doticu-npc-party v0.9.9-beta

This is a big compatibility, bug-fix, and optimization update!

• improved compatibility with other follower frameworks by letting them take over followers on demand

• improved looking into actor inventories through other frameworks with the introduction of auto-switching menus

• streamlined waiting followers from other frameworks by making them immobile members, and vice versa

• members are now enforced better than ever before, all across the board

• made horse and saddler catch up more reliable and sensible when changing cells, especially between load zones

• hotkey presses are now way faster and feel more more responsive

• moving NPCs is now super fast and optimized

• NPCs moved across load zones now function better

• followers now get off their horses much faster (the worst case scenario has been limited to 5 seconds)

• significantly improved the speed of the mod's load time. It's almost instantaneous now

• added a ton of stability with only a very slight cost to performance by reintroducing async locks and callbacks, faster than ever before

• removed a lot of old papyrus code that is now obsolete

• added a fix for the engine bug which causes disappearing names (finally!)

• fixed horses getting out of state and potentially causing a crash

• members now equip their vanilla outfit when they are unmembered

• fixed registered NPC bases being prematurely removed from the system

• the special move feature no longer tries to work with dead bodies, which caused animation glitches

• commands will again tell you if you're trying to operate on a non-actor, broken in last update

• saddler summoning now attempts to fix followers stuck in a horse-riding animation

• fixed a bug that would try to update the 3D of an unloaded actor when summoning, which could cause a ctd

This update introduces a lot of new ideas and changes to improve compatibility with other follower frameworks, including single follower mods, follower mod packs, and ultimately the big-wigs: the Vanilla Follower Framework, Amazing Follower Tweaks, the Extensible Follower Framework, and Nether's Follower Framework. NPC Party has always had the goal of allowing multiple frameworks at a time, because each one is different and has their own charm. There are still more things that need to be done to improve compatibility. And as one person I'm not able to test all the nuances of each framework. But I have tested all of the big four, and a couple of single follower mods. It's really cool to have them working side by side! This update marks a huge step towards leaving beta for this reason.

There are some experimental changes that have been made that you should be aware of. Hotkeys are now way faster, and I've tested that other mods and their hotkeys can still function alongside mine. But let me know if there is any conflict. This has been one of the tougher things to work on in this update.

Also, I've introduced a timer in favor of event listeners. The timer updates NPC Party every 5 seconds. Now, some of you will think this is dreadful, because there is the belief in the community that timers are slow. So why would I do this? Well, firstly, the timer is extremely fast compared to traditional mods. It's implemented in C++ as opposed to Papyrus. Secondly, it's doing a minimal amount of work. It's actually doing less work than all the events that I would need combined. Thirdly, you may not have noticed, but NPC Party has always had a timer that would run during every battle. The new one incorporates the old, and takes into consideration efficiency as well as stability.

(A mid-game update requires 0.9.1-beta or greater to be on the save file.)

doticu-npc-party v0.9.8-beta

• improved outfits so they only refresh when necessary

• stopped the annoying reequip sound after battle, and the animation break when speaking to a member.

• improved the fix that makes followers equip their weapons correctly.

• stopped outfits from adding duplicate weapons to packs

• fixed unplayable items being auto-filled into outfits. this update retroactively removes them

• fixed an incompatibility that kept hotkeys from triggering with certain mod setups

• added relationship rank to the stats of the member menu, and added a filter option for it

• Recently a compatibility issue has been discovered with mods that change how two-handed weapons are equipped (e.g. Combat Gameplay Overhaul). There is a fix planned for a future update that will hopefully eliminate this compatibility on our end.

• Thanks to somulo and shenkai0705 for play-testing this update, and helping to ensure it works for everyone!

doticu-npc-party v0.9.8-beta-pre-release-4

This pre-release fixes the unplayable items being added to outfits, and retroactively removes them. Release candidate for 0.9.8-beta.

doticu-npc-party v0.9.8-beta-pre-release-3

This replace Can_Use_Keys() with Papyrus func, as it may have been wrongfully blocking hotkeys.

doticu-npc-party v0.9.8-beta-pre-release-2

This removes a function call that may interfere with Hotkeys. If this doesn't work, there is yet one more thing to try in pre-release-3.

doticu-npc-party v0.9.8-beta-pre-release-1

This corrects the outfit duplicating weapons, and should completely fix followers not always equipping their weapons correctly. It also enhances outfitting by only refreshing the outfit when it's necessary. This eliminates the annoying reequip sounds after each battle, and the annoying animation break each time a follower is spoken to when their weapon is out.

Although in this case it's probably alright, it's preferred that you wait until a full release to use these updates in your main save file.

doticu-npc-party v0.9.7-beta

• Fixed a potential crash when a member is resurrected
• Fixed two potential crashes when using Unmember/Unclone.
• Fixed the DLL breaking GetCurrentCrosshairRef
• Fixed base actors not being set back to their correct vitality after being killed
• Fixed members not correctly equipping certain weapons, especially two-handed ones
• Added an enable/disable follower leveling setting
• Refactored the Outfitting algorithm

doticu-npc-party v0.9.6-beta (No Retroactive Fix)

(This alternative version of the update doesn't attempt to retroactively fix the Big Items Bug.)

doticu-npc-party v0.9.6-beta

• Added a new setting "Allow Dialogue For All" which enables and disables the [NPC Party] menu for non-members.
• MCM menus Chests, Members, and Member have been further optimized.
• Auto follower outfit should now work correctly when a member starts and stops following.
• We now check for the uninitialized item count engine bug on xlists consistently. (Still working on the rare xentries edge case.)
• This update attempts to retroactively fix any uninitialized counts found throughout NPC Party containers. (One time only.)
• Commands should be quicker all across the board. (I still have to improve Hotkeys and some MCM Menus, as they are a bottleneck.)
• Moved over another huge chunk of the code base, adding up to a total of 81.3% of it being in C++ now.

doticu-npc-party v0.9.5-beta

Fixes the slowdown when a Mannequin/Paralyzed Member is called on Display, and the "TBD" in Filtered Members MCM Menu. If updating mid-game, you need to have version 0.9.1-beta or greater installed on the save file. Thank you, and I hope the newly renovated Display feature doesn't disappoint!