1.13 update lost an NPC!

[CherryKiss]

I was tracking King Elias before the update, after updating and loading my game, he was suddenly gone! vanished! like he never existed! :} I was following him in hopes that someone would kill him off so I could steal his sled...or just to see what happened when he got to DMC.

Fortunately, he was replaced with a stranger who happened to have a shopping cart and was an easy kill for me, so I took it :} FINALLY a vehicle!

But I wanted to mention this as I think it may have been a bug related to the recent update.

[Lin]

Don't take my word for it, but I was under the impression NPCs de/respawn when you restart the game anyway. I'm hoping someone will correct me if I'm totally off the mark here, cause I'd like to know for sure.

[Daniel@BlueBottleGames]

In theory, all creatures/NPCs are saved with the map data and placed back on the map when the game is loaded. So King Elias would reappear if things were working normally.

That said, there could be several causes of Elias's disappearance on a reload.

1) King Elias is still on the map somewhere, but concealed (fog of war, dim lighting, hiding, etc.)
2) King Elias reached the DMC before you saw him.
3) King Elias was killed (and potentially looted) by another creature.
4) A mod caused King Elias to disappear.
5) A bug caused King Elias to disappear.

I haven't heard of many cases where creatures disappear through a bug. If anything, King Elias has a pesky tendency to appear when he shouldn't due to a bug :)

As for whether the v1.13 update caused the bug, that seems unlikely. If anything, I'd suspect a general bug that's always been there, since the 1.13 changes don't involve creature code. (It's all loading screen message logs, treasure, and St. James encounter changes.)

Do you still have this save file? If so, I could check the save file to see if he's on the map someplace, or if he reached his destination.

[CherryKiss]

I played for a few hours last night...and am guessing that means the save is gone. I had ended my previous playsession sitting on a tile next to King Elias, trying to decide if I was brave enough to set up an ambush at a forest tile I was expecting him to move to soon.

When I reloaded, he was gone, but my stranger with the shopping cart was there instead. I stuck around in the area a couple turns to see if King Elias reappeared, but with my new shopping cart, I didn't feel the need to track the King all the way to DMC anymore.

He was still a LONG way from the DMC in my game though, so I doubt he's made it there yet even with my play last night.

Currently on my way to the ATN enclave, so I doubt I'll see the King again this game. I may return to DMC someday...I'll post here if anything interesting changed :}

[CherryKiss]

So, finally made it back to the DMC this morning! and it was under quarantine. Guess the King was still around after all, and he made his trek while I was making my trek to the west side :}

I have noticed NPCs that are visible when I save a game often are not visible when I reload it. Also that spying on the tile they were in seems to make them reappear (not sure if that happens 100% of the time though)

He was probably right where he was when I saved, got a lucky roll to hide when I reloaded, and managed to avoid being seen for a turn or two until I gave up trying to re-find him. After all, that other stranger with the cart was a pretty good distraction, as bad as I wanted my first vehicle then.

I may restart my game at this point. I wanted Elusive and Unstoppable and I seem to have messed up getting those reputations, unless I can make a plan to kill someone for it :D , plus I wanted some $6000 eyeballs, and that seems to be closed off to me as well now

[Daniel@BlueBottleGames]

Thanks for following-up with a post explaining the mystery!

Yeah, your second post is probably correct: the visibility roll was different before and after loading your save, so you just couldn't see him. The save system does its best to reconstruct the game world exactly when it reloads, but some random chance variables get re-rolled. And visibility is one of them.

Good luck on your quest for Elusive/Unstoppable! :)

[Lin]

Well, huh. Good to know, I keep forgetting how much visibility plays a role. Glad you asked the question and followed up CherryKiss.