followers stuck in areas I got them in

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rstevenson1976
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Location: North Carolina, USA

followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by rstevenson1976 »

I hired a mercenary and bought a pack-rat in mournhold, but they both seem stuck in the areas I acquired them in and won't cross loading screen barriers, is this a bug in morrowind?
Tinker
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Joined: 06 Mar 2013, 17:35

Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by Tinker »

Presumably these are from a mod?

A quick test is to load the mod in OpenMW-CS and from the file menu click Verify. You will get a list of errors found in Morrowind and the mod, you will be looking for scripts marked as errors particularly involved with AIFollow, or something similar, for the mercenary and pack rat. These will indicate whether the script is wrong or the OpenMW implementation is wrong and you will have a function to search the bug tracker for.

It could be connected with Feature #1465: "Reset" argument for AI functions.
Golken
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Joined: 04 May 2015, 05:03

Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by Golken »

What he described are Tribunal features, not a mod. If those followers don't follow you properly between cells (barring player teleportation by magic or script/console, or being too far away or in wait mode when using a teleporting door or a Travel NPC), then there is a bug. They work just fine in vanilla Morrowind (other than the fact that you can't get them to follow you back to Vvardenfell, but that's fixed with a simple mod).

I don't think those Tribunal followers work in any special manner. So you should test if random followers (such as NPCs you need to escort between places in many quests) work. What's special in this case might be the cells themselves the player and followers are in. IIRC, Mournhold's outdoors is comprised of interior cells which are simulated as exteriors, or something to that extent. Maybe OpenMW has a problem with that?
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sjek
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Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by sjek »

something gone awry. all mournhold is flagged as behave as exterior in CS
edit: old mournhold (underground part) is interior as interior

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tribunal:Services
There are several glitches associated with pack rats, trained scribs, and trained rats. They have been known to get stuck in certain areas of the game.
rerlas has this script

Code: Select all

begin rerlas

Short NoLore
Short packrats
Short rats
Short scribs

end rerlas
in dialogue first buy and other's in same form

Code: Select all

messagebox "Just activate your pack rat to access its inventory."
player->RemoveItem Gold_001 100
Journal "MS_BadPets" 110
Goodbye
and with packrats

Code: Select all

begin packrat

short companion

if ( getjournalindex MS_BadPets = 110 )
	set companion to 1
endif

end packrat
when talked to and come chosen script says AIFollow "player" 0 0 0 0 so everything should be okay in mod side or it's difference between aifollow and aifollowcell ?
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:AIFollow

player -> setspeed 300 and running behind the benches :lol: rat gitters. runs circless time to time
Golken
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Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by Golken »

Don't know what that comment in the UESP is about. Maybe it means the normal getting stuck of the AI, or is otherwise a relic of an unpatched Morrowind version or an obscure issue. Testing them in Morrowind, I'm actually surprised how well the trained scribs and rats follow me. They do not have any companion features or teleportations in their scripts (and the scripts quoted barely do anything, and nothing with movement, of course). Maybe they are managed through a non-local script (targeted or global) that I didn't see, however...?

Took them for a spin, they will follow through cell doors as well as into and outside buildings, and will use pathgrids surprisingly well: if I use a Jump spell to, literally, jump from one end of a Mournhold cell to the other, they will often be close behind me. If I do half-cell jumps they actually consistently arrive pretty much immediately after I land. That's actually too good to be realistic. haha. If I stand in the market area next to the bridge (and below it), then jump up to the bridge, they will take time to arrive but will actually navigate to the bridge using the pathgrids.
Didn't test the trained scrib much, only the rat and packrat, though I don't see where any of them would differ except for
their collision boxes.

They don't behave too well in water (though you can cast water walking on them to improve this) and will get stuck sometimes between NPCs and the scenery, yes. But that's unfortunately "nothing special" but a property of Morrowind AI's in general. NPCs following you, as well as NPCs and creatures in combat with you and trying to get to you, will get stuck in the same way. These follower creatures will spasm much more when they move around or get stuck, however, as their Speed is set abnormally high. This does look weird and hilarious.

I think that the difference with AIFollowCell is that it allows the following to stop automatically once the NPC reaches a given position in a given cell (apparently AIFollow allows the same, with position only), and they both should work in all cells and for going through them as well. I don't think it should actually matter if a cell is exterior, interior or fake exterior... Maybe there's a problem with the OpenMW implementation? It may only be problematic when dealing in fake exterior cells, so followers should be tested when using load doors in all types of cells to verify what works.
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rstevenson1976
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Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by rstevenson1976 »

the pack-rat and the merc don't leave mournhold anyway? well that stinks, never did figure out how to access the pack-rat’s inventory when he was there with me, I s'pose it's for the best since he gets lost so easily
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sjek
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Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by sjek »

................. browser memory swipe took the copypasta xP

tested in openmw

1. almsivi and divine interventions works

2. doors work, left to test interior as exterior <-> exterior

3. recall and mark works. tribunalmain startscript controls the levitation

4. transportation scripted with player -> positioncell thus leaving followers behind

from bugtracker and game, distance needs to be in ~8 m for teleport to work and they will run to target near about ~3m

in water it's tricky. have to go to canal as z axle targeting with guards and all is oozy.
for circling getting different angle can help. long distance following isn't the finest part yet
https://bugs.openmw.org/issues/1637

as for original vanilla question. probaply hardcoded bugs and if remember correctly it's keen to go same way with same obstacles. have heard that here are some more limitations in those cells.

ps. little off topic but should the speed match automatically for both creatures and npc's or was it mods....?
bugs of tomorrow z'p
Golken
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Joined: 04 May 2015, 05:03

Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by Golken »

rstevenson1976 wrote:the pack-rat and the merc don't leave mournhold anyway? well that stinks, never did figure out how to access the pack-rat’s inventory when he was there with me, I s'pose it's for the best since he gets lost so easily
You're supposed to be able to initiate dialog with the rats. You can tell them to come or stay, and with the pack rat you can can use the Share ('companion share') option. Can't talk to the scrib.

FWIW, know that many mods can fix the can't-take-Mournhold-companions to Vvardenfell pitfall (though many also add better companions and packanimals on Vvardenfell anyway). It's a simple fix, making the NPCs that transport between Mournhold and Ebonheart do so via guild guide Travel service, which takes followers with you. There's probably a mod out there that adds companion scripts to the animals too (making them warp to you when far and teleport with you when you use teleportation spells), I'd guess.
sjek wrote:tested in openmw

1. almsivi and divine interventions works

2. doors work, left to test interior as exterior <-> exterior

3. recall and mark works.
Wait, what? Do you mean that the animals come with you if you use one of the three teleportation spell effects? That's not how it works in vanilla Morrowind with any followers...
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sjek
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Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by sjek »

https://bugs.openmw.org/projects/openmw ... 167c1a9c25

it was added as extra feature while back. playing with companions it's kinda must have and mods inlude that with messagebox options. all those i think use mwse or mwe. maybe the xAITravel for checking the travel on / off.

disable teleport with extra target function, checkin aifollow for certain value, getspell readied and gettarget would make disabling kinda easy. only what is missing how to get list of followers. maybe with variables or some....
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scrawl
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Re: followers stuck in areas I got them in

Post by scrawl »

I'm pretty sure that was just an unintended side effect. The problem is, that using doors and using a teleport spell share the same code path. The code for followers must have been intended for using doors only. I will add a flag to disable the followers part when a teleport spell was used.
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