Companion-friendly Houses

[wetblanket]

I've been testing my house with a companion (Emma's Vilja) and have a couple of problems.

1. Rather than a basement I constructed a loft. To access it I'm using a ladder (LighthouseLadder01.nif) and a collision box to come down again ie. teleporting. Works fine for me but Vilja is very reluctant. She will eventually join me at the top but I'm not convinced she is actually using the teleport (in game-play I've noticed creatures will sometimes magically appear beside you when on an otherwise inaccessible place). The only way so far to get her down again has been to leave the house entirely. My pathgrid nodes are linked between the top and bottom of the ladder.

Is this a limitation of the game or am I missing something? I don't want to use stairs instead as this would entail a major re-design of the interior.

2. As I understand it a companion will only use a bed without ownership. Mine, although not specifically assigned, inherit the house faction and as such won't be used by a companion. Vilja has her own special faction and presumably other companions could have anything set. What faction should the companion bed be assigned to? Or is there some other solution?

[Arion]

I don't know about the ladder or the teleport part..

As for the bed, with mine I set the bed as the pc faction and my NPCs will use if they want. You could also set ownership of specific beds that would be for NPC's by setting ownsership of individual beds. If the bed is not within the defined radius you set them to wander you could put the bed in the Location tab and point to the bed. I'm not sure how the NPC faction or house faction works in that respect. But I would assume that it meant anyone in that faction could sleep in the bed(s). Maybe someone can clarify it better if I have it wrong.

PS.. In my example I have 3 bedrooms downstairs for NPCs. The beds are set as Player owned beds. I assigned each NPC a specific bed in their sleep package and that's where they got to sleep. It saves me from changing ownership of specific NPCs if I change to a new NPC.

[wetblanket]

Thanks for the reply. This is a player house so I can't define anything specific since I don't know what a particular player may be using as far as companions go. I had a look at Korana's Millstone Farm. As far as I can tell neither the cells nor any bed are assigned a faction, player or otherwise. Millstone is a 'companion-friendly' house so I'm starting to think my problem may be due to some tight spaces and the path-grid in general. With no faction's assigned to the cell or the beds Vilja did use a bed once but thereafter claimed she couldn't find a suitable one. Grrrr. The funny thing is I don't use companions myself so this really doesn't matter but it annoys me that I can't get it to work!

edit. replaced a word for clarity.

Edited September 12, 2010 by wetblanket

[WillieSea]

1. The ladder needs to be a door object, not a scripted teleporter.

2. You need to add a 'subspace' to the loft so the NPC knows they need to use a 'door' to get to it.

[wetblanket]

1. The ladder needs to be a door object, not a scripted teleporter.

2. You need to add a 'subspace' to the loft so the NPC knows they need to use a 'door' to get to it.

I'm pretty sure it is a door object, I'm probably erroneously referring to 'teleporting' because of the 'Teleport' tab that all the loading doors seem to have. In any case, adding the subspace has worked as far as following me goes. She still won't use it on her own but I can live with that. It could be due to this particular companion mod anyway.

Cheers WillieSea, thanks to you and the CS Wiki I now know what a subspace is and one application for it. I also no longer have an excuse for not finishing this exam

[WillieSea]

Glad to help. I am new with the subspaces myself, I just know its needed to do what you asked.

[Vince]

wetblanket, it seems that Willie may have solved all your companion friendly issues. If you have any remaining, Emma is a member here and was very helpful to me in getting my shack companion friendly, although Vilja acts a bit strangely in the upstairs of the shack (since it's in an exterior cell). Her favorite "chair" upstairs is the outhouse throne!