NPC console commands (copying and resurrection)

[DiaborMagics]

Hey guys,

Before going into my questions, I want to state 2 things:
- I know that dead quest-related characters can break quests. Whether I kill them or vampires/dragons do, doesnt matter
- I also know that using player.placeatme <id>1 creates a copy of an NPC and this can break things, too.

Now... a character died a while ago and I kinda need this person, but the body is gone. Since the character is already dead, will it matter if I use player.placeatme? Probably not?

Also, if a character dies and I click them when the body is still lying around and use the resurrect command, will that break anything (else)? I hope not.

Finally, if I kill a character for the Dark Brotherhood questline, like Ennodius Papius and then resurrect him, will THAT cause problems? As his death is part of the questline, instead of his actual life (if that makes sense)?




Extra info for those who want to know why I ask these questions:

I play with mods and I use Better Vampires. I want to kill my targets, but resurrect them as followers/walking bloodbags afterwards. I did this with Ennodius Papius, but I made a backup save before I did so.
BV used to make victims die of bloodloss after 2 feedings, but either because its intentional or because of a bug in my setup, that didnt work with Ennodius. So I fed off of him once, then killed him with my bow, then I resurrected him, then waited until he went back to sleep (both of us pretending the killing with the weapon did not take place), then I used Sanguinare Vampiris, a power BV has, to turn him after my second feeding, then I used a spell, Tollere Sanguinare, to cure him of vampirism, then I used Amazing Follower Tweaks' Tweak Make Follower, as Better Vampires cannot change just anyone into followers, sadly.
So now he is a follower and he is mortal. But he also died once. And became a vampire and got cured after.

As you can imagine, this process causes some worry for me and so I hope you guys can tell me what the answers to my questions above are. If you wonder why I made him vampire, then cured him, then made him a follower, that is because of roleplaying. I meant to kill him and turn him with my bite and for him to instantly become my follower. After my workaround I noticed he couldnt be recruited, so I used AFT's Tweak Make Follower to do that for me.

[VILLAGE PILLAGE ⊕]

If you killed one of the targets for the DB, the mission will already be completed. No need to resurrect and kill again.
There's a dialogue option like 'I already did that' or something.

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by Evil Atheist From Hell:

If you killed one of the targets for the DB, the mission will already be completed. No need to resurrect and kill again.
There's a dialogue option like 'I already did that' or something.

Although i did not resurrect and kill again, only resurrect, then turn them immeiately (keeping him alive), from your reply I can conclude that it wont cause any problems with the DB at any rate, so thats good :D

[alexander_dougherty]

You can resurrect people after the bodies disappear
Goes something like:

Prid ID (you need to enter the character's id)
enable
Moveto player
Recycleactor

Please note this can break your game if misused (not seen it myself, but others say it's ruined their game)

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

You can resurrect people after the bodies disappear
Goes something like:

Prid ID (you need to enter the character's id)
enable
Moveto player
Recycleactor

Please note this can break your game if misused (not seen it myself, but others say it's ruined their game)

Okay, but then would it be safer or just as dangerous to use player.placeatme?

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by DiaborMagics:

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

You can resurrect people after the bodies disappear
Goes something like:

Prid ID (you need to enter the character's id)
enable
Moveto player
Recycleactor

Please note this can break your game if misused (not seen it myself, but others say it's ruined their game)

Okay, but then would it be safer or just as dangerous to use player.placeatme?

Theoretically about the same, but if the body has gone it has nowhere to take you, which is why I move them to me.

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Originally posted by DiaborMagics:

Okay, but then would it be safer or just as dangerous to use player.placeatme?

Theoretically about the same, but if the body has gone it has nowhere to take you, which is why I move them to me.

Player.placeatme does not move the player, that is player.moveto, but player.placeatme <id> spawns a copy of the NPC next to you, alive. If you do it with bandits for instance, you can summon them to fight against. Although I never do that aside from when I'm testing things.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by DiaborMagics:

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Theoretically about the same, but if the body has gone it has nowhere to take you, which is why I move them to me.

Player.placeatme does not move the player, that is player.moveto, but player.placeatme <id> spawns a copy of the NPC next to you, alive. If you do it with bandits for instance, you can summon them to fight against. Although I never do that aside from when I'm testing things.

Ah, right, I've never used it, bt I have read about it, thanks.

