Category:Dialogue

Dialogue in Quests

There are eight dialogue tabs in the Quest window. Seven of them all share similar functionality, described below. For functionality specific to a particular tab, see that tab's page:

• Topics Tab
• Conversation Tab
• Combat Tab
• Detection Tab
• Service Tab
• Radio Tab
• Misc Tab

Editing an Info

• Top-level: This topic will be included in the list of default topics; the ones that come up when an info isn't linked to anything in particular.
• Rumors: Not used in Fallout 3.
• Priority: Priority determines where the info will appear in the list; if something is set as top-level with a priority of 100, it'll be at the top of the list when the player sees it in-game.
• Prompt: This text will be displayed in place of the topic text. If left blank (as is default), the topic text will be used.
• Speech Challenge: If checked, the topic presents the player with a special choice in dialogue which uses the Speech skill and will display a percentage chance of succeeding, thus allowing the player to gain access to gameplay options that he or she otherwise wouldn't have.
• Difficulty: How hard the speech challenge will be.
• AV/Perk: The actor value or perk tagged to the speech challenge. This is currently locked to "SKILL: AVSpeech" when Speech Challenge is checked (For choices that do not involve the Speech skill directly, such as "Science" or "Big Guns", these would simply be normal conditionalized choices that don't involve a die roll; if you had a high enough Science skill, you'd see the "[Science]" choice, otherwise you wouldn't). It's important to know that this field only controls the display. To make the info available or unavailable, you have to put in a matching condition.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas the choice will not only include the chosen perk or value name but the required numerical level as well. If the player meets this level, it will be displayed as a single number, e.g. "[Science 40]". If the player does not meet this level and a second response is available based on this, a set of numbers will be displayed, e.g. "[Science 37/40]".
• Speaker: Select an NPC. This will act like GetIsID when dialogue is exported -- only this NPC can say this line of dialogue.
• Sound: Select a TESSound. This will play instead of any voice that's also attached to the info.
• Result Script (Begin): This script runs when the Info is played, at the moment the actor starts saying his line.
• Result Script (End): This script runs at the moment the actor finishes speaking.
• Flags:
  • Run Immediately: If checked, run results when conversation is generated, instead of when the info is spoken. This is sometimes important to get scripted conversations to work.
  • Run for Rumors: Not used in Fallout 3.
  • Say Once: This info is only said once by any given actor. Once spoken, that actor will never say it again. However, a different actor that qualifies may say it.
  • Say Once a Day: If checked, this info will only be played once per "day" per actor. For example, you may want to have a barterer say, "Welcome to my shop" and then not repeat the same message until the next day. Note, if an info is conditioned to a faction, each of the members in the faction can say it once a day. The length of a day is set by the fSayOncePerDayInfoTimer gamesetting to be 12 hours.
  • Always Darken: Checking this flag will make the player prompt appear shaded out as if the option had already been selected once before.
  • Info Refusal: When this flag is checked, the player prompt will remain highlighted the next time it is displayed as opposed to shaded out, as is normally the case. This is especially useful when the the player prompt leads to several more dialogue options that the player may not have selected yet in a repeatable conversation.
  • Goodbye: When this info is completed, the actor leaves dialogue.
  • Random: If an actor qualifies for a Random info, it isn't said immediately. Instead the info is put on a stack. If the next info is also Random, it's put on the stack. The stack keeps building until an info that is not marked Random is found, or an info marked Random End is found. At that point one of the infos in the stack is selected randomly.
  • Random End: Used to mark the end of a set of Random infos. Technically it is only necessary if the next qualifying info is also random. However, it's good practice to end all Random info sets with a Random End.

Edit Response Dialog

• Script Notes: A comment field that is included in the export.
• Edits: A comment field that is not included in the export.
• Idle Animations: Animations performed during the dialogue.
  • Speaker: The animation the speaker will perform during the line.
  • Listener: The animation the listener performs during the line.
• Configure: Brings up the Select Audio Capture Device and Select Audio Format windows.
• Generate Lip File: This button is grayed out until the line has been recorded.
  • From WAV: Synchronizes lip animation to .wav audio.
  • From LTF: Use a lip animation created by hand (an LTF file). Note: This is only relevant to Oblivion and is not verified yet for Fallout 3, but this feature (or similar functionality) is likely to be supported.

Edit Response Order

• Select an Info under Response Text and use the left/right arrow keys to move it up or down to control the order in which the responses are evaluated.

This will create an entry in the PNAM (Previous Info) field of a dialogue response which is viewable in FO3Edit or FNVEdit.

• Right Click an Info to Copy, Delete, Move to another Topic, Move to another Quest, or to view it's Use Info.
• Right Click a blank Info and select New to create a new Info.

Edit Conditions

• Select a condition in the Conditions box and use the left/right arrow keys to move it up or down into a specific order.
• Right click a condition to bring up the context menu to duplicate, delete, copy, copy all, or paste a condition or conditions.

Edit Topic Links

• Add Topics
  • Right Click to add, remove, copy or paste a topic choice.
  • This section should not be used except in your own quests and is generally unnecessary. Do not use it to add topics to vanilla quests, these fields are not merged at runtime and can break other plugins. Create your own Quest and add a topic to the main tree.
• Choices
  • Right Click to add, remove, copy or paste a topic choice.
  • Dialogue choices in the quest main tree can be added here to link to other topics.
• Link From
  • Right Click to add, remove, copy or paste a topic choice.
  • This can be used to allow many topics to link to this topic. Use this with care.
• Sorting order of links
  • Select a topic in the Add Topics, Choices or Link From box and use the left/right arrow keys to move it up or down to control the order in which the choices are displayed.

Filtered Dialogue Window

The available dialogue for a particular actor can be seen by selecting the Dialogue button on the actor's form. This pulls up a Filtered Dialogue window that is very similar to the quest window. However, it contains only those topics and infos that they actor qualifies to say.

See also

• Crow`s Tutorial on Dialogue
• Qenosa's Tutorial on Dialogue and NPC creation

Notes

You may add commentary/notes to dialogue response text by encasing it in {curly brackets}. These will not show up in the in-game dialogue subtitles and will be ignored when generating LIP files, which makes them useful for notes such as who the speaker is for easy identification at a glance.

It is also possible to rearrange infos on the info list by selecting the one you want to move, pressing ALT and using the left/right arrows to move them up and down. You may also move specific infos to the very end and beginning of the list at once by pressing CTRL and the left/right arrows. These features are quite handy for keeping a specific NPC or creature's set of dialogue infos (such as greetings) grouped together for easy access.

If it can be helped, stacks of random info's should never mix that utilize differing GetIsID or GetVoiceType conditions, as if an info is chosen in the stack that doesn't meet the conditions, it may make the speaking actor defer to their default dialogue.

Bugs

• The editor will sometimes crash when editing dialogue infos. This seems to happen on Windows Vista or Windows 7 systems with Realtek audio cards and appears driver-related. A simple workaround is to plug a mic, headphones or speakers into the mic port. For more information, see Fixing Realtek driver related CS/GECK crashes.
  

• Using the GetOffersServicesNow dialogue condition must not be first in the stack or the Sink CIU in OWB can cause a crash when dialogue is spoken (New Vegas Only).
  

• Declaring variables in dialogue result scripts will overwrite the variables in the quest script at the same index. Never declare variables in dialogue result scripts.