Normally, the selected character should appear in the shack on the island. At which point you can do whatever you want to them, and then reset the island by talking to the spawner again.

If the character is not spawning, generally that would mean said character already exists in the world, and is overriding the spawn. Personally I've never seen that behavior from the spawner, since it usually overrides the existing instance of the character instead, despawning the original if they're out there.

My initial guess would be the character is busy doing something important, or is in a currently loaded cell. If you upload the save, I can look through the save data and see if the character is in there, as well as where they are and what they're doing. Might help figure out why the spawner isn't functioning.

Here's the save: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wv3c1RbWgzJKn63lM0mP4RLC0bEKASp-?usp=sharing

Idk if you need this info but the character "Jumper" on the "Travel" Squad is the one on the spawner island and "Eli" on the same squad is the thief with high stealth (lvl 100 with ninja rags)

Sorry for the trouble!

EDIT: BTW here is my mod list (in order of mod loading list)

- Transparent UI
- Reduced Particle Effects
- Nice Map (Grid + Zones + Zone Names + Roads)
- Let's Talk
- Interior Design
- Better Crop Fences
- Silent Corpse Flies
- Shinobi Thieves Occupy Tower of Ninjas
- Expanded Lighting
- Attack Slots x3
- Reactive World
- 256 Squad Limit

if there's issues with mod conflict, my best guess is with the Shinobi Thieves one, although I did place RW at the bottom hoping it wouldn't conflict

Heya Shidan, it has been a month, sorry to be a bother I'm sure you are hella busy

My apologies. It's been a hectic few months, and I apparently forgot about this after you posted it. I'll go look at it right away. Again, Im very sorry.

Well, in the save you sent (may not be valid if you've continued playing), the Dust Hunter leader is just standing at his normal hideout. Not in a building, but right behind the stormhouse.

Tavos is being very odd though. He is indeed refusing to spawn for me too, yet he doesn't exist in any squads in the world, and so should be spawning at the spawner just fine. And yet, he doesn't. Even attempts to forcibly add him in via save editing failed, with him simply not being there upon loading the save. And I've never seen that method fail before.

That said, I have found a solution, even if I can't locate the cause. Instructions below. You may not need to do this for the Dust Hunter since he's at the outpost in the save, but I've provided a file for him as well just in case.

1. Download these mods I made to assist in the process. https://www.dropbox.com/s/cot2o09e531dhie/Debug%20non-unique.zip?dl=0
   
   
2. Unzip that file into your mods folder. It's located in your main kenshi installation folder.
   
   
3. Verify that the mods both appear in the mod list when opening the game, but don't turn either of them on yet.
   
   
4. Go to the character spawner with a character capable of defeating Tavos, I used Eli for the stealth KO, but it doesn't really matter.
   
   
5. Make sure the spawner is in the "off" state, with the ruined shack.
   
   
6. Save and exit the game, turn on one of the mods, reload the save.
   
   
7. Spawn the character that corresponds to the mod you activated, then leave the island and come back to trigger the override.
   
   
8. Knock out the character, and then save and exit the game. Do not kill the character or reset the spawner yet.
   
   
9. Turn off the mod for said character, and then reload the game.
   
   
10. Kill the character, easiest method is the peeler on the island.
    
    
11. Reset the spawner, and leave the island.
    
    
12. Repeat for the other character if you need to.

It is very important to note that you cannot keep the character spawned this way (I noticed you had a bit of a collection going). If you leave the island after resetting the spawner, the character will be despawned upon the next reload. Which will just make the game consider them alive and well again. You need to kill them while the spawner is active to lock the world state in.

And again, I'm very sorry for the delay. If it ever happens again, feel free to say something sooner, I don't mind. I can be a bit scatterbrained at times, so I sometimes need a reminder that I was supposed to do something. :P

Thank you very much Shidan! The fix worked. You are a blessing to this community, thank you thank you~

I'm having a very similar problem with Lord Phoenix. Kidnapped him, turned him in, world state doesn't recognize that, and the spawner won't spawn him. Any chance there's been a more broad fix for this sort of issue found, or does it still need to be fixed on a case-by-case basis?

As long as the character is considered as okay, an import will respawn them back to normal. It is by far the recommended approach. Quick, simple, effective. And something you should do somewhat regularly anyways for good save game health.

Otherwise the only options are to use a mod that makes the character non-unique, and do the steps explained above. This is among the simplest mods that can be made, all it takes it going to the characters section, opening the character's entry, then flipping the unique tag in the bottom left to false.

Or doing a platoon file merge. Which would involve importing or starting a new game, then going to the character in question, and saving the game over a new save. Then you open the platoon files in that save using the FCS until you find the one with that character in it, then you copy that file over to your original save. The character will appear where they were in the second save.

