Why won't NPCs keep wearing the clothes I give them?

[JeremeW5257]

I like using the skimpy armor and clothing mods, but don't want to see old ladies walking around in the same outfit as the hotter female NPCs. I use the console commands to remove their default clothing and equip them with something else, but it seems like the eventually end up wearing their default clothes after a few days. It gets really annoying when I spend an hour or so by going around customizing clothing, just to see my efforts go to waste. I know I can use the NPC editor, but that takes even longer and I don't want dozens of .esp files...fear of crashing system. I also know that certain NPC followers have "hidden" weapons...like Annekke or Lydia, so you have to remove 10 follower bows even though it shows none in their inventory. Is there a similar reference to other NPCs for hidden clothing? Half of the time it just gives me a generic "belted tunic" ID for clothing, even though I know their specific clothing ID is something else.

[SkjoldBjorn]

Because most npc's have something called outfits and these override any gear you give them, with the exception of companions that is following you, they will use any armor better than what they have.

To correct this you can simply use npc editor and give the npc of your choice a new outfit and they will wear that at all times. you don't need dozens of .esp's you can merge them you know by using tesvsnip/tessnip for example. Not sure, but i think you can do that in wrye bash as well.

For weapons you need to check out PKID or the inventory to see if any weapon is assigned as default. I removed the mining clothes and the pickaxe from my wife at least and replaced it with something abit more "wife-ish".

Edited January 26, 2012 by Sk8on

[warlordmordrid]

Word of warning, if you completely delete an outfit, the npc will be undressed/nude by default.

[Korodic]

nvm.

[David Brasher]

NPCs look through their inventory and wear the armor with the highest armor rating. What you can do to make NPCs wear what you want, is make custom outfits made of custom versions of vanilla armor with armor ratings of zero. This way anything you give them will be better than what they have and they will want to wear it. In the case of clothing which has an armor rating of zero, it is a bit more tricky. You need to turn the clothing that you want the NPCs to wear into light armor with an armor rating of 1. This will make it better than the clothing in their outfit which they wear by default.

[jet4571]

Default outfits are probably one of the easiest things to make. Theres no settings to worry about besides the name of it and dragging and dropping what you want into it. Though i cannot figure out how to delete something if i screwed up and put the wrong part in it. Nice thing is you can use leveled lists inplace of single items if you want the outfit to be completely random or atleast part of it random like circlets, necklaces, or rings.

 

I suggest that if you make random NPC's for a mod someday that you make a random default outfit for them rather than a set always use this outfit. It helps to use the same one on all the random NPC's and you never know what they will be wearing.