geekminxen

With llamaRCA's generous help, I'm whittling down the list of things that need done to this mod. But now I need to ask-- how important is a companion quest to you? I have an idea for one, but it will take a LOT more time to develop. Would you rather have the mod as it's shaping up now, where you can get Benny to follow you after freeing him at the Fort and he basically functions like a vanilla companion, or wait until a quest is added, though that would take more time? (Even without the quest, the mod's not quite done and is going to take a little more time to polish-- I'd say a week or two, but again, I'm new to this, so I could be off either direction with that estimate.) Thanks for ANY input!

Thanks for the suggestion! That was one of the ideas tossed around in the original discussion, but I'm not sure I'm skilled enough to implement it. It is a great idea, though. There were suggestions to have different points along the storyline where he could betray you if you weren't handling things the way he thought they should be, or to buy him as a slave from Caesar, which would force his cooperation...but honestly, I don't have the scripting skills to pull all that off. I would LOVE it if others would take this mod and run with it, though, and implement some of those more detailed branches of the story and maybe add more quests, etc. I intend to release him as a fully useful companion with his own side quest, but I think it would be great if others added to him. There's a lot that could be done with his character, and it'd be great to see it all happen. :)

Thank you both for the further information! Tefnacht, thanks for the very clear and detailed instruction-- it's perfect for a newbie like me. :) And llama, thanks for the reminder-- I hadn't thought to include those conditions.

Thank you! That was one of the options we were tossing around in the original discussion-- that you could opt to buy him from Caesar, or have him given to you as a slave. I can see some of his dialogue working for that; I don't know if I can pull off such a multi-tiered mod, though. I'm not opposed to it, if I can figure out how!

Great-- thank you! What sort of condition will cause it to be picked so often? And thanks tons for the info!

Trying to add idle chatter/random barks to a companion...can you really just choose "Add topic - Idle Chatter," put in your dialogue, and the character will voice them as he follows (provided the follow package allows it)? Or does it still require some kind of tracking, prompting, or timing via a script?

I'm reusing voice files for him, though I am cutting (and in some cases splicing) them, so hopefully some of them will be a little different than what the player might already have heard him say by that point. There will likely be some repetition of lines, but again, hopefully it will be mild enough to be overlooked/forgiven. I'm working on giving him random barks right now, including (if I can get it to work) site-specific things, like when you enter the Tops with him, for instance. (I love to hear Cass & Willow ramble-- I even downloaded the Ed-E barks mod so he chirps more often. It's much more immersive to have them "speaking up" once in awhile, isn't it?) I'm trying hard to keep him in character, but I have to admit that his dialogue is pretty consistently delivered in such a distinctively cocky tone that I think it would be tough not to. :) He's leaning toward being pretty over-the-top with players who have the Black Widow perk, being very complimentary and flirty, but I think that's supported in-game by the note he leaves the player and the fact that Benny pretty much seems to do everything over-the-top. He plays big. :) (FYI-- he's got a little over 200 voiced lines right now.)

What would you like him to do or be like, in order to differentiate him from a meat shield? :)

I hope so. Since I'm bumbling through and learning this as I go, I'm not sure how to give it a timeline for release. So far, I have a few kinks to work out with the "hiring" process, but other than that he's functional as a companion-- he's got the wheel, he fights with you, changes into better armor if you put some in his inventory, waits, can be fired back to the Lucky 38 and rehired, that sort of stuff. Planning and adding a quest and conditional tweaks like letting him "know" when you're working for the NCR or Legion or House-- that, I have no idea. I've been working on the mod since the beginning of August or thereabouts, if that gives any indication. Oh, I remember that discussion-- and yes, I think that would be cool. From the note he leaves if you "Black Widow" him, I think he definitely falls for the courier hook, line and sinker. If I can figure out how to make him notice if the courier helps the other factions and ignore it if a female courier uses the Black Widow perk on him, I will!

Thank you! Support means a lot. :) Having Benny leave if you help the other factions is something that was suggested earlier this year when people were talking about wanting a Benny companion mod...I think it's a good idea and I will implement it if I can figure out how. I like the idea of digging up old Boot Rider gear, too. Thanks. :) It's been awhile since a mod like this was first discussed, but I hope the other people who were interested are still around. Otherwise, oh well-- there's at least two of us who want one. :>

A lot of us already know that drg6525 was working on a Benny companion mod, but I don't think he's posted anything anywhere on the nexus since April because of RL issues. Being the impatient problem child that I am, I started my very first mod to try to make Benny a companion, just as a stop gap for me to play with until drg6525 releases his. Anyhow, the basics are actually working, and with llamaRCA's encouragement and help I'm thinking about doing a version to release as a stop gap for anybody else who wants one. I want to emphasize-- this is in no way meant to replace or usurp drg6525's upcoming mod. I don't know what I'm doing. Drg6525 does. This is just meant as a way in the meantime to have a voiced Benny following you around, mouthing off about anything and everything, and generally being his charming self. :) I've taken notes on the comments made so far here in the forums as far as what people would like to see in a Benny companion mod; some of them I think I can pull off, some of them are just way beyond me, and some of them are in wait-and-see-if-I-can-do-it mode. Honestly, I still don't know if I can get the mod beyond just "he runs around behind the player, fighting and being vocal." But IF I can, would anyone find this useful or interesting? And if so-- I would love to get some ideas from people who are interested in a Benny mod specifically or a male companion mod in general about what sort of quest(s) to include. I'd love to play with the Boot Riders' history, maybe about their interactions with the Khans or Slither Kin/Omertas, but I've got no clue what to do with that. Anybody have any ideas they'd wish to share, about quests or anything else?