Player.placeatme will produce a clone, which if you haven't used recycleactor (for dead characterss) might not have any scripted actions (apart from wandering around). The sequence I posted before will allow you to resurrect a dead NPC, which provided it isn't a vendor should be ok. However any resurrection or duplication can break the game.

One other difference is that the placeatme command produces a low level version of the character, while the other sequence revives them at the appropriate level for your character (if for example you want an ally)

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Originally posted by DiaborMagics:

Player.placeatme does not move the player, that is player.moveto, but player.placeatme <id> spawns a copy of the NPC next to you, alive. If you do it with bandits for instance, you can summon them to fight against. Although I never do that aside from when I'm testing things.

Ah, right, I've never used it, bt I have read about it, thanks.

Player.placeatme will produce a clone, which if you haven't used recycleactor (for dead characterss) might not have any scripted actions (apart from wandering around). The sequence I posted before will allow you to resurrect a dead NPC, which provided it isn't a vendor should be ok. However any resurrection or duplication can break the game.

One other difference is that the placeatme command produces a low level version of the character, while the other sequence revives them at the appropriate level for your character (if for example you want an ally)

Oh really I did not know that, thanks! None of those things are a problem if I let AFT take over (level scaling an AI will be accounted for). I hope the game does not break until I finish the Dark Brotherhood and Dark Brotherhood Resurrected Part 1 questlines though, thats the minimum goal of this current savegame. Though I do like to take my time, I usually finish one questline in about 50 hours if I have mods installed. Simply because theres so much more to do in between quests :P

[smr1957]

Just be very aware of the following:
Ilja:
Console is a debug tool. It does not pass event and AI scripts, or undo scripts that have been already been ran. I have stressed several times that using resurrect is among those commands that you should never use in Skyrim.

If the character you resurrected was dead, then using the command does not undo death scripts that have already been ran. Game AI gets confused and in 99% of cases you will just have a no-good character wandering around. In worse cases, death scritps will have run other scripts and suddenly "alive" character starts to cause conflicts in the game.

If the character you "resurrected" is alive (and in this case a quest character), then scripts affecting to this character now has double targets, messing up the game AI royally.

Load a save from before using unsafe console command. Do not try to undo it in any other way, because Skyrim stores script data to save files and there is absolutely no way to clean them 100% from them. Even Bethesda didn't manage to do so.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/451848854985133583/

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by smr1957:

Just be very aware of the following:
Ilja:
Console is a debug tool. It does not pass event and AI scripts, or undo scripts that have been already been ran. I have stressed several times that using resurrect is among those commands that you should never use in Skyrim.

If the character you resurrected was dead, then using the command does not undo death scripts that have already been ran. Game AI gets confused and in 99% of cases you will just have a no-good character wandering around. In worse cases, death scritps will have run other scripts and suddenly "alive" character starts to cause conflicts in the game.

If the character you "resurrected" is alive (and in this case a quest character), then scripts affecting to this character now has double targets, messing up the game AI royally.

Load a save from before using unsafe console command. Do not try to undo it in any other way, because Skyrim stores script data to save files and there is absolutely no way to clean them 100% from them. Even Bethesda didn't manage to do so.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/451848854985133583/

Thanks. I did not know resurrect was THIS dangerous, because I did not know the 'why'. Now I do. Thanks for that!

I'll just kill him (in a save before I resurrected him) and choose a different victim to turn. A live one.

[Ilja]

smr1957 seems to have all my replies archived. :D

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by Ilja:

smr1957 seems to have all my replies archived. :D

Well good info deserves to be shared. Thank you :D

[smr1957]

Originally posted by Ilja:

smr1957 seems to have all my replies archived. :D

As a matter of fact, I do! (As well as ones from cfs, Nazenn, and the whole bunch of usual suspects.) Beats the heck out of typing them out and then looking up the citations and references.

[+]

Yes, you can resurrect ANYONE in the game. Although NOT the first option I would pick you cannot undo the scripts that have already run. But when resurrecting a character there is a proper way to do it and an incorrect way. The correct way is using the prid command, target whatever NPC you want to resurrect, resurrect them with the targeted command and then MOST IMPORTANTLY type Enable into the console and press Enter IMMEDIATELY after resurrecting them as they will still be targeted by the PRID console command.

This brings the character back to the game fully and enables the character in game. When they are killed they are disabled and you need to re-enable them again for the Resurrect command to work correctly. Be warned. Disable and Enable are unstable commands but this is the ONLY way to bring them fully back to the game world.

[DiaborMagics]

Thanks for the additional info