The Manipulator

The Manipulator started as a mod to allow players to quickly and easily change some values on NPCs (eg, essental, potential follower, SexLab and SexLab Aroused stats, etc). The goal was for it to be a quick, easy to use and above all, light weight mod. It has since grown to include other functions, such as "storage anywhere", marking places for later fast travel, and creating a harem of NPCs.

None of these functions are "all singing, all dancing". They are bare bones, in keeping with the goal of a light weight mod. So for example, if you want to micro manage NPCs, don't use the harem functionality, and instead get a mod like "My Home is Your Home", or similar.

Warning! Using this can break your game! Setting an NPC to be a follower, or part of your harem, can break quests. So don't set NPCs to be follower or marryable or recruit into your harem, unless you are willing to take that risk.

Please report bugs to the support thread, as opposed to sending PMs, since you may find your question has already been answered - and answer to your question(s) may help others. Thanks.

Updating

You can try just dropping in the new files, but if things act wonky, then please clean as described:

Dismiss any harem members

Quit the game, disable Manipulator, load the game. Save.

Clear your save with Save Game Cleaner

Install and enable the latest Manipulator

Start Skyrim

Load the cleaned save.





Updating from 5.9 to 6.0 should be just drop-in, but no promises.

Updating from 5.8 to 5.9 is just drop-in - no clean needed.

Updating to 4.x or 5.x will require a clean save as described above.



How To Use

Install the mod. Then once the MCM has registered, open it. There are several panels, described here.

People

Here you can change certain NPC values on the fly. Have an NPC under your crosshair, then open the MCM. The panel shows the name of the NPC, followed by the RefID. You can make an NPC:

Protected

Essential

Potential follower (use the vanilla system to actually recruit as follower, or a follower mod)

Potentially marryiable

Force any NPC to become part of a harem (see below for details)

You can open his/her inventory to give/take items

Strip/dress the NPC

Kill/Resurrect

Disable

RaceMenu cosmetic (see below)

Change outfit

Optionally, set SexLab orientation

Optionally, set SexLab Aroused gender preference and other SLA values.





Note that changes are applied and saved as soon as the MCM is closed.

If you have UIExtensions installed, then you will have a RaceMenu entry in the panel as well. This allows you to modify some aspects of the NPC, including body sliders (if your installed skeleton supports it). Tattoo support probably requires RaceMenu Overlays as well. This RaceMenu window can also be opened via hotkey (set in the Settings panel)

In brief, the RaceMenu bit allows you to do to an NPC everything you can do to your own character, minus anything that would alter the face to the point that the facegendata becomes invalid. If you don't have morphs available for yourself, you won't have them for NPCs - etc. Anything that would alter the face cannot be done. This isn't lack of will or knowledge; simply, the game engine doesn't allow it.

Strip/dress can also be done without opening the MCM, via hotkey.

If you wish changes made in this panel to persist into a new game, then click "Save info to config". This save all data on the panel to the external JSON config file, except harem status, disabled, killed and forced outfit. Saved info can be reloaded at any time via Settings, "Load NPC Data".

Harem

This panel has NPC-specific settings for harem members. Before being able to add anyone to your harem, you must set both the home and sleep markers somewhere. NPCs will need these to know where to sandbox and sleep. There are two markers to allow for homes that consist of multiple cells. Markers are set in the Settings panel.

Once the markers are set, then you can add pretty much anyone in Skyrim (up to 50 NPCs total) via the People panel. NPCs added this way are automagically set as lovers. They are NOT set essential; if you want this, use Manipulator to set that flag on them.

If you add an NPC who is currently a follower, he/she will be removed from the CurrentFollower faction.

Once added to your harem, the NPC should head off to the location you have marked as home, and remain there. By default, they will sleep between 23 and 6, in the cell marked for sleeping.

To remove an NPC from your harem, you an select Dismiss in the lower right of the Harem panel. The NPC will be "downgraded" to ally, and return to whatever schedule they used to have. If a member of the harem dies, he/she will be removed from the internal list.

To control specific NPCs in your harem, first select one from the drop down. Then you can specify different home and sleep locations, as well as whether the NPC sleeps during the day (9-16) instead of at night (23-6). It also allows for limited outfit control:

Fully naked

Default (the outfit the NPC was wearing before being recruited)

Loaded from a mod. Outfits are defined in the Settings panel.





Harem members can also be married. You can either select the option to automagically marry them on adding to your harem, or selectively marry them once added. Note that marriage via The Manipulator uses the vanilla marriage factions but does not touch the vanilla marriage quests in any way. Thus if you prefer to use the vanilla system, or a separate multi-marriage mod, The Manipulator will not conflict. However, you will still get the married "hello" and "goobye" comments from NPCs you marry this way, since the text and voice files are duplicated from the vanilla game. Also note that voiced marriage dialog does not exist for all voice types; for those where it is lacking, you will instead have unvoiced comments. Lastly, if you rather not have the voices, simply do not install the included BSA file.

