Elder Scrolls Forum: Damn Merchants

This really belongs in the Construction Set forum.

Here are my generic tips on NPCs and merchants: what you need is in here...

NPCs are fairly self-explanatory when you look at their properties. See the Construction Set's Help file for explanations of what the various settings are. And look at existing NPCs in the editor that you've already dealt with in the game; that's an excellent way to figure out how things work in the Construction Set.

Things that aren't too obvious (i.e., very common questions here):

1. If you need to change any grayed out boxes on the 'Services' tab, disable 'Auto Calculate Stats' on the NPC's main properties screen.

2. To put things in an NPC's inventory, drag and drop it to their inventory list (just like putting things in a container).

3. To edit their AI, double-click on the package you want to change. If you want them to stay in one place and not wander around, set their 'wander' distance to 0.

4. What armor and weapons an NPC uses depends on what their best skills are. For example: if an NPC's Unarmored skill is higher than any of their other armor skills, they won't wear armor that you give them.

For specific NPC properties that you're not sure about, try a search on the Construction Set forum; a lot of questions have been asked and answered many times before.

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For Dialogue:

1. See the 'Comprehensive Dialogue' thread pinned at the top of the "General TES Construction Set" forum.

2. See Srikandi's excellent tutorial, at:

http://members.cox.net/srikandi/

3. See Scripting for Dummies (5th edition is most recent), which should be available on most major mod download sites. That has some information on Dialogue, and is the primary reference for the script commands, variables, etc. that you can use in the Dialogue window.

4. See the Construction Set Help file.

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To make a merchant sell items:

Step 1:

You can put them in his inventory (drag and drop them into his inventory, just like adding items to a container).

You can put them in a container (in the same cell) that the merchant owns.

You can leave them out in the open, in the same cell, and set their ownership to the merchant.

Note that if the merchant is already in your saved game, items added to his inventory by a mod won't show up in the game. Putting them in a NEW container or setting them out in the same cell will still work.

Step 2:

Go to the merchant's AI/services tab and enable buying/selling the type of items you want them to sell. (If the boxes are greyed out, turn off auto-calc on the merchant's main properties page).

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