Have NPCs follow the Group

[Lauriel]

If you can figure out how to have regular NPCs follow along so I can just have everyone, that would be awesome.  They don't have to fight...just follow us around, make snide remarks, set up the camp for us, do the cooking, washing...that sort of thing.  I'd love that.  Love the banter.  

One big dysfunctional family!

Edited February 5, 2020 by Lauriel

[jastey]

(Gods, I thought the forum ate this post because there was an error message when I moved it. Phew..)

Grey (and Solaufein) have the concept of being able to follow as  "7th party member" which I stole heavily from @argent77's Djinni Companion. It needs some preparation, though, especially with regard to dialogue assignments while the NPC is following as a familiar - where he would be in "kickout" mode officially but should talk with his "joined" dialogue. This is easy to set via script, of course. But to account for the NPCs presence all "InParty" checks (and probably the "IsValidForPartyDialogue" just as well) do not give true any more.

Fortunately, the banter script still works, but while in group, the banters are no longer triggered randomly by the engine but have to be triggered by skript.

And, huge disadvantage: the "familiars" follow into scenes that are meant to be for the PC alone: cutscenes, dreams, ... This is something I haven't dealt with, yet.

[Lauriel]

Seriously, if you could figure out how to do this, you'd be my hero for-evah!

[Lauriel]

17 minutes ago, jastey said:

(Gods, I thought the forum ate this post because there was an error message when I moved it. Phew..)

Probably because I had already posted a little quip after the one you moved.  No biggie. 

[jastey]

1 minute ago, Lauriel said:

Probably because I had already posted a little quip after the one you moved.

If a post or edit from you was eaten I am very sorry.

4 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

if you could figure out how to do this

Do you mean re-script existing NPCs so they could follow as familiars? I guess it is feasible, the most complicated thing would be identifying which interjection/script condition "InParty" etc. to change to something which would trigger while in 7th party member mode, too. I am not sure this could be done automated.

[Lauriel]

On 2/4/2020 at 9:40 PM, jastey said:

And, huge disadvantage: the "familiars" follow into scenes that are meant to be for the PC alone: cutscenes, dreams, ... This is something I haven't dealt with, yet.

I tried changing his EnemyAlly status from FAMILIAR to NEUTRAL, but he still follows into cut scenes where, although he's a very good boy, I don't want him to participate.  Any ideas how I can make him learn to SIT!  STAY!

EDIT: I also tried RemoveFamiliar() and AddFamiliar() before and after the cut scenes, and although it appeared to work, the game would crash if I brought him into the group after that to raise his level.

Edited December 26, 2021 by Lauriel

[jastey]

Yes, the 7th party member mode is quite petulant. For Grey not following into dreams there is probably only the chance of doing it like @argent77 did it for his djinn compagnion mod - explicietly patch each cutscene and take the 7th pm out. It's on my list - but before that I am more concerned with finishing my mods for SoD and BGII at all.

For turning the NPC to neutral and back to a familiar, have a look at the c#grey.baf where it is done in case the HP get too low.

Crashing upon taking the 7th pm into the group to raise their level for me happened in case it was done if beforehand, an item out of a bag of holding was removed from the 7th pm in a dialogue while they were 7th pm. This won't happen unless I scripted it in though, which I kind of tried to do for Grey and Brandock so items in their inventory would be recognized at least for their own quests. But bags of holding are usually tagged critical anyway so I guess Brandock's book case would be the only one where this could happen at all.

I am playing on classic BGII currently with both Grey and Brandock in 7th pmm and the way the engine is placing the familiars is driving me crazy - one is always close to the group, but the other one gets randomly distributed across the map with sometimes distances that makes them walk to a completely different dungeon alley or city street, outside of my monitor's area. For some reason it's always Grey strolling about so it kind of fits for a dog, but since he also stops walking if he loses eye contact I lost count on how many times I had to walk back to collect Grey who was busy sniffing something out along the way. Bad boy!

[Lauriel]

5 minutes ago, jastey said:

have a look at the c#grey.baf

That's where I got the idea.  But I'll study it in more detail.  I probably missed something.  Thanks!