Hello everyone, How is are you all today? I'm doing fine, thank you for asking.
First I would like to start off with something I found to be very interesting while testing this mod with another very popular mod "Transfer Settlements." [Every time I notice a new mod that alters or uses the settlements take off and become a very popular mod, I begin a new playthrough and run what I like to call, "Stress Tests"]
I have mentioned many times before about what I call "Dynamic and Static Navmesh" in my comments. This has become my standard in testing. For a review, Dynamic Navmesh is where you place an object in build mode that a settler or NPC can "PATH" upon to get from point A to point B. A "Static Navmesh" is the Navmesh placed originally in game by the developers before you have even got a hold of the settlement.
With this I have begun to check on things, I have found that with "Transfer Settlements" they very clearly have made a notification for you to let the settlement cell cycle for at least 3 ingame days before you begin to make changes with the settlement to make sure that all the NEW DYNAMIC objects are read correctly by the game engine and stabilized in your settlement.
There is a HUGE problem with the game engine having an issue when mods are introduced into a game-save where people are witnessing their settlers bunching up at spawn points and not immediately going to there assignments and/or relaxation points.
This is caused by 1 or more of different things, latency, broken workshop quests, broken nav-mesh, altered [modded] assignments, etc, etc.
Here is a simple step by step process you can use to diagnose what may be a possible problem with settlers not doing what you want them to do.
1. [Latency] when you enter or fast travel into a settlement cell, if your settlers are still bunched up at the spawn points and not moving to assignments for up to 10 seconds after arrival, you have a latency issue to begin with. If the settlers take up to a full 10 seconds to move around and begin assignments [this meaning that they DO go] you have a script somewhere in your settlement mods that have a huge delay on it and has knocked the Default Workshop Quest to a lower priority on the loading list. If they remain at spawn point and don't move at all, then you have a broken script that won't allow any of the Default Workshop Quests to fire off at all. Side-Note; A heavy list of scripting will also cause bottle-necking with your CPU and Hard drive if you have an older system, so keep that in mind if you fall into this category. Scripts in this game engine have not and are not optimized for older systems. some will argue with me that this is the same old bulls*** used on older games and it is. but the scripts are more involved with the settlement system and injected dynamically as you play allowing you to make real time changes with the game world, i.e. settlements.
2.[Broken Pathing, Nav-mesh] If your settlers are moving around or going to/near assignments but NOT using their assigned items correctly, then you have a broken path. This may mean you, either didn't give them ENOUGH ROOM to path to their assignments, or the Dynamic Nav-Mesh has NOT updated due to latency to allow the game to read the new path. 2 solutions for this. You can either re-build for a new path, or let the game engine cycle for 3 in game days to allow the Latency of the Dynamic Nav-mesh to catch up.
3.[Broken Assignments] This is pretty hard one but the most important. If your settlers are working fine but they "un-assign" from objects or change assignments, or don't even assign to them at all. You have a broken script in your game. Not even cycling will help you with this. Assignments are Dynamic Scripts that are injected real time into your game as you build and assign NPCs to objects. If you already have this, there is only one process you can do to fix this, especially if you want to keep a particular mod. First, make sure that all your settlement mods are clean mods and thoroughly tested. Second, If you know how, check your settlement mods and clean them yourself and make sure you know and are aware of any conflicts. Third, start a new game, that gamesave is basically fukd. I have been very open with my OPINION that you keep your settlement mods to a minimum [unless you are very experienced in modding and know how and what to do with them].
I hope this helps out with any issues anyone of you may have. Take the time to research, read, and use the mods you use responsibly for a better gaming experience. Most of all the Mod Authors out there work very hard to share what they have done and go through great lengths at times to give you a better gaming experience, so before you go off and start blaming everyone else for what YOU as a gamer does in YOUR game, make sure you are doing it correctly first.It only takes 15 minutes of your time in the beginning to keep you from losing a 40 hour game save.
Thank you all, and a special Thank You to those of you who have downloaded and endorsed this mod.
****** ATTENTION ****** PLEASE READ. THIS MAY IMPACT THE WAY YOU BUILD YOUR SETTLEMENTS!!
After a very long time of working on a Predecessor to this mod for the settlement AI, I found something by accident last night in the creation kit that may very well help with people having the "settler bunch up and not go to assignment" bugs.
[this is going to be a long explanation, so read carefully and be patient]
First off like I have explained to people before the settlement has 2 types of NAVMESH in the game. A static navmesh, the one thats there when you first arrive that's built into the game originally, and then it has a Dynamic navmesh, the one you create when you build things in your settlement. The Dynamic navmesh is very important, as many people have seen since the release of many new settlement build mods, that if something individually isn't navmeshed, your settlers won't use it when it's built. and if an assignment is given to them they won't go there. They more than likely will bunch up at a static spawn point. Well since most mod authors have realized this they all have been aware to correctly navmesh new items and to keep this properly done.
