Can NPCs be created and placed on a map?

[house2fly]

I have zero experience with modding or general coding of any type, but I'd like to try modding this game. One thing I'd like to try is adding, say, an extra enemy to a map to be armed with a weapon rather than putting weapons in a store- it looks like you can specify what an enemy is armed with by using an ID, so if you create a new weapon and use that ID, then create a new enemy and add it to a map, you can equip that enemy with your unique weapon, right?  I've been browsing through the documentation but I haven't seen anything yet that would indicate that a) you can create an NPC in that way, b) they can be placed on a map

[peardox]

Short answer - No

 

Long answer - Complex and bear in mind there are limitations

 

Theoretically you could re-task some really boring NPC so let's take the FishMonger in Port Maje as an example. You could easily turn her into a much more interesting character by re-writing all her conversations. She a good example of a waste of space that can be re-tooled. She's already a vendor (something you can't add) so has all the ideal attributes for a Modder to go wild on.

 

Another example in Port Maje is Captain Darmo, another fairly useless padding NPC but in this case NOT a vendor. We can still do fun stuff with him if we like by re-scripting him. Theoretically we could add some quest to him for example.

 

There are some technical limitations as conversationbundles don't Mod as intended yet - we are promised a fix sometime

 

I've requested icon and prefab Modding as well - no reply yet

 

I've been promising for days I'd write about this subject (I keep finding new stuff I wanna explore regarding Modding) so I guess today is a good day to turn this into reality.

 

I'm gonna go work out the Vendor list first, that one's a high priority and also part of a Dev req that links in well with this subject

 

More later