I may have found a problem with the companion scripts; it seems that being in combat messes up their ability to follow the player. I had Ash-Kosh and Sara with me; we were on one of the outdoor walkways in the Vivec Foreign Quarter when I was attacked by an Ordinator. (Due to my actions in the Vivec's Fate mod I'm now an enemy of the temple, and Ordinators attack me on sight.) Rather than fight him, I stepped through the door to the Waistworks. The companions didn't follow me through as they normally would, and when I went back through the door to the outside they weren't there either. I called them with their rings and each one said she'd be there right away, but neither one actually showed up. When I contacted them again they said they'd meet me outside. Since I was already outside, something had obviously gotten off-track in their scripts.

Is this a known problem (with an obvious workaround--always finish combat before going through a door) or have I uncovered something new?

I think this might be a known problem with grumpy's scripts using GetWeaponDrawn as a check during follow mode. I'm not sure what can be done about fixing it though. Now that Emma's forum is up and running again, I can ask around there and see if anyone knows anything.

Edit:
vv I can log in to Emma's forum, but it can't access the actual threads, and I can't post. I may have to investigate this later or post my question elsewhere.

Emma's forum isn't currently up and running. Try sleeping for 72 game hours and calling the companion again - or going back to a previous save.

I did, in fact, go back to a previous save--fortunately, I'd saved just before encountering the Ordinator.

Those Follow scripts are complex enough that I suspect an attempt to fix this would be more trouble than it's worth and most likely would introduce other problems. I'm content to just avoid activating doors while in combat.

Another little item I just learned is that the companions don't follow you to the Clockwork City when Almalexia sends you there. I should have known that would be the case; I studied those teleport scripts enough when I was chasing the freeze bug.

Yes, in fact I had to disable teleporting manually in the MWSE version, because their following is so persistent with the plug-in that they would unless I made a special check for it, and we don't want that.

Do the companions have carry limits? I've found that when I do Share/Store on Gavyn or Ash-Kosh, their inventory windows show their current carried weight and a limit number. However, if I load them up with enough to exceed their limit, they continue to follow me, rather than being weighted down to one spot. (Ash-Kosh actually exceeds her supposed weight limit with just her own armor and weapons.) Sara shows a weight limit of 0, but follows me regardless of what she's carrying. Right now she's got three sets of armor (I upgraded her twice and didn't remove the old armor either time) weighing over 300 pounds total, but doesn't seem to be slowed down by it.

So it seems that the companions can be used as infinite-capacity pack mules. Is that really so?

I only tried to go over the weight limit with Ash-Kosh, but from what I remember from that one time she/he seemed unable to move apart from when I got too far from him/her, at that point he/she teleported near me, I think it's the same with all the other companions, so the answer seems to be an almost, you can use them that way, they will continue to follow you, but they became difficult to use in combat, particularly if you are making them use melee wepons.

Yeah, their warp scripts will kick in and port them behind you, but they really can't fight in that condition and it looks really odd having them standing there and then popping up behind you instead of running behind you. You can use any companion employing Grumpy's warp scripting this way, but most people don't because it's kind of cheating, it looks weird, and the companions can't fight.

What about Sara? Her weight limit (as shown) is 0, but she moves and fights just fine.

That's pretty odd. I'll check her encumberance in the CS and adjust it as necessary, but yeah, she should be having problems then.

OK, I've figured out what was going on. I assumed Sara had always had an encumbrance limit of 0, and since she had charged at enemies back at the beginning, before I told her to stand back and use magic, I thought that she hadn't been affected by carry weight. But I got a spell to restore strength on companions and cast it on her, and now her carry limit is something in the 200's. She must have been hit by a Drain Strength attack somewhere along the way. I also checked how she was following; before I restored her strength she was moving in teleport jumps like you described, and afterwards she was walking.

So no more mystery. Companions have their carry limits, and are affected by them just like a player. And now I know that I need to watch their strength and restore it when necessary.