With all this being said, I am currently working on a complete AI overhaul of the Settler AI. It's a new mod that i'm working with the AI system in the game to expand it so settlers will have a better chance of "improving themselves" as you progress through your gameplay. The reason this is taking so long is that i'm doing this completely within the bounds of the original vanilla AI system. A complete NON-scripted AI that can actually help your settlers think for themselves. I.E. using specific containers that you place to re-equip themselves with better weapons, armor, ammo. using stimpaks in battle to heal, not only when downed, crafting their own items to use. planting their own crops, repairing broken workshop items such as turrets after a settlement raid, etc. etc.
My purpose in this is not to relieve the other authors who have come up with similar mods to this, but to give a more immersive feel to things, to let the settlers evolve along side you as you level up and progress through the game. To be able to pick their own factions as you join different ones on their own, To also level with you to match as you level up. If you haven't noticed at times as you level up, the settlement attacks level with you, but your poor settlers are still at level 1 with no real armor of weapons of their own. [ I know there is a mod that has settlers come into your settlements with better gear but this lets them do it themselves and go from nothing to everything on their own.]
Now to my point. With building, testing, and running 5 full settlement playthroughs with full settlement builds, [yes I downloaded as many transfer settlements I could to help speed this process up] I found out something that was VERY IMPORTANT!!! PATHING!! yes I know a lot of you know about settler pathing. but I found out that there is a dynamic value at play that keeps your settlers on the move. BUILD PLACEMENT!!!! I had downloaded 4 very very nice settlements for the testing and build of the new mod and then BAMMMMM!! my settlers wouldn't do s#*!!! just stand around in one place bunched up. I was like WTF????? I personally have never had this problem ever. Then I began to personally walk around these settlements and found out why. I couldn't use s#*! myself, except maybe the beds. People were placing items, RELAXATION ITEMS, in places, and in a way the settlers or the PC couldn't use them. [Ok there's a long technical explanation to how this works but i'm needing more coffee so i'm gonna make this shorter] The RELAXATION items have first priority in the list of things to do for the settler AI. If this is cut off then you are putting a roadblock in front of your settlers from doing their thing in the settlement. the next thing is sleeping assignments, then work, etc etc. NO, you would think that relaxation would be the last, but it's not.
Also, in building I found that people don't give their settlers much room to get to their work assignments also. People have built these cute little shacks around the vendor stalls to house in the stores and such. Well this is an issue with settler pathing as well. But you ask, when I go to sleep in my settlement or I wait for a time they are there at their stalls, why is that then??? Because they spawn there while you are in the settlement, and when you sleep and wake those animations are similar to a load screen. YOUR FUKN SETTLERS CAN TELEPORT!! THEY ARE SYNTHS!!!!!
So now I have a new factor to put into play, i'm calling it the "Pathing Radius" it's the area of path the settler needs to fully function to utilize their assignments, whether it be a job, farming, guard, etc etc. So until I can actually do something about this to help out, please build wisely and place all items with the idea that your settlers are a bunch of toddlers learning to walk and need A LOT of space to get where they are going.
Thank you all for your time in reading this!! Axle
[Warning, If you have any type of workshop mods that may alter, add, or remove any type of furniture in the workshop menu, it may have a global effect on "relaxation points" and cause "un-assigned" settlers to wander outside of the workshop build zone.]
This is not very clear. It means if we use any mod that adds new furniture, like Homemaker, it may cause settlers to wander outside the settlement?
It is a possibility. Most items that have any kind of tag that may be used globally and added through mods to the settlement build system may in fact be read and used by settlers. By extending the range of where the settlers can AI from point of origin can cause them to read and use these items outside of the settlement.
Hi axle356258, thanks for the mod! I have a question. I thought this would be safe to install since I don't have any other "fix settlement movement area" mods, but I noticed some other people here talking about the settlers going waaaay outside of the settlements to fight raiders. And that made me think that it might conflict with the real.ai mod, here:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/72923
That mod isn't supposed to "fix" settlements, but it does cause settlers to be able to "see" far outside the settlement, and run off to fight. Is that close enough to what you do to cause a conflict? My thought is no, and they're fine together, but I wanted to hear from the expert if possible. Thanks.
Never knew that mod existed, but from reading about what it does, yes this mod would conflict with that, especially if it makes any changes to the same AI packages that this one does.
