fingerscrossed

New updated dropped. PapyrusUtils now required, but also now checks whether or not a nif exists before attempting to replace it. Also some other QoL bugfixes. Use Batch Mode, it should work best and be most stable. Use Restore Mode on armor replacement to replace the nif after the player 3D meshes generate to keep it from having impact on NPCs. Use Phoneme mode to reset player facial expressions. This should (hopefully) fix all of the major issues.

After having an idea or two and working on it the last day or two, I wanted to post a short tech demo of some things I figured out for controlling an NPC. I had been somewhat interested in having the ability to control an NPC, particularly for things like combat, when the player is bound and therefore a non-combatant. Most control NPC things I've found don't really have that good of functionality, so I decided to see if I could make something that might be interesting. Attached in the 7z is an ~3min video (Warning: Video is NSFW with PC outfit) of controlling an NPC with a little more capability than most other mods I've seen that do something similar. Brief synopsis of video and what I was able to do: At the start of the video, you see the player character is currently yoked. A nearby mercenary offers his services to help escort her safely to her destination. She accepts, tells him he can lead, and picks the destination of Riverwood from a list. As part of accepting, the player is set to be running AI and has a package to follow the escort. The area around Whiterun is somewhat janky for this, so that's why you see some of the escort moving to the end of the leash distance for escorting and stopping before the player moves (As well as some use of TC to move the PC along). ((These are things that are relatively known)) After a few moments of this, PC talks to the mercenary and selects and option to take control of the mercenary (~1min 10 sec mark) - (There's some weird player movement here that's the result of the janky whiterun pathing and starting a conversation). Controls and PoV switch over to the Mercenary. ((These are things that are relatively known)) For a quick demo, Mercenary draws his weapon (using the r key on a keybind) and takes a few swings with it (using left click on a keybind). After that, he switches to a spell (using a keybind) and casts a summon spell, summoning an animate weapon (using left click on a keybind). ((These are things that, to my knowledge, are new)) After this, the Mercenary moves towards the gate. The gate is selected in the console, and a keybind is pressed causing the Mercenary to go through the gate and enter Whiterun. The Camera glitches out for a moment before the player then follows them into Whiterun. ((This is also new to my knowledge, and the activation should also work for other items selected in console)) At the entrance to Whiterun, a simple method of starting conversations (using the e key on a keybind) is shown both starting a conversation with the "player" (actually themself, but with modified dialogue condition to make it seem like the player is the one being spoken to) and then the player is told to stay where they are as the controlled NPC ventures into Whiterun. Along the way, they speak with other NPCs starting conversations even when further away from the player. ((Relatively new to my knowledge)) Finally, near the end of the video, the controlled NPCs takes a few more swings for good measure and then goes into sneak stance. ((Sneak stance separate from player sneaking also I believe new?)) I don't currently have any intentions on developing this along and releasing it, but it seemed like something worth posting out there in case someone did. Skyrim Special Edition 2025-01-26 16-58-44.7z

I didn't directly get inspiration (this was something I wanted and made for myself), and indeed the implementation does look like same goal but pretty opposite approaches. I'm only going to discuss the newer replacement implementation I have, because the old one has additional issues. I'll briefly answer question and explain why I used my approach instead of the one used in PCEAr (at least as I understand their implementation from a quick look): First, yes, there are two sets of armor meshes: "Regular" - NPCs (and player, if you either disable a slot or an armor) will use these. "pa" - The folder for the player specific meshes. You do have to build the files you want into the pa folder separate for the player to use it this way. I use scripts for, when the player equips a piece of armor, it dynamically changes the target meshes used in the armor addons (after a short delay) to the pa meshes. This is in comparison to PCEAr which looks to make two sets of armor (A player armor and a NPC armor) with two different sets of base meshes/etc., and then uses scripts to replace one with the other. I believe the NPCs will then use the secondary armor while the player uses the primary. The main benefit of the PA approach is that it supports having modded armor sets that have different builds without requiring a plug-in to make it compatible since you do not need to go into creation kit and create new armors in game for the secondary armor effect. From a quick example: You have an armor "Special Bikini Chainmail" and a custom player body. In PCEAr, you would likely need to do something like: 1) Create the two meshes and put them in proper folders 2) Create a plugin/modification to create the new armor mesh and add it to PCEAr (requiring Creation Kit and some knowledge there) In PA, 1) Create the two meshes and put them in proper folders This nominally makes PA much more compatible with other mods and is intended so that the user doesn't have to go into the creation kit and do anything there each time they add a new set of modded/etc armor. Additionally, since the mod doesn't effect any of the armors in game base, it shouldn't interfere with any mod that would does. Additionally, because in batch mode, the current recommended, only the meshes are dynamically changed, the item and its stats/enchantments are not affected at all switching between modes. But, use what you want to. I made this mod primarily for myself and then distributed it in case it something others were interested in. If you prefer PCEAr's implementation then I'm glad you've got options and they've got something you like.

