COMPANION PAYROLL MOD

[ACME74]

Hello people!

 

I am a fanatic Oblivion mod downloader and user, focussing strongly on realism and immersion. I really like the way I can combine the available mods to get the exact experience I am looking for. So far, I have always found the realism mods I was looking for, but there is one particular mod that I really want and that I have not found on the Nexus or on any other modding site. I am hoping that someone can prove me wrong here, but I have spent several days looking for this particular one and still no luck.

 

It's all about companion NPC’s. Companions are really cool to have with you on your adventures, but the downside is that it also feels like cheating the game at the same time. It is just too easy and tempting to simply recruit a couple of CM’s and go clean out a dungeon that (I am an FCOM user) are meant for a way higher level character that yourself.

 

The mod a am looking for is basically this:

- All companions that are following you, charge you for their time spent doing it. - That’s it! Easy.. No?

 

OK, before you start: Yes, I know that there are a couple of mercenary mods out there that provide some NPC’s that will team up with you for money, but maybe I don’t really want to go out adventuring with these geezers! I like the companions I chose myself! So I need a mod that provides Merc-type functionality to any companion that is with you.

 

The details:

 

First of all, to avoid the “cheating” problem above, I think companions should not come cheap. For the same reason, I believe the amount they charge you for their loyalty should be dependent on their level. I personally feel that every companion (CM or other) that is “Active” (is set to follow you or is otherwise commanded by you), should charge you 1 gold per NPC-level per game-hour spent following you. Note that I am using a timescale of 10 instead of vanilla 30, so that makes things a bit cheaper in my case. I guess the actual costs of companions could be specified in an INI-file, so users can change it to their own liking.

 

So, a level 50 companion is really nice to have around from the beginning of the game of course, but be aware that he or she will now cost you a total of 50*24 = 1200 gold per day!! This is not something a level 1 PC could afford! If you are a beginning player, I suggest to settle for lower level companions, or tell some of them to wait outside a dungeon in which you will not strictly need them to save your skin. As a lot of companions level with the player, it should always be easy to find a couple that are not too expensive for you.

 

Now, I am not a programmer, but I think the mod could simply consist of a single script that frequently checks the companions you are with (only the active companions, not the ones who may be in the player faction but are really just left waiting at home), retrieves their level, does the math and deducts the total amount of gold spent on your companions since the last check form your inventory.

As soon as you run out of gold, you will get a message saying that your funds have run out and then the script should set your companions inactive or in waiting mode or something. I really hope that this can be done, maybe using a bit of OBSE-magic..

 

Now, personally, I like do not like to travel with a lot of gold on me, as I use a weighted gold mod and a strength/encumbrance multiplier of 1 instead of vanilla 5, so as a second request, I would like to have the gold to be paid automatically deducted from my account at the Bank of Cyrodiil (part of Better Cities). No fuss!

 

WHO CAN HELP ME???