Custom follower questions

[tetradite]

the spell list order is an important factor as well. if you want them to use a defense spell you put the defense spell higher on the list(usually top). the first destruction spell on the list will be the one they will use the most but they will swap to another if it is needed. You can give them all three types of a high level or a low level destruction spells 1 ice, fire and lightning but they need to be grouped together with the preferred spell at the top of that group. They will swap to one of the other if the enemy is more vulnerable to it. example having a mage that uses ice spells fighting a nord, the mage may swap to a fire or lightning version.

 

The spell list should be in this order:

 

1. defense/healing spells

2. conjuration

3. weaker destruction

4. the best destruction

 

Just been looking into this, and have a question. Are you talking about the order you add spells in to the spell list? Whenever I reaccess a spell list after I've created it it just defaults to alphabetical sorting.

[ProjectRender]

Thanks for the tip, I created a custom outfit but as soon as I give him the option to follow he reverts over to the steel and bow.

Also, I'm having trouble after resaving over an older file for this. I was trying to keep it simple and only maintain one save for all my editd and just build on it, but when I tweak his stats and I resave it removes him as my follower and he's not in the spawn spot inside the drunken huntsman.

 

Not sure about the bow other than what I said already, but if he has steel armor in his inventory, then when he is an active follower he will equip it if it has a better armor rating than his default outfit (kind of the reverse of what I said about my dual wielding khajiit). Only when he is a follower though, he should revert to his default when you dismiss him. (I assume the game only bothers calculating whether inventory items are better than default items when the NPC is a follower).

 

It isn't generally a good idea to tweak mods part way through a save game, it can cause problems like the one you have encountered (or it can also generate multiple copies of things).

Yea I noticed the strongest armor is equipped regardless of how he is set to fight or his talents/perks. I done a simple fix in game by killing a forsworn and setting his armor with a custom follower mod, but the outfit I set for him and is showing equipped in the CK is just the basic forsworn set, no other armors or aything in his inventory either, this is why I am so puzzled about the switch to steel in game when I talk to him and get him to follow.

Sorry if these questions are redundant and noobish, just really interested in learning this great thing called modding lol.

[jet4571]

the spell list order is an important factor as well. if you want them to use a defense spell you put the defense spell higher on the list(usually top). the first destruction spell on the list will be the one they will use the most but they will swap to another if it is needed. You can give them all three types of a high level or a low level destruction spells 1 ice, fire and lightning but they need to be grouped together with the preferred spell at the top of that group. They will swap to one of the other if the enemy is more vulnerable to it. example having a mage that uses ice spells fighting a nord, the mage may swap to a fire or lightning version.

 

The spell list should be in this order:

 

1. defense/healing spells

2. conjuration

3. weaker destruction

4. the best destruction

 

Just been looking into this, and have a question. Are you talking about the order you add spells in to the spell list? Whenever I reaccess a spell list after I've created it it just defaults to alphabetical sorting.

 

When you open the list the CK then reorders it to alphanumeric.

[llamaRCA]

Yea I noticed the strongest armor is equipped regardless of how he is set to fight or his talents/perks. I done a simple fix in game by killing a forsworn and setting his armor with a custom follower mod, but the outfit I set for him and is showing equipped in the CK is just the basic forsworn set, no other armors or aything in his inventory either, this is why I am so puzzled about the switch to steel in game when I talk to him and get him to follow.

Sorry if these questions are redundant and noobish, just really interested in learning this great thing called modding lol.

 

When the NPC is set to setplayerteammate then he will equip the most desirable equipment. When that is false then he will go back to his default outfit. The outfits they wear can be chosen in the inventory screen of the NPC page when you are in the CK, but the items contained in the outfit cannot be accessed in the NPCs inventory during gameplay.

[ghimel]

Yea I noticed the strongest armor is equipped regardless of how he is set to fight or his talents/perks. I done a simple fix in game by killing a forsworn and setting his armor with a custom follower mod, but the outfit I set for him and is showing equipped in the CK is just the basic forsworn set, no other armors or aything in his inventory either, this is why I am so puzzled about the switch to steel in game when I talk to him and get him to follow.

Sorry if these questions are redundant and noobish, just really interested in learning this great thing called modding lol.