Divorcing an NPC has no penalties. A divorced NPC will remain part of the harem unless dismissed. On the other hand, dismissing a married NPC from the harem will also result in divorce.

You can have one harem member flagged as Favorite. This NPC will have the use of any bed(s) belonging to the player.

Note that harem data is saved to the json config file. You an eload this saved information after starting a new game, via Load Harem Data in the Info & Data Load panel.

Adding an NPC has caveats:

The harem quest is high priority. This means that almost all, if not all, NPCs can now be added to your harem.

Note that NPCs may be in a scene which needs to run to completion, before they head off to their new designated home.

Note that NPCs may be in a scene which needs to run to completion, before they head off to their new designated home. NPCs you add to your harem will be allies to one other via a custom faction (Manipulator will not manage their relationship to one another). If you remove an NPC from the harem, the ally status is lost, so it is entirely possible that the others will turn hostile toward him. I saw this in testing with random guards from different holds.

If adding an NPC to your harem breaks your game, you own both parts. Manipulator gives you the ability, it is up to you to use it carefully.





Places

This shows info about the current cell you are in. The cell name, worldspace and grid coordinates (for exterior cells), the location, and actor/faction ownership, if any. Here you can also flag the cell (if it is an interior cell) as player-owned, or owned by PlayerFaction. You can also set whether the cell is public.

On the right of this panel are fast travel functions. You can store up to 10 locations. First, use the drop down to select an item from the list. Then you can:

Store your current position to that slot in the list. (If you selected a slot that is already in use, the previously stored info will be deleted and the slot will be reused.)

Remove the stored position from the list.

Fast travel to the selected position (if a position was stored there, of course)





Storage

This panel gives access to "containerless" storage. Store items via "Store", and they will get sorted according to the category they belong to (using the built-in keywords assigned to items in the game). To access items, select the type in the MCM. If the checkbox is marked, there are items stored.

If you have UIExtensions installed, you can also define a hotkey (in the Settings panel) for quick access to storage.

Crafting

Similar to Storage, this gives you access to crafting stations from anywhere in Skyrim. If you have UIExtensions installed, you can also set a hotkey (in the Settings panel) for faster access to crafting.

Friend Factions

NOTE: enabling any of the settings on this panel will break your game, since you will no longer be attacked in dungeons, etc. If you are concerned about how enabling any of these factions might interfere with game interaction, simply don't enable any; the mod does nothing if no factions here are enabled. Any issues you might have if all are OFF and have never been enabled, are therefore outside the scope of this mod.

In a new game, before anything can be done on this panel, you must load factions from the Info and Data Load panel, even if you never had this mod installed before.

Here, you can set a number of factions, which are normally enemies, to be friends. More specifically, the player is added to their faction (eg, if you enable Bandit, the mod will add you to the Bandit faction). It also sets CurrentFollowerFaction to be an ally, so follwoers will not be attacked.

Orcs are a special case; they are not (normally) enemies. However you have to complete a favor quest before you can become an OrcFriend (unless your character is an Orc, of course). Enabling the setting here bypasses the need for the favor quest.

Note that enabling any faction that Vigiliants consider enemies (see spoiler below), will cause them to attack you. To prevent this, you should also enable the Vigilants faction (which is why it was included).





List of major factions that are friends/alies, and enemies, to those handled by Manipulator, so you'll know who might help you, and who might attack you. The list incldues only major factions, not minor ones used in single quests, or by few very NPCs. If one of the handled factions isn't listed here, it has no significant friends/allies/enemies.

The list was made with USLEEP, as it might change some relationships.

All factions are allies of themselves.

In Manipulator, Vampire includes: VampireFaction, VampireThrallFaction, DLC1VampireFaction



DLC2BenthicLurkerFaction Friend/Ally:

DLC2AshSpawnFaction

DLC2NetchFaction



DLC2CultistFaction Enemy:

IsGuardFaction



DLC2NetchFaction Friend/Ally:

DLC2AshSpawnFaction

DLC2BenthicLurkerFaction

DLC2RieklingFaction

DLC2ThirskRieklingFaction

DLC2TribalWerebearFaction



DLC2RieklingFaction Friend/Ally:

DLC2NetchFaction



DragonPriestFaction Friend/Ally:

DragonFaction

DraugrFaction

SkeletonFaction



DraugrFaction Friend/Ally:

DragonFaction

DragonPriestFaction

NecromancerFaction

SkeeverFaction

SkeletonFaction

SpiderFaction

VampireFaction



DremoraFaction Friend/Ally:

HagravenFaction



FalmerFaction Friend/Ally:

CaptiveFaction

CharusFaction

SkeeverFaction

SpiderFaction

WispFaction



ForswornFaction Friend/Ally:

CaptiveFaction

Goatfaction

HagravenFaction



HagravenFaction Friend/Ally:

CaptiveFaction

CharusFaction

DremoraFaction

ForswornFaction

IceWraithFaction

SkeeverFaction

SpiderFaction

TrollFaction

WispFaction

CaptiveFaction CharusFaction DremoraFaction ForswornFaction IceWraithFaction SkeeverFaction SpiderFaction TrollFaction WispFaction Enemy:

