The Tupam armor mod might be useful for you then, least the idea it brings about. Energy resist (I havnt played bs yet, I assume the tesla cannon is an energy weapon). Simply give your boss high energy resist, and make sure the player knows this. That way they bring some other gun types.

Aha... I see what you mean. Thanks for that tip, it may solve this for me.

On another note, I cannot believe how easy it was to move my death handling system to be compatible with the 1.5 executable. My knockedstate detection code for disabled-follower-management continues to work perfectly, which saves me a LOT of coding. The only change is a little bit of code in the followers' scripts and some containers thrown over at Gary's place. I can't believe how I lucked out on this one.

Tarrant, since I made TUPAM I can try and help you with the ER if you need it.

Well, its like this.

I have a sentry robot. It's name is... well, forget that for now.

I want him to be invulnerable to that weapon, but I want him to have normal suceptability to pulse mines and pulse grenades.

Pulse mines and pulse grenades are not under energy weapons I believe. I believe they are under EMP Resist. Though I could be wrong...

Sounds like this is a can-do then, huh.

Like I said, I'm not sure. I just saw the EMP Resist and wondered what it was for. The only thing I can think of is pulse mines etc.

Oh crap.

I modified the Tesla Cannon to have EMP damage in my upcoming BrokenSteelCompanion.esp for T3T_WT.

Do I do bad?

I don't know...

if the tesla cannon normally does some other kind of damage, and EMP is the damage type that pulse grenades and pulse mines do, and you're making the tesla cannon do huge amounts of damage which match the type done by pulse grenades and mines, then well... it seems that it might one-shot-kill my robot.

Crap. I'll need to think about this.

I don't positively know, though. You might test it, like make a robot and see how it all works out.

Well it definitely does what I wanted it to do (kill robots faster, since I personally hate sentry bots) but if that's going to interfere with your mod... I may have to think of something else.

I wanted to let people know - - -

- The distance-based weapon selection system as it's implemented in Phalanx 0.96 is not performing well under executable version 1.5. My script has always had a particular bug and the new executable is making my script's bug kick in more often. Expect a new release soon that will have this system working better and my script bug fixed. At least because its being triggered more often, it's easier to troubleshoot now.

- There's an issue that has existed in every version of FO3 I've ever known where the NPC can get stuck trying to equip a weapon. It has to do with the weapon representing itself as 2 in the inventory. This is happening more frequently than before, and it causes NPCs to stand there and let enemies beat on them. I'll be evaluating this after the distance-based weapon selection system is up to par, and if it's still as severe as it is now, I'll maybe work out a way to address it directly.

- Human and Ghoul followers in 0.96 are auto-healing both during and after combat with executable version 1.5.

I have this fixed already in my .esp here. The fix for this required making core changes to the follower "death" management. The death behavior in my copy is different than what people are used to, as there is no period of time they are lying on the ground 'unconcious". When beaten down to zero health they fall down, then get up immedietely, then run for their lives. The reasons behind it being this way are complicated and unrelated to what might be considered thematically correct. The base reason is that ALL of the semi-good death handling methods that I tried that caused an extended follower collapse, without bugging the follower badly, had the side effect of deleting the follower's equipped weapon. Long story... but that's how it is.. and the way I've put in now positively prevents item loss.

On the good side of that, I've worked out the behavior better for when a follower first becomes disabled. In 0.96 and earlier versions it was possible for a follower to be aggressive toward you due to you having shot them, but also crowding up aganist you, usually cowering at your feet. If they do this in the next version, it lasts for an absolute maximum of 15 seconds but typically its much more brief (if it happens).

- I think the group command "come get your ammo" is broken. Not sure how this happened.

So anyway. The changes I'm making are related to the 1.5 executable but everything will still work fine with unpatched executable versions.

Damageav fatigue after reviving. Works like a charm.

It doesn't work in my application because 1) it can make the havoc or something go crazy, the follower walks around making rattling, flopping sounds, and crashing sounds if it gets near an old car, and 2) enemies see the follower as being alive as it lies there and they stand there pounding/shooting the fatigued-out follower, which is a mess for the fight flow. At least when the follower is nonfatigued it can try to run away.

The havoc will happen anyways when the follower stands up. I have seen flying cars that way.
Nothing like factions to keep the follower safe from being shot at.

Actually, setghost *may* solve both problems.

I haven't tried it, but can you give followers the new BS content weapons and they'll use them, or will you have to make a module to add the new DLC weapons to their weapon lists?

You can, but the weapon selection script will automatically go dormant until the follower equips a recognized weapon.

What is that, exactly?

*sigh*
tarrant made a script that makes the weapon selection behavior of the companion to be smarter as long as the npc is equipped with vanilla weapons.
This piece of script simply waits if the companion is wielding an unrecognized weapon (in other words, the companion will think in vanilla mode).

You find it stressful to help people don't you...

i dislike to repeat myself.

Well excuse me.

aw doan be fightin' ya'll.



In one of the things I tried, I was using setghost, and it may have actually fixed it. I tried a whole different number of things, it's a long story sorta, here's best I can explain without writing a book-length post - -

I had a system together that worked perfectly. The follower would actually die, which was perfect for what I wanted the enemy AI to do (enemies might even loot your follower while it was down for example). This thing worked great, it looked great, and was quite configurable and controllable on my side. I loved it.

