KatonRyu Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 In the spirit of an old modding attempt of mine in Oblivion, I decided to create a zombie army mod here in Skyrim. The initial modding wasn't hard; I simply enhanced the Ritual power a bit, allowing me to command up to 500 thralls, affecting everything in a radius of 999 feet for 999 days. The obvious flaw here, of course, is that the more people I enthrall, the laggier my pc gets. To that end I'm currently seeking for a way to somehow enable the standard follower dialogue options in my minions to allow myself to order them around, most importantly having them take a single position and stop following me. Like a true Final Fantasy villain, I intend to bring peace to Skyrim by killing everyone and then transforming their corpses into my obedient slaves, but the inability to tell them what to do is hindering me somewhat. My main question is, is it possible to enable follower dialogue on my dead thralls? If not, is there a way I could make them behave like dead thralls without actually being thralls? I imagine I could do this by adding them to the PotentialFollowerFaction and setting their relationshiprank to the highest level, but I'm not entirely sure if that would work. Furthermore, even if that would work, I would need a way to make them follow me immediately, without having to talk to them first. If anyone has any ideas about this it would be greatly appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korodic Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Hmm, this is an interesting question, to which I will give an educated half-assed theory. If I'm not mistaken, the CK has dialogue specific for factions, yes/no? If so, the spell could use a script that adds the reanimated thrall to a faction, and remove from the faction on either the spell time out or on another death (in case the npc i subject to respawn). Therefore it would have the dialogue you give it and such. :hurr: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatonRyu Posted November 15, 2012 Author Share Posted November 15, 2012 On 11/15/2012 at 2:36 AM, Korodic said: Hmm, this is an interesting question, to which I will give an educated half-assed theory. If I'm not mistaken, the CK has dialogue specific for factions, yes/no? If so, the spell could use a script that adds the reanimated thrall to a faction, and remove from the faction on either the spell time out or on another death (in case the npc i subject to respawn). Therefore it would have the dialogue you give it and such. :hurr: Sadly, life is never that easy. I did, in fact, add one of my thralls to the follower faction but no dialogue shows up. I figured that maybe the game no longer sees thralls as NPCs, but I'll to test it further to be sure. I have not tested adding the thrall to a faction via script yet, however, so I'll give it a try. In any case, thank you for replying! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kryptopyr Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 I'm guessing that you'll need to find a way to "fake" the thrall part. At least based on this: http://www.creationkit.com/Reanimate It sounds as if whatever internal effect the Reanimate archetype applies also automatically disables the dialogue option. I'm not sure you'll be able to find a way around that. I don't think simply adding them to the PotentialFollowerFaction and changing relationship rank will work...or if it does, it would only work on certain npcs (those with the proper voice type for a follower..and then only up to the limit of the number of followers allowed (1 if vanilla, or 15, 100, etc if using a multiple follower mod). The PotentialFollowerFaction doesn't add any follower abilities in and of itself; it's just one of the conditions that allows the NPC to be recognized by the follower quest. You could possibly create a new quest with a number of aliases, and use your spell/script to force the npcs into the alias. If you give the quest a high priority, then any packages you add to those aliases will override all other packages on those npcs, and you could add some basic "follow me" or "stand here" dialogue commands to switch between packages. However, I'm not sure that this technique would work at the sort of scale you're wanting. There are mods that have 100 aliases added to a single quest, but it sounds like you want several times that number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatonRyu Posted November 15, 2012 Author Share Posted November 15, 2012 Hmm, based on that link I suppose you're right. The number of followers won't be a problem, I think, since my zombie army mod makes use of a hidden perk (just like the Ritual power) that allows more followers. Since I'm not a very advanced modder, I simply made it so that the hidden perk is always active, so I think that no matter what spell I use, I'll be able to command multiple people. Maybe it's possible to somehow create a new archetype that doesn't affect the dialogue options at all, but since the power works on creatures as well (I just found out that my army contains a troll and a wolf) I'm not sure if that will work at all. The only thing I could think of, then, is to make additional spells that will force a new package onto whatever I cast it at, including regular NPCs. I'll have to look into that. Anyway, thanks for replying, and thanks for that link. It's given me plenty to think about! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gulogulo Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 @kryptopyr @KatonRyu I am VERY INTERESTED in the subject. Well, I tried to control reanimated corpses via quest aliases and packages. Its not working. I think and some other persons believe it as well that the reanimated corpse package is hidden somewhere in the Skyrim engine. I cant turn it off or overwrite it and belive me I can overwrite packages of any other actor. In my mod Nature of the beast II I have implemented something I call the Minion system which allows you to control any follower/follower dog/hireling/summoned creature. I call them minions. Up to 25 minions are supported. You can give them simple commands like wait, follow, wait there and forward or attack chosen actors. There are much more options. Mounted followers are supported (but another mod is required). I can make a minion out of any actor even neutral/hostile (my alpha werewolf can gather a pack out of nearby wolves/werewolves) BUT I CANT CONTROL RAISED CORPSES. I also tried changing factions/removing them from all factions. Its not working as well. The only way I think to bypass it is to exchange the reanimated corpse with a clone with shader. Alternativally you can turn off their AI to literally stop them. If you have any other idea please let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatonRyu Posted November 15, 2012 Author Share Posted November 15, 2012 @gulogulo Strange that Bethesda would hardcode such a package into the game, but I'm sure they'll have had their reasons. If it's indeed impossible to control the standard reanimated corpses I'll have to create a method via script effects that simulates it. The first thing that comes to mind would be a script spell that, like you say, applies the correct shader, resurrects the target actor (instead of reanimating) and forces a package onto it that can be changed via a dialogue option (Regardless of whether the actor in question can talk). Maybe it's possible to get these actors flagged as undead and as someone who isn't your friend (i.e. IsUndead == True and IsInFriendStateWithPlayer == False), like the actual Reanimate effect does. I'm not currently sure if this is possible or not, but I'm very interested in trying it out. In any case, thank you for the reply; it's been very useful to me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gulogulo Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Not a problem. A small request if you dont mind. Im looking for a mod like the one you are planning. If you give them packages via quest alias, could you set the quest priority to no more than 80? This way I will be able to overwrite your packages with mine. I suspect I will still require some kind of cooperation from you to detect them, but once detected by my spell it should turn them into my minions in no time. Could you let me know once your mod is finished? As a side note. Perhaps you will reach a conclusion that there is no point in repeating my (very tedious) work. We can cooperate. You can make the exchange of the actors and I can do the rest. Try my mod to test my minion system. If you are interested please let me know. Im looking for mods like yours that add creatures the player should control. I would really like to control the raised corpses. Now I cant. I would do it myself, but my mod isnt strictly a necromancer mod. The minion system was originally just an (oversized) byproduct of an alpha werewolf's feral pack (it can howl and in this way "befriend" met wolves/werewolves). Simply at some point I have reached the conclusion I can control almost everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatonRyu Posted November 15, 2012 Author Share Posted November 15, 2012 Sounds like a plan to me. I do have to warn you, however, that I'll be very busy with work for school soon, and that modding might not have my highest priority. Of course I intend to work on it in my free time, but it could be months before I have an actual release-worthy mod ready. I'm not sure yet how I'll implement the mod, but if I do use quest aliases I'll keep the priority below 80. In any case, I'll be sure to let you know once I have something going, and I'll be sure to check your mod out too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DatDudeDB Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Really interested in this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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