Newb question; is it possible to make modded companions comment on their surroundings?

[Grandy12]

If so, how specific can we get?

 

I remember Boone, for example, once commenting how it was dark in a cave. It wasn't a dialogue prompt of anything, just a voice file that activated when we walked in. Is it possible to make a companion also comment on stuff like that?

 

And if yes, what are the sort of things I can make them comment on? A specific location like a town? The time of the day? Quest events?

[Oubliette]

Yes it's possible. The specific mechanics on it I'm not sure of but yeah it's pretty standard for Bethesda's other moddable games for mod companions to comment on certain locations and quests. I believe it has to do with their dialogue pool and certain conditions being set for so that when they're met that particular dialogue will pop up.

 

A good way to find out would be to find a companion with this feature and take them apart in the GECK.

[llamaRCA]

 

And if yes, what are the sort of things I can make them comment on? A specific location like a town? The time of the day? Quest events?

 

All of those. You can look into how the vanilla companions are handled to figure out how to do it.

 

Cass comments in several locations in the gameworld and that is run by a script that determines where and how often she will comment (has a timer to determine how often and sections for different locations). Those comments go in the Conversation tab of the Quest you use to create dialogue and are first sorted by location and then have several comments available for each of those. Each comment can have conditions to determine when they are made (time of day/quest stages, etc).

 

Boone uses triggers for his comments (so do most of the other companions for their quest dropped dialogue comments). Triggers are objects you place into the gameworld and you can add a script to them to do things when specified refs interact with them. When/if you were to use a trigger to create a comment opportunity in the game those comments would go into the Conversation tab as well.

 

Or, you can use the "IdleComment" dialogue topic in the Conversation Tab and condition each and every comment with where/when, etc. However, those comments play fairly frequently so doing it via script like Cass allows you to control via a timer how often a comment can be said.

 

Edit: Oh, forgot a couple of useful links if you want to start scripting for commenting

 

Beginners Tut for geck scripting

 

Link to Functions Page in the wiki

[Grandy12]

Thanks guys, I'll keep that in mind, and thanks for the links.

 

Though I suppose I better finish the companion first and leave the extra details for updates later >_> I have this thing where whenever I start a project I get way ahead of myself and in the end I give up on it, so this time I'll start by just making a working follower, and go up from there.