Help with despawning a hostile NPC...

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

Okay, all y'all foundry experts, I'm lost.

So.. I want to do something that I'm pretty sure all of us story-types want to do, and I've seen it done before.

I want to fight an NPC, then talk to him.

So, I make myself a solo-mob encounter, redress him so that he looks like my contact NPC
I set an objective in the Story timeline that's set to defeat that encounter mob.
I then set an objective in the Story timeline that's set to "talk to contact NPC"

Here's my timeline:

So, in the encounter, I have this:

And in the actual mob details, I have this:

But when I defeat the mob, he does not despawn. He should, right? I have it set to disappear when complete...

The contact NPC spawns just fine and I can talk to him, etc etc. But the encounter mob is very stubborn and refuses to go away.

What am I doing wrong?

p.s. I have the encounter set to go non-hostile at 10% because I don't really want him to die. I just want him to despawn and respawn as the friendly. Obviously, if I set him to True Combat, No Wander, he'll die, then the corpse will despawn. Is that the only way for me to do this?

hercul33t · May 2013

You can't delete individual monsters.

Switch it to Layout, then it will show the mob marker (lol bob barker) for the group, which you can delete.

hercul33t · May 2013

Oh I misread your post.

What I do is make the contact mob vanish and replace him with a new mob in the exact same spot. Which should make the other go away as well. I think it's just because the mob spawns are tied together.

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

Yeah, it -should- work, but for some reason, the aggressive mob isn't despawning, even though I have him set to 'vanish on objective completion' .. It is baffling me. In the interim, I'm going to have to live with the aggressive mob actually dying, and the corpse despawning, but I'd love to figure out a more elegant solution...

incendiarywave · May 2013

Have you tried making the encounter disappear when the "Talk" objective starts? I haven't played around much with Fighting to Submission so I'm not really sure. What are the parameters within the fighting to submission?

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

There aren't any, alas. They go to 10% and then just stop being hostile, then they stand there and won't go away.

I did try that. I also tried attaching the despawn event to interacting with an object, post-combat. Apparently once you fight a mob, that's it, they're stuck in your module forever, unless you kill 'em.

That said .. I am still more than willing to admit that I'm doing something wrong.

This can't be the only time someone's tried to do this. It's a "mistaken identity" type of scenario, where you meet an NPC and you fight, and then you realize he's the ally you were looking for. Pretty common trope, I think?

almostcool · May 2013

Maybe even change him to appear at "objective in progress" I haven't really played with fight till submission either but it's just trial and error until it eventually works. It seems that even the "appear immediately" will affect some other aspects.

incendiarywave · May 2013

Hmm. Then I would say maybe try to just have it as a normal encounter, but have him disappear tied to the objective in progress, and the NPC version the same. Alternatively it would be great if the foundry could just work, but that seems too much to ask.

hiric · May 2013

I can't test it now (server is down), and I've never tested if visibility conditions set directly on the Encounter Components (the actual enemies) do work or not.

You should probably set the visibility condition under the Encounter settings and not under the Encounter Details settings (press 1-2 to switch from one to the other).

I haven't tested the "until submission" condition, but I suppose (and it makes sense) that if you set the encounter Disappear condition to "This component complete" should make the encounter disappear when defeated.

If nothing else works, well... just do it the ugly way: let the Encounter die, spawn a flash (lightning FX/explosion. beware that the lightning FX needs to be hidden or it'll continue), and spawn a badly injured NPC nearby.

There is much to be improved in the editor

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

I had the same thought. I played around with setting the trigger on the mob and the encounter either/or (and both) earlier this morning. I think it's just broken. If anyone does get this to work, I'd love to know how you did it. I think, for now, I'm going to have to stick with killing him, then spawning in a damaged NPC.

But I still hold out hope for a solution!

angrysprite · May 2013

I do this very thing... your mistake is using "disappear when" and setting to "this objective complete". That doesn't always work because a "submit" setting for hostile mob never allows the objective to actually complete (once at 10% it just loops an animation - story aborts the objective and moves to the next one).

Set the disappear when to "objective in progress" - and that would be the same setting for the "appear when" on the interactive NPC. But there is a problem... during combat the hostile encounter will move around. Therefore, wherever he is standing when he submits may not be the same spot where the interactive will appear. So the way I handled it was to put an interim objective.