Posting an update after a few weeks on status: I've had one person reach out to me on beat testing, and I got them a copy. Initially when they tried to load into the battlezone area their game would crash. With a little bit of troubleshooting and crash logs, the culprit looked to be Zaz. They apparently got the crash to stop by downloading the 8.0 Zaz LE (they were playing on the SE Version). The issue looks to be related to the Zaz Furniture that is in the cell. As I develop on LE and then rebuild on SE (since you can go LE -> SE, but not vice versa) I'm not sure what the issue is and if it's going to be wide spread, so I could use a few more beta testers who would be willing to help look/check for bugs.

Ahhh, yeah, okay, I can see this making some sense. I don't know exactly how the DD Device Hider works on the backend, but I could definitely see it doing some kind of a loop with PA were one of them tries to unequip/reequip/change nif and it triggers the other which activates and the triggers the other ad nauseum. The Devices Underneath/Device Hider is one that I usually turn off on DD, so I didn't even think of it. I'm not sure it's something I could fix without probably going into DD Device Hider to see what they are using to trigger it and it might even require a DD compatibility patch with PA.

Which mode are you running the mod in? Do you have any mods that change animations or do any replacement on doing things like weapon drawing?

The set up is indeed kind of a pain. Glad to hear that it is working out, though.

Oh hey, I got pinged here with Polymorphic Armor being linked. I made the mod a little while back primarily for myself to use, and in the latest version added the Batch Build mode which overall seems to work pretty effectively. The mod basically uses a secondary repository of nifs that are intended to mirror the file structure used by the normal gear except with a "pa" addendum in the file structure (so, instead of Meshes/Armor/Bandit/XXXX.nif, it would be Meshes/Armorpa/Bandit/XXXX.nif, with the pa one being the one intended for player use). This can either be combined with a custom race using a custom body or just for setting up different looking armor for the player to wear. Slots can be restricted to not change, but one of the issues is that for all of the meshes that might be swapped, a corresponding mesh is needed in a "pa" equivalent folder, even if it isn't changing because there is no innate functionality I've found to be able to check and see if a .nif or a file exists. In the batch build mode, what the mod does is shortly after the player equips an item, it goes through all of the items in the player's inventory, checks for any non-restricted slots that have items equipped, and then if it finds any, it changes the .nif files the armor addons are looking at it to the pa version, updates the players 3d model (so that the updated armor is shown), and then resets the armor addons back to their original .nif files so that any NPCs equipping that armor won't use the players model. This mode seems to be much less janky than the way I was originally doing it. Two short videos in the spoiler below showing what this looks like in game (One equipping novice mage robes that have an alternate mesh, and the other equipping a zaz harness and DD gag). The mod isn't a perfect solution, but it seems to have worked fairly well overall as long as you are making sure to have appropriate replacement nifs.

Missed this post a while back, but it should work the same for armor mods. If the armor is normally in Meshes/Armor/XXXX then it should just be in Meshes/ArmorPA/XXXX. If it's Meshes/MyModName/XXXX, then it should be Meshes/MyModNamePA/XXXX. Similar to above, you just add pa to the end of the new folder. In terms of remembering choices, there's probably a way of doing that, but that's also probably non-trivial. If I had to guess, when the body/cock gets replaced, it like has a mesh somewhere (i.e., Meshes/Actors/XXXX) and when it comes to the pa check, it then attempts to replace the mesh with a pa version. If you haven't tried it, try finding the mesh for the schlong and then copying it's path to an equivalent path (i.e., Meshes/Actorspa/XXXX) and see if that works.

