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About this mod
Turns 7 familiar NPCs into seamless, 100% VOICED AND LIP-SYNCED companions with lore- friendly methods of acquiring them. Also, adds cool interactions to them and makes some much needed changes/fixes to the follower system (now based on Charisma).
- Permissions and credits
Introduction
To me, being able to recruit a companion to accompany you through Fallout 3's endlessly entertaining campaign is one of the areas in which the game really shines. Unfortunately, I've always felt that there are too many NPCs in the game that would make perfect companions but kind of left behind from all the fun. Also, the companion system itself seems to lack something that would make it stand out as a worthwhile feature in the game, as you could only hire one follower at a time. In response to these issues, I've spent an absurd amount of time applying a few much needed additions and changes to the companion system of Fallout 3, with the ultimate goal of adapting it into something coherent and worthwhile.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A REPACKAGE OF OTHER FOLLOWER MODS YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH ON THE NEXUS. EVERY FEATURE IN THIS MOD WAS MADE FROM SCRATCH FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSES OF THIS MOD.The voice and lip-sync is extremely refined, more so than almost any other follower mod on the nexus (with the exception of Sydney Follower, which I used as a standard for the quality that the voice and lip-sync should be at), so keep that in mind when deciding if this mod fits into your game. :D
Features
1. 7 fully voiced companions made from Vanilla NPCs: Harkness, Sydney, Ronald Laren, Rory Maclaren, Herbert Dashwood, Bittercup, and Mei Wong have been turned into perfectly-integrated companions, all with interesting and unique methods of acquiring them and without any convoluted questlines (just like the Vanilla companions, see section below on how to acquire them). The new followers function EXACTLY like the Vanilla ones (i.e. Wait, Tactics, You're Fired). Additionally, I've introduced a few new, interesting interactions that only take place when the NPCs are your teammates, while maintaining interactions from the Vanilla game (see pics).
2. New Charisma-based follower system: A complete overhaul of how you can get more teammates, based entirely on your Charisma stat. Essentially, the number of followers you can have directly corresponds to your character's base Charisma. In other words, changes made by Chems and clothing effects aren't applied in determining the number of potential followers. Keep in mind that Dogmeat doesn't apply to the "Potential Followers." You can always recruit him no matter what.
3. Changes to Karma restrictions on Good players: It's never made sense to me why buying a slave would require you to be Evil. I mean, if your caps are good, Clover should be accessible for purchase to you even if you wouldn't be a slaver yourself. With this mod, followers no longer care about what your karma is when you attempt to hire them except for Fawkes, Butch, Cross, Harkness and Mei Wong, who all require you to be at least Neutral (since they have "morals" or whatever).
4. All follower apparel now removable: With this mod installed, you can now completely remove the armor of your followers, allowing them to wear whatever you give them. Their weapons stay with them though, since it's ultimately their choice to use whatever they're most comfortable with.
5. Vault 87 fix and application: A fix for the issue where returning to the Test Labs in Vault 87 would cause your followers to fire themselves as a result of the "Finding the Garden of Eden" quest. Additionally, the cutscenes and events that fire the followers during Colonel Autumn's appearance have been applied to the new companions, making their presence completely seamless throughout that mission. Like the Vanilla companions, once they auto-fire, you can rehire them at their respective homes as soon as you leave Raven Rock.
6. Minor follower stat balances: A few of the companions had strange stats that made the game feel a bit less immersive than it should be. All companions are now hovering around a base health of 200 (about equal to Jericho's) that levels with the player; this includes companions added by the mod. The exceptions to this are Fawkes, whose stats haven't been changed (even for the Broken Steel version of this mod) and Dogmeat, who's still as badass as ever.
7. Minor follower-based bug fixes: Many of the little bugs and exploits with the followers have been adjusted and fixed, including the Dogmeat exploit to acquire multiple followers (breaking the companion system entirely), misspellings in the follower death messages, companions being fired for no reason, companions refusing to be hired for no reason, and a few others (the only major ones I've excluded are the Charon-Ahzrukhal dialogue bug and Fawkes using incorrect voice lines when in combat, both of which are covered by the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch that most of you already use).
Follower Acquisition Guide
Please click this link for a complete guide on every single companion added by this mod. I've decided to include this on a separate page in case people didn't want the elements of the mod to be spoiled for them before they got a chance to see it for themselves. I've also included a .txt version of this in the Files section, under the Miscellaneous downloads.
How to Install
1. Create a backup of your save game, in case you'd like to return to the vanilla companion system in the future
2. Download a version of this mod from the Files section (either the normal or the Broken Steel version, ONLY USE ONE)
3. Extract the contents of the mod the Data folder within your Fallout 3 Directory (allow Windows Explorer to merge necessary folders)
4. Checkmark this mod (FollowerPack.esp) in your mod manager (NMM or FOMM, most likely)
5. WHEN YOU LOAD THE GAME, you'll be prompted with the option to fire your current companions to integrate the changes with the mod. Allow the mod to do so, and you should be set to try it out!