In my case the goals are:

1) Fight bad guy (submits) (this is NOT in storyboard and therefore is NOT an objective)
2) Investigate the alter this bad guy was guarding (doesn't matter if it's in storyboard or not)
.......which just happens to cause the player to turn around.......
3) Return to defeated bad guy and interrogate him

Triggers are:

Fight bad guy/ combat to submit
Make an interactive - but also place a floor marker - submitted encounter disappears when "component reached"
Interactive NPC appears when "component reached" (same component)

The "trick" (smoke and mirrors part) is placing step two in a place that causes the player to not see the switcharoo of encounter and NPC - such as having his back turned or facing a wall or something.

What this does: PC fights encounter. Pc turns AWAY from encounter to go interact (encounter poofs, NPC appears while PC is not looking) - PC then return to "encounter" (which is now the NPC) - PC presumes the submitted encounter has moved to new positin while his back was turned.

//Smoke and Mirrors

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

Oh... thanks, sprite. I shall experiment with this when I get home from work tonight. I was wondering if I had to use an interactable, now I see that I do. I'll have to find some way to make that work, plot-wise

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

*grin*.. I still can't get the combat guy to despawn.

None of the smoke and mirrors in the world are going to work if the combat mob won't despawn. I've tried tying the despawn to interacting with the object, or reaching the floor marker, or talking to the newly spawned contact NPC.

I've tried it with the despawn on the mob, and with the despawn on the encounter. I have no clue how to make this mob despawn. it simply won't.

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

Also, you wrote this:

angrysprite wrote: »

Interactive NPC appears when "component reached" (same component)

Except that my interactive NPC doesn't have any such options. He has two options: Immediately and Objective in progress. If I disable his quest dialogue, I get Component Reached as an option, but that still doesn't help with the despawning of the combat guy.

nezroy123 · May 2013

Set linger to non-zero on the fight to submission encounter. I just use 1. Mob will vanish shortly after being defeated. It's not visually perfect by any means but it still makes more sense visually than killing the mob and then spawning npc.

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

As an aside, I did find a 'linger' option in the 'Fight to Submission' setting, which apparently controls the number of seconds an NPC stays in the world. I can make him despawn via that, it seems. Don't need a trigger at all....

Which works, but isn't ideal, because really we want him to despawn on a trigger, when the PC's back is turned.

angrysprite · May 2013

raphaeldisanto wrote: »

Also, you wrote this:

Except that my interactive NPC doesn't have any such options. He has two options: Immediately and Objective in progress. If I disable his quest dialogue, I get Component Reached as an option, but that still doesn't help with the despawning of the combat guy.

Yes - Despawn encounter on component reached, (once component reached, next goal: speak to NPC) - NPC appears Objective in progress.

angrysprite · May 2013

raphaeldisanto wrote: »

As an aside, I did find a 'linger' option in the 'Fight to Submission' setting, which apparently controls the number of seconds an NPC stays in the world. I can make him despawn via that, it seems. Don't need a trigger at all....

LOL! Hey, THANKS @Nezroy123! I totally spaced that one! Sheesh, I must be getting old and... angry or sumfin. ~snicker~

raphaeldisanto · May 2013

nezroy123 wrote: »

Set linger to non-zero on the fight to submission encounter. I just use 1. Mob will vanish shortly after being defeated. It's not visually perfect by any means but it still makes more sense visually than killing the mob and then spawning npc.

I think this is going to have to be the way to do it. it's a pity the mobs don't obey their own rules.

By the way, I wanted to thank everyone that had posted in this thread. My apologies for not saying thanks before - I do appreciate all the efforts to help. Just a little bit frustrated by the Foundry not doing what it's supposed to.

thewatcheruatu · May 2013

angrysprite wrote: »

What this does: PC fights encounter. Pc turns AWAY from encounter to go interact (encounter poofs, NPC appears while PC is not looking) - PC then return to "encounter" (which is now the NPC) - PC presumes the submitted encounter has moved to new positin while his back was turned.

//Smoke and Mirrors

This is brilliant. I was just struggling with how to do this, myself, and was about half-way to this conclusion. Bumping, because it's a great idea.

Edit: Actually, I just want to clarify something. I'm not able to make the submit-state NPC disappear on the completion of another objective. I only have two options: disappear at the completion of the current Kill objective, or disappear on a timer. The timer works for me, at least in play testing it in the Foundry.

Help with despawning a hostile NPC...

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