Update!!!

I've added a new NPC schedules add-on to the download page on PES. This is a test patch for upcoming changes to the mod. I would really appreciate it if some people could test it out and give me some feedback on it before I attempt to merge it into the main mod.

What it does is add schedules to all the NPCs in the tower and vault. There are also alternate vampire schedules if you turn them all into vampires.

This was the last thing on my list before release. I need some feedback so I can put some polish on the schedules before I release the next version of UL though, so I'm going to wait a couple weeks on feedback from the scheduling add-on. There's also a few other minor things left to do, but it's getting very close to completion.

Does the test patch require you to clean the Upper Tower? I'll try it out if not.

No, it doesn't require any cleaning.

Also, I forgot to change something for the version that's compatible with the current beta release. I've re-uploaded the file with a small fix.

In the meantime, I've found some bugs with the companion following in the new MWSE patch. If you run across exterior cells and one of your companions falls behind, they teleport behind you (and sometimes don't stop teleporting until you hit the next cell). Also, they sometimes don't show up when you call them with the ring.

I've remedied this, and also made a few other changes. I've removed the limitation for Sara and Gavyn that won't allow them to teleport to you after sending them to their meeting places. The reason for this is they no longer turn inside-out if you call them back right away with the new MWSE scripting. I have however, made it so you have to change cells before you can call them back, because otherwise they don't show up at all if you call them back right away. I think it's because their data is still loaded in the cell after their gone, and you have to change cells to clear this data.

I left Ash-Kosh as is, because I still want the player to have a reason to visit Asharakumuk, and I came up with a good reason for Ash-Kosh not to be able to be summoned back. Also, because Ash-Kosh has no limitation when it comes to teleportation bans, I figured this limitation would be a bit balancing.

I also received a bug report regarding their follow dialogue variable not being set back to 0, and NPCs thinking the companions are in tow when they aren't. I've fixed this as well. I solved most of these problems by making the follow scripts persistent, so they don't stop when the companion stops following, they just hang in a return state until the follow variables are set again.

I'm still testing this rigorously (which I didn't quite test as rigorously before), and won't be releasing the new MWSE patch until it's fully tested.

Edit: as for the npc schedules, since I'm planning on merging this with the main mod, should I add a way to disable schedules using a global variable for people who do not want them?

I've decided to introduce a bell-pull to the tower that will ring a bell and wake up any slumbering NPCs who provide quests or services. The basic mechanics are in place, and it's working great so far. However, it probably needs some refining to make it more of an RP element. I'm thinking of resetting the global variable after an hour perhaps to let the NPCs go back to sleep after they've been woken up. This means you'd have to pull the bell every time you want to do stuff in the middle of the night though.

Would that be too annoying? Should I just leave the global variable set to schedules off until the player pulls the bell again, and makes an active decision to let them resume their nightly schedules? The latter might be better for gameplay, but more annoying for roleplay? What do people think?

Wouldn't it be easier to just leave the schedules as a separate .esp like it is now, rather than merging it?

I feel that it would be best to have them reset after an hour. It would keep the realism to their schedules.

I wonder, though, just as a concept, perhaps for a set time period, like the duration of one night, any time the bell is rung, there is a disposition drop. Once the disposition is low enough, NPCs refuse service for the rest of the night, as sort of a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" effect. My reasoning is that you can disturb your servants only so much during the night before they will tell you off (I was part of a live-in household staff once upon a time, and dealt with just such a problem). You know the scripting better than I, so you would know if it is even feasible to do that, but I'm just curious of your opinion on the idea.

Regardless, I can't wait to see the new update

I should say that I am biased towards RP, and personally would be willing to experience some gameplay frustration in return for the immersive quality the resetting schedule would have.

