wulfy1

The best way is to use a third party mod manager like the Nexus Mod Manager. It will allow you to determine your own load order. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/content/modmanager/ Wulf

Thanks David! I 'm not sure how I missed your mod but I definitely did. You have done some really good modding for Oblivion and I'm glad to see you doing it for Skyrim too. I have to admit though, even though your mod does provide multiple followers, I want to have the ability to make friends with a stock NPC and recruit them. For my personal use, I'm using your mod to attempt to do that. I know that the juice may not be worth the squeeze but that's never stopped me from squeezing. If I am able to adapt your mod to that purpose, I'll send you a message and see if you want to release it. Thanks again for the great work. Wulf

I made some companion mods for Oblivion which I never released so I have a little experience with this type of thing and I know what I'm looking at in the Ck scripts. The way it works in the CK is that when the Follower alias is called on a reference, that alias overlays their behavior. It is like asking someone to pretend to be someone else. You ask NPC X to pretend to be your follower and that is what they do. The follow and wait packages are built into the alias along with some follower factions. It even equips a hunting bow and some arrows. I have made about two dozen attempts to get around the follower limit in various ways but the stopping point is always getting a script that works with a new alias. The way I see it is this, If you could duplicate every aspect of the follower set-up the way it is now with a given prefix ... let's just say "AAA", you could get it to work, in theory. The problem that I have had is that something gets lost in the translation. I have built the packages, factions, globals, aliases, quests, dialogues, scripts etc etc and I still end up not being able to get it working. Also, just so you know, the follower function actually spans two quests. First, the player has to engage the NPC in the "DialogueFavorGeneric" quest where the dialogue entries for "Follow me. I need your help." appear. That quest actually checks the conditions and determines that the global "PlayerFollowerCount" equals 0 along with some othe r things. If it all checks out, it then engages the "(pDialogueFollower as DialogueFollowerScript).SetFollower(akspeaker)" at the end of the topic causing the alias switch to take place. This part seems odd to me because the aliases belong to the other quest, as does the script and functions. If "PlayerFollowerCount" equals more than 0 the dialogue in the "DialogueFollower" quest kicks in and you get a negative response. Oddly, that quest is also used after the person becomes your follower, to handle the other dialogue choices. I have been really close a few times. I had all of the dialogue options working with up to 300 followers but they kept removing one NPC and replacing it with the other due to the follower alias limitation. I never have been able to get multiple aliases working, having each represent a new follower. It is my belief that without a new alias for each NPC, they just replace each other by default and I am having a bear of a time getting a new alias to work. If I understood the other functionality of aliases, I may even find that an Alias can be used across more than one NPC and that would also be a usable solution. Also, there would need to be a function which could determine whcih alias to apply to the NPC that you're talking to based on a follower count that could move up to some higher number. I used the "PlayerFollowerCount.Mod (1)" and "PlayerFollowerCount.Mod (-1)" to keep track of how many followers were with you. This allowed you to control conditions but this meant that you had to have a new topic for each of the 300 followers. There has to be a better way. My main limitation is that I am not really a scripter. I dabble but that's it. When functionality start spanning 4 or so scripts I get pretty lost. This follower function involves at least 5 scripts. FavorDialogueSCRIPT, DialogueFollowerSCRIPT, FollowerAliasSCRIPT, ReferenceAliasSCRIPT, and the small script which is generated dynamically upon the topic generation which begins with "TIF_" after you put in the fragment after the initial dialogue. I even tried a follower for followers thing where the followers followed each other instead of the player ... that didn't work so well but it seemed promising at one point. I would like to work with you on your efforts if you're interested.

I think this has the potential to be a wonderful tool. For us that have been playing heavily modded Oblivion/FO3/NV etc for years, it's old hat to install most mods. However, I have a friend that lives out of state and the all day phone support session trying to help him install modded Oblivion was a disaster. (Well, he was also drunk as a skunk which didn't help). Having a tool that any "noob" can download and install that can make the modded life easier would be a huge boon for the community of modders and modded. The way I install mods is a little quirky and hard drive space intensive. I download to a "downloads" folder. Double click the archived files and the 7zip file manager becomes my decompression interface. The problem is that I not only have the installed mod on my hard drive in my data folder but also have another copy in my "downloads folder". It's not tough to delete that stuff but it's inconvenient. This sounds like the tool that will get me out of a bad habit and save me 20-40 gigs of hard drive space for each game. Not bad. Can you imagine if 80% of all installation errors were removed from the process? That would just be amazing in my book. Good luck on working through the Beta phase quickly and painlessly. I can't wait to download this thing. Wulf

I really like the old design a lot more. I know that sometimes it just takes time to get used to something but I honestly feel that this redesign was a bad idea. I could look at an entry for a particular mod and gleen a lot of important information. Now it is just a cut down version of what it used to be. I cannot even tell how many endorsements that a file has. I used to be able to see that at a glance. I'm sure that this "update" represents a significant monetary investment but I'm not sure what made you think it needed to be updated in the first place. I chose to purchase a lifetime premium membership because this was the most easily navigable site for Bethesda mods, if the site was layed out then, as it is now, I would have never made that purchase. I suggest that you revert to the previous design and work on the search functions of the previous design. I had some minor nit-picks about the old design but this is really not acceptable. Wulf

Thanks for the suggestion fg109. even though the problem is fixed, It was a good suggestion. I'm going to throw you a kudos for sticking with the conversation and trying to help. Time to get back to scripting now that it works! Wulf

