Lost my followers

[McGamer]

I got carried away with installing mods(around 50+), especially added a ton of follower mods. I had 11 total, but not all at once. Over time as I added more mods some of them stopped following.

 

The main problem is I finally got the mods working except that the previous followers that had problems before I got it fixed, are still broken and no idea what town they are in. To make matters more complicated, I found a console command to set follower count to zero, lol.

 

Well it set it to zero but now it doesn't count at all and didn't release the broken followers either. My character is level 13 and not wanting to start over at this point because I work long hours and it took awhile to get to 13. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[etang2]

Dude, youve really got no choice, you should always do a clean save or game with each mod, optimally. Even still, level 13 isn't that high, i worked to level 51 on vanilla skyrim and restarted and ruined that save

[NOESM]

Yeah, you really screwed thing up badly.

 

To make matters more complicated, I found a console command to set follower count to zero, lol.

 

That was the final bow in screwing thing up.

[xlcr]

@McGamer, hi, just a friendly tip about using follower mods (sorry you're having issues),

always dismiss all your followers and make a game save before you install or uninstall mods of this type.

 

Most modders making follower type mods usually require that you do this before upgrading mod versions.

Anyway, not doing so screws up follower AI scripts and histories which is almost impossible to fix.

I usually escort my followers to where ever they call home before parting ways just to be sure they're safe.

 

Also, using multiple follower mods the way you seem to be doing, there is the possibility of scripting overlap/incompatibilities.

As you may know, some of these follower mods do not peacefully co-exist; so, sometimes its a crap shoot lol.

Guess you might salvage your existing game if you ignore followers/hirelings that are bugged and find new ones.

[McGamer]

Thanks for the input from everyone. Unfortunately the followers seem bugged to the point where I can't even dismiss them. They just say ok, stand there and their dialogue choices don't update either. In the past I tinkered a little with some mods in Oblivion but not nearly as much as with Skyrim. Not to mention the Skyrim mods seem a bit more advanced. I am thinking at this point I should delete my saves and start fresh.

[trukittn]

Building and testing my Ulfric mod, I ran into all sorts of weirdness like this so I'll share some of the crap I had to do to recover my test saves. Your save game may be salvageable depending on what mods you were using. As you have already set your follower count to 0, try removing the followers that are 'stuck' to you from the currentfollower/hireling factions to see if that will get them to leave. I advise taking them to wherever their home is first, and then...

 

Do this by selecting them in the console (make sure its them and not some piece of scenery)

to remove them from currentfollowerfaction type addfac 0005c84e -1

to remove them from currenthireling faction type addfac 000bd738 -1

(If they are a hireling you will have to use both commands. Free followers only require the first)

 

*Also, if you were actually getting the "The follower has left your service." message when trying to dismiss them normally, it was still counting down your follower count, so make sure it's still 0 and not a negative number :P

 

Hopefully they wander off after that. If they don't, talk to them and see what they say. If you have the option to ask them to follow you again, do so and then try releasing them the normal way.

If that doesn't work, try disabling the follower mods in effect and then using the above steps again. If that works, you'll want to save your game and then reactivate any of those mods that have special uninstall features so that you can uninstall them properly. Once you've done that and all of your follower mods are uninstalled, load and save the game. Then you have a clean save to start putting the mods back in again.

 

Hope this helps. :3 Good luck!

Edited May 26, 2012 by trukittn

[Saratje]

No need for starting over. Look up the follower's REF (not BASE) ID in one of the wiki's, then type prid <ID>, then moveto player. If you can't target that prid ID, it means the NPC is in a special world or inside a building. You can always open the console and type:

 

help "<follower name>" 1

 

Then look at what the BASE (not REF) ID that follower has, for example we'll take Borgakh the Steel-Heart, who's base ID is 19959. Then type:

 

player.placeatme 19959

 

This will in this case put a new Borgakh the Steel-Heart next to you. While she will have none of the equipment you have the original Borgakh, the game WILL remember what adventures and favours you did for/with her and if she's your friend or not. So most of the time she'll treat you the same as the original Borgakh did. Then if you suddenly run into that original follower again, remove the new one and tell the original one to follow you again.

 

Only specific followers that fulfill a secondary role (like being a quest giver or special NPC) may act differently. You then have to apply aliases, open quest data with the console etc, which is more difficult. Applying aliases is a way to appoint people roles, for example if you type in the console ssq dialogueriften, then target say Mjoll and write forcerefintoalias jarl, Mjoll will become the new Jarl while Leila Lawgiver or Maven Blackbriar walk out of the palace and leave. Similar commands are used to appoint a new Aela as quest giver, a second Farkas as trainer, or in this example turning Mjoll into a Jarl, or appoint a Frost Troll as steward to Balgruuf if that is what you want. :P

Edited May 26, 2012 by Saratje

[RedRavyn]

I don't know what the consequences of console-killing the multiple instances of this NPC at random might be. Will the real Louis Letrush please stand up?

 

His refID is 19DCA. Make sure you leave that one alive, just in case.

[McGamer]

Trukittn, I don't think I would be able to try your suggestion because the followers and hirelings I have, don't physically follow me anywhere. They just stand where they are and I have since tried to continue playing the game without them. The problem is though that the max follower count is 15 and Im currently at 11. Eventually I will need to clear slots since I installed 6 more followers, lol. I will try Saratje's suggestion but might a bit complicated it sounds like.

[trukittn]

But they are acting like followers with their dialogue? The commands I mention get rid of the follower dialogue by removing their association with the currentfollower/hireling factions that give them that dialogue.

 

Idly which multiple-follower mod do you have installed? This sounds very much like UFO's behavior when there is a bad pex or script file present in your data folder and might be fixable by removing those script files, and uninstalling/reinstalling UFO per the failsafe instructions.