[question] Mod testing: An efficient method to test AI travel packages?

[worik]

I have created some NPCs that are supposed to wander around Skyrim from town to town, do some sort of break in an inn ? and go on to the next town.

 

To test their AI packages, I would need to follow them and watch their behavior. But that's annoying and time consuming for little effect.

 

Does anybody know of a better idea how to test them?

E.g. test them all at once, just without the need to follow them around ?

[Psalam]

3 minutes ago, worik said:

I have created some NPCs that are supposed to wander around Skyrim from town to town, do some sort of break in an inn ? and go on to the next town.

 

To test their AI packages, I would need to follow them and watch their behavior. But that's annoying and time consuming for little effect.

 

Does anybody know of a better idea how to test them?

E.g. test them all at once, just without the need to follow them around ?

What about just putting up debug notifications on their locations either at regular intervals (a timer)? Or do it when they hit certain locations (since you have some idea of what you want to know about)?

[worik]

? I can add a debug notification at onBegin, onEnd and onChange ... (https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Package_(Form) )

OnChange sounds like that would be relevant for me.

 

Though I am not really sure, when onChange is triggered. The CK documentation is rather .. thin.

Quote

For each of the possible state changes of a package (Begin, End, Change) you can specify an Idle to be played, a Topic to be said, and Papyrus Fragment to run. The script is run first, so if you set a quest stage or variable in the script, the topic and idle will react to it.

What is a "state change"?

Is it, when one node in the procedure tree is done and the processing moves on to the next one?

 

[Seijin8]

29 minutes ago, worik said:

Though I am not really sure, when onChange is triggered

Any time the actor switches from this package to a different one.  Unless testing something very specific, always use OnChange instead of OnEnd - packages don't always "end" correctly (they can get interrupted/canceled/overridden), but they always "change".