Well, sometimes if you add something like IsActionRef to anything *besides* an OnActivate block, it will block that thread until you do activate something (menus are included I believe) and then suddenly finish execution. Another possibility is that you have too much scripted activity and npc's in one area. Opening a menu will pause AI and all GameMode block scripts which would suddenly give your script time to execute. Astymma ... you may very well be my new bestest friend. You were right on the money with the IsActionRef suggestion. After a few minutes of thinking about that, I decided to look at an object I made with an IsActionRef on it. Removing the script from this item stopped my problem. Now I know what to look for if it happens again. On the upside, having this problem prompted me to clean up all my scripts and disable overhead processes when they aren't needed. Thank you so much for the enlightening discussion. Kudos go to you. I really appreciate you letting me use your brain. Wulf

Do you guys think its possible that I have a script with a gamemode block clogging up the works, making it only possible to allow a trigger script to fire when i go into menu mode? just so you know, this mod is pretty complex. 6 companions, 12 quests plus the 6 companion quests, all scripted. several cells with triggers and about 40ish npcs. I also noticed that at various times it seems that at the beginning of combat, the combat AI seems to hang when there are more than like 5 targets for the companions to choose from. This is my first mod so I know very little about scripting. Tell me what you think. I know that triggers fire in gamemode BUT what if, when the action of a script spamming the crap out of the world finally ceases it gives that trigger the briefest moment to trigger before menu mode is actually all the way engaged. Wulf

Yeah, I tried it. Sorry it took me a bit to reply. I think there is something screwed up in my es p or something which super sucks because it is a lot of stuff. Just to reload all the clothing and armor would take a couple of days not to mention remaking all the quests and races etc. Kind of sucks... bad lol. I may have to break off my current esp to a point before I started having this problem. I have probably a dozen or so triggers that work just fine in the earlier parts of this mod. I may just have to remake the current quest as a part II esp or something and try to combine them. Wulf

Yeah, I have tried that too. I just don't get it. Is there some inherent problem with using zone triggers outdoors? Is there a problem with other things colliding with and disabling them, even if you specify that the player is the action ref? Is it bad to make them big to give the player a better chance of triggering them? There has to be something going on here and I just don't get it.

This is my current iteration of the script ... still doesn't work SCN SASShaeleighInnEXTMarkerSCRIPT short Triggered begin OnTriggerActor If IsActionRef Player == 1 && Triggered == 0 Set Triggered to 1 EndIf End Begin GameMode If Triggered == 1 Setstage SavingSammiandAshani 151 SASShaeleighRefA.RemoveScriptPackage SASShaeleighRefA.StartConversation Player "SSaSHDDA" SASShaeleighPointACellRefA.enable DisablePlayerControls EndIf End

At a stage of a quest, an NPC is given an escort package through dialogue and the zone trigger is enabled during that same quest stage in the quest stage result script. The escort runs from just south of Vilverin to Crestbridge. Once at crestbridge, the NPC stops her escort package as the player steps into the previously enabled zone trigger. The zone trigger will not fire about 95% of the time. If I open menu mode, the trigger always fires, if I am standing in the trigger. I can dance in and out of the zone but unless I open menu mode, it wont fire. I have tried multiple script approaches listed below but none of them work. I have deleted the trigger, and the script repeatedly. I have gone from enabling it during a dialogue script result to the quest stage result etc etc, which is probably irrelevant since it is obviously there since i can trigger it by opening menumode (map, dialogue anything) I have gone from the simplest *which works on other triggers I'm using example 1) short triggeredzone begin OnTrigger If triggeredzone == 0 blah blah blah set triggeredzone to 1 disable endif end I have also done this variation with "begin ontrigger player" "begin ontrigger playerref" "begin ontriggeractor player" "begin ontriggeractor playerref" example 2) short triggeredzone begin ontrigger if isactionref player == 1 && triggeredzone == 0 blahblahblah set triggeredzone to 1 disable endif end example 3) short triggeredzone short doonce begin OnTrigger set triggeredzone to 1 end begin gamemode If triggeredzone == 1 && doonce == 0 blah blah blah set doonce to 1 endif end I really have no idea why this isn't working. It's been driving me crazy for weeks if not months. Any help, guidance etc would be great. Wulf

Thanks for the response but it wont fire at all now. I just don't get it. It was working a few days ago and I am using the same format I've used for dozens of these things. I'm going to try to replace it all again and see if that helps. Thanks again, Wulf

I have had this problem before and changing out the cell zone trigger fixed it but it's not fixing it this time. I have a destination set up for an escort to travel to. The player follows the escort and as or about the time that the escort reaches her location, the player triggers the cell zone trigger. The problem is that the zone will only trigger when the player is standing there and opens menu mode (inventory, game menu, talk, etc ...). It should just trigger as soon as the player collides with the zone ... Has anyone else seen this problem or have any insight? The script follows: SCN SASZoneTriggerSSACellJJBScript begin onTrigger PlayerRef Setstage SavingSammiandAshani 151 DisablePlayerControls SASShaeleighRefA.RemoveScriptPackage SASShaeleighRefA.EvaluatePackage SASShaeleighRefA.StartConversation PlayerRef "SSaSHDDA" disable end This is a revised version of the script. It used to be called just on "Player" instead of "Playerref". It also used to have a doonce loop in it. This all worked until I split out the races from the ESP which contains this script. Any help would be appreciated. Wulf