Despawning NPCS when they are finished walking.

gigabullob

Here's a basic explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish.

1) Talk to NPC
2) NPC asks you to follow and begins walking a predefined root. You cannot interact with the NPC during this time.
3) NPC reaches destination and the player can once again interact with NPC.

Here's the best solution I could come up with so far:

-use 3 separate NPCs... one for start position, one for travelling, and one for end position. A dialog trigger on the 1st NPC causes the 1st NPC to despawn and the 2nd "moving" NPC to spawn. The 2nd NPC does not have the contact checkbox ticked.
-The problem comes when trying to despawn the 2nd NPC and spawn the 3rd. What I've done is use a place marker to trigger this, but if the player runs ahead of the NPC it can cause this to happen prematurely.

Is there a more elegant way of accomplishing this (or at least a way to prevent the player from running ahead of the NPC and stepping on the place marker.)

chinspinner

Not that I know of.

You could put an inspect object or dialogue with another npc in to trigger them disappearing; it doesn't stop the player running ahead but limits their view of npc's disappearing/ reappearing in odd locations.

Or you could put multiple invisible walls in triggered by multiple markers to check the players progress, but that would be incredibly irritating to play.

ash4ll

I might have a solution for you. I know it's a bit late for you, but someone might use it.

Once you want an NPC to walk to a certain spot, create identical NPC (guard encounter) just below the ground with something for him to walk, like invisible plane (can be anything) and identical route. Make the plane below end at the end of the route above. That will make guard on the invisible plane fall down at the exact moment when the NPC above reaches his final point. The trigger for disappearing of 2nd NPC and appearing of 3rd is component complete: guard on the invisible plane.

And I wish I came up with this idea earlier.

PS. I was searching for something else but I found this thread :P

casten24

ash4ll wrote: »

Once you want an NPC to walk to a certain spot, create identical NPC (guard encounter) just below the ground with something for him to walk, like invisible plane (can be anything) and identical route. Make the plane below end at the end of the route above. That will make guard on the invisible plane fall down at the exact moment when the NPC above reaches his final point. The trigger for disappearing of 2nd NPC and appearing of 3rd is component complete: guard on the invisible plane.

This is close, but it won't work... As far as I've seen there is no way to make NPCs trigger place markers, so while this would be the most ideal way, the NPC arriving at the location won't trigger the disappearance of the invisible plane that the guard is standing on.

casten24

There is a possible way to do this... My suggestion is make the walking NPC ignore all, and put some encounters in to slow down the player... then, near the end of the path, make an encounter appear behind the player to take their sight away from the NPC, then just have the walking NPC despawn on component complete (the component being the encounter). To make it even cleaner and harder for the player to have the npc in the field of vision, use some archer NPCs and place some AI: Sniper spots (from the special menu... I may have the name of it slightly off) down an alleyway that blocks view of the NPC. The Sniper spots should make the archer mobs move to that location, which will pull the player there, as well, making the disappearance of the walking NPC and the appearance of the talking NPC happen essentially "behind the scenes" so to speak.

drnoesis

Have to agree with Casten, a bait & switch approach works, lure the player away from the point that you swap out the npc's, or implementing a physical blind of some kind so that they are unable to see the npc when it swaps out is probably your best option.

An encounter works especially well, as it can be used as the swap out trigger for your npc, though you may need to use harder hitting enemies to ensure that characters that ran ahead are held up long enough for your npc to complete its route.

ash4ll

I didn't want an NPC to trigger area waypoint, i wanted guard to patrol out of the invisible plane so he drops into endless pit and rherefore dies. That way 3rd npc spawns when guard is dead.

eviledick

I have exactly the same difficulty, from my research this is the only way to do it, and as others have said, you need to do some slight of hand to distract the player.
For me this will be an additional NPC to talk to at the destination of the escort quest, and do the escorted NPC switch on a conversation prompt with the additional NPC. This has the benefit that I will be able to control the placement of the camera, making sure the actions of the escort NPC are not observed.