Updates on the issue. I think your mod works perfectly, it's just the game's issue staff not working. It fixed itself after quite some delay. Again thank you for the great mod.
Hi, firstly thank you for sharing with us the great fix. And I noticed that you mentioned NPC needs some "in-game days?" to fix their pathing in a place, especially at Vault 88. Do you mean any new or newly transferred settlers would naturally not function at first? Cause I got really confused with the original quest settler after your fix, is working pretty perfectly, while a newly recruited and a transferred settler don't even bother to go to the assignment.
if the original npc's are working and then the newly spawned settlers aren't working, you may want to see if you have any mods that affect their AI or make any changes to the generic NPC spawns for settlements.
Thank you for replying. I had anime race for NPCs, nothing about AI but I had workshop framework. But I put your mod behind at the pretty last and the working one is also the same race. By the way, the working one is spawned by the quest that is the first female settler interviewed. The two not-working settlers are one from another settlement and one spawned by the vault radio beacon. I tried all three settlers on both vanilla assignments and modded ones. Maybe I have cramped up the metro station a bit by re-flooring all the train rails, but while she takes a bit of time "thinking" the path, the quest one would be able to do the assignments without a problem. Yet the other two would hesitate quite a lot and then head towards the main entrance whenever assigned a job. The weird thing is they are able to get to the soda fountain right next to their job perfectly but not the assignment. I am really excited to put that girl as a security officer at my bar but she just refuse to go there. Do you think using the 10 times distance version would help or it's something about the package not being correctly applied?
Updates on the issue. I think your mod works perfectly, it's just the game's issue staff not working. It fixed itself after quite some delay. Again thank you for the great mod.
I've used this mid-save and it seem there is some minor improvement on settler's pathfinding as they now are more actively trying to find a path to wherever they are suppose to be going but overall still exhibit behaviors occasionally like looking at walls or stuck under certain structures/furniture.
I think I need to do something first to let the game create the dynamic navmeshing accordingly. You mentioned something like "let the settlement cell cycle for at least 3 ingame days before you begin to make changes with the settlement to make sure that all the NEW DYNAMIC objects are read correctly by the game engine and stabilized in your settlement." I wonder how does one achieve that, waiting for 3 days inside/outside of the settlement? what is the specific steps for it?
After many hours of testing, I have confirmed this is the mod that causes covenant to break. Npcs will appear outside the walls even if you've never been. Swanson will never appear.
After plopping around in xEdit like a mudskipper in a bowl of tapioca pudding, I noticed that even tho the main file says "3x radius", some of the values are upwards of 10x the vanilla radius. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not.
At any rate, I decided to manually change them all to a simple doubling of radii (and patching it for the latest uof4p ) and tested by waiting in game. Npcs no longer appeared outside the town without getting access and after about 48hrs in game Swanson finally appears.
This has worked several times over. I would request that you either update the mod or I can just upload my updated version for you. Or I can forget about this because dangit I'm pushing 40 why do I care about a silly video game from 20 years ago? I have a career ffs.
Well, I'm 46 and my life has seemed to spiral into more of the "reality" of things than gaming, but if you'd like to send me the updated version you have made, I will gladly post it and give you full credit for the update. just PM me and we can go from there.
It appears that all files for this mod contain radii increased to 10x in some or all records. I spent some time trying to fix it, I basically changed all the radii values to 2x because, frankly, I think that's enough of a boost. Creation Engine is best nudged, not pushed lol.
At any rate, it didn't have any effect. Even on a new save file, settlers would venture far outside their normal boundaries which in the case of a large settlement like Sanctuary is fine.. I mean, Garvey will be patrolling in the river a lot, but within the bounds of the settlement. The problem comes in when you have settlements with much smaller build boxes, like Oberland Station or Covenant. They aren't supposed to ever be outside of covnenant until you start the quest, it appears to break their AI and you can never get inside the town.
My efforts failed, I had to remove this from my load order. Damn shame.. Sommerville Place was my favorite build spot, cuz I'd always terraform the mountain side into a complex weave of bazaars and lodgings like a mini-city, but I could never assign settlers there because it was too far from the sandbox. This mod would probably allow for that, but it breaks too many other things.
