LE [REQUEST] Followers walk beside player

[IsharaMeradin]

Progress... of a sort

 

I now leave the original DialogFollower quest alone as well as the original package that made them follow. I use a passive ability with scripted magic effect assigned to the player alias on a game start enabled quest to start a separate quest whenever the follower count is greater than equal to 1 and the player does not have weapon/magic out.

 

What does this mean? When weapons and magic are out the follower uses the default package with whatever settings it might have from the stock game or other mods. When weapons are not out my quest is triggered which gives them two new packages to run. First when the player is moving, they follow. Second when the player is not moving, not sneaking, does not have weapon/magic out and is not trying to change world zones, they sandbox.

 

With this setup, fast travel actually works even if they were in the middle of sandbox-ing with something.

 

Still cannot get the follower to walk beside. I'm starting to think that it is not possible without breaking them out of being an actual follower and instead turning them into someone like Delphine whom the player must follow. Don't want that kind of setup.

[dutcher]

i thought i was the only one who was anoyed with all the sub assertive zombe slaves always walking behind me xD

like Inigo, Atvir Dres or Valfar walking behind me like some little puppy :down:.

i dont want them to act like slaves, they are my C-O-M-P-A-N-I-O-N-S.

and the word companion speaks about an equal relations between living beings, in contradiction how the vannila follower/companion mechanism works.

[jmb137]

I completely agree with you dutcher. I have got to the point now that I don't want to have followers at all.

 

I hope you can do it ishara!!

[ScottC12]

I like this idea. It is unfortunate that you cannot get a follower to do anything except be behind you yet_. Ishara posted, “Still cannot get the follower to walk beside. I'm starting to think that it is not possible without breaking them out of being an actual follower and instead turning them into someone like Delphine whom the player must follow. Don't want that kind of setup.”

 

There may be a clue in the Vilja mod’s custom AI – she has an option where she leads and your player character can “follow” her, but the player character can also get beside her as she walks along. This appears to break the vanilla pattern you mention above, where a follower can only follow behind the player character, so maybe there is hope of changing the vanilla following behavior where followers always trail the player character in one column.

 

If you somehow get it to work where one follower could walk beside the player character, it would also be great if multiple followers could move with the player character either in 2 columns (such as when walking down a road) or even optionally spread out in a line (such as when advancing to attack).

 

Thanks for looking into this!

Edited September 19, 2014 by ScottC12

[RunningBare]

Followers walk in the players path so to speak, or to put it another way, they are tethered to the player by an invisible line, but they cannot perform the next step until the player does, they're lagged, I know that someone in the past did something to get followers into delta formation with the player at the point, but this involved trig maths taking into account the players angle of rotation then the distance calculated between player and each follower, I'm sure the same could be done to have a follower walk along side the player, but would have to be a constantly running script to mathematically update positions.

[Mattiewagg]

Or a MGEF on a spell with conditions checked. Would stop you from having to use polling.

Not sure if it would work in this case though.

[IsharaMeradin]

Gave up on this... Till today.

 

I have Lydia walking beside me. I have her randomly picking to walk on the left, the right or behind me. Had to change the game setting that controls greeting distance, else she'd keep talking to me.

 

But... the way I modified the packages... I currently have the package that all those dialog triggers rely on removed. I modified it for use with the animals but had to replace it with two separate packages for the followers. I'm wondering if I put it at the bottom of the package stack if it will never be used since the other packages would be evaluated as true before that one hit. Any thoughts?

[Arocide]

Why did it have to be placed into two packages on followers though? Is there something specific that it does?

 

Couldn't it be placed at the top but just conditioned to run when you required it to or is that not something that seems possible to you?

Edited January 25, 2015 by Arocide

[IsharaMeradin]

I'm using KeepOffsetFromActor within the package's Begin fragment. I have to clear that so that the follower can do combat and other things properly. One package has a condition that the player does not have a weapon or spell drawn, if true this package initiates the offset following rather than the standard radius following. A second package has a condition that the player is not moving, if true this package clears the offset following (without this second package the follower would keep walking in spot whenever the default Z position of 0.0 could not be reached). A third package has a condition that the player has a weapon drawn, if true this package also clears the offset following and causes the follower to move further back behind the player to hopefully help in preventing congestion within narrow dungeons (or damage to the player cause a follower tripped a trap).

 

I could redo the original package to be the third one listed above. I'd still need a similar package (tho in reverse) because animal followers use that same original PlayerFollowerPackage. Animals would need something to keep them following whenever weapon/magic drawn status is different.

[Arocide]

I see... but couldn't you use on changed to clear the offset? or does that not fire when you need it to? I always assumed that fired whenever the active package was changed, and then use a blank package above it which is conditioned only for while in combat which is just a wait or something so it would change into that for combat clearing the offset, well that is off the top of my head so doubt it would work like that but hey... ideas!