Hi,

Does someone know what's the difference between Actor and ObjectReference in scripts? I saw on the Wiki that an Actor property returned the reference of the Actor, so what's the big deal between this and ObjectReference? Why do some functions only work for Actor or ObjectReference?

objectReference it's link on the actor or any object if you write a new script you using objectreference that is properties

There is a script for actors and another one for objectreferences. If you wan't your actor to use the functionalities of object references, you must make a cast handle it as an object reference, while as actor is it's natural type, you don't need to make any conversion to use on it functionalities from actor script.

Actor is an extension of ObjectReference, basically Actor has everything ObjectReference has, and then extra stuff. I believe you can use ObjectReference functions with an Actor object, without doing anything special to the Actor object. However if a function asks for an ObjectReference, you need to pass it an ObjectReference, not an Actor.

Its like ObjectReference is milk, and Actor is chocolate milk. Chocolate milk has everything milk has, plus chocolate
If you drink chocolate milk, you get the same stuff as milk, plus chocolate, but if someone asks you for a glass of milk, you have to give them milk, not chocolate milk.

Very close - because http://www.creationkit.com/Actor_Script extends http://www.creationkit.com/ObjectReference_Script, you can call any ObjectReference functions on an Actor without any issues. However, it is possible to use an Actor in place of an ObjectReference without casting, as an object can be http://www.creationkit.com/Cast_Reference#Cast_to_Object to a parent object.

Cipscis

Mh okay guys, thank you for all those informations! Now, to make it clear:
While I play, I see an average NPC whose ID is used for more than once ingame. He's called "Skyrim Inhabitant".

What is stored in his ObjectReference VS Actor?
How do I pass Actor as ObjectReference and the contrary?

EDIT: thanks Cipscis!

Because http://www.creationkit.com/Actor_Script extends http://www.creationkit.com/ObjectReference_Script, they're sort of ObjectReferences as well. This isn't technically true, as they don't have the ObjectReference type, but because they can be auto-casted to it they can be treated as though they did.

If a function returns a reference that is always an Actor, then its return type will be Actor. If its return type is a reference that may be an Actor, then its return type will be ObjectReference. In this case, you can detect whether the returned object is an Actor by trying to cast it to type Actor:

RetVal as Actor

If the returned object is an Actor, then the result of this cast will be an object of type Actor. If the returned object is not an Actor, then the result of the cast will be None.

When an object is of type Actor instead of type ObjectReference, it has access to the functions of the http://www.creationkit.com/Actor_Script. Even if it can be cast to Actor, if its type is ObjectReference then the compiler will give an error if you try to call any of these functions on it.

Cipscis

Okay, so I'm making a mod where you can open your horse's inventory through a Perk with an Activate Choice; its Papyrus fragment is this:

ObjectReference MyHorse = akTargetRefActor MyHorseActor = MyHorse as ActorMyHorseActor.OpenInventory(true)

It seems to compile so I guess it will work?

Yep, that looks like it should work. It's also worth noting that, if you don't need to reuse the information you've stored, then you can use shorthand like this:

(akTargetRef as Actor).OpenInventory(true)

Cipscis

Thank you everyone