I'm failing to find what you are mentioning about how this mod is breaking the game, I have over 3k + hours [can confirm if anyone decides to say so, with video and screenshots] with my own mod in a very heavily modded FO4 and I never have any issues with the settlement of Covenant or any other settlements. The main download files [ the esp and the esl] are modified for only 3x the spawn radius, the 10x file [ the actual original file] is set as an optional file for those who have requested a larger radius in the past. The only way this mod can affect NPC AI in a negative fashion, is if there are other mods in your load order that have made changes to the NPC AI and they conflict in a bad way. As I have stated many many times in comments, stickies and in PMs to many people, this mod ONLY changes one specific record in only 10 AI packages. That being the Radius of which an NPC can sandbox from their point of origin in a specific cell. These packages and that point of origin has absolutely nothing to do with the build zone of that cell, in fact settler AI and build zones of a settlement are completely unrelated to each other as far as the game is concerned. If anything has your NPCs leaving a specific cell entirely then there is something loaded into your game that has made cell edits and changed the point of origin to which the Settlers are tethered to. Also this mod has nothing to do with settler pathing, use of items placed in build mode and will not fix these issues that have arisen from such edits to settlement cells, build mode items, or changes to the workshop parent quests.
In rebuttal to your claim that this mod has broke your game, NO, it didn't, you have another mod in your LO that has made changes to your Settlement Cells that allows the npcs to move out farther than intended or to just leave all together.
I never said the mod "broke" the game, it just exacerbates other issues. I'm currently about to run a new play through with a patch I made to fix certain potential scripting issues with NPCs. I want to run the sandbox (with adjust values. It's creation Engine, I don't try push it too far, lol) mod. Sorry about that, full disclosure: im an idiot.
I was looking for something that would make my settlers go UP, and found this. Was a little leery about downloading something that might make my settlers wander, but when I clicked the link and saw the video, I figured I'd give it a shot. If its good enough for the Ox, it's good enough for me lol
I have not yet gotten benefit from this mod. I tried the 10x one and tested on a Hangman's Alley build. It sounds like the mod author knows their stuff and I got some really good info from the stickies.
With nearly 500 mods, it's generally possible (even likely) I have script or navmesh issues I can try to isolate but the thing is, I didn't notice ANY behavior changes with the mod. So I am looking to see how I can test it is active.
Some other stats for me: - Prior and with the mod, my settlers go to their stations I just can't get them to go to higher stations or "fringe" stations. When I arrive at settlement, most settlers are at assignments and working. There are a couple generic settlers out of 30 that for some reason don't want to do anything, even with resetAI
- SKK latency reports no script latency although I'm not sure I completely trust that mod. The script log is not unusually large nor shows high density script complaints (like many per second), I'm sure many mods don't log. I'm budgeting 2.4ms to scripts and don't get script stutters or other stutters too often.
- the settlement is tight. I can move my character into every assignment position which is one of my tests when building. I never see settlers move all the way into their assignment positions, I have seen them move near and then at some point I notice they are their position (probably teleported)
- there is a height currently, about 2 stories high, after which they can be assigned but will never appear there. If I 'moveto player' them there, and then assign them, I get positive ack message that they were assigned but they never go to the position (eg. stand on the mat) despite standing right next to it. Eventually they reappear on ground level just standing around. This with or without the 10x mod.
- I am loading this 223 in load order currently (Vortex converted to light), lower than Workshop DLC so there should not be an overwrite issue
- tons of settlement mods, so that is where I'll start if I need to disable to isolate but I am thinking I will try to put this one lower than all those in the order.
Hi, I never knew this mod existed until recently and I am already in mid-playthrough. Will this be safe to install mid-playthrough? I have already built massive settlements and I no longer want to do it again. This is the fix I desire and need for my settlements, I do so hope I can install this safely on mid-playthrough.
(Update)
I just realized the mod "True Storms" added a special settlement object that prevents fogs from entering rooms. I guess I can't download this mod after-all, but I hope I can.
An interesting discovery. Maybe others that know more about CK and Fallout 4 AI can add something?
TL;DR
Setting in CK WorkshopLinkSandbox defines the area in which settlers will sandbox within a settlement.
Full ramble.
I've never really had a problem with horizontal settler sandboxing. It has always appeared to work ok. (I'm ok with settlers sandboxing within the settlement area and I've only really seen this not work ok because of other reasons discussed here like broken pathing or workshop script issues/lag)
What I've been less happy with is vertical sandbox behavior and I've never really found any mid or tweak that fixes it. (There is a mod on nexus which suggests global setting fsandboxcylinder tweaks. I have never seen this work. I have also never seen this particular mod work with regards height limits for settler sandbox.
Digging through the CK each base game settlement has a reference "WorkshopLinkSandbox" In most cases this is just linked to the settlement build zone box but there are also quite a few cases where this is defined by its own box. (I think this might be to handle cases like Railroad Mercer safehouse where an NPC which is not a Settler needs a sandbox defined but I'm not sure, it may just be different workflows of different designers) Several settlements have an additional zone defined "EMTurf" (or similar) which I think handles AI/triggers for hostile NPC's such as the bloodbugs at Taffington boathouse.
