I really hope this isn't a boneheaded question; I've read everything I can find about dialogue and I may be just missing something obvious. If so, I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I'm trying to figure out how an NPC starts a spontaneous conversation in response to some other events in the game. And it looks to me like at the point where the conversation is triggered, the script adds a dialogue package to the NPC in question. For example, when the time comes for Arcade to start the "For Auld Lang Syne" quest, there's this line:

ArcadeREF.AddScriptPackage ArcadeTriggerForAuldLangSyneStartDialoguePackage

Then if you look at that package, it's all pretty standard; travel to PlayerRef, and start a conversation, beginning with topic "ArcadeForAuldLangSyneStart". So far, so good. But if you look at that topic in VDialogueArcadeGannon, it's empty. The actual conversation where he tries to start For Auld Lang Syne is a GREETING info, with no specific conditions. And I can't figure out a couple of things:

- How is it that triggering this empty topic actually starts a GREETING topic? Is there a hidden connection, or one that I need to look at another form or something to see?
- This greeting and all his other special greetings for special situations in the game don't seem to have anything special about them, like a special condition or flag that I can see. What keeps them from being used as generic greetings?

Again, I apologize if I've just missed something straightforward and I appreciate the help if someone will set me straight.

Don

lol. Ya, this is a mysterious mystery to me as well. I wouldn't set up my forced greetings like that and expect them to work. I would expect him to reach the player and present with an empty dialogue box. I don't know how that is working. And I have no idea why the GREETINGS with generic conditions aren't being used regularly. Looking at them as they are currently conditioned they should be. I wouldn't use his Quest as an example to follow for anything because the stuff we can see just isn't going to work. If I tried to set up dialogue like that I wouldn't get what I intended; or rather, when I set up dialogue like that I don't get what I intend.

Hmmm... it's nice to know I'm not crazy. I looked at Veronica's spontaneous dialogue, like when she starts I Could Make You Care, and that's handled the way I would expect; there's a package that starts a dialogue, and that dialogue is the correct one.

I guess for now I'm just going to assume there's some connection that GECK isn't showing for Gannon, and use Veronica as an example for how to make this work.

Thanks much!

Don