Research: NarrativeNPCMap - what the NPCS tab is actually editing

Date: 2026-06-11 · Probe: tests/AbioticEditor.Tests/NarrativeNpcProbeTests.cs

Verdict

A NarrativeNPCMap entry is the persisted state of one map-placed narrative actor (story NPC, hologram, or trader spawn slot) - keyed by its level actor path, not by character identity. Across all 27 fixture world saves with entries (121 total), every CustomName is empty, every Location is (0,0,0), every CurrentHealthMap is empty, and every NPCClass is None - only IsDead and NarrativeState ever carry data.

IsDead = true is mostly written by the game's own story scripting, not by player violence. Most narrative NPCs are unkillable by players (wiki + Steam discussions: "You cannot kill him, as with most NPCs in the game"), but the game's Trigger_NarrativeNPCUpdate actor has explicit KillNPC? / DeleteNPC? options that story triggers use to remove NPCs when the plot moves on (e.g. Abe & Janet leaving an area, the dying scientist at the start of the Office Sector). A "dead" entry is therefore usually "the story removed this actor", occasionally "the players killed a killable one" (a NarrativeNPC_Human_Killable variant and creature NPCs like Ela exist).

Editor consequence: a "mark as dead" checkbox is the wrong affordance. Killing a story NPC from the editor reproduces something players can rarely even do in-game and can only break things. The one user-meaningful action is the reverse: revive an entry that is already dead (with a caveat that reviving story-scripted deaths may resurrect an NPC the plot intentionally removed).

Fixture dump (Cascade saves, 2026-06)

121 entries across 27 of the 43 world saves. Aggregate:

Actor class (path tail)	Count	What it is
NarrativeNPC_Human_Hologram_C_*	62	Story holograms (incl. Order of Reason variants ORD_Artem, ORD_Interfector in the cooked data). Non-interactive, unkillable.
NarrativeNPC_Human_ParentBP_C_*	53	Generic placed human story NPC (scientists, Abe & Janet appearances, wandering-trader hosts).
NarrativeNPC_Human_TRADER_C_*	2	Static trader actors - both in Facility_MFWest (the Blacksmith's F.O.R.G.E. area).
NarrativeNPC_Ela_C_1	1	Ela, Abe's tamed Electro-Pest (Wildlife Pens).
NarrativeNPC_HastaTria_C_1	1	Hasta Tria, the non-hostile Order Lab Rat at the collapsed Surface Tunnel (Mines).
NarrativeNPC_Larva_C_1	1	Big Hive Larva trader (the Encroachment / Facility_MFMaggot).
NarrativeNPC_MGT_CKCore_C_1	1	The Core Keeper crossover "Core" NPC (Maggot sublevel).

Field values observed:

• NarrativeState: NewEnumerator3 for 118 of 121 entries; NewEnumerator2 twice, NewEnumerator0 once - all three non-3 values on dead entries.
• IsDead = true on exactly 5 entries:

Save	Actor	State	Most plausible identity
WorldSave_Facility_Office1.sav	Human_ParentBP_C_0	2	Scripted story death early in the Office Sector
WorldSave_Facility_Office3.sav	Human_ParentBP_C_1	3	Scripted story removal
WorldSave_Facility_Pens.sav	Human_ParentBP_C_1	3	Abe or Janet leaving the Wildlife Pens as the story advances
WorldSave_Facility_Pens.sav	Human_ParentBP_C_3	2	Abe or Janet (as above)
WorldSave_Facility_Pens.sav	NarrativeNPC_Ela_C_1	0	Ela the Electro-Pest (creature - killable)

• CustomName: always empty. Location: always (0,0,0). CurrentHealthMap: always an empty map. NPCClass: always None.None. These are reserve fields the current game build never fills for these actors - the editor should not display them.

NPC identity: why the actor paths are anonymous

The map key is the level actor instance (...PersistentLevel.NarrativeNPC_Human_ParentBP_C_1). The named character blueprints exist in the cooked data (Blueprints/Characters/NarrativeNPCs/): NarrativeNPC_Human_ChefTrader (Dr. Carson), _GraysonTrader, _MarionTrader, _TravelingTrader_Jimmy, _TravelingTrader_Thule, NarrativeNPC_Larva, plus story NPCs (_Ela, _HastaTria, _HammeringHank = Hank Kettle, _ForkliftOperator = wounded Grayson, _Nibbles, _UnlostMage, _ExorChieftain, _BossAlly_* incl. Kylie, _Waterbot, _Kyliebot, Vignette props like _Penguin_VWinter). But the placed actors that end up in NarrativeNPCMap are nearly all the generic Human_ParentBP / Human_Hologram classes, so a save entry cannot be mapped to a specific character except for the handful of dedicated classes (Ela, HastaTria, Larva, CKCore, TRADER). Which trader currently occupies a wandering slot is tracked by NarrativeNPCDirectorComponent (NarrativeNPCSpawns_Struct: trader NPCRowName + TradeItemsRow + TradeStock + NarrativeState), not by this map.