I build high. All my settlements make use of vertical space and therefore the sandbox height limit is something I have noticed in all my playthroughs.
So I decided to tweak this value and as an experiment at Jamaica Plain increased the Z value from 1440 to 3000 (approximate) in CK and loaded up my little tweak mod. Immediate impact. Previously settlers assigned to an object (scav station) on my top floor would simply look up at it from the ground. Now they climb the stairs to interact with it. No wait time. No messing about. It worked straight away. Where no other mod or tweak has.
Now I'm not a modder and still feeling my way with how the mechanics all work in Fallout 4 and how FO4Edit/CK work so there may be something I'm missing here, or don't fully understand so I just thought I would throw this observation out there and maybe others with a better understanding can chime in.
As he hasn't released it, I took a look through the CK and can find no reference to "EMTurf" or anything close. It's been quite a while since I last dug through the depths of the CK so maybe I just missed it. I checked thoroughly through everything in vault 88 and was unable to find anything. Sorry man.
In the case of the "Workshoplinksandbox" Reference, This is to assign what NPCs will be linked to a particular workshop. To put it simply it's a parent reference that tells the NPC that it belongs to that workshop and then they are given a particular set of AI packages to follow once this has been done. After that the NPCs can be assigned to a job or a post depending on the what the PC [yourself] wants to give them. Unlike Skyrim, Fallout 4 has a spherical sandbox area. Which means the old "Cylinder Height" sandboxing from Skyrim no longer applies to FO4. But like many other assets and resources from Skyrim this was left in the CK and game files. Many people over the years have made claims that they have tweaked this value to get their settlers to use vertical build zones before but none have ever been able to have this definitely confirmed to actually be the case. All settlers are generated from a pool of premade NPCs that are basically generic [with the exception of Far Harbor and Nuka World, Those NPCs are generated from their own pools of NPCs]. I have made comments on this type of thing before and I have explained in detail on how it works. But the short version is that when a workshop is established and claimed by the PC, it will then start a workshop parent quest that runs continuously in the background. This will trigger events, spawns, etc. etc. When a NPC is spawned and linked to that workshop, they are then given a generic set of AI packages to follow until they are assigned to an assignment. They are then controlled by the AI packages and the AI parent quests from that point on. They are ONLY linked by one thing to that workshop, The AI packages are what is used from that point on. The NPCs are tethered to the Workshop NPC spawn and their radius in determined from that spawn point. For example: Everyone knows and has experienced going into Sanctuary and finding all their NPCs standing on the roof of the house across the street from the original PC home. Well the NPC workshop spawn point is actually inside that house but because it's a Bethesda game the spawns actually happen from the sky downwards and not instantly on the ground so they end up on the roof. With that being said, that point is where they are all tied to the workshop and the AI radius goes out from there, both Horizontally and Vertically. Pathing and Assignments are a completely different thing, and handled by their own set of AI packages that are parented by the workshop also. There is a lot that goes on, with each workshop and each settler as you go forward. Unfortunately because of the assets and resources used this was never streamlined or made to work any better than it is. At any given time, a generic NPC assigned to a workshop will have anywhere from 5 - 15 quests running in the background on them, depending on what they do and who they are. Yes, there are issues with the system and how it works, in the manner in which the settler and settlement system was meant to be implemented in the game, and could've been done way better and optimized for better control over the system but it wasn't. FO4 uses the EXACT same AI system that Skyrim used for it's NPCs only re-written in some aspects to be useful to the settlements in-game.
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First I would like to start off with something I found to be very interesting while testing this mod with another very popular mod "Transfer Settlements."
[Every time I notice a new mod that alters or uses the settlements take off and become a very popular mod, I begin a new playthrough and run what I like to call, "Stress Tests"]
I have mentioned many times before about what I call "Dynamic and Static Navmesh" in my comments. This has become my standard in testing. For a review, Dynamic Navmesh is where you place an object in build mode that a settler or NPC can "PATH" upon to get from point A to point B. A "Static Navmesh" is the Navmesh placed originally in game by the developers before you have even got a hold of the settlement.
With this I have begun to check on things, I have found that with "Transfer Settlements" they very clearly have made a notification for you to let the settlement cell cycle for at least 3 ingame days before you begin to make changes with the settlement to make sure that all the NEW DYNAMIC objects are read correctly by the game engine and stabilized in your settlement.
There is a HUGE problem with the game engine having an issue when mods are introduced into a game-save where people are witnessing their settlers bunching up at spawn points and not immediately going to there assignments and/or relaxation points.
This is caused by 1 or more of different things, latency, broken workshop quests, broken nav-mesh, altered [modded] assignments, etc, etc.
