» Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:28 pm - Supporting followers, even in vanilla Skyrim, is a big bag of hurt. Bethesda can't make up their minds about how they would like to handle followers. There are at least 2 different conventions used in the base game ("normal" followers, like Jenassa, and Dark Brotherhood followers). Three if you count Dawnguard, which uses its own system of aliases.
- There are several major multi-follower mods: Amazing Follower Tweaks, Ultimate Follower Overhaul, and Extensible Follower Framework. There might be more, but those are the ones that come to mind. They all have their own system of managing followers and their own ReferenceAliases.
- Assign generic dialogue topics to followers.
- Run scripts against some or all followers currently in service.
- Know exactly how many followers you have.
- Provide support for all types of multi-follower mods.
- etc
In the words of charon711, who summarized the purpose of this quite succinctly,
So basically this mod will help "translate" functionality between followers (no matter how they are implemented) and mods that effect the followers. Making follower mods universally compatible with each other and with any mod that effects them.
My more technical summary would be,
"A Papyrus API that acts as a go-between (middleware) for script writers and followers by abstracting individual follower implementations and representing them in a generic way."
Some ideas for functions would be:
Spoiler
Actor function GetNthFollower(int iFollower)int function GetFollowerCount(bool bIncludeAnimals = false)bool function IsFollower()int function GetFollowerIndex()
...and so on. Just very generic functions that enable you to do powerful things regardless of the user environment.
WIth the above examples, I could do something like...
Spoiler
if Jenassa.IsFollower() if Jenassa.GetFollowerIndex() == UFF.GetFollowerCount() - 1 notification("Jenassa, you are the last follower! Haha!") endifendifOr, imagine that you and all your followers are gearing up for a massive battle with the enemy, and you want to make sure that all of your companions are dressed appropriately.
Spoiler
int iFollowerCount = UFF.GetFollowerCount()int i = 0while i &--#60; iFollowerCount Actor myFollower = UFF.GetNthFollower(i) if myFollower.GetItemCount(BattleCape) == 0 myFollower.AddItem(BattleCape, 1) myFollower.EquipItem(BattleCape) endifendWhile
Silly, but you get the point. Imagine trying to do that when you don't know if your user is using EFF, or UFO, or AFT, or none of the above.
So, the purpose of this thread: what kinds of features would you want in a Follower API such as this? What would make your life easier when trying to support the multitude of followers and follower mods in existence?
Thanks!
)--but in your terms, what I was suggesting was the ability to opt an individual follower out of certain broad types or categories of affects.
That exact nightmare scenario is what's staring me in the face right now, which is what spawned the idea for something like UFF. I want to abstract away those details.
