My Companion Mod Review Discussion 03-04/2020

[Moksha8088]

The mod author of Heather and Willow is currently making a new companion for Skyrim SE to be called Liliana.

 

The new voice and quest add-on mod for Skyrim's Serana is good and is being added to on a regular basis. It was so fortunate to find a good voice actor that sounds like Serana. If only there were voice actors who could do a passable Nate and Nora, it would be a godsend for Fallout 4 mod creators, both for quest and for companion dialogue exchanges.

[davethepak]

Cool topic, thanks for sharing.

 

QUESTION ON AFT:

 

I hear a lot of "AFT is fine" and "AFT will break them...".

 

Can anyone who had problems with aft clear up one thing;

Did you just have AFT installed OR

Did you have AFT installed, AND You used it to import or manage the NPC it broke?

 

Also, to people who say "AFT is closed source....".

 

In the permissions of AFT:

Feel free to extract code snippets from AFT and use them in your own mod. While credit is always appreciated, you don't need to credit me if you only use a few scripts.

 

So, it seems like people could easily take the default companion scripts, take snippets from AFT, and add their own if necessary.

Now, of coruse, I have no idea if the AFT permissions have always said that...

[Gunslinger808]

AFT does glitch custom AI followers if you try and manage anything other than their looks, doesn’t seem to hurt vanilla NPCs, at least none that I’ve ever seen.

The same holds true for custom AI followers from Skyrim/SE, I wouldn’t use it to try to manage anyone like Heather Casdin or Darlene in FO4, just like I won’t use it on Vilja or Sofia in Skyrim.
Just having it installed doesn’t do anything as long as you don’t try to manage them with it.

And really, all AFT is, is a shortcut where a lot of the basic scripts are in one place, so you don’t have to go into your data folder, body slide, looks menu etc to change them.

Of course they’re not as in depth, but they are more for quick work and for those uncomfortable with changing script manually.
If you have the time and inclination, you could build your own personalized version of AFT.

 

Just like those cheat downloads are basically a bunch of the ~ commands all in one mod.

From fast travel to getting items, to finishing quest, that’s all they are.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Gunslinger808

[privateer3]

Regarding Ivy.....

 

a) you can turn off her sexual speech easily. When v6 is ready, I'm doing a "music video" of "Ivy Does Nuka World" and she will be set, for that, to be a good girl. She won't like it, but she'll get over it.

b) she does indeed do autonomous and directed hypercombat. I have it quick-keyed, for when sneaking and I want an over watch enemy removed, but she will engage all on her own. Reg says it has to do with your perks but he won't elaborate. She does it for me, in fact, sometimes I have to be careful where I'm shooting when she suddenly appears where my crosshairs are.

c) I don't mind her being chatty. It beats a companion with a grand total of 600 mindless lines of dialogue.

 

I do wish she would stay out of the way on normal quest dialogues in which she has no scripted participation. But its just something you learn to overlook.

 

Think back to doing Nuka World Open Season, say on Very Hard with an additional 3x increased enemy damage. So a lot of sneaking is helpful. How many companions have you had with you (of the smart ones you don't consider dumber than a log) that don't require a DLC-type of mod (Like PV/OAR and Fusion City, both of which have good companions) who can duo Open Season with you? Ivy, check. Darlene, check, Heather, check. Thats pretty much it. A few of the berserker-style companions like Vex, Scarlet, etc. can duo it with you, but geesh a robot with really good armor and weapons might be more interesting.

 

So like the SS says if Player Comments is enabled, Guess I'll take the good with the bad. But really, Ivy has improved significantly since the original Insane Ivy.