Hello,

I’ve spent some time getting familiar with the Creation Kit and fiddled around getting a feel for creating dungeons and so forth, amazing piece of software (bugs and all) to mess around and have fun with. I have a little bit of hard time getting my head around all thats possible and how to do it the smart way, how to think about it all. I thought of a learning project with two NPCs to get me familiar with some aspects Im interested in and how to go about it the most effective way. If someone could help me by pointing me in the right direction it would be awesome, I cant watch youtube-videos where I’m at so links to articles only please.

Is there a way to know if there is a city in an area and then stealthy spawn something in that general area at a random/semi-random location without breaking the world or are you forced to use fixed spawn points for everything?

Can you make NPCs follow the player without being a follower, more of a stalker that react on certain actions taken by the player? Are you limited to certain areas or can you make a NPC follow you without restrictions through the whole game until a condition is met or death?

Lets say I want the same actor to appear at every city the player goes to, must I place a spawn for that actor at every single city or could I make this happen on the fly with a script that runs every time an area containing a city loads? Can I apply rules to this by some how counting the number of people in nearby cells and if lets say NotEnemyPeopleCount < 20 then spawn the actor some distance from the player or at the city gates? If possible, does the behavior of creatures and other NPCs make it problematic to create somewhat random spawns without running in to problems or is there smart ways around messing up patrols and avoid getting stuck in a mountain/wall/tree? First thought was to save the location of the player when a condition is met and then spawn the actor there when the player is X distance away from that spot that then runs to the closest building/gate or have the fastest NPC in the world running from its home every time the player get close to area with more than 20 people, do I approach this the wrong way, what would be the easiest/most effective way to make this happen?

What should I look for if I want to make a NPC follow the player around without being a normal follower? Is this possible for certain areas only that I set up or can you make NPCs stalk the player forever/until ConditionIsMet or death? For example, the player comes to a camp, one member of the camp constantly follows the player around while in that area and through loading doors so nothing goes missing or the player is hired to do kill someone and a NPC follows the player until the target is dead to witness the deed, the player cant interact with the NPC but it will react if the player does certain things and will keep on following until a condition is met. You get the general idea.

Is my second example the solution to the first? Have the actor follow the player at all times and somehow toggle visibility (if possible) and interaction when condition is met?

Im not sure what to do with this but I thought that getting into these examples would teach me about a whole lot of other stuff I’m curious about but Im not really sure where to start or what to look for, some pointers would be most appreciated.