With one absolutely destructive exception that I had to cancel the WHOLE thing over.

When followers die and have one weapon in their hand, they often fall to the ground with the weapon and the weapon goes into a special mode. The weapon is NOT in the follower's inventory for real, but it pretends to be when you open the corpse. When the weapon is in this mode, my scripts cannot see it. But it's still attached to the follower! The result is that unless the weapon is picked up by another NPC or the player, when I issue a resurrect on the follower, the [censored] thing is deleted. Up - and - [censored] - deleted.

Now the "resurrect 1" command doesn't do that. It leaves the inventory where it is, actually leaving that dropped weapon on the ground. I could have lived with that, actually, there's a way I can even make followers help you search for weapons that may be lost. BUT the big fat issue with "resurrect 1" for me was that the followers' body parts don't always look right after you use that function. "resurrect 1" required extensive handling in the first place (Martigen has a thread about it) because of some weird issue where the NPC, strangely, simply sinks into the ground. But what positively killed "resurrect 1" for me was that if the follower had body parts that were exploded in the death etc, those parts would re-attach to the follower but remain exploded. The only fix I found for THAT was... to issue a real "resurrect" command. And even after issuing "resurrect 1" first, it would still delete the darn weapon off of the ground!

It svcked, discovering that, because I had the system working using a double resurrect to fix the exploded body parts.

So with me unable to have both a follower with straight legs etc, and not cause that weapon to delete, I switched methodology completely. I discovered that gamemode in the follower's script trumps death and lets you fix the exploding body parts before they explode. I was able to make code that sneaks a whole block of code in there that basically saves the follower's ass at the absolute last minute. To work right, I had to set the follower essential in that frame, plus restore the condition on all of the limbs, and so on.

So the result is that the follower does not die but, remember that essential doesn't work the same any more. It causes Phalanx followers to auto heal while fighting, if I had to guess its the mechanics of my weapon selection script triggering that part of it. The follower does not collapse to the ground automatically with this methodology.

I seriously do not dare use damageav fatigue on them in this case. I have seen a very strange bug after using it that way where the weapons were stuck on the follower in a dis-attached form. The bug was so strange that I made a video of it, I probably have it around still. And in my testing I heard that rattling sound on live followers afterward, although it didn't last long. I don't dare use it, the stuck-weapon-bug was bad and the only fix was a resurrection.

SO.... what all this crap means in my mind is - - if you can tell me a way to make a follower collapse to the ground and stay there a while without using damageav fatigue, I might be able to use it. I am issuing a pushactoraway now so I could work it in somewhere after that, perhaps. I may be able to correct the deal where enemies want to pound the crap out of the follower while he's lying there, but its the causing the follower to lie there and not move that's a problem. In the past I've not seen setrestrained do the job, that makes them stand. I can't figure out how to make "paralysis" work...



Fawkes is your only follower who uses a true weapon list. I doubt they updated it to add in the DLC weapons because after seeing what the DLC weapons are, to my knowledge Fawkes does not have the necessary animations to be able to fire those weapon types. That's an issue I cannot figure out how to fix, I would have done it long ago if I knew how (TalkieToaster plz release!!!!!!! *wants*).

For the other followers, what TGBlank is basically saying is correct, he didnt explain it all the way in his first post was all. If you've got the followers "tactics" setting to the Phalanx default, which is to select weapons based upon distance from the target, it creates a slightly funny situation. If nothing about the weapon specifically tells NPCs that they are not allowed to use it, they will be interested in equipping it. If the follower manages to equip it before my system starts interfering with a fight, my system will not attempt to stop the follower from using it. However, if for some reason they do not equip it before my system starts working, my system will not attempt to use it in the weapon rotation and will, indirectly, attempt to prevent its use.

However, it's possible for me to make at least the new flamer-type weapons and the new laser rifle work in the distance-based system when I make the Broken Steel integration patch for Phalanx. I feel right now though that the new laser rifle type is properly used as a mid-range weapon, whereas the regular laser rifle is best as a long-range. Hopefully nobody would hand a follower both the new laser rifle and the old one and expect them to be used in this way (switching off of the new one to select the old for sniping). I cannot make that behavior happen within my system because the 2 weapons share the same ammo.



If the goal of your mod is to make robots a pushover, all I'm saying is that the weapon you're describing will turn my sentry bot into exactly that. It's all about what game balance you're trying to create. If you hate sentry bots, maybe it's the right mod for you, you know? In terms of DPS danger to the player, my sentry bot is the singularly most dangerous enemy that the player will have ever encountered either in Broken Steel or vanilla game with the exception of the player making an enemy out of Liberty Prime. With the right technique though, my bot can be killed in under 30 seconds, and a leveled player will lose about 1/3 health in the process (Liberty Prime takes no damage from the player). The wrong technique against my sentry bot means you either take 10 minutes to kill it, or, it kills you. A tesla cannon that can kill my bot from a distance does, well, exactly that. It doesn't interfere so much as make an intended challenge be a non-challenge. It's all about what you want your mod to offer, really.

If you hate sentry bots you will be like OMG WHAT THE HELL when you come to understand what mine does. Maybe that weapon is for you, in that case. hehehehe.

I've been so so SO TEMPTED to try this mod. But I know if I get it I won't be able to help myself, I'll have every companion ever. Can you tell them to go stay at your house? Or do they have to be at the tent?