Dragon tracking fix

Dragon corpses no longer follow you or fall from the sky.

This mod fixes a bug where dead dragon corpses follow you or fall from the sky, affectionately known as "dragon tracking".

What causes dragon stalking?

Well, you see... when a young male dragon likes a young female dragon, but he's not sure how to approach her, he could lurk anywhere he knows women frequent, inevitably causing awkward and embarrassing female encounters. ...

From her perspective, it starts to look a little cute. Just a weird, random fluke! What a strange boy dragon that suddenly appeared and scurried around, unable to contain his excitement. Maybe he'll be a good friend because he likes me and he'll do something for me, she thought to herself. Just look at how convinced he is that he's showing his underside like a silly puppy!

When you know what, these two ways and the female dragon head to the Whiterun market? He's here again! How sweet that he bought her some tomatoes. What a considerate friend this boy dragon is. But wait...how did he get there so quickly? Is he following her?

But she didn't say that, so our female dragon kept moving forward. Next stop is Dragonsreach, which, of course, is the only appropriate place for dragons in Whiterun. To rebuke their outspoken rudeness, she immediately ingested Heimsk and Nazem for what she found to be insulting colloquialisms, even in language far inferior to her own. Appetite satisfied, she moved on.

As she climbed the steps to Dragonsreach, there he was again! But...oh...oh, my. We're talking all about George Takei OH my ladies and gentlemen. Our poor male dragon seems to be a bit of a trap... tsk, tsk, tsk, boy would that thing really stick somewhere, wouldn't it? How embarrassing...

What? Oh...right, error...well I don't know exactly what caused it. Some of the issues with the game engine are that dragon corpses are not properly managed, which seems to be exacerbated by issues introduced by the Havok physics suite, resulting in exponential amounts of derp on heavy objects like dragons. In any case, for whatever reason, when the game attempts to reload a previously unloaded dragon corpse, it may not do so correctly and end up dropping the corpse in the default location as a failsafe, usually somewhere near the player. Then, when the player moves to other areas, the corpse will continue to reload into any default location it can find.

So how did you solve it?

I'm using a dragon's base script (DragonActorScript) in my game, and I've implemented the OnLoad and OnUnload events in the deadDisintegrated state, which is the state the dragons go to after their soul is absorbed and they turn to their bones. Once the dragon is removed from the game in this state, it is dispelled by any active magical effects and is then removed. The same action will be performed if the dragon is reloaded in a deadDisintegrated state in a save game. This method completely eliminates any dragon corpses that have been reduced to bones by the time the player leaves the area.

To be clear - this mod will only remove the dragon after it dies, releasing its soul, which then turns into bones. Additionally, this mod does not address underlying issues buried deep within the game engine, but rather specifically targets dragons that have reached a specific state in order to avoid the problem in the first place.

Does it work with existing save games?

Yes, I just said that.

Does it contain fixes from unofficial patches?

Exactly.

Any captures? Are you a wizard?

Not true, it's none of your business. Be sure to loot the corpses for anything you want before leaving the area, as the new script will actively remove dragons when you leave the area.

Will the fix cause problems?

It shouldn't. This mod simply forces the game to clean up dragon corpses quickly instead of relying on the existing framework to do it, as we've found that doesn't always work. If the choice is between dragon tracking and aggressive dragon removal, I'd choose the l …