[RELz] Alternate Start - Live Another Life

[Arthmoor]

That message means there's an NPC somewhere in the world attempting to navigate through a door that has the follower blocking script attached to it.

 

It has nothing to do with LAL, and generally nothing to do with followers either since it's a generic script.

 

The last time a rash of these came up it was due to NPCs trying to navigate through the hidden entrance to the Underforge in Whiterun. It could indicate you've got mods with bad navmeshes that are forcing NPCs to try and find alternate routes out of wherever they are.

[VaultDuke]

I think there were also some instances with old versions of wet and cold that showed this issues. Wet and cold has an invisible/very tiny flying npc following you that constantly checks the weather. It's pretty creepy if you find him using tlc

[Elgar]

Thank you guys. I found the culprit, it's Deadly Wenches by lordkoz. It's a kind of Legionettes expanded which adds to female/unisex leveled lists more available female NPCs (really tough and deadly) for variety in different factions. Very fun mod. (Don't be scared by the huge boobs in the description page, the bodies are not modified at all. )

 

I'm not skilled enough to find what causes the problem in this plugin (I noticed in TES5Edit that a cell is modified, Hall of Valor in Sovngarde, maybe it's that ?), so I opened a bug report for the author. (By the way the new bug reporting and tracking system in Nexus is really great.)

[Elgar]

The author has kindly removed the cell edit and released a new version, but the message is still there in LAL, and it appears only when this mod is active. I just checked in TES5Edit and there is no more any Cell section, only "Leveled NPC" and "Non-Player Character (Actor)" sections and sections for what NPCs use (Armor, Magic Effect, Outfit, Spell, etc). So I suppose there is a NPC added by this mod who is placed in a closed location that he tries to leave, am I understanding it right ? If yes, is it "harmless" for the game stability ?

[Kesta]

Hey, somehthing you might want to look into for future releases :

 

In vanilla Skyrim, Sven (Riverwood's bard) seems to only have access to a very simple patrol package at the beginning of the game. He's just walking in front of its house.

I believe this is to make sure the player overhear the conversation "A dragon ! I saw a dragon !" he have with its mum whenever you enter riverwood, because he's behaving normaly once this scene is over.

 

Now, with ASLAL, until you actually start the quest, he's locked into this patrol... no sleeping, no eating, no songs in the tavern, he's just walking in front of the house, no matter the hours of the day or the weather. Poor sven

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.0.5

Bandit starts can now choose from as many valid bandit camps as there are in the game within Tamriel and Solstheim, with the following exceptions: Mistwatch, Nilheim, Trevas Watch, Ustengrav, Bloodskaal Barrow, Haknir's Shoal, and Hrodulf's House. Locations added by mods will be potential choices as well as long as they are properly configured.
Vampire starts can now choose from as many valid vampire lairs as there are in the game within Tamriel and Solstheim, with the following exceptions: Potema's Catacombs, and Redwater Den. Locations added by mods will be potential choices as well as long as they are properly configured.
Left for Dead starts can now choose any location in Tamriel or Solstheim at random as long as the destination marker is tagged with the MQ101HelgenArcher5 location reference type, and the destination marker is in a valid location record. Other mods will thus be able to set up locations for this without the need for any patches.
Sven and Hilde will no longer be outside their house eternally waiting for the Dragonborn to go to Helgen so their scene will run. They should arrive there as needed when the time comes now.

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.0.6

Bandit start bounty location properties were never filled which resulted in no bounty ever being applied to the player for the hold the start location was in.
Starting in the Winking Skeever in Solitude did not properly trigger Roggvir's execution scene upon exiting the inn.
Starting with a Hearthfire house would cause certain upgrades to become unavailable or trigger dialogue claiming the player had no funds to purchase them. An unused script variable in the Hearthfire DLC was to blame for this.
Skeletons and Draugr were hostile toward vampires in their start locations and has been corrected.

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.0.7

Updated Frostfall detection for Frostfall 3.0.
It was possible to approach the Helgen area and enter the cave in the back side of the keep without triggering the Alduin flyover under very specific conditions. This would then result in some quest stages being skipped, which then caused the trigger detection to shut down. Once the trigger detection shut down, Tullius and Ulfric would not be enabled, which then blocked access to the Civil War. I if playing a Thalmor start, the Thalmor Embassy would not reset properly for Diplomatic Immunity either, which could then seriously break the main quest.

[Leonardo]

Camping in the Woods

You are a lone hunter, camping in the woods. This will start you off with decent low level equipment, a campfire, cooking pot, bedroll and tent. The camp will be in the forest/hills near Helgen and will serve as an alternative method for witnessing the dragon attack that will not require you to actually be in the village when it is destroyed. The camp will remain in place permanently should you wish to return and use it as a base.