Trader identities themselves (DT_NPC_Traders -> wiki names) are already in TraderLore.cs: Warren Bunning (Office plaza kiosk, stationary), the Blacksmith (Manufacturing West F.O.R.G.E., stationary), Jimmy Sanders (Residence), Big Hive Larva (the Encroachment), and the travelers Grayson Isling, Marion, Dr. Carson, Dr. Ulrich Thule (first met at fixed story spots, then roam between trader stops).

E_NarrativeNPCStates semantics

The enum has 6 real values (NewEnumerator0...5 + E_MAX); names are compiler artifacts with no friendly strings anywhere in the cooked data. Evidence for meaning:

• NarrativeNPC_ParentBP (base class of all of these) has NarrativeState, LastPlayedNarrativeState, OnNarrativeStateChanged, SetNewNarrativeState, SaveNarrativeState, and ValidateWorldFlagsFromLoad(LoadedNarrativeState). Visibility is driven separately by WorldFlagToAppear / WorldFlagToDisappear (world flags), and dialogue by NarrativeNPC_ConversationRow.
• Trigger_NarrativeNPCUpdate (placed by level designers) pushes NewNPCState (CDO default NewEnumerator1), can swap the conversation row and idle animation, and can kill/delete the NPC. So the state selects which dialogue/behaviour phase the NPC is in - a per-NPC script phase, not a global questline tracker.
• Observed: CDO default 2 (e.g. NarrativeNPC_Shover), virtually every live save entry 3 (settled/active), trigger pushes 1, dead Ela 0.

So states are best presented as opaque "script phase 0–5" with "3 = normal/active state seen on virtually all live NPCs". There is no DataTable mapping state numbers to descriptions; deriving more would require decompiling blueprint bytecode.

UI recommendation

1. Drop the IsDead checkbox. Replace it with a status line ("Alive" / "Removed or dead") and a Revive button shown only when IsDead is true. Revive sets IsDead = false and resets NarrativeState to NewEnumerator3 (the value every live entry in the wild carries). Do not offer a way to set IsDead = true: players generally cannot kill these NPCs in-game, and editor-killing a story NPC or trader only removes content (trader gone, dialogue gone) with no gameplay upside.
2. Caveat on Revive: most dead entries are story-scripted removals (the game's own KillNPC triggers - e.g. NPCs who died or moved on in the plot). Reviving them can resurrect an actor the story already moved elsewhere. Word the affordance as "Revive (restores this actor; story-scripted departures may reappear)".
3. Keep the state picker but demote it: label it "Script phase (0–5, game-internal)" showing the short ordinal (e.g. "3" instead of E_NarrativeNPCStates::NewEnumerator3), defaulting collapsed/advanced. Editing it only re-phases dialogue scripts; it is not questline progress.
4. Identify what can be identified. Map dedicated classes to friendly names (Ela_C -> "Ela (Abe's pet Electro-Pest)", HastaTria_C -> "Hasta Tria (Order soldier, Mines)", Larva_C -> "Big Hive Larva (trader)", MGT_CKCore_C -> "The Core (Core Keeper crossover)", Human_TRADER_C -> "Static trader (the Blacksmith's forge)", Human_Hologram_C -> "Story hologram", Human_ParentBP_C -> "Story NPC / trader spawn slot"). Show the per-save region so users can tell where the actor is.
5. Hide the dead-weight fields (CustomName, Location, CurrentHealthMap, NPCClass) - never populated in this game build.
6. Holograms can never be dead in practice (all 62 fixture holograms alive); consider filtering them behind a "show holograms" toggle so the list isn't 50% noise.

Sources

• Probe output: NarrativeNpcProbeTests (fixture dump, enum dump, blueprint CDO dump).
• abioticfactor.wiki.gg: Trading, Warren_Bunning, Hasta_Tria, Abe_Stern, Janet_Ross, Pens, Manufacturing_West.
• Steam discussion 6369857142715703729 ("You cannot kill him, as with most NPCs in the game" - re the Flathill video-store NPC, i.e. Marion).