I think, in game time, an hour is just to short. Perhaps 2 or 3, but an hour is really nothing more than a few minutes in real time, and it would get rather annoying ringing the bell once every 10-20 minutes of play. It'd almost be a rush to get to the servants before they go back to sleep.

Good point. Perhaps I'll just wake them up for the rest of the night. In roleplaying terms it could be, "Well, the master wants me up. Looks like I'll be getting no more sleep tonight. Sigh..." I don't think I'll mod their disposition though. I know it would work well RP-wise, but I don't really want to penalize the player for simply wanting the convenience of forwarding the stronghold maintenance quest for example at their leisure.

I do want to merge it in the main mod though. The schedules were only made as a separate add-on so that I could offer it for testing before the full release is ready. I will offer it in both the version for current beta players (without the major cell changes that would require a save cleaning in the tower), and the version with the complete changes. It was also done as a separate add-on so that I could make it compatible with either version before merging it. That way I wouldn't have to place new elements like the new NPCs all over again after removing all the other changes from the tower. The reason I want to merge it with the main mod, is that means I don't need two versions of the schedule add-ons included to coincide with two versions of the final release. That just adds an extra level of confusion for players installing the mod. Also, I added a lot more dialogue to the tower NPCs, and I feel it should be included in the main mod. The only drawback is service refusal from some of the NPCs during the night, which I think is is solved nicely by the "pull for service" option.

Edit: I've decided to go with a single time to turn their schedules back on. I chose 6:00 pm, because this is well before they go to bed for the evening, and just after they wake up if they have been turned into vampires. This means if you pull the bell any time after 7pm, they will not go to bed, or will rush to their posts if they're already in bed. I kind of decided on this as a compromise between roleplaying and gameplay. It's more convenient in the fact that you can pull the bell at any time in the evening, and they will be available to serve you all night, but if you decide to leave them alone, they will carry on with their regular patterns. You don't have to remember to pull the bell again to let them go back to sleep. It was also the least complicated way to script it, so there is less room for error (and far less chance of bugs cropping up).

I've just spent over 8 hours trying to script a way for Trenam Faren to recognize his sword collection being stolen, and I can't get the scripting to work properly. I've deleted ALL of my work from the past night and a day. ALL OF IT. It was a stupid idea in the first place, and not worth WASTING EIGHT BLOODY HOURS ON. I've made it so you can't pick up his stuff. Period. You shouldn't be stealing his crap anyways. So don't even ask about it. The issue is OVER and I'm not going to waste anymore time on it. :brokencomputer:

Edit: Sorry, I'm having a bit of a meltdown here.

I've decided to take a little break from modding proper in order to create the html guide that I've been planning on rolling out for final release. I've cobbled a little something together using an old copy of Dreamweaver 8.

You can take a sneak peek http://roadhunter.com/~stuporstar/index.html, but it is nowhere near finished yet. At the moment, most pages aren't even completed, and there's some broken links and images. It will all come together soon though. I'm making very quick progress on it. Now that the template is done, I'm just pasting most of the info from my readme files and making a few editorial changes.

So far, the main page is done. The tower page, add-ons, credits, faq, compatibility, and modders sections are also completed. I will be adding new images to these, and more links to the credits page to mods I've mentioned. Don't visit the other pages yet. They're just placeholders for the moment.

Edit: the companions page is done. Now I just need to finish specials, retainers, the walkthrough and changelog. These may have to wait until tomorrow, as it's getting quite late.

Nice guide page! Easy to read, with an excellent layout.

Thanks! I used to be a professional web designer...ages ago. I almost forgot all I knew, and kind of kludged around in Dreamweaver until I remembered how to do it. My knowledge is a bit out of date these days, but I managed to build something quite serviceable.

I've updated some of the pages, and also finished the retainers section. That's all for now though, as I have to head off to work for a while.

After the infos are complete, I will be also re-doing the screenshots. There will be a different selection on each page related to the content discussed.

I really like the new website. It is a good showcase for all the work that has gone into this mod.