So for my High School Senior computer science I have been allowed to create a skyrim mod.
At its core this mod is essentially an Companion/Follower add-on to allow the player to make their own Dwarven Companions.

My actual question is:
What would be the best route to take to place a follower into the game work by activating an consumable item from a players inventory?

Add the food item (a potion item with its "Food Item" flag ticked) and maintain the follower with a Quest. The food item can be added to the Player via a quest script or as an alias "Created in" a Player Alias. To catch the consumption of the food item, you'll need to attach a Magic Effect of the Script archetype to the Potion form via a Spell.

Something like...

ScriptName YourSpellScript Extends ActiveMagicEffectInt iStage = 0ObjectReference rPortalActivator Property SummonTargetFXActivator AutoActor Property YourActorREF AutoEvent OnEffectStart(Actor akTarget, Actor akCaster, Float afScale = 0.0)	While iStage < 5		iStage += 1		If iStage == 1 ; Shroud them with a portal			rPortal = YourActorREF.PlaceAtMe(SummonTargetFXActivator, 1, False, True)			rPortal.Enable()		ElseIf iStage == 2 ; actor becomes invisible, consumed by the portal			afScale = YourActorREF.GetScale()			YourActorREF.SetScale(0.01)		ElseIf iStage == 3 ; move portal to player			rPortal.MoveTo(akCaster, Math.Sin(akCaster.GetAngleZ()) * 60, Math.Cos(akCaster.GetAngleZ()) * 60, akCaster.GetHeight() - 60)		ElseIf iStage == 4 ; actor shows up as portal dissipates			YourActorREF.MoveTo(rPortal)			YourActorREF.SetScale(afScale)		EndIf		Utility.Wait(0.6)	EndWhileEndEvent

...should do.

That makes little sense but I will give it a try. Is it possible to activate a misc item, have it automaticly removed and then place the actor by me?

Yes, you can create a Player Alias and its RefAlias script, then enable your Actor with OnObjectEquipped().

MiscObjects are though not equipped like Armors and this will spawn a Notification, but the Event is still fired in a Player RefAlias script.

Ah that's perfect. Thank you!

Might as well keep my problems in one thread:

I have my Spider Follower behaving correctly using the Default follow player and run equilivent packages but when I try to move through a load door it doesn't want to follow me. Ideas?

make sure your navmesh is properly finalised. there should be a coloured triangle under the door

[edit]

... for both doors, I should add.

I managed to figure that out about 20 mins afterwards.
Thank you for your help.

I have run into another brick wall.
How do I access scripts for an already existing file?
I am trying to reverse engineer one of summon spells and scroll for my custom companions.

The source is in data\scripts\source

Or choose edit from the context menu in the CK

Thank you Doc, now I have figured out what I need to make this all work (in theory, making it now).
My custom items, actors etc are spread out. Is there an easy way to group them together in the editor?

The "All" branch of the object window and sort by FormID or EditorID.

Also, it's good practice to give your mod a prefix - I use "SSG_" for mine. Then you can add that to the IDs of all the elements you add to the game.

After that finding all your bits is as simple as typing "XXXX" into the filter on the object window.

How would I go about removing an actors body from the game world?
My follower appears to "respawn" after it gets killed, the respawn box is unchceked. How do I got about stopping this from happening, or do you need more information?

and

How do I check if an actor/s are alive without recording their status within a global variable?

You can disable them if you're not going to use them again. Or move them to a storage cell. You could also try DeleteWhenAble which will remove them once the player is out of the way and won't notice.

Use GetDead in conditions or Actor.IsDead in papyrus to tell if they're dead or not

Will an OnActivate/other object reference events work with an actor?

Yes, as will Form events/functions since Actor extends ObjectReference which extends Form. An Actor function like SetAlpha, however, will only work on an Actor and not an ObjectReference or Form.

If zip extends zap, zip inherits zap's functions and events but not the other way around as all zips being zaps doesn't mean a zap can be treated as a zip.

Or looked at another way: "Dog" inherits the functions of "Mammal". So while all Dogs are Mammals, but not all Mammals are Dogs. As my cats will testify.

Is this something Papyrus specific or is this something common in other multi-paradigm languages?
Only have small amounts of experience with python 3.2, VB6 and LUA.

It's called "inheritance" and it's one of the key features of Object Oriented programming languages. C++, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, Perl ... they all support some sort of inheritance. Javascript and Lua too, although its a bit of work in those languages.

It's a useful thing to get your head around if you're coding.

It appears that I am unable to be able to activate it from my inventory using OnObjectEquipped() but OnActivate() works when the item is on the ground. I have probably done something wrong but I am unsure and and concerned as OnActivate() works for what I want but I am having a few issues attempting to use Game.GetPlayer().PlaceAtMe(Control_Spider) and before I try anything else I just want to know if there are any obvious issues with:

Event OnActivate()    Debug.MessageBox("Activating")    Utility.Wait(1)    Game.GetPlayer().PlaceActorAtMe(Control_Spider, 3)    Game.GetPlayer().RemoveItem(Control_SpiderCore, 1, bool abSilent = true)    Debug.MessageBox("Activated")EndEvent

Shouldn't your activate block be EventOnActivate(ObjectReference akActionRef) instead of OnActivate() ?

If it's an inventory item, you'd want http://www.creationkit.com/OnEquipped_-_ObjectReference.

This is a fantastic example of the community coming together to help a new guy.

My two cents is that you shouldn't need to declare the bool as such within the function. In fact, it might throw things off a bit.

It doesn't appear to matter? I just want it to activate the above when the item is activated.

The problem is that (I think) because it is a misc it cannot be equipped and because of that the event isn't fired/? But I will have another go.