NPC Cloning/Duplication in Certain Modules

[Mutilator57 140]

Okay...in mucking around with several UTC files, I've run into a problem that's got me stumped. Basically, I was trying to edit the male twi'leks in Javyar's Cantina (tar_m03ae) to make them more 'individual' BUT it seems when I change the head of just one of the files (the Bounty Hunter next to Zax, for example) all the other male twi'leks in the module seem to copy that head without me editing their files at all. I can't seem to override this by using their UTC file and specifying a different head either.

What am I missing?

Thanks.

[DarthParametric 3,777]

You don't specify the head in a UTC as such. You specify the appearance.2da row. That, in turn, references a head (and possibly a backup) in heads.2da. What exactly are you changing?

[Mutilator57 140]

Essentially, I'm trying to alter the twi'leks in Javyar's Cantina to be more varied (i.e. making a few green-skinned, some others orange etc). My exact issue is when I make a particular twi'lek NPC use a certain head, yeah sure it works on that NPC BUT it also alters the heads of all the other male twileks in the Cantina to use the same head. When I try to override it by editing the UTC file to use a different head, there's no change. To me, it's almost as if a certain type of UTC file is duplicated within a module to save space or something, so when you edit one you edit them all but that's just a completely wild (and probably innacurate) guess.

[DarthParametric 3,777]

In TSL you almost always have to inject UTC changes into a MOD file because Obsidian was lazy and reused the same UTC tags/resrefs over and over. K1 though is generally fairly good about using unique identifiers. Although within a single module that shouldn't be an issue regardless.

 

What are the tags of the UTCs you are editing? It's not entirely impossible that they spawned multiple instances of the same UTC, but I find it unlikely.

[Kexikus 994]

It's definetly common for multiple NPCs to share the same .utc but I don't think that's the issue here as you report that there's no change at all when editing the .utc.

 

Did you reload a save from before entering the cantina to test your .utc changes? That's necessary for them to load.

If that fixes your issue, it's of course still possible that all of them will be modified depending on whether or not they use individual .utc files.

[Mutilator57 140]

So with a bit of blind luck and the invaluable advice of the posters above, I've managed to resolve the issue.

To save time, I was using a save on the Endar Spire to test changes to the various modules I was editing. I would simply load the save and then use the cheat console to warp directly to the edited module (which to answer your implicit query DP, were edited mod files with the UTCs within them - not UTCs just dropped into the Override folder). I thought this system would cover all the changes I wished to make (save for the Spire of course) since it was before any other module had been loaded. But whenever I warped directly to the module in question, the twi'leks (specifically Uriah and Bib Surool) were definitely copies of each other.

However, using Kexikus' advice, this time I instead warped to the Lower City first (tar_m03aa) and manually entered the Cantina and voila, the different UTCs had taken effect. I'm not sure what difference this would have made since the Spire save was one before all other modules had been loaded anyway but I guessed it changed something.

Thanks for the help everyone!

[Kexikus 994]

That's really weird. I've never heard of this issue before but it's good to know