Here is a simple step by step process you can use to diagnose what may be a possible problem with settlers not doing what you want them to do.
1. [Latency] when you enter or fast travel into a settlement cell, if your settlers are still bunched up at the spawn points and not moving to assignments for up to 10 seconds after arrival, you have a latency issue to begin with. If the settlers take up to a full 10 seconds to move around and begin assignments [this meaning that they DO go] you have a script somewhere in your settlement mods that have a huge delay on it and has knocked the Default Workshop Quest to a lower priority on the loading list. If they remain at spawn point and don't move at all, then you have a broken script that won't allow any of the Default Workshop Quests to fire off at all. Side-Note; A heavy list of scripting will also cause bottle-necking with your CPU and Hard drive if you have an older system, so keep that in mind if you fall into this category. Scripts in this game engine have not and are not optimized for older systems. some will argue with me that this is the same old bulls*** used on older games and it is. but the scripts are more involved with the settlement system and injected dynamically as you play allowing you to make real time changes with the game world, i.e. settlements.
2.[Broken Pathing, Nav-mesh] If your settlers are moving around or going to/near assignments but NOT using their assigned items correctly, then you have a broken path. This may mean you, either didn't give them ENOUGH ROOM to path to their assignments, or the Dynamic Nav-Mesh has NOT updated due to latency to allow the game to read the new path. 2 solutions for this. You can either re-build for a new path, or let the game engine cycle for 3 in game days to allow the Latency of the Dynamic Nav-mesh to catch up.
3.[Broken Assignments] This is pretty hard one but the most important. If your settlers are working fine but they "un-assign" from objects or change assignments, or don't even assign to them at all. You have a broken script in your game. Not even cycling will help you with this. Assignments are Dynamic Scripts that are injected real time into your game as you build and assign NPCs to objects. If you already have this, there is only one process you can do to fix this, especially if you want to keep a particular mod. First, make sure that all your settlement mods are clean mods and thoroughly tested. Second, If you know how, check your settlement mods and clean them yourself and make sure you know and are aware of any conflicts. Third, start a new game, that gamesave is basically fukd. I have been very open with my OPINION that you keep your settlement mods to a minimum [unless you are very experienced in modding and know how and what to do with them].
I hope this helps out with any issues anyone of you may have. Take the time to research, read, and use the mods you use responsibly for a better gaming experience. Most of all the Mod Authors out there work very hard to share what they have done and go through great lengths at times to give you a better gaming experience, so before you go off and start blaming everyone else for what YOU as a gamer does in YOUR game, make sure you are doing it correctly first.It only takes 15 minutes of your time in the beginning to keep you from losing a 40 hour game save.
Thank you all, and a special Thank You to those of you who have downloaded and endorsed this mod.
Axle
PLEASE READ. THIS MAY IMPACT THE WAY YOU BUILD YOUR SETTLEMENTS!!
After a very long time of working on a Predecessor to this mod for the settlement AI, I found something by accident last night in the creation kit that may very well help with people having the "settler bunch up and not go to assignment" bugs.
[this is going to be a long explanation, so read carefully and be patient]
First off like I have explained to people before the settlement has 2 types of NAVMESH in the game. A static navmesh, the one thats there when you first arrive that's built into the game originally, and then it has a Dynamic navmesh, the one you create when you build things in your settlement. The Dynamic navmesh is very important, as many people have seen since the release of many new settlement build mods, that if something individually isn't navmeshed, your settlers won't use it when it's built. and if an assignment is given to them they won't go there. They more than likely will bunch up at a static spawn point. Well since most mod authors have realized this they all have been aware to correctly navmesh new items and to keep this properly done.
With all this being said, I am currently working on a complete AI overhaul of the Settler AI. It's a new mod that i'm working with the AI system in the game to expand it so settlers will have a better chance of "improving themselves" as you progress through your gameplay. The reason this is taking so long is that i'm doing this completely within the bounds of the original vanilla AI system. A complete NON-scripted AI that can actually help your settlers think for themselves. I.E. using specific containers that you place to re-equip themselves with better weapons, armor, ammo. using stimpaks in battle to heal, not only when downed, crafting their own items to use. planting their own crops, repairing broken workshop items such as turrets after a settlement raid, etc. etc.
My purpose in this is not to relieve the other authors who have come up with similar mods to this, but to give a more immersive feel to things, to let the settlers evolve along side you as you level up and progress through the game. To be able to pick their own factions as you join different ones on their own, To also level with you to match as you level up. If you haven't noticed at times as you level up, the settlement attacks level with you, but your poor settlers are still at level 1 with no real armor of weapons of their own. [ I know there is a mod that has settlers come into your settlements with better gear but this lets them do it themselves and go from nothing to everything on their own.]
