Charisma Counts - Help Needed

[Simian Diety]

I've decided to build a mod that will allow the player to acquire a number of followers based on their character's charisma stat. Looking around the Nexus, I have seen mods that remove the limitation altogether and one older mod (0h Followers Hire) that attempted to do almost precisely what I have in mind, but which was much more generous with the number of followers allowed.

 

Ideally, I would like to generate a global value based on the character's Charisma score (FollowCap=Charisma/2), and replace the binary quest variable "PlayerHasFollower" with an integer value equal to 1+1 for each follower you have (lets call it "FollowCount"). Then, whenever the player attempts to recruit a follower, if FollowCount>FollowCap, the follower will decline. If FollowCount<=FollowCap, then the follower can be recruited.

 

Effectively, this would allow players to have no followers at 1 CHA, one follower at 2 or 3 CHA, two followers at 4 or 5 CHA, three followers at 6 or 7 CHA, four followers at 8 or 9 CHA, up to five followers at 10 CHA. I admit this may be unbalancingly powerful and may be taxing for most systems. I may consider toning down the effectiveness of followers if I find this to be the case, although having to pump your Charisma may balance out.

 

The real problem is that after going over Bethesda's tutorials and wiki, I still am not certain how to do this. I've poked around in the GECK and I'm pretty sure I can see where the current checks occur in the quest to pick up each individual follower and in the follower management quest. I'm really just not certain how to define a new derived character stat or track the number of followers. Any advice from someone who knows the GECK well would be appreciated.

 

EDIT: It occurs to me that it may be easier to simply keep the binary "PlayerHasFollower" stat and simply have the FollowCount/FollowCap script define the value of "PlayerHasFollower". Thoughts?

[necKros]

An ideal workaround is easier, as you pointed, and most importantly will work with any potential follower which cares about your current followers. So, think of the "PlayerHasFollower" selector as "CantAffordAnotherFollower", and now it's a different control variable. Still a boolean, but controled by a background script. Then the work is just typing your formula. What I don't know, since I've never done a background script for this game, si how or when to update the variable status.

 

Also, don't worry about potential unbalance in a mod. I mean, people seeking balance won't just pick 5 followers.

[Simian Diety]

Thanks, necKros, I appreciate the feedback!

 

I've looked at creating Global values for FollowerCount and FollowerCap, but that doesn't seem like the right path to take. I can see the script that currently sets PlayerHasFollower=1 in each companion's hiring dialog, and it seems easy enough to replace that with FollowerCount=FollowerCount+1, which ought to handle that value. I'll need to hunt down the death and firing scripts and switch the PlayerHasFollower=0 lines for FollowerCount=FollowerCount-1 also. But before I can do any of this, I need to establish the variable for FollowerCount, and I still haven't figured out where this is defined or how this variable will persist through each companion's quest.

[konradal]

I've decided to build a mod that will allow the player to acquire a number of followers based on their character's charisma stat. Looking around the Nexus, I have seen mods that remove the limitation altogether and one older mod (0h Followers Hire) that attempted to do almost precisely what I have in mind, but which was much more generous with the number of followers allowed.

 

Ideally, I would like to generate a global value based on the character's Charisma score (FollowCap=Charisma/2), and replace the binary quest variable "PlayerHasFollower" with an integer value equal to 1+1 for each follower you have (lets call it "FollowCount"). Then, whenever the player attempts to recruit a follower, if FollowCount>FollowCap, the follower will decline. If FollowCount<=FollowCap, then the follower can be recruited.

 

The solution is very simple, or very complicated:-)

I working on my mod and have some ideas, but none are perfect.

 

simple way:

 

change FollowerQuestScript to:

 

short limit

 

[...]

 

BEGIN GameMode

 

Set limit to 5

if ( player.getAv charisma < 10 )

set limit to 4

endif

[...]

if ( player.getav charisma < 2 )

set limit to 0

endif

 

set playerhasfollower to 0

if ( getplayerteammatecount => limit )

set playerhasfollower to 1

endif

 

 

[...] dogmeat section

 

;and of course you must remove (comment) line

;if ( playerhasfollower == 1)

 

In my mod I also changed text of message "FollowerMessageOneFollower" to

"Your Charisma is too low to acquire this follower."

 

This method not require to change any dialog or other scripts, because variable "playerhasfollower" works as a flag, and when limit is reached, it's set to "1" and disallow

you to recruit followers.

 

Works good, but there are some problem:

 

1. Temporary follower are counterd (Sydney,Red,dr. Li, Dad).

Workaroud is something like

set count to getplayerteammatecout

if ( SydneyRef.getplayerteammate == 1 )

Set count to count -1

endif

2. function getplayrteammatecount is unreliable. Sometimes return 1 when I'm alone. I don't know why (of course, when I have one follower, function returns 2), but sometimes same function returns correct number :-(

 

Second method is not to use "getplayerteammatecount", but count followers "manually"

 

Set count to 0

if ( Followers.JerichoHired == 1 )

Set count to count +1

endif

if ( Followers.FawkesHired == 1 )

[...]

 

And again, this work only for vanilla follower

[Rockatanskiy]

A most excellent idea!

 

Truth be told, charisma as it is now is the worst SPECIAL stat in the game. With something like this, I might actually have an incentive to boost my charisma past 1.

 

In fact, I'd like to see a mod that balances all the special stats, and maybe even skills too...