Also, while I don't plan on doing a full update description on what I've fixed/changed/added, because it was a lot and there was a lot of really weird esoteric bugs that came up because for some unknown reason Bethesda never seemed to plan for you to do something like this, I'll give a quick update on where the mod is at: There is a fairly fleshed out MCM that contains values, sliders, options, and the ability to select options for your party members. You can also discuss some things with your party members via dialogue. The MCM contains adjustable values for everything from damage bonuses to weights for choosing categories to success chances to options you can toggle on or off. There is an ability to have turn based combat auto start on basically the player getting into a fight. You can actually win/lose these fights, and if you win them you can chose what to do with the enemies and loot them. Based on the set difficulty, the fights will potentially generate extra enemies to make them more interesting. There's a pretty wide range of actions that can be taken in combat. You can attack with weapons (anyone) or magic (player only currently), use special weapon skills (player only), assist allies, hamper enemies, strip, bind, seduce, forcefully engage in sexual conduct, struggle out of a situation, and more. Enemies can do much the same to you, and can do things like ganging up to improve their chance of hitting you. You can rescue allies, or tell them to suck it up, put out, and try to tire out the enemy. Regular damage scales off of levels, skill with the weapon/magic, effects like enchantments, etc. Sex damage, which drains stamina before health, takes stats from sexlab into account to scale up the damage based on how experienced you are. There are a few bugs. Sometimes initiating sex really confuses sex lab and the controller script when something happens like an unexpected race enters (Though this usually recovers). I have absolutely no idea why the script that equips restraints sometimes removes some armor from the players inventory that they had equipped at some point (There's no RemoveItem called, so why does it disappear?). You also don't want to autostart a combat with dragon (there's only one battlezone currently, and it's a bandit cave. The dragon doesn't fit (a common problem Dragonborn's face)). There's a ton of things I haven't had the time to do and honestly would love if someone else wanted to. There's only one line used by everyone when they strip someone, or miss an attack, etc., and while it wouldn't be hard to make more, and make some that are only said by certain types, I just have my hands full with the other parts of the mod. Similarly, there's I suppose two battlezones, but one of them was just a debug/test one. I'd love to have/make more, but priorities, but also I set it up so that this could be done in the future without needing to rewrite. Overall, though, it's running much more stable than before and I think that's pretty great progress. If there is interest, I might be able to post a demo of it in its current state (or maybe someone who reaches out for Closed Beta can). Let me know if that's something you'd want to see.

Haven't been in the thread in a while, figured I would make a post while I'm on: I haven't looked at DAR, but it sounds like a good framework to use. I also haven't look at any of the code for this since in probably two years at this point, and I'm sure if I did I would cry with how poorly it's written. I've been working on other projects and haven't really had the desire to work on this to get it fixed up/updated. It's possible I'll do it in the future, but at the moment the time that I am spending modding I have other priorities and interests. I might try and work on this at some point in the future, but with how long it takes me to get other things out I am working on (like Turn Based Combat mod), I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. If someone wants to pick this up, let me know and I'm happy to work with you. If someone really wants to add to the mod and wants my help to get things fixed up so they can, let me know and depending on what you are looking for I may try to carve out some time. But, barring things changing, and for the purpose of being upfront with everyone, this is not on my immediate priorities.

Looking at my previous post, I'm realizing it's been about 6 months since I updated anything here, so you can probably imagine what I'm about to say: It's been too much effort and I've given up, abandoning this. It truly was just a bit too much to handle. . . . . Lol, just kidding, I've got a closed beta version. It's still a bit buggy but most of the bugs seem pretty rare and outside the mod itself. If you are someone who is familiar with dealing with potentially buggy mods and want to help me troubleshoot issues, send me a PM. I want a bit of testing and a bit more work on a few fringe cases before I put out a public beta/version, but hey, a couple sentences back you probably thought this was dead. If you are interested in doing closed beta testing and trouble shooting (not for people who just want to play it), send me a message and let me know which version you want, LE or SE. I've been developing entirely in LE, and then testing entirely in SE, so both should probably work. I'll try and check back in at least once a day for messages for anyone interested in helping. Once the mod seems to be relatively stable in closed beta, I'll put a public version out.

The monitor looks to have been fixed, but I have come across one more bug I am trying to solve that needs to be fixed prior to beta: Combat not starting/loading after combat had been previously triggered. I don't recall seeing this issue previously, so I am trying to figure out what, if anything, I did that is causing the issue. I'm thinking that the most likely scenario is that something isn't properly getting shut down and restart between encounters, which then passes some kind of bad data and causes the sequence to fail. Going to try and take a look into this and test this afternoon when I can find some time.

I've mentioned this a few times in various PA threads, but there is no native way I have found to check and see if a mesh exists and if not ignore it. As near as I can tell, this would require a SKSE .dll plugin to add a few function to papyrus to be able to check, which is something I do not have the knowledge of how to do nor currently the desire to figure out. If someone has a method for doing this, or wishes to create a plugin to check and see if a file exists inside of papyrus, I will happily implement this as an update.

Wanted to make another quick update: Ran across a few more bugs I wanted to squash before putting out Beta, have gotten a few of them (Creatures not dealing damage on attack) sorted, but came across another one (battlefield monitor validity improperly updating) I am trying to quash right now (Looks like I may have not noticed previously due to party sizes and actions taken, but this may also explain some weirdness I have seen on occasion). The BF monitor is a bit complicated sometimes to re-wrap my head around, but hoping I can get it figured out in the next hour or two, test it, and then have beta (other fixes all seem to be working/implemented properly).