 

When the NPC is set to setplayerteammate then he will equip the most desirable equipment. When that is false then he will go back to his default outfit. The outfits they wear can be chosen in the inventory screen of the NPC page when you are in the CK, but the items contained in the outfit cannot be accessed in the NPCs inventory during gameplay.

 

I'm having the same issue and let me clear this up a little bit.

 

For example: His follower has "ArmorForswornNoHelm" set as his Default.

He does not have ANY armor set in the actual inventory, hoping that his follower will just keep the Forsworn armor.

He opens the game and finds his follower - who is wearing the Forsworn armor.

When he recruits the follower - out of nowhere - he equips Steel Armor which was not set, and is nowhere to be found in his follower's inventory.

 

I get that too. I tried changing Eola's default outfit because I hated the Hide, but as soon as recruited, BAM, Hide armor.

Housecarls are the same. Always revert to Steel, even if was never placed in there inventory and they are set for something completely different.

 

It literally comes out of nowhere.

[tetradite]

Yea I noticed the strongest armor is equipped regardless of how he is set to fight or his talents/perks. I done a simple fix in game by killing a forsworn and setting his armor with a custom follower mod, but the outfit I set for him and is showing equipped in the CK is just the basic forsworn set, no other armors or aything in his inventory either, this is why I am so puzzled about the switch to steel in game when I talk to him and get him to follow.

Sorry if these questions are redundant and noobish, just really interested in learning this great thing called modding lol.

 

When the NPC is set to setplayerteammate then he will equip the most desirable equipment. When that is false then he will go back to his default outfit. The outfits they wear can be chosen in the inventory screen of the NPC page when you are in the CK, but the items contained in the outfit cannot be accessed in the NPCs inventory during gameplay.

 

I'm having the same issue and let me clear this up a little bit.

 

For example: His follower has "ArmorForswornNoHelm" set as his Default.

He does not have ANY armor set in the actual inventory, hoping that his follower will just keep the Forsworn armor.

He opens the game and finds his follower - who is wearing the Forsworn armor.

When he recruits the follower - out of nowhere - he equips Steel Armor which was not set, and is nowhere to be found in his follower's inventory.

 

I get that too. I tried changing Eola's default outfit because I hated the Hide, but as soon as recruited, BAM, Hide armor.

Housecarls are the same. Always revert to Steel, even if was never placed in there inventory and they are set for something completely different.

 

It literally comes out of nowhere.

 

Cheers for the clarification, I was misunderstanding. Really not sure what to add now though, I've never had this issue either with custom followers or edited existing ones.

 

On an old game I 99% sure I modded Lydia to wear Whiterun guard armour, with the armour as her default outfit, and matching shield in her inventory. When I left her at home she wore guard armour and didn't equip the shield, when I got her to follow me the only thing that changed was she equipped the shield. The only changes I made were to default outfit and inventory as far as I remember.

 

Do you have ANY mods affecting followers installed? Only other thing I can think of.

 

EDIT: Also, is it definitely happening bang at the point when you recruit the follower, or at some point after (entering combat, randomly, or otherwise).

Edited May 9, 2012 by tetradite

[ghimel]

Yea I noticed the strongest armor is equipped regardless of how he is set to fight or his talents/perks. I done a simple fix in game by killing a forsworn and setting his armor with a custom follower mod, but the outfit I set for him and is showing equipped in the CK is just the basic forsworn set, no other armors or aything in his inventory either, this is why I am so puzzled about the switch to steel in game when I talk to him and get him to follow.

Sorry if these questions are redundant and noobish, just really interested in learning this great thing called modding lol.

 

When the NPC is set to setplayerteammate then he will equip the most desirable equipment. When that is false then he will go back to his default outfit. The outfits they wear can be chosen in the inventory screen of the NPC page when you are in the CK, but the items contained in the outfit cannot be accessed in the NPCs inventory during gameplay.

 

I'm having the same issue and let me clear this up a little bit.

 

For example: His follower has "ArmorForswornNoHelm" set as his Default.

He does not have ANY armor set in the actual inventory, hoping that his follower will just keep the Forsworn armor.

