DESCRIPTION:

What this mod does is quite simple: when your follower is actively following you, you may manage their inventory completely, which entails being able to manipulate their default clothing. When they are dismissed, they will continue to wear their new equipment.

A brief note: when hiring and dismissing followers, they will appear undressed for a few moments. Then they will put on whatever they've got.

In addition, the alias system and the requirement of a universally-useable script allowed me to do two things: your follower will no longer carry an unplayable hunting bow (this works retroactively), and I flagged all followers who weren't already protected (many are, though not all). Though all followers are protected while following, when dismissed they may be killed by enemies. This prevents that behavior. I may remove this if enough people complain.

REQUIREMENTS:

A working copy of the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

INSTALLATION:

Place the contents of the .7z file in your "Data" folder, which is usually located under Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim.

The ReadMe document and the .bsl file are not required for the mod to run -- you may keep them or discard them.

UNINSTALLATION:

You will probably want to dismiss your current follower, so as to prevent them from being permanently naked.

Then you may delete the included .esp and .bsa file.

The nature of Skyrim’s scripting language, Papyrus, means that, even following this procedure, your Papyrus log will continue to throw errors about missing scripts, potentially leading to save game bloat. There is, lamentably, nothing that I can do about this -- you have been warned.

UPDATING:

Replace all older files with newer versions. If in doubt, replace all mod files with the contents of the latest uploaded archive.

No in-game configuration is necessary.

BUGS:

I have had a few crashes if trying to recruit after resource-intensive situations (combat, etc.), though but one since I redesigned the script. If you have any crashes when trying to dismiss (mostly dismiss) or hire a follower, tell me posthaste.

I can’t fix this: if you take only part of your follower’s original outfit, they will dress themselves only in what you left them, assuming that you haven't given them anything else. However, you can simply take the rest of it and when dismissed they will gain their original garments back.

If the vanilla BladesChangeOutfitScript runs on a follower who's following you, that you've inducted into the Blades but they haven't received their equipment yet, you'll be unable to take their Blades armor. To fix this, dismiss them and recruit them again.

The new script to make them wear what's been given to them has been a major PIA while testing – please report all crashes when hiring and dismissing followers.

COMPATIBILITY:

It should be compatible with anything that alters the followers themselves or the controlling quest (such as adding more follower “slots”).

However, mods that changed a follower's starting outfit will have that new outfit reverted to vanilla once they're dismissed, and mods that allow for more Blades followers will have their outfit reverted from Blades armor to normal outfit when dismissed (the three Blades that you recruit in vanilla will stay in their Blades armor when dismissed, however).

This will not affect mod-added followers.

ADD-ONS:

There's a compatibility patch for my "Lively Followers" mod, which will prevent them from switching back to their default outfit when they begin to idle.

You'll also find a Dawnguard-specific version, which requires the main file to run and affects only the Dawnguard-added followers, including Serana.

There's also now a file which handles Dragonborn's followers.

And, finally, compatability for the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, version 1.2, which changes Farkas' default outfit.