NOTE: While I made sure to account for people who have already finished the game, keep in mind that this mod works best for people who start a new game. Some of the followers are acquired through questlines (Sydney and Harkness), so it would make the most sense to start the game over and play through them, to ensure the seamlessness of the mod.
Bugs and Compatibility (UPDATED 2/26/15)
A bug I've noticed recently is that if you fire a companion and then quickly hire a new one, the function that counts if you have too many followers breaks and you end up with one more follower than you're supposed to. Easy fix: when you fire a companion, wait an hour in-game before proceeding to hire a new one, or at least wait a few seconds in real time.
Of the DLCs available for Fallout 3, the only one I've tested this mod with is Broken Steel (which manifested into its own version, to account for the Puppies perk and the potential follower endings during Project Purity). I don't know how the game accounts for the companions when you're prompted to fire them during the other DLCs, but I'd imagine that this mod affects it in some way. There shouldn't be a conflict, just remember to manually fire all of your companions before going to any of the DLC worlds.
Because this mod heavily changes the entire follower system, it's safe to assume that this mod would conflict with any other mod that aims to do something similar to it. Generally, I'd recommend using CPP as the only follower mod in your load order, as even mods that implement new NPCs as followers still have the potential to mess with the settings of this mod.
Although only 15 NPCs are edited by the mod, any mod that even slightly changes those NPCs will either be overwritten or will overwrite this mod. For example, in mods like Project Beauty (I think it's been renamed now), there shouldn't be a conflict but the changes made to NPCs like Sydney will no longer appear if you correctly put this mod towards the end of your load order like I said. To prevent any potential issues, either disable any other mods that tamper with the same NPCs or load this mod towards the end of your load order, AFTER THOSE MODS.
I'd recommend using this mod with Fawkes Dialogue Fix by bluebellfairy, Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch by Quarn, and my own Dogmeat Whistle to create what I think is the perfect implementation of companions in Fallout 3.
Future Plans
I'm considering adding more followers (although this is extremely unlikely), such as Amata, Quinn from Underworld, and many other NPCs found in random encounters and such. If you have a recommendation, please let me know and I'll consider it. Also, I've recently seen an amazing implementation of stimpaks and how they work with companions in christophkk's companion mod, so I might try to do something similar in the future.
To me, being able to recruit a companion to accompany you through Fallout 3's endlessly entertaining campaign is one of the areas in which the game really shines. Unfortunately, I've always felt that there are too many NPCs in the game that would make perfect companions but kind of left behind from all the fun. Also, the companion system itself seems to lack something that would make it stand out as a worthwhile feature in the game, as you could only hire one follower at a time. In response to these issues, I've spent an absurd amount of time applying a few much needed additions and changes to the companion system of Fallout 3, with the ultimate goal of adapting it into something coherent and worthwhile.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A REPACKAGE OF OTHER FOLLOWER MODS YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH ON THE NEXUS. EVERY FEATURE IN THIS MOD WAS MADE FROM SCRATCH FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSES OF THIS MOD.The voice and lip-sync is extremely refined, more so than almost any other follower mod on the nexus (with the exception of Sydney Follower, which I used as a standard for the quality that the voice and lip-sync should be at), so keep that in mind when deciding if this mod fits into your game. :D
Features
1. 7 fully voiced companions made from Vanilla NPCs: Harkness, Sydney, Ronald Laren, Rory Maclaren, Herbert Dashwood, Bittercup, and Mei Wong have been turned into perfectly-integrated companions, all with interesting and unique methods of acquiring them and without any convoluted questlines (just like the Vanilla companions, see section below on how to acquire them). The new followers function EXACTLY like the Vanilla ones (i.e. Wait, Tactics, You're Fired). Additionally, I've introduced a few new, interesting interactions that only take place when the NPCs are your teammates, while maintaining interactions from the Vanilla game (see pics).
2. New Charisma-based follower system: A complete overhaul of how you can get more teammates, based entirely on your Charisma stat. Essentially, the number of followers you can have directly corresponds to your character's base Charisma. In other words, changes made by Chems and clothing effects aren't applied in determining the number of potential followers. Keep in mind that Dogmeat doesn't apply to the "Potential Followers." You can always recruit him no matter what.
3. Changes to Karma restrictions on Good players: It's never made sense to me why buying a slave would require you to be Evil. I mean, if your caps are good, Clover should be accessible for purchase to you even if you wouldn't be a slaver yourself. With this mod, followers no longer care about what your karma is when you attempt to hire them except for Fawkes, Butch, Cross, Harkness and Mei Wong, who all require you to be at least Neutral (since they have "morals" or whatever).
