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Issue Data
Status: Closed
Issue Type: Bug Report
Project: Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch
Component: Skyrim SE: Dawnguard
Category: Locations
Assigned To: Nobody
Platform: All
Severity: Low
Votes: 1
Watching: N/A
Opened By noname321123321 on Jul 14, 2022 8:04 pm
Last Edited By Arthmoor on Jul 21, 2022 4:43 pm
Closed By Arthmoor on Sep 15, 2022 8:57 pm
Resolution: Fixed
Comment: Fixed for USSEP 4.2.8.

Issue #32525: Valerica doesn't move into the Boneyard during Beyond Death

 
So, this is a weird one honestly. It's been reported a few times before, but those were closed due to lack of further elaboration. I'm fairly certain I've found out why, but it's a little perplexing, so I'm not even sure if it's actually the same bug or somehow just the same symptom but a different underlying bug.

Basically, sometimes, after killing the Keepers and returning to Valerica, she is supposed to move through the door into the Boneyard, but instead she will remain in place. On PC you can enter the Boneyard yourself and then move her to the player using the console, after which she will continue running her Escort package without issue. When this bug happens, it seems to affect all pathing from the Soul Cairn into the Boneyard. I placed a new actor next to Valerica and used a simple Scene with Travel package to test this.

So, clearly an issue with pathing, and indeed the door into the Boneyard (FormID 02002FE1) lacks the XNDP (Navigation Door Link) field and appropriate Door Triangles. Simply finalising the navmeshes in the World cell with the Boneyard door will set these appropriate links and will also fix the bug in every case I've been able to produce it, and the lack of this navigation information seems like a clear bug in any case.



Now, the weird thing is, I had never personally encountered this, and I only got the bug when testing out some stuff via the console. Simply "CenterOnWorld DLC1SoulCairn 1 2" from the main menu causes the bug for me, as well as teleporting to QASmoke from the main menu and from there to the Soul Cairn. However, since people have also reported the bug on consoles, even PlayStation, it's clearly not just caused by using the console. I haven't tested thoroughly when exactly it does and doesn't happen though. Running through the quest as normal from the AS:LAL Dawnguard start doesn't cause the bug, at least, and I had also been messing about from Stage 1 of DLC1VQ04 (Chasing Echoes, this is the debug fast start stage) and then teleporting to the Soul Cairn and it also wasn't bugged.

Frankly, it seems to me like it should always fail to path, but apparently under certain (perhaps normal) circumstances Skyrim is able to cope with it. I'm honestly just confused at this point, but I hope it at least helped. I've also attached a save with and without the bug, as well as a plugin with the fix I used.



Attached Files:

yes bug.ess
no bug.ess
testnav.esp

Related Issues: 22070  29073  

Comments

4 comment(s) [Closed]
Arthmoor said:
 
The thing to note about console commands is that when using COC, regardless of when you do it, bypasses a number of things when entering the cell. One of those could be some kind of unseen pathing routines. It's an especially bad testing method when used from the main menu as you are bypassing everything the game initializes in the run through Helgen or some other alternative start method.

That being said, yes, if the navmesh isn't finalized to the door marker that's a bug in its own right and if it happens to address this issue then so much the better. Just be aware that in every reported instance we've had of this before now, we've been unable to replicate the issue of Valerica not leaving the area. So I would like to thank you for being the only person so far who has provided potential test saves for us to look at. Without those we can only go by what those of us on the team are able to try.

Arthmoor said:
 
Right, so in looking at this, it makes total sense why consoling directly to the Boneyard causes her to fail navigation. The connecting door won't be loaded into memory so path navigation would be relying solely on the navmesh info map. That info map has no link for the door because the triangle for it is not finalized.

However, if you walked there normally and went inside, it's possible that on MOST systems there is enough RAM available to cache the connection when the player enters and she's able to follow. So long as you don't quit the game while you're in there and then reload from the desktop - the cached connection would no longer be there and you're back to having no path out.

The navmesh inside the Boneyard is fine, its door is correctly finalized.

Haven't had a chance yet to check with the affected saves but I'd wager this is why it's so rare an occurrence. Most people don't play the game using console COC commands.

noname321123321 said:
 
I was thinking something like that too, but it wasn't entirely satisfying to me. It gets preserved in saves after a clean restart from desktop, and just going in and out of the Boneyard also doesn't fix it. On top of that, I've also had pathing work after COW'ing into the Soul Cairn, and had it fail when using the regular portal (but still having used teleport commands before, after starting a new game properly though).

I think it's ultimately academical anyway since it appears to be just corner case behaviour by the engine when given 'invalid' plugin data that's easily rectified.

It might also be worth checking through all these doors with missing navigation info, I did notice USSEP already fixes a bunch, but a few remain, including this one. I just used a custom scripted xEdit filter to look for door references with the XTEL field and without the XNDP field.

Also, I would usually definitely try find some way to reproduce a bug without using console commands but I just can't seem to here. It definitely should be reproducable without console commands or scripts if it happens on PS4 as well, right? But corner cases are just like that I suppose :shrug:

Arthmoor said:
 
Consoles have more limited memory than PCs so if it happens to be cache memory related, they may simply run out more often, which leads to it showing up there.

In the end it doesn't matter, because a door without a proper NAVM Portal link doesn't function correctly. Behavior is best described as undefined.

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