Of all starting options in LAL, the camping in the woods option are the only one, except for the "vanilla" starting option of course, the player will trigger the MQ instantly by completing the Unbound quest in your journal.

 

 

So I had an idea of extending the camping in the woods option by adding a few other, not so close to Helgen, campsites and have a camping in the woods option for each hold.

 

If the player pick the surprise me option though, I think the camping in the woods option near Helgen needs to be used just to aviod unwanted issues with the other hold's camping the woods locations.

[Kesta]

Some feedback on the vigilant start, small stuffs that could be improved I think :

 

-> I had 6 lockpicks in the default inventory. Not much sense for a vigilant I think.

-> Food Barrels and a few others inside the hall have the wrong ownership, picking stuffs from them is considered stealing. (could be USLEEP's scope actually, they're set to TownRiverwoodFaction. IDs I noticed are c73ed, c77d2, c7827 and c7403).

-> The safe in the basement could be locked with a key.

-> Items in the Keeper Carcette's room should have their own ownership so they can't be picked without beign considered as stolen (imho they obviously belong to her, not to the faction)

-> Put an axe next to the woodshopping block so it can de used right at the beginning.

-> Make some torches available (vigilants always have torches ! =D), either in the chest, or directly in player's inventory.

-> Maybe a bit out of ASLAL's scope, but giving the PC the "healing hands" spell for this start would be nice. (Or as with the torches, putting the spell tome somewhere in the hall ? Or maybe an additional dialog to Carcette so she can teach it to you ?)

-> Editing dialogs... "Who's Stendarr ?" --> "Tell me about Stendarr" still match the vanilla answer. Some similar adjustment for "You're a vigilant of Stendarr ?" would help with consistency/immersion.

 

 

Cheers,

Me.

 

Edit : Lol, just checked the wiki :

• The basement shares an identical appearance with Delphine's hidden area in the Sleeping Giant Inn. All the spell components, crafting tables, etc. are in the same places, but it counts as stealing if anything is taken.

So, Beth failed at copy-paste... ^_^

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.1.0

Made it possible to join the Civil War without having to go to Helgen first. Advancement beyond "Message to Whiterun" requires starting the Main Quest.
The journal found on the burned corpse no longer has specific dates listed. A slightly different version will be provided if the player has been to Korvunjund for Jagged Crown.
If the player advances Jagged Crown up to the gathering at Korvunjund before going to Helgen, Hadvar and Ralof will no longer appear in the Helgen Keep cave.
The inn rumor has been modified to simply provide a generic response that directs the player to travel to Helgen. Shady Sam will remain in the game as an Easter Egg, but no longer has any relevant function in the mod. Your quest stage will automatically be adjusted to account for this if you were partway through it.
Starting as a soldier in the war no longer triggers background events in Helgen.
Bandit and Vampire starts could fail to move you to a location due to incomplete keyword checks in the conditions for starting the controller quests.

 

@Kesta: I'll certainly take those suggestions under consideration for when the next version comes out

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.1.1

Imperials can now start the game as a member of the Penitus Oculatus at the outpost in Dragon Bridge.
Fixed a bug that would cause vanilla starts to be blocked from entering Whiterun because the guard would not confront you and open the gate.
Fixed a bug in the friendly faction assault system that wasn't recognizing attacks against Thalmor faction members.

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.1.2

Picking up the rumor about Helgen from the Bannered Mare caused the MQ to get shorted if the player then passed a guard on the way out of the city.
Confronting the guard at the Whiterun gate, but then going to Helgen without entering the city results in the gate becoming locked again and the map markers disabled. A failsafe check is now in place to prevent this from happening.
A further failsafe has been added to the trigger in Dragonsreach to enable the map markers on the off chance the player finds a way into the city without confronting the gate guard.

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.1.3

One of the child beds was mismarked with a chest keyword instead of a bed keyword so it would not get set properly in aliases for multiple adoptions.
Added a railing around the stairway to the basement of the farmhouse. Can't have the kids falling in!
Forwarded fixes from USLEEP 3.0.1 for tavern acoustic spaces and music.
Plugged another loophole in the Dragonsreach failsafe that should cover getting the Helgen objective but talking to the gate guard to get in without going there.
Being sent to Solstheim as the result of one of the randomized picks (bandit, vampire, left for dead) was not correctly setting the Solstheim start flag on all possible destinations due to using the wrong function for checking locations.
Trimmed several properties off and rewrote the parts that used them to run through formlists instead. This should help reduce Papyrus string usage, even if it's just a small amount.
Retro scripts are now blocked from running on a brand new save as some of the logic in them might cause some problems if they're allowed to do so.
Hadvar and Ralof should no longer appear inside the Helgen Cave if The Jagged Crown has started, causing a plot continuity error.

