Advice needed for new mod

[ghastley]

I'm in the process of creating a follower mod for Skyrim (probably doing both LE and SE versions eventually), with one small twist. There is a pair of them, and I need to make sure that they join the player or leave / get dismissed together. 

There are several mods for multiple followers, and I'd like to avoid issues with those, which means not replacing any base game scripts. I looked at Amazing Follower Tweaks, as it's a popular choice, and that subclasses the vanilla scripts, instead of replacing them. If my followers get unique dialog topics added to DialogueFollower with fragments that invoke my own extensions of DialogureFollowerScript functions, and use my own extensions of FollowerAliasScript, is that sufficient to unlink the mods?

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by ghastley
Formatting

[traison]

4 hours ago, ghastley said:

is that sufficient to unlink the mods?

 

I assume you mean "does this overwrite (break) changes made by popular follower frameworks?", the answer to that is simple:

1. Create a new plugin in the CK.
2. Make the change you wish to test.
3. Open your new test plugin and one (or multiple) of the follower framework plugins in xEdit.
4. Inspect the records in your test plugin. If there's a record conflict, odds are it will break something.

The way I'd implement something like this is to either:

1. Create a custom follower manager for these 2, as in, have them follow the player with a simple Follow package, and add the usual hi/trade/bye dialogue through a custom quest. This way its independent of Bethesda's implementation (which as we all know doesn't support multiple followers) and whatever follower framework the player is using (none of which as far as I know support handling 2 actors as a single follower).
2. Have one of the followers follow the other, and only have one of them actually be considered a follower by the game. Works with both vanilla and custom follower managers then. You can probably hack in any dialogue options for the other non-follower follower should it be needed. Could have the devil just go "hmph" when asked to carry things etc.

Edited November 29, 2023 by traison