Making leveled creatures appear later in the game

Post » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:46 am

Hi All

Is it possible to edit an existing leveled creature to appear later in the game? I'm trying to make the Overlords brought in by Broken Steel to appear a few levels later but can't seem to do it, doesn't matter what I try and do, as a test I even tried deleting them in GECK but they still appear in the game. At first I tried changing the level figure in the stats page but I undestand now that only determines how strong the Overlord will be in the game, not when they appear.

I couldn't find any mention of them in the Leveled Creature column in GECK

Anyone help? I'm trying to make them appear later because I am trying to play the game a new way, ignoring the main quests and just wandering and seeing what's out there, the problem is I come up against them without the proper weapons. The last one I met I had just a 10mm piston and a hunting rifle!
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Post » Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:24 am

Well, to my knowledge, I believe the Super Mutant Overlords (DLC03CrSuperMutant4) only begin to exist in the Broken Steel DLC.

Now, I do not know, but I would imagine that like all the other generic creatures you find in the wasteland, leveled creatures (LVLC) for these for placed about the game (Wasteland). For example, the leveled creature EncSuperMutantGun is used by a variety of creatures and other leveled creatures in the Wasteland, and it contains a variety of Super Mutant variations, along with a variation of the Super Mutant Overlord (ex. DLC03CrSuperMutant4GunA).

So, if you wanted to make it so the Super Mutant Overlords did not come into the game at a certain level of the player, you would have to make a script and attach it to each of their variations (I think). The script itself would be fairly easy, I believe. However, I think you might have to make a quest with a script that is constantly tracking the player's level, where, when at the desired level, the Super Mutant Overlords can be added to the form lists/leveled lists that you would remove them from (so they don't spawn), and then they would now be able to spawn.

In summary, what I think you would do is the following:

1. Find all the leveled creatures that contain the Super Mutant Overlords in their form lists. Start by loading up only the Broken Steel DLC in the GECK. Being that their original EDITOR ID is DLC03CrSuperMutant4, type that in to the Object window search bar with the *All filter. Four variations should come up, which are just ones specialized in different areas (guns, explosives, whatever).

2. Start with any one of them, right click the EDITOR ID, select Use Info. For DLC03CrSuperMutant4GatlingLaserA, it can be seen that it is used in one leveled creature (EncSuperMutantMinigun) and exists in the Wasteland. So, you would open up the mentioned leveled creature, and simply remove DLC03CrSuperMutant4GatlingLaserA by right clicking it and selecting delete. Wola! This leveled creature will no longer be able to choose this Super Mutant Overlord anymore to spawn, but it will still function and spawn the other choices (not overlords). However, keep this leveled creature noted, as you are going to want it. Now, for the one in the Wasteland, double click it in the Use Info box, and it should load the Wasteland in the Render Window and have it selected. (Ahhh, haha! This is the first Super Mutant Overlord I encountered -- never knowing about them before -- and it was most certainly something to remember.) Then, you don't want to just delete it. Instead, double-click it, look at the bottom-half of the Dialogue Box ('properties window'), and to the left you should see a checkbox for "Initially Disabled". Check that so its checked, and make note of it (since DLC03CrSuperMutant4GatlingLaserA will still be using it because you did not delete it, selecting Use Info will show it, but not for the one we removed, of course). This means that it will be disabled and not spawn until otherwise stated -- you will do this through scripts. Repeat this for the rest of the Overlord variations, making notes again.

3. Continuing with the example, you are going to have to do two things (which I am sure you can do differently). Make a new quest -- go to the Object window, expand Actor Data, select Quest, right click in the field (of quests) and select New. Give it a EDITORID of something appropriate, such as SuperMutantOverlordSpawnCheck, and a name like that. Continuing, I believe a priority of 5 should do (don't know much about this besides its literal meaning), have Start Game Enabled checked off (literal meaning), and check off Script Processing Delay and it should automatically go to default. Then, click OK. Basically, you are going to then make a script that attaches to this and its going to constantly check what the player's level is to see if it should add the Overlord's into the game. On that note, start a new script -- top menu Gameplay, Edit Scripts, click Script menu, and then New... Alright, you are going to want to start with a relevant script name, such as SuperMutantOverlordSpawnCheckSCRIPT. Then, you are going to use a Begin... End block of GameMode, being that you are going to be checking the player's level, which is a GameMode deal. Inside, you are going to use a function that gets the player's level, which is nicely named GetLevel. You are going to format this into a simple If... Then statement (without the Then of course), where the code to be executed if the player's level is true (ex. If Player.GetLevel == 27). Now, this code is a bit more difficult. The first part is adding the Super Mutant Overlords back into their Leveled Creatures, which would be done by (also nicely) using the AddCreatureToLeveledList function. The second part would be enabling all the Overlords located in the game world, which is fairly easy (use the Enable function). Finally, end with an EndIf statement, and an End for the GameMode block, and that should do it!

(Here is an example of the script. As a note, putting a ; at the beginning of a line allows you to put notes into the script without the game running it as code (just ignores it).)

ScriptName SuperMutantOverlordSpawnCheckSCRIPT ; declares the EDITOR ID if this script to be such. With this, its nice because you can change the name without having to create a new form (script)

Begin GameMode

If Player.GetLevel >= 27

AddCreatureToLeveledList EncSuperMutantMinigun DLC03CrSuperMutant4GatlingLaserA 31 ; The first word/parameter is the function, the second is the Leveled Creature you want to add to, the third is the creature or leveled creature you want to add to it, and ; the fourth is the level you want it to be
; Do this for the rest that you removed

DLC03CrSuperMutant4GatlingLaserA.Enable ; Now, I just realized that might be a bad idea. Basically, when we check initially disabled in the gameworld, I believe its only doing that for that specific Overlord. So, even though it currently does not have a reference ID, doing this would assume you disabled all such Overlords. So, either when disabling each Overlord in the gameworld put in a reference ID for them if they do not have one, and then change the code to ReferenceID.Enable for each one. Or! For this code, you could make another script, attach it to each DLC03CrSuperMutant4 variation, and just have the code below this script
; Do this for the rest of the variations

EndIf

End

--------------------

(Script mentioned to attach to the Overlords.)

ScriptName PutScriptNameHere

Short DoOnce

If DoOnce == 0

DLC03CrSuperMutant4GatlingLaserA.Disable
; Repeat for rest of variations

Set DoOnce to 1

EndIf

; Basically, by creating a variable DoOnce and making it have a number value (in essence) (by Short), it will be default have a initial value of zero, so it will be true the first time and run the code of disabling all the Overlord muties. Then, by setting it to any other value than zero (1), the code cannot run again for DoOnce is not zero, because you don't want it repeating all the time, especially when the player is of level and you want them enabled.




Now, this might be very jumbled and crazy, and maybe a lot of its wrong, but I hope I helped, and if its too messy just tell me and if I have time I'll write up a more clear guide.
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