him around, attack him, whatever, and he still just floats there not moving one bit at all.

Might be a silly question, but are you testing on clean saves every time? (Before you've ever ever ever been to that area?)

Yep. Every time I test, I use a save game from the end of the sewers that was saved before the character has ever exited into the outside world, and with no other mods ever having been ran.

Have you tried just duplicating a regular slaughterfish and just turning his aggression down to 5? We've done that with a few and they swim around ok. They won't swim away from you, but they move around. NPC's will attack them though - it was an excellent demonstration of "fish in a barrel": the slaughterfish were in an enclosed area and the NPC's dove in and... slaughtered them all. A minor faction adjustment fixed that.

Interesting. I just did a test.

Dropped one CreatureSlaughterfish and one LL0WaterDeep100 (Leveled creature from with slaughterfish actually spawn), without any changes, into Anvil Bay, went for a swim and both are swimming around, and attacking me just fine. Which might suggest you have something else interfering with them. Running any other mods?

To clarify: Attacking me is the only thing I CAN get them to do. If I set the aggression & confidence high enough, they will then swim for the purpose of attacking, and attack. Unfortunately that's the ONLY thing I can get them to do. I would like to be able to make them capable of wandering, swimming around without being hostile, and/or fleeing from the player.

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood your post a few above that said they did nothing at all. You're right, lowering aggression to 5 they just floated there, however they did do an occassional jump action.

So my last suggestion would be to remove all anims from their folder except swimforward.kf, swimturnleft.kf, swimturnright.kf and see if that forces the anims to play. Maybe also leave the idleanims\specialidle_jump.kf and specialidle_side_to_side.kf.

It's not generally obvious, but have you placed path grids in the areas you want your fish to be? NPCs tend to not act right when none exist. Perhaps your fish suffer the same?

In all the time I've ever spent with Oblivion, I've never observed a slaughterfish simply swim around unless it was in pursuit of me.

The fish in the mod Alive Waters behave pretty well. I think the author used some scripting to achieve this, in conjunction with AI packages. You could check this mod out and do it the same way.