I want to be able to make NPCs to act as followers. Nothing new there. I'd like to be able to recruit arbitrary baddies like bandits or necromancers though. And I want to be able to change their outfit to reflect their status.

The trouble is, nothing takes. actor_ref.SetOutfit(my_outfit) appears to do nothing. Forcing them to wear the items doesn't seem to work either.

It would probably work if I changed it at the base actor level, but then presumably I'd also affect all other instances of the same bandit. Anyone got any ideas?

I am toying with the idea of keeping a stock of unique npcs in a holding cell somewhere, and when I gather a generic to the cause, I could swap them with one from the holding cell and use SetRace and the SKSE face part functions to try and create a unique clone. But I'm not sure all the bits I need for that are in place yet.

Anyone got any ideas?