Now to my point. With building, testing, and running 5 full settlement playthroughs with full settlement builds, [yes I downloaded as many transfer settlements I could to help speed this process up] I found out something that was VERY IMPORTANT!!! PATHING!! yes I know a lot of you know about settler pathing. but I found out that there is a dynamic value at play that keeps your settlers on the move. BUILD PLACEMENT!!!! I had downloaded 4 very very nice settlements for the testing and build of the new mod and then BAMMMMM!! my settlers wouldn't do s#*!!! just stand around in one place bunched up. I was like WTF????? I personally have never had this problem ever. Then I began to personally walk around these settlements and found out why. I couldn't use s#*! myself, except maybe the beds. People were placing items, RELAXATION ITEMS, in places, and in a way the settlers or the PC couldn't use them. [Ok there's a long technical explanation to how this works but i'm needing more coffee so i'm gonna make this shorter] The RELAXATION items have first priority in the list of things to do for the settler AI. If this is cut off then you are putting a roadblock in front of your settlers from doing their thing in the settlement. the next thing is sleeping assignments, then work, etc etc. NO, you would think that relaxation would be the last, but it's not.
Also, in building I found that people don't give their settlers much room to get to their work assignments also. People have built these cute little shacks around the vendor stalls to house in the stores and such. Well this is an issue with settler pathing as well. But you ask, when I go to sleep in my settlement or I wait for a time they are there at their stalls, why is that then??? Because they spawn there while you are in the settlement, and when you sleep and wake those animations are similar to a load screen. YOUR FUKN SETTLERS CAN TELEPORT!! THEY ARE SYNTHS!!!!!
So now I have a new factor to put into play, i'm calling it the "Pathing Radius" it's the area of path the settler needs to fully function to utilize their assignments, whether it be a job, farming, guard, etc etc. So until I can actually do something about this to help out, please build wisely and place all items with the idea that your settlers are a bunch of toddlers learning to walk and need A LOT of space to get where they are going.
Thank you all for your time in reading this!!
Axle
This is not very clear. It means if we use any mod that adds new furniture, like Homemaker, it may cause settlers to wander outside the settlement?
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/72923
That mod isn't supposed to "fix" settlements, but it does cause settlers to be able to "see" far outside the settlement, and run off to fight. Is that close enough to what you do to cause a conflict? My thought is no, and they're fine together, but I wanted to hear from the expert if possible. Thanks.
I think your mod works perfectly, it's just the game's issue staff not working. It fixed itself after quite some delay.
Again thank you for the great mod.
Hi, firstly thank you for sharing with us the great fix.
And I noticed that you mentioned NPC needs some "in-game days?" to fix their pathing in a place, especially at Vault 88.
Do you mean any new or newly transferred settlers would naturally not function at first? Cause I got really confused with the original quest settler after your fix, is working pretty perfectly, while a newly recruited and a transferred settler don't even bother to go to the assignment.
By the way, the working one is spawned by the quest that is the first female settler interviewed. The two not-working settlers are one from another settlement and one spawned by the vault radio beacon.
I tried all three settlers on both vanilla assignments and modded ones. Maybe I have cramped up the metro station a bit by re-flooring all the train rails, but while she takes a bit of time "thinking" the path, the quest one would be able to do the assignments without a problem. Yet the other two would hesitate quite a lot and then head towards the main entrance whenever assigned a job.
The weird thing is they are able to get to the soda fountain right next to their job perfectly but not the assignment.
I am really excited to put that girl as a security officer at my bar but she just refuse to go there. Do you think using the 10 times distance version would help or it's something about the package not being correctly applied?
I think your mod works perfectly, it's just the game's issue staff not working. It fixed itself after quite some delay.
Again thank you for the great mod.
I think I need to do something first to let the game create the dynamic navmeshing accordingly. You mentioned something like "let the settlement cell cycle for at least 3 ingame days before you begin to make changes with the settlement to make sure that all the NEW DYNAMIC objects are read correctly by the game engine and stabilized in your settlement." I wonder how does one achieve that, waiting for 3 days inside/outside of the settlement? what is the specific steps for it?
After plopping around in xEdit like a mudskipper in a bowl of tapioca pudding, I noticed that even tho the main file says "3x radius", some of the values are upwards of 10x the vanilla radius. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not.
At any rate, I decided to manually change them all to a simple doubling of radii (and patching it for the latest uof4p ) and tested by waiting in game. Npcs no longer appeared outside the town without getting access and after about 48hrs in game Swanson finally appears.