4. All follower apparel now removable: With this mod installed, you can now completely remove the armor of your followers, allowing them to wear whatever you give them. Their weapons stay with them though, since it's ultimately their choice to use whatever they're most comfortable with.
5. Vault 87 fix and application: A fix for the issue where returning to the Test Labs in Vault 87 would cause your followers to fire themselves as a result of the "Finding the Garden of Eden" quest. Additionally, the cutscenes and events that fire the followers during Colonel Autumn's appearance have been applied to the new companions, making their presence completely seamless throughout that mission. Like the Vanilla companions, once they auto-fire, you can rehire them at their respective homes as soon as you leave Raven Rock.
6. Minor follower stat balances: A few of the companions had strange stats that made the game feel a bit less immersive than it should be. All companions are now hovering around a base health of 200 (about equal to Jericho's) that levels with the player; this includes companions added by the mod. The exceptions to this are Fawkes, whose stats haven't been changed (even for the Broken Steel version of this mod) and Dogmeat, who's still as badass as ever.
7. Minor follower-based bug fixes: Many of the little bugs and exploits with the followers have been adjusted and fixed, including the Dogmeat exploit to acquire multiple followers (breaking the companion system entirely), misspellings in the follower death messages, companions being fired for no reason, companions refusing to be hired for no reason, and a few others (the only major ones I've excluded are the Charon-Ahzrukhal dialogue bug and Fawkes using incorrect voice lines when in combat, both of which are covered by the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch that most of you already use).
Follower Acquisition Guide
Please click this link for a complete guide on every single companion added by this mod. I've decided to include this on a separate page in case people didn't want the elements of the mod to be spoiled for them before they got a chance to see it for themselves. I've also included a .txt version of this in the Files section, under the Miscellaneous downloads.
How to Install
1. Create a backup of your save game, in case you'd like to return to the vanilla companion system in the future
2. Download a version of this mod from the Files section (either the normal or the Broken Steel version, ONLY USE ONE)
3. Extract the contents of the mod the Data folder within your Fallout 3 Directory (allow Windows Explorer to merge necessary folders)
4. Checkmark this mod (FollowerPack.esp) in your mod manager (NMM or FOMM, most likely)
5. WHEN YOU LOAD THE GAME, you'll be prompted with the option to fire your current companions to integrate the changes with the mod. Allow the mod to do so, and you should be set to try it out!
NOTE: While I made sure to account for people who have already finished the game, keep in mind that this mod works best for people who start a new game. Some of the followers are acquired through questlines (Sydney and Harkness), so it would make the most sense to start the game over and play through them, to ensure the seamlessness of the mod.
Bugs and Compatibility (UPDATED 2/26/15)
A bug I've noticed recently is that if you fire a companion and then quickly hire a new one, the function that counts if you have too many followers breaks and you end up with one more follower than you're supposed to. Easy fix: when you fire a companion, wait an hour in-game before proceeding to hire a new one, or at least wait a few seconds in real time.
Of the DLCs available for Fallout 3, the only one I've tested this mod with is Broken Steel (which manifested into its own version, to account for the Puppies perk and the potential follower endings during Project Purity). I don't know how the game accounts for the companions when you're prompted to fire them during the other DLCs, but I'd imagine that this mod affects it in some way. There shouldn't be a conflict, just remember to manually fire all of your companions before going to any of the DLC worlds.
Because this mod heavily changes the entire follower system, it's safe to assume that this mod would conflict with any other mod that aims to do something similar to it. Generally, I'd recommend using CPP as the only follower mod in your load order, as even mods that implement new NPCs as followers still have the potential to mess with the settings of this mod.
Although only 15 NPCs are edited by the mod, any mod that even slightly changes those NPCs will either be overwritten or will overwrite this mod. For example, in mods like Project Beauty (I think it's been renamed now), there shouldn't be a conflict but the changes made to NPCs like Sydney will no longer appear if you correctly put this mod towards the end of your load order like I said. To prevent any potential issues, either disable any other mods that tamper with the same NPCs or load this mod towards the end of your load order, AFTER THOSE MODS.
I'd recommend using this mod with Fawkes Dialogue Fix by bluebellfairy, Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch by Quarn, and my own Dogmeat Whistle to create what I think is the perfect implementation of companions in Fallout 3.
Future Plans
I'm considering adding more followers (although this is extremely unlikely), such as Amata, Quinn from Underworld, and many other NPCs found in random encounters and such. If you have a recommendation, please let me know and I'll consider it. Also, I've recently seen an amazing implementation of stimpaks and how they work with companions in christophkk's companion mod, so I might try to do something similar in the future.