<Question> Papyrus: add actor to faction or add his alias to faction?

[Antono]

I have a quest set up with quest aliases and scripts to forceref them to actors.

 

Now, suppose I want an actor in this quest to become a member of another faction. How should I go about doing that?

 

1 . If I use a simple addtofaction() on the actor, I am worried that he will remain a member of said faction even after the quest is complete, which defeats the very purpose of using quest aliases. Or will he remove himself of all the factions he joined while in this alias after the quest is complete (I doubt it)?

 

2. If I were to add the alias to the faction, I can't use a "referencealias type addtofaction()" function for this as it doesn't exist, does it? So, that leaves me with creating yet another quest alias (with this faction enabled in CK) and forceref-ing this to my actor, which I am worried it will become a bit tedious if I keep having to create new aliases to add/remove him from factions.

 

What method do you guys use? Many thanks for your answers!

[b3lisario]

I don't think aliases work like that. The changes you make to the underlying object the alias is pointing to won't clean themselves when the alias is released.

 

Manually remove the actor from the faction when the quest ends.

[Antono]

I haven't made myself clear. In option no 2, I won't be making changes to the object reference; I will be just adding it to another alias thus making it inherit all the aliase's attributes.

 

Indeed, changes won't clean themselves if the changes have been made to the object the alias is pointing at. That's why I do not like option no. 1. Have to clean after the quest's mess when it ends.

 

However, actors shed all properties of the alias when the alias is removed. The thing is, while you can add an alias to a faction in the CK (thus enabling the actor to auto-remove themselves from said faction once the alias is cleared), there is no papyrus function to add an alias to a faction, in game.

 

Thus, I'm kind of stuck with only the alias'es factions that were set in the CK when I go with option 2. Which means I need to create at least as many aliases as the factions I need to work with.

 

 

...am I missing something or that's how it is and this is why you are opting to just make changes to the underlying objects and clean everything afterwards?

 

 

[b3lisario]

Oh quite interesting the factions list in the reference alias window

 

There is this function.

http://www.creationkit.com/TryToAddToFaction_-_ReferenceAlias

It seems it's just like (alias.getReference() as Actor).addToFaction()

 

Why don't just add your faction in CK?

[Antono]

 

 

That's exactly what I'm saying, there is this lovely option which would let me add my factions there and they'll be auto-removed when the alias is cleared.

 

However, I will have to create a separate alias for every damn faction I will use, plus if I have more than one actor to assign to these factions the number of aliases will increase exponentially!

 

Is there no way to add factions to aliases (not the actors they're pointing at) in-game via papyrus scripts? Are we stuck with actor.addtofaction() and cleaning up the mess afterwards?

 

...remember, Ms Leeches instructed me: "I think if you can do something with the help of an alias you should! ^^"

[b3lisario]

I don't think there is such a function

 

Why do you need so many factions?

[Antono]

Yeah, I suppose there isn't... Which rather odd if you ask me. I'm sure the SKSE guys will fix it!

 

I need quite a number of factions to assign ownership to idle markers. It's the only way to dynamically do this: idle marker ownership is either specific NPC or faction, no alias option.

 

Anyway, thanks for helping me make up my mind: actor.addtofaction() it is then! (Sorry Ms Leeches!)