Thanks, took me a little while to get into position to snag him back, but it did work!

Originally posted by Shidan:

Well, in the save you sent (may not be valid if you've continued playing), the Dust Hunter leader is just standing at his normal hideout. Not in a building, but right behind the stormhouse.

Tavos is being very odd though. He is indeed refusing to spawn for me too, yet he doesn't exist in any squads in the world, and so should be spawning at the spawner just fine. And yet, he doesn't. Even attempts to forcibly add him in via save editing failed, with him simply not being there upon loading the save. And I've never seen that method fail before.

That said, I have found a solution, even if I can't locate the cause. Instructions below. You may not need to do this for the Dust Hunter since he's at the outpost in the save, but I've provided a file for him as well just in case.

1. Download these mods I made to assist in the process. https://www.dropbox.com/s/cot2o09e531dhie/Debug%20non-unique.zip?dl=0
   
   
2. Unzip that file into your mods folder. It's located in your main kenshi installation folder.
   
   
3. Verify that the mods both appear in the mod list when opening the game, but don't turn either of them on yet.
   
   
4. Go to the character spawner with a character capable of defeating Tavos, I used Eli for the stealth KO, but it doesn't really matter.
   
   
5. Make sure the spawner is in the "off" state, with the ruined shack.
   
   
6. Save and exit the game, turn on one of the mods, reload the save.
   
   
7. Spawn the character that corresponds to the mod you activated, then leave the island and come back to trigger the override.
   
   
8. Knock out the character, and then save and exit the game. Do not kill the character or reset the spawner yet.
   
   
9. Turn off the mod for said character, and then reload the game.
   
   
10. Kill the character, easiest method is the peeler on the island.
    
    
11. Reset the spawner, and leave the island.
    
    
12. Repeat for the other character if you need to.

It is very important to note that you cannot keep the character spawned this way (I noticed you had a bit of a collection going). If you leave the island after resetting the spawner, the character will be despawned upon the next reload. Which will just make the game consider them alive and well again. You need to kill them while the spawner is active to lock the world state in.

And again, I'm very sorry for the delay. If it ever happens again, feel free to say something sooner, I don't mind. I can be a bit scatterbrained at times, so I sometimes need a reminder that I was supposed to do something. :P

I'm running into the same exact problem this guy was having. You files for those mods have been deleted.

I would suggest attempting the alternate methods mentions here, see if they work for you. If not, then I'll set up a mod again later for you to use.

Originally posted by Shidan:

As long as the character is considered as okay, an import will respawn them back to normal. It is by far the recommended approach. Quick, simple, effective. And something you should do somewhat regularly anyways for good save game health.

Otherwise the only options are to use a mod that makes the character non-unique, and do the steps explained above. This is among the simplest mods that can be made, all it takes it going to the characters section, opening the character's entry, then flipping the unique tag in the bottom left to false.

Or doing a platoon file merge. Which would involve importing or starting a new game, then going to the character in question, and saving the game over a new save. Then you open the platoon files in that save using the FCS until you find the one with that character in it, then you copy that file over to your original save. The character will appear where they were in the second save.

Originally posted by Shidan:

I would suggest attempting the alternate methods mentions here, see if they work for you. If not, then I'll set up a mod again later for you to use.

Originally posted by Shidan:

As long as the character is considered as okay, an import will respawn them back to normal. It is by far the recommended approach. Quick, simple, effective. And something you should do somewhat regularly anyways for good save game health.

Otherwise the only options are to use a mod that makes the character non-unique, and do the steps explained above. This is among the simplest mods that can be made, all it takes it going to the characters section, opening the character's entry, then flipping the unique tag in the bottom left to false.

Or doing a platoon file merge. Which would involve importing or starting a new game, then going to the character in question, and saving the game over a new save. Then you open the platoon files in that save using the FCS until you find the one with that character in it, then you copy that file over to your original save. The character will appear where they were in the second save.

Thanks for the response, sadly since I commented I've moved on from Kenshi to Dragon's Dogma and Stardew, but I figure'd I'd reply for if someone finds this post as I did.

I had done an import, which didn't fix the problem.

You've lost me on doing a platoon file merge, sounds too complicated for my idiot brain.

Making a character non-unique sounds simple, could that be an option you bake into the debug character spawner?

Unfortunately no, I can't bake it in. It's a game wide flag that cannot be enabled and disabled on the fly. I'd have to flip it in the mod itself, which would break all related world states for said character.

I do have a concept for a new character spawner that would be capable of respawning characters even if they are unique and have been killed, but it's not set up or even proven to work yet.