He opens the game and finds his follower - who is wearing the Forsworn armor.

When he recruits the follower - out of nowhere - he equips Steel Armor which was not set, and is nowhere to be found in his follower's inventory.

 

I get that too. I tried changing Eola's default outfit because I hated the Hide, but as soon as recruited, BAM, Hide armor.

Housecarls are the same. Always revert to Steel, even if was never placed in there inventory and they are set for something completely different.

 

It literally comes out of nowhere.

 

Cheers for the clarification, I was misunderstanding. Really not sure what to add now though, I've never had this issue either with custom followers or edited existing ones.

 

On an old game I 99% sure I modded Lydia to wear Whiterun guard armour, with the armour as her default outfit, and matching shield in her inventory. When I left her at home she wore guard armour and didn't equip the shield, when I got her to follow me the only thing that changed was she equipped the shield. The only changes I made were to default outfit and inventory as far as I remember.

 

Do you have ANY mods affecting followers installed? Only other thing I can think of.

 

EDIT: Also, is it definitely happening bang at the point when you recruit the follower, or at some point after (entering combat, randomly, or otherwise).

 

Ok, I think I may have figured it out.

 

Basically, the way the game works, if EVER you have already had an instance where that Follower has been loaded into the game, their DefaultOutfit at the time gets locked into your Character's game and WON'T change, even if you mod the Follower, and apparently, even across other saves.

 

For example:

I create Joe and load him into the game to see how cool he looks. He looks great. You go back into the CK and mod his outfit but when you get into game, he will change it to the Default setting from the first time he was EVER loaded once he becomes your follower.

 

This also seems to have an effect on Followers that have been created from copying other Actors in the CK, it will load their DefaultOutfit.

 

This may not be 100% the case or reason, but after creating a new game from scratch, it finally worked how I wanted it to.

[tetradite]

Makes sense, the game pulls NPC records from your save game as a priority (in order to keep data where followers have levelled with you, you have married someone etc).

[jet4571]

Just a tip for when you mod an NPC you already met in the game and the changes dont work, use the resurrect command on them. It resets them to the default state rather than what the savegame has. only things that dont get changed are if they are a follower and the packages that get inserted. so before using the command on a follower pull all the gear you gave them.

[ProjectRender]

Yea I noticed the strongest armor is equipped regardless of how he is set to fight or his talents/perks. I done a simple fix in game by killing a forsworn and setting his armor with a custom follower mod, but the outfit I set for him and is showing equipped in the CK is just the basic forsworn set, no other armors or aything in his inventory either, this is why I am so puzzled about the switch to steel in game when I talk to him and get him to follow.

Sorry if these questions are redundant and noobish, just really interested in learning this great thing called modding lol.

 

When the NPC is set to setplayerteammate then he will equip the most desirable equipment. When that is false then he will go back to his default outfit. The outfits they wear can be chosen in the inventory screen of the NPC page when you are in the CK, but the items contained in the outfit cannot be accessed in the NPCs inventory during gameplay.

 

I'm having the same issue and let me clear this up a little bit.

 

For example: His follower has "ArmorForswornNoHelm" set as his Default.

He does not have ANY armor set in the actual inventory, hoping that his follower will just keep the Forsworn armor.

He opens the game and finds his follower - who is wearing the Forsworn armor.

When he recruits the follower - out of nowhere - he equips Steel Armor which was not set, and is nowhere to be found in his follower's inventory.

 

I get that too. I tried changing Eola's default outfit because I hated the Hide, but as soon as recruited, BAM, Hide armor.

Housecarls are the same. Always revert to Steel, even if was never placed in there inventory and they are set for something completely different.

 

It literally comes out of nowhere.

 

Yea, this is exactly how it happens for me. Glad someone has come across this situation before, but yes I do use a follower mod. I don't have the link here but I can post it as soon as I'm home, I believe my tweaking with the mod halfway through the savegame may have had an impact on it so I'll toss it up to that.

 

The resurrection command was a nice tip, appreciate all the info. I made 10 saved games from a lvl 6 char just to play around with the mods and load them to fresh games everytime I make an adjustment. If I run into anymore snags on the CK I hope the nexus is as helpful later on. Thanks all!