v2.0.15 -- Followers pick locks and ship relics to the museum

• NEWEST HARBINGER REQUIRED: use Harbinger 0.9.10. Lockpicking, museum drop-offs, the fight leash and staying out of the fight during a retreat all need it. MFO still runs with Harbinger 0.9.5 or newer. Those features just stay off.
• A downed follower does nothing. A follower who is bleeding out, knocked down, paralysed or stuck in a kill move no longer casts, drinks, loots or runs any gambit. Before, Jesper could lie in bleedout and still throw instant heals at himself and the rest of the party. A heal he was channeling stops the moment he goes down. His rules run again once he is back on his feet.
• Healing a downed ally still works. A follower who can act can still heal a friend who is down.
• Heals have their normal reach. A heal on someone else reaches as far as your own cast of that spell would, and needs line of sight. Healing Hands and Heal Other reach across a room. A self spell like Fast Healing or Close Wounds cast on an ally reaches as far as Heal Other. Before, a follower healed anyone within 3000 units, through walls. An Ally HP below rule with a heal picks the most hurt ally he can reach, not one he can't.
• New log line: [bleed]. MFO.log notes when a follower goes down and when he gets back up, with his health, and which MFO heal or potion landed on him last.
• Melee followers stop chasing dragons in the sky. A melee follower no longer picks or runs after a foe flying out of his reach. He attacks a foe he can reach if there is one. If every foe is up in the air, he stays close to you (with Harbinger installed) until one comes down or lands. A dragon hovering low enough to hit still counts, and so do netch, wispmothers and other floating creatures.
• Followers stop swapping relics when a companion falls behind. A follower left in another room still counts toward the museum. His companions no longer strip their own gear to cover for him.
• No more "player put on" for a relic MFO took off. A relic MFO takes off and later allows again is not mistaken for your choice.
• No lockpicking mid-fight. A follower never starts picking a lock while he or you are in combat. With his weapon out, he puts it away first.
• Followers finally sell ammo. Arrows and bolts now pass the vendor's check. Before, every blacksmith turned them down.
• Fewer empty trips to the vendor. Another follower's trade no longer sends a follower back to a vendor who still cannot pay for anything he offers.
• Foe: Ranged covers casters at range. It now means a bow, a crossbow, a staff, or a spell cast from a distance. Foe: Spellcaster stays the same.
• New condition: Foe: Mechanical. Picks the nearest Dwemer construct: spiders, spheres, centurions and the like. Ghosts, skeletons and ash spawn do not count.
• Gambit labels read one way now. Every condition that starts with a subject is written the same: Foe: Dragon, Foe: Targeting me, Ally: HP below, Self: Magicka below. The % sign left the labels, since the value already shows it. Cast at foe/ally is now Cast on target, and Dark is In the dark. Your gambits keep working (only the text changed).
• Museum drop-offs come first. A follower with the Loot museum items gambit who carries relics the museum needs heads for a Museum Shipments crate as soon as one is inside his leash. He stops a loot run for it, unless he is fetching a museum item. Then he drops that off too. Only combat and heals come first.
• Several followers can drop off at once. Each follower runs his own trip. A failed walk only holds back that follower at that crate.
• The leash is the limit for drop-offs. A follower only walks to a crate inside his leash, and turns back as soon as you move out of it.
• Blocked crates still get their delivery. A follower whose walk stops within reach of the crate hands it over from where he stands, as long as he is on the crate's floor. Each failed walk lets him deliver from a little further out next time, like looting. The Riften crate's own collision box stopped every walk 11 units short.
• Relics are not for wearing. A follower with the Loot museum items gambit no longer puts on armor or a shield the museum still needs, and outfit refreshes can no longer put relic armor on him. A relic the game or his own AI put on him is shipped at the next drop-off. A relic you gave him stays, and so does his only bow, crossbow or melee weapon.
• Followers sell ammo they cannot fire. Bolts with no crossbow, or arrows with no bow, go to the vendor. A follower keeps as many as his own ammo gambit asks for.
• No more empty trips to the vendor. After a visit that sold and bought nothing, a follower leaves that vendor alone until something changes or the vendor restocks. He also skips a vendor who cannot afford anything he offers when he has nothing to buy, until the vendor restocks.
• Mages and archers keep their hands off shields. A follower who fights with a two-hander or a bow, or a pure mage with no shield perks, no longer equips a shield. Spellswords and sword-and-board fighters keep theirs.
• Mages no longer swap their clothes back and forth. A mage follower wears his best piece for every clothing and jewelry slot at once. When an outfit refresh strips them, they all go back on together.
• MFO no longer takes over equipment when Harbinger turns its equip control down. If Harbinger's equip control is not installed, the game equips the follower as usual. MFO never strips a weapon it cannot replace.
• MFO keeps its last five logs. At launch MFO.log moves to MFO.log.1, the older ones move up to MFO.log.5 and the oldest is dropped. A crash or freeze session's log now survives a few relaunches. A log that cannot be moved is noted in the new log and startup goes on.
• Loot museum items picks up loose relics too. A relic the museum still needs, lying on a table or a shelf, is looted the same as one in a chest. Every other loot gambit already took loose items.
• Loose arrows and bolts follow the trade-up rule. A follower passes over a loose stack worse than anything he carries, the same as in a chest.
• Loose items are safe to leave around. A follower never takes a museum display, anything in your home or the museum halls, a quest item, or anything owned. In a town, inn, house or shop he takes a loose item only when neither the item nor the room has an owner. The log names the reason once for each item he leaves.
• Followers pick up COIN coin purses. With Coins of Interesting Natures installed, a follower with a gold or valuables loot gambit harvests the coin purses he finds. COIN's regional coins in chests and on bodies count as gold loot too.
• Followers leave wildlife alone. Engage on sight no longer sends a follower after elk, deer, rabbits, foxes or any other animal that never attacks. If you attack one first, he joins in.
• Museum relics stay in the pack. A follower no longer fights with a relic he is carrying for the museum while he has another weapon of that kind. If the relic is his only one, he uses it until he ships it.
• A relic a follower picked up and put on himself still gets shipped. Only relics he would have dropped anyway, and