Follower tweaking?

[anonymouselbow]

Is it possible to use BethINI to tweak follower "following" behaviour so that they are more willing to follow than going around obstacles when for example moving vertically up or down off the beaten paths (ie. parkour)?

Eg. Jenassa is proficient at Sneak skill it seems as I've seen her roll, and sometimes I've seen her jump down from heights to follow me, but most times is reluctant to follow. 

Or, is it possible to have them teleport more with their tether instead of them going around terrain and so I wouldn't have to input "moveto player" command?

I wonder how the follower decision making works.  How long before they decide they cannot move to where I have moved to, and what steps they check and perhaps when they decide they cannot move to where my character is?  Sometimes I've seen followers strongly committed to following a chosen path to move to where my character is or where I've asked them to "wait" but they seem not to notice obstacles in their path preventing their movement and they run in place until I adapt to their problem by changing commands or my character's location.

Edited December 25, 2021 by anonymouselbow

[TechAngel85]

No. Followers are subject to navmeshes. They can only successfully transverse where these navmeshes exist. If they don't exist, all sorts if issues can happen. There's likely a mod for the feature you're asking around the "moveto" command.

Their pathing decisions are based on the navmeshes. Navmeshes have "preferred paths" that the NPC will always use when available. Else, everywhere is "equal" for them and they take the most direct path. If there are objects over the navmesh, then NPC/Followers may run into them...since NPCs use the navmesh and the mesh says the path is clear even though it's not. It's possible to just place a collision box around these objects and set their type to "Navcut", which "cuts" the navmesh where they intersect. If these are placed around objects, NPCs will walk the objects without having to alter the navmesh.

[Greg]

Followers can be hilarious and aggravating at times due to navmesh and AI issues. When I use followers, I've developed a habit of turning around at regular intervals to ensure they are still following. Aggressive followers can downright aggravating because they'll take off through the woods to chase some unknown enemy for miles if you aren't paying attention.

[anonymouselbow]

One of the first followers I tried was Eric and he was absurdly "slayer" mode.  Attacked mammoths on his own when the distance between us was too great, so yeah, I learned I have to try to manage the distances.  Same thing with horses, would join combat when I didn't want it to and then either it ran off when it realized it was in trouble far away or was killed...

When I'm more comfortable enough with how the followers behave I'll probably turn off protected status on them so they can suffer their own consequences.

[z929669]

4 hours ago, Greg said:

Followers can be hilarious and aggravating at times due to navmesh and AI issues. When I use followers, I've developed a habit of turning around at regular intervals to ensure they are still following. Aggressive followers can downright aggravating because they'll take off through the woods to chase some unknown enemy for miles if you aren't paying attention.

AI followers are typically very annoying in all games I have played (certainly all Bethesda games). I avoid using them altogether unless I have to.

[anonymouselbow]

I was confused apparently with essential and protected statuses, and have not found a way to turn off protected status, is there a way to remove protection status from followers?

[Greg]

No, the game does not provide any way to change the protected status from the console.

[anonymouselbow]

Ok thanks...but boo Bethesda.

I have found a few more interesting commands though including "openactorcontainer 1" to open a horse inventory to actually store things.