Snappers don't spawn outside the Monastery ruins

[szapp]

Snappers don't spawn outside the Monastery ruins.

This fix corrects the spawn of the two snappers such that they appear in the game. On saving, this fix is reverted to leave no changes in the savegame. That means, the spawn of the snappers is invalidated again. However, if the player is currently in spawn range of the snappers when saving, their spawn is not reverted and they will be written to the savegame. In that event, they remain in the game. This is necessary to avoid inconsistencies when saving the game while engaging with the snappers.

[catalinstoian]

gothic-1-community-patch/scriptbase/_work/Data/Scripts/Content/Story/Startup.d

Lines 1603 to 1604 in 2164a25

	Wld_InsertNpc (Snapper,"OW_MONSTER_NAVIGATE02");
	Wld_InsertNpc (Snapper,"OW_MONSTER_NAVIGATE02");

changed to

	Wld_InsertNpc		(Snapper,"OW_MONSTER_NAVIGATE_02");
	Wld_InsertNpc		(Snapper,"OW_MONSTER_NAVIGATE_02");

[szapp]

This fix might be close to impossible to implement. How important is it?

[AmProsius]

As it's not noticable, it's not that important to me.

Isn't there any way to just spawn two additional snappers at these waypoints? Or would that be incompatible to mods fixing this issue as shown above?

[szapp]

It wouldn't be exactly incompatible. But there is no reliable way to check if the issue was fixed already. We would spawn to additional snappers (to the possible already fixed ones).

[szapp]

Actually, I might be able to check if the bug was already fixed. I will leave a note about this, so I don't forget:

Tokenize the Startup and check for any pushed strings. Compare the contents of all pushed strings against "OW_MONSTER_NAVIGATE02" and if found, spawn two snappers manually.

[szapp]

Some more thoughts:

1. Instead of inserting the snappers only at new game, they could (much like the key item in Door near the smithy in the castle of the Old Camp is inaccessible #46) spawn as long as a certain event has not happened yet (e.g. completed focus quest with Gorn). The check for story progression would ensure not to insert the snappers multiple times and creating an endless source of experience points.
2. The snappers could either be inserted using their original instance or a duplicate instance from G1CP (like the key item in Door near the smithy in the castle of the Old Camp is inaccessible #46). The former would require this to be a revertible fix where the snappers are removed upon saving. (Problem: How can the snappers be uniquely identified to remove them?) As for the latter, unlike items as in Door near the smithy in the castle of the Old Camp is inaccessible #46, patch-specific NPCs are not written to game saves (see here). This would result in the snappers never being saved.
   In both cases, what if the player is currently engaged in a fight while saving? Loading would result in the fight reset. A hybrid solution could work: Make it a revertible fix: If the distance between PC and snappers is close enough, write them to the game save. If not, do not write them to the game save. Here the same issue arises: How can the snappers be uniquely identified?

So far it sounds very complicated.

[AmProsius]

How can the snappers be uniquely identified?

If we introduce new instances, can't we just give them a unique ID or some other variable that the other Snappers haven't?
I just don't know how to check if the Snappers have been defeated, because they won't be in the world anymore.

[szapp]

How can the snappers be uniquely identified?

If we introduce new instances, can't we just give them a unique ID or some other variable that the other Snappers haven't?
I just don't know how to check if the Snappers have been defeated, because they won't be in the world anymore.

Yes that’s a general difficulty in Gothic, that also a lot of mods struggle with: Human NPCs generally only exist once in the world. They can be identified by their script instance, e.g. VLK_123_Buddler. Monsters, on the other hand, are objects created using the same script instance. Therefore they cannot be uniquely identified once they are in the world.

Generally, this is solved by having duplicates of the script instance. This can be seem for quests where the player is supposed to defeat certain monsters.

This is an issue I will think about a little bit.

[szapp]

If we introduce new instances, [...]

Sorry, I misread this. If we use new instances, we can in fact identify them. NPCs of new instances will not be stored in the game saves, however. If the snappers are in line of sight or are currently engaging with the player somehow. The will suddenly be reset when loading the game.

[szapp]

I thought this would be conceptual nightmare. See comments above. Now, I remembered that Ikarus is taking advantage (I think initially unaware) of the fact to NPCs that fail to spawn are still created and exist in the world hashtables. Look who we got here:

[szapp]

Now we can just identify them by their missing waypoint (there might be a more reliable way, I will investigate) and then insert the Snappers mid-game at their correct waypoints. We will save their instances to put them back into their limbo state when reverting the fix. Should they have died in between, that cool, too.

The only hurdle is to decide what to do if they are currently interacting with or visible to the player.

1. Either keep them in the save - they will then become part of the game and can no longer be "removed".
2. Still remove them and risk them being re-inserted awkwardly.

[AmProsius]

1. Either keep them in the save - they will then become part of the game and can no longer be "removed".

I'd go with this solution. It doesn't introduce possible inconsistencies.

[szapp]

The test will have to be a bit elaborate by checking if the snappers are gone when unloading the patch.