[LE] At my wits end: Custom pet follower problem. Aargh!

[cumbrianlad]

Edit: if you're reading this, then carry on! I've added a new post where I don't go into as much detail and don't ask for someone to take my esp and look at it. This post is much more informative.

 

Right, that's off my chest a bit.

 

Basically, I need someone to take my esp, with the loose scripts and have a look. It gets so complicated to describe it otherwise, but I'll do my best!

 

 

I have a custom pet follower. It works fine. I can accept it and get it to do all the follower things. I even added a proper inventory function so that it works as a human follower... that works, too. It 'says' all of its (custom) lines. It's behaviour as a follower is exactly how I want it to be. I can dismiss it. It follows its package and goes to the place I assigned in its 'home' package... so why am I posting? Because I can't re-hire it once its dismissed. It goes 'home' and sits there. The player can 'Talk Stealth Spider', but no dialogue options show up.

 

It's set up pretty much like the DLC2 dwarven spider pet except that it doesn't go back to it's editor location and it has a completely separate framework to vanilla pets.

 

It has a new quest for the follower dialogue, currently set to 'Start Game Enabled', and yes, I generate a new SEQ file for it, if I alter anything in the quest. I also have a set of clean saves that i paste into the saves directory each time I test.This quest is set up the same as vanilla in 'Quest Data', with the exception that I can specify 'Quest Dialogue Conditions' to be my unique pet voice type. I did not add the 'DoFavorBlocking' topic because pets don't do it anyway and my Dwemer Spider pet does not have the necessary animations. The quest has my 'PetFollower' script which is basically just the vanilla 'Follower' script with all functions and properties relating to non-animal followers removed, and new message and global properties assigned. The messages are displayed in some functions and the 'GlobalVariable' property is used in the 'SetAnimal' and 'DismissAnimal' functions to control the pet's 'GoHome' package.

 

The rest of it is set up similarly to the 'DLC2KagrumezQst', but in place of that quest, I have a quest dedicated only to meeting and hiring the pet. This quest has no event, start-up stage 0 and no completion stage. It is started by a default set stage trigger. This quest simply holds the pet intro dialogue and sets a stage for when the player accepts the pet. The papyrus fragment of that stage calls my 'SetAnimal' function from my 'PetFollower' script. The two quests are tied together by the 'PetFollower' script and the global variable. It is set to 'Allow Repeated Stages', not 'Run Once' and it's sole alias (My pet) is flagged to 'allow re-use in quest' and set to my unique actor.

 

I added a debug message to the stage that the hiring dialogue is in and this shows on screen when the pet is dismissed... so my quest is at the right stage for the missing dialogue to be available and my script in 'AnimalDismiss' is working properly. I also know that my 'PetFollower script' and the script on the alias work fine.

 

I've looked at the dialogue conditions for each quest. I've looked at the package flags, I've examined each quest's start-up conditions and tried to pick a flaw in my script logic... I'm stumped! It's looking like I can't see the woods for the trees!

 

Would anyone be so kind as to download my esp + scripts and take a look? If it needs testing, I'd need to add the textures for the camouflaged Dwemer spider. Alternatively, if you can understand what I've tried to describe above and offer a solution... Go ahead :thumbsup:

 

This is the last thing I need to nail before final testing and releasing the mod. I've invested a lot in this follower: It has a new 'camouflaged' texture (multilayer and diffuse), new levelled spells, new combat style, new abilities, doesn't affect stealth meter and more! I don't want to scrap it, even though the mod doesn't hinge on it.

 

Sorry for the lengthy post but I can't distil it any further!

 

* The global variable is 'short' value '1' and not constant. The go home package is conditioned to be active when this global = '0'. The 'AddAnimal' function sets the global to '1' and 'DismissAnimal' sets it to '0'.