So I was reading on the wiki about how using a persistent ref of an activator (or other static) as a marker for MoveTo scripts will often snap back to a previous location on reload, making it unreliable for teleport spells that involve the player's location. http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Teleport_Recall#Marker_Rats

I decided to give this creature marker method a try, however I am unable to resolve several serious flaws:

1) Though stripped of all movement and AI and set to 0.01 scale, the creatures still have a huge "hitbox" of collisions. This is perceived as an "invisible wall" when I move through the marker location, and causes function-breaking problems when I do player.MoveTo and the collision bumps the marker creature way the hell off to some unreachable place that I end up too next time I teleport.

I have attempted to follow the instructions elsewhere on the forum to set mass to 0 in nifscope, as well as modifying the collision type to none and motion and its quality to fixed, yet the problem persists. This is also a major issue with the creatures often "falling through the world", for example if I cast the spell on a bridge, which again completely breaks the spell.

I also attempted disabling the reference after moving it to the marker location, which seems to fix the collision problem, but brings me to...

2) Havok physics on even disabled creatures? Again, falling through the world is a frequent problem. I tried setting the Z value to 150 over the player's current position with no joy. Still frequently falling through bridges and other such objects and ending up teleporting into a place I have to toggle collisions off in the console to get out of.


I've been reading the forums all morning, and can't seem to find a solution. I would really like to incorporate a working teleport system into my current project. I am guessing the only way to do this would be to modify the .NIF file in a way I have yet to read about or do correctly, however I am skeptical if Havok is something that can be avoided. I even tried a constant SkipAnim block with no luck. The marker creatures still fall to gravity like anything else.

First of all what is usually called 'havok' only kicks in on a dead or unconscious actor. So removing any of the collision properties has no effect on a living creature. You need to remove the hitbox. What you could try is to delete the BSBound node in the skeleton nif or set all its dimensions to 0. Then rename the skeleton to something like skeletonMyMod.nif (it needs to start with skeleton, otherwise the game won't recognize it as such) and save it in the rat folder.

EDIT: Of course you need to choose your new skeleton in the CS for your marker rat creature.

Haha, I refused to use an actual rat creature for my “marker rat” on general principle! =P

So *ahem* my will-o-the-wisp marker seems to be working acceptably now with some minor tweaks. I ended up moving it to the player from its starter cell where it was disabled, enabling it, and setting its z-rotation so the player faces the right way when moving to it, then immediately disabling it again. I drop it in the world a few hundred units above the player before I do this, which so far seems to avoid the falling through floors dilemma, and being disabled there are no collisions to speak of.

I guess now I’m just a little concerned if there are any ramifications to using a disabled persistent creature reference for the marker. I have tested loading saves made after setting the teleport position and the markers do indeed appear to remain stationary on cell reloads, unlike my previous activator versions.

The creatures are set to never respawn, so I am hoping there aren’t other issues I have yet to encounter. If so however, I will certainly test what you mention. In fact I think I will anyway, as I’m curious now to see how more of this modeling stuff works.