SprigganFaction



NecromancerFaction Friend/Ally:

DraugrFaction

SkeletonFaction

WarlockFaction



SkeletonFaction Friend/Ally:

DragonPriestFaction

NecromancerFaction

SkeeverFaction

SkeletonFaction

SpiderFaction

VampireFaction

VampireThrallFaction

WarlockFaction



VampireFaction Friend/Ally:

DraugrFaction

SkeeverFaction

SkeletonFaction

SpiderFaction

VampireThrallFaction

WolfFaction



VampireThrallFaction Friend/Ally:

SkeeverFaction

SkeeverFaction

SkeletonFaction

SpiderFaction

VampireFaction

WolfFaction



VigilantOfStendarrFaction Enemy:

DaedraFaction

ghostFaction

HagravenFaction

SkeletonFaction

VampireFaction

WerewolfFaction

WispFaction



WarlockFaction Friend/Ally:

AtronachFlameFaction

AtronachFrostFaction

AtronachStormFaction

NecromancerFaction

SkeletonFaction





Hacks

Offers some game hacks, if you want to use them. All hacks are potentially game breaking; use with caution, or not at all.

The Increment functions max out the respective stat. The right side are massive cheats. Also on this panel:

Strip Courier: Gives the vanilla courier an all-naked outfit.

Block Student & Challenger: Enable this is you want to block the annoying Student and Challenger "attacks".

No Naked Comments: As the name suggests. Same end result as offered by this mod, but implemented differently.

No stupid dog comments: Same functionality as offered by this mod.

No vampire attacks: blocks vampire attacks.

No Dawnguard attacks: blocks attacks by the Dawnguard if you added Vampires as a friend faction

No DA Hijckas: Prevents some D.Artifact quests from hijacking your game. Currently handles: DA03 (A Daedra's Best Friend), DA07 (Pieces of the Past), DA10 (The House of Horrors), DA14 (A Night To Remember) NOTE: Some of these trigger on location change event and may have already started before you disable them; DA10 is one such.

Get Player Homes: Hack to claim player homes, and fully furnish them: Markarth, Riften, Solitude, Whiterun. Windhelm is excluded due to "Blood on the Ice", as are the Heathfires BYOH homes. Does not give the housecarls. No Children's deco. Do NOT use this if you play the vanilla game. Also likely not compatible with mods that alter the interior of these 4 homes. Also note that this setting does not persist.





Settings

Here can specify:

Hot keys for strip/dress, RaceMenu, storage access.

Global Harem settings, including setting home and sleep markers, whether they should automatically be stripped, disarmed, married, and if they should fast travel to their home, or walk.

Note: if Disarm is enabled, all harem weapons, shields and staffs will be removed from their inventory and placed into Manipulator storage; you can retrieve the items from there, if needed.

Note: if Disarm is enabled, all harem weapons, shields and staffs will be removed from their inventory and placed into Manipulator storage; you can retrieve the items from there, if needed. Outfits. Select a slot in the list, then give the outfit a name, indicate the mod that contains it, and the form ID in hex, without the first two digits. (eg, Skyrim.esm, 0E3E66) Up to 50 outfits can be define in this way.

Brute force strip: rather than simply removing what an NPC is wearing, this changes his/her outfit to one containing nothing. The pro is that this survives resets caused by items being added to inventory (but not a levelled actor respawning). However, in order to keep this mod light-weight, no attempt is made to remember what the NPC was wearing, so redressing will equip a random farmer (common) outfit.





Info & Data Load

This panel shows the mod version, which optional other mods are installed, and whether the harem markers have been placed.

Also on this panel:

Load NPC Data: loads any saved NPC data from the config file, where possible. This will clearly fail for NPCs that were in mods that have been removed since the data was saved.

Load Harem Data: Loads all saved info for people added to your harem on a previous play-through. The NPCs are added to the harem.

Load Friend Faction Data: Loads stored faction relationships.





Note that loading NPC and harem data can fail to load NPCs from the game, even if the mods they are defined in are correctly installed (this happens when the NPC is not set as persistent in CK). But see the optional mod below. Also note that as of V4, saved NPC information is no longer load order dependant.

Persist, Damn It

A separate, optional mod. Makes some NPCs persistant so that you can save and later load their data (loading fails otherwise), or add and then load to harem. Currently handles:

Hreinn

Vorstag

Belrand

Erik (both versions)

Jenassa

Marcurio

Sigurd

Stenvar

Teldryn Sero





If you know of other NPCs which fail to load when loading NPC info, let me know and I'll try to add them to the mod,

Requirements

Skyrim Legendary

SkyUI

PapyrusUtil 3.3 or later





Optional







NOTE: This mod is released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. In other words, feel free to make changes to the mod in any way you like, and upload the changed version. You do not need to ask permission. If you do so, you must credit me, and your version must be free. Further, you also need to credit any other mods used as resources, including those used in my original. Your own creation must in turn be released under these same conditions.