There's a pic of a mutated cat in the BBD blog-- will there be "normal" cats, too? I know there was another discussion on the boards requesting cats for FNV...there's probably enough interest to make the cat available as a whole separate download, if you wanted.

Well, pffft! I don't know why I didn't think of your Charon mod-- that was one of the coolest features. :) Thanks AGAIN, llama!

With multiple companions following me around, I'd like to try to give them some random "bickering" back and forth instead of individual disconnected barks...is random sniping-at-each-other like that possible, or does NPC conversation have to be triggered with a force greet or the like? (I've seen the tutorial on multi-NPC dialogue, and that's what I'll be using as my starting point.) TIA!

Okay, I did that but got the same thing. If I toggle rooms/portals in the show/hide window, I get pretty blue boxes...does that help? Thanks for the info, though-- I never would have thought to go into the .ini on my own. I went back into the .ini file to make sure I'd done this correctly. I have two geckcustom.ini files, and I had changed the variable to 0 on both. But when I opened them again, one of them had switched back to 1. I had saved them both before, too, so I have no idea what by computer or the geck or both are up to. But now the room is showing up-- huzzah! Thanks tons-- like I said, I would never have gone into the .ini file on my own, or known what to change when I got there. :)

Okay, I did that but got the same thing. If I toggle rooms/portals in the show/hide window, I get pretty blue boxes...does that help? Thanks for the info, though-- I never would have thought to go into the .ini on my own.

I've pulled up one of the casino floors in the geck (Tops 13th floor). The hallway and a couple of NPCs show up, but not the rooms that are part of the cell...poor Yes Man is just floating in gray space. I've toggled everything in the show/hide window and render window and view pulldown, but still can't get the rooms or objects in them to show up. What am I doing wrong? And sorry if this has been asked before-- I searched the forums here and the Bethsoft tutorial site, and couldn't find info on this. But I did try on my own before I dragged my problem to you guys. :)

Has anyone heard anything from drg6525 about this mod (or anything else, for that matter)? Anybody know if real life has straightened out for him/her yet?

Just what it says on the tin. With mods that spruce up the Strip, it would be nice to patch those corner rooms on the Tops' upper floors....

Thank you both tons! Drakeelvin, I have your Cass & EDE mods already and will check them out. And llama, as always, thank you-- and hopefully the Cass timer scripts you pointed out will be doubly useful since I'm trying to figure out timers, too. :P Thanks for your patience-- I've gotten several questions answered on the forums now and I really appreciate the time you experienced modders invest in us newbies. :)

I've been combing through vanilla NPCs' dialogue quests, trying to learn how to set up random barks, and I can't determine the difference between barks and prompted dialogue (where the PC activates speech with the NPC before they'll say anything). Does simply leaving the Topic line blank make the NPC spout the line without prompting? Can someone point me toward a tutorial or, if it's simple, let me know what I'm missing? Thanks so much.

*THANK* *YOU*. I knew I had missed something, but I'm new enough to all of this I couldn't figure it out on my own. Whew!

What it says on the tin. Finally got the guy to forcegreet me without forgetting he's also supposed to follow me, and now the screen keeps trying to zoom in even though he's not trying to say anything. Here's the script I'm using: short doonce BEGIN GameMode if NPCNameREF.getdetected player == 1 NPCNameREF.startconversation player NPCTopicForceGreetGREETING set doonce to 1 endif END Do I need to add more to the script to get the topic to "shut off" again? I have the force greet topics flagged as "say once" and the last one is also flagged "goodbye." Hope I'm not asking what's already been answered here, but I've scoured the forums and couldn't find the answer, so...I'm here. :)

I read on another section of the forum that FNVEdit works like the Geck, but I haven't tried it and frankly from the description it sounded like just as much of a learning curve. :> Boy, I cannot stress enough how true this is. It was my own shouldn't-be-doing-this-at-4-in-the-morning mistake that messed me up; otherwise, I got everything for the companion wheel put together from looking at the followers quest and the individual follower characters' object scripts. I would never have had the guts to start mucking around with the geck without all the tutorials Llama pointed me to, and even then it was monumentally confusing to me until I'd done and redone things a few times. The pieces are starting to fall into place for me now...it's starting to make sense. :) As for those four-in-the-morning sessions? You're right, llama, it's addictive.

You're the best, llama! I went back through all my code, tidying and double checking, and found my mistake. Now my problem child character follows, waits, and takes orders like a good boy. :) LVB2, if you don't want to use the esp llama recommends, you can follow llama's advice about vNPCFollowers quest and get your wheel working. Hoo!