[Maddac]

Post removed, my apologies to Arthmoor, cant work out why i was having problem with 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 but my basic test install works fine with 3.1.4 so all good

[Maddac]

post removed, my apologies to Arthmoor

[Arthmoor]

Version 3.1.4

Plugged another loophole that caused entering Dragonsreach to advance the Main Quest before visiting Helgen and before completing Korvanjund. The failsafe there should now only trigger if the player enters Dragonsreach during Message to Whiterun if they have not yet been to Helgen. This will not be tweaked further as this failsafe is in place to prevent breaking the MQ.
Starting the game in Whiterun should no longer cause the confrontation outside the city gate to fail. Bethesda installed a number of failsafes to stop the guard from intercepting the player and these failsafes were clashing with what LAL intends to do. The vanilla confrontation quest will now be shut down and a cloned version of it run in its place to handle this for any non-vanilla starts.

[f22nickell]

Posted initial issue on generic troubleshooting page, but found this thread and thought better to continue discussion here.

I've been playing with AS-LAL in my load order for some time. Decided to do a clean SR:LE build from S.T.E.P. site. Followed almost to the tee (save for a couple of mods I didn't want to use.)

 

Tried to start new game. Created basic character, no problem. Let all the mods load. Went to Mara statue, clicked on it, and only dialogue options are "[ ...]" and "Exit" ... Nothing happens when I click on the [ ... ] option.

 

Looked in TES5edit and made sure nothing was overwriting anything from AS-LAL. Not sure where to look next.

 

Thanks for any ideas on where to look now.

[Arthmoor]

Would likely need to see a load order. Mara does not have a message prompt in the mod. Clicking on her would result in a line of audio played, and a list of dialogue options.

 

It sounds like someone made a patch that doesn't obey the API restrictions for adding starts to the system, which is not something I permit precisely because it causes problems like this when they do stuff and have no idea what the consequences are.

[f22nickell]

Here is my load order per LOOT.

http://www.modwat.ch/u/f22nickell

 

Thanks for taking a look.

 

EDIT: Here is a pic of the dialogue options.

 

http://imgur.com/jhLpUHh

 

 

2nd EDIT: Well, I narrowed it down to something in the SR Conflict Resolution Patch.esp as built by this page: I tried pulling out all dialogues shared by AS-LAL, even if not overwritten. No change.

SR:LE Conflict Resolution Subguide

[Arthmoor]

You probably need to investigate BetterQuestObjectives - Patches.esp, and possibly upgrade that along with BetterQuestObjectives.esp if you haven't.

 

"Even Better Quest Objectives" is probably what you want, assuming William has been keeping up on those.

[f22nickell]

Well, I narrowed it down to something in the SR Conflict Resolution Patch.esp as built by this page: I tried pulling out all dialogues shared by AS-LAL, even if not overwritten. No change.

SR:LE Conflict Resolution Subguide

[f22nickell]

Ok, found out what record change caused this (I'm betting I implemented it incorrectly):

 

XX000F11 CommandFollower

XX = Index of EFFCore.esm
Conflict Resolution: Use record from EFFCore.esm, right-click on the conditions bar below the PRKC - Run On (Tab Index) record with a value of 1 and select Add. Right click on the Condition bar for the newly created condition (GetWantBlocking) and select Move Up. Edit the Function record to "GetUnconscious" and the Parameter #3 record to -1.
Problem Resolved: This prevents the Extensible Follower Framework follower menu from activating on unconscious NPCs. This fixes a compatibility issue with NPC Knockout Overhaul.

[Arthmoor]

That record shouldn't have been able to affect Mara at all. What's this mod do? Make talking activators selectable as followers or something?

[Hana]

Re option Live in an Orc Stronghold..

 

Just tried this one. When I go into the mine to start mining to earn some coin before setting off on my adventure, everything in there is marked 'steal', even the pickaxes. Which is kinda odd since I'm supposed to have lived in the stronghold plus I can walk into any other mine in Skyrim and pick up a pickaxe. So yeah, I stole a pickaxe**. As well, the description says you start with a nice big battleaxe, and I got a small handy waraxe. Not sure it's worth mentioning but I also started with a whole bunch of food/ingredients.

 

I'm also assuming, since I start standing in the middle of the yard, there's no safe storage here?

 

 

** at which, a short time later, Ghak sends hired thugs after me.