This has worked several times over. I would request that you either update the mod or I can just upload my updated version for you. Or I can forget about this because dangit I'm pushing 40 why do I care about a silly video game from 20 years ago? I have a career ffs.
At any rate, it didn't have any effect. Even on a new save file, settlers would venture far outside their normal boundaries which in the case of a large settlement like Sanctuary is fine.. I mean, Garvey will be patrolling in the river a lot, but within the bounds of the settlement. The problem comes in when you have settlements with much smaller build boxes, like Oberland Station or Covenant. They aren't supposed to ever be outside of covnenant until you start the quest, it appears to break their AI and you can never get inside the town.
My efforts failed, I had to remove this from my load order. Damn shame.. Sommerville Place was my favorite build spot, cuz I'd always terraform the mountain side into a complex weave of bazaars and lodgings like a mini-city, but I could never assign settlers there because it was too far from the sandbox. This mod would probably allow for that, but it breaks too many other things.
In rebuttal to your claim that this mod has broke your game, NO, it didn't, you have another mod in your LO that has made changes to your Settlement Cells that allows the npcs to move out farther than intended or to just leave all together.
With nearly 500 mods, it's generally possible (even likely) I have script or navmesh issues I can try to isolate but the thing is, I didn't notice ANY behavior changes with the mod. So I am looking to see how I can test it is active.
Some other stats for me:
- Prior and with the mod, my settlers go to their stations I just can't get them to go to higher stations or "fringe" stations. When I arrive at settlement, most settlers are at assignments and working. There are a couple generic settlers out of 30 that for some reason don't want to do anything, even with resetAI
- SKK latency reports no script latency although I'm not sure I completely trust that mod. The script log is not unusually large nor shows high density script complaints (like many per second), I'm sure many mods don't log. I'm budgeting 2.4ms to scripts and don't get script stutters or other stutters too often.
- the settlement is tight. I can move my character into every assignment position which is one of my tests when building. I never see settlers move all the way into their assignment positions, I have seen them move near and then at some point I notice they are their position (probably teleported)
- there is a height currently, about 2 stories high, after which they can be assigned but will never appear there. If I 'moveto player' them there, and then assign them, I get positive ack message that they were assigned but they never go to the position (eg. stand on the mat) despite standing right next to it. Eventually they reappear on ground level just standing around. This with or without the 10x mod.
- I am loading this 223 in load order currently (Vortex converted to light), lower than Workshop DLC so there should not be an overwrite issue
- tons of settlement mods, so that is where I'll start if I need to disable to isolate but I am thinking I will try to put this one lower than all those in the order.
(Update)
I just realized the mod "True Storms" added a special settlement object that prevents fogs from entering rooms. I guess I can't download this mod after-all, but I hope I can.
TL;DR
Setting in CK WorkshopLinkSandbox defines the area in which settlers will sandbox within a settlement.
Full ramble.
I've never really had a problem with horizontal settler sandboxing. It has always appeared to work ok. (I'm ok with settlers sandboxing within the settlement area and I've only really seen this not work ok because of other reasons discussed here like broken pathing or workshop script issues/lag)
What I've been less happy with is vertical sandbox behavior and I've never really found any mid or tweak that fixes it. (There is a mod on nexus which suggests global setting fsandboxcylinder tweaks. I have never seen this work.
I have also never seen this particular mod work with regards height limits for settler sandbox.
Digging through the CK each base game settlement has a reference "WorkshopLinkSandbox"
In most cases this is just linked to the settlement build zone box but there are also quite a few cases where this is defined by its own box. (I think this might be to handle cases like Railroad Mercer safehouse where an NPC which is not a Settler needs a sandbox defined but I'm not sure, it may just be different workflows of different designers)
Several settlements have an additional zone defined "EMTurf" (or similar) which I think handles AI/triggers for hostile NPC's such as the bloodbugs at Taffington boathouse.
I build high. All my settlements make use of vertical space and therefore the sandbox height limit is something I have noticed in all my playthroughs.
So I decided to tweak this value and as an experiment at Jamaica Plain increased the Z value from 1440 to 3000 (approximate) in CK and loaded up my little tweak mod.
Immediate impact.
Previously settlers assigned to an object (scav station) on my top floor would simply look up at it from the ground. Now they climb the stairs to interact with it.
No wait time. No messing about. It worked straight away.
Where no other mod or tweak has.
Now I'm not a modder and still feeling my way with how the mechanics all work in Fallout 4 and how FO4Edit/CK work so there may be something I'm missing here, or don't fully understand so I just thought I would throw this observation out there and maybe others with a better understanding can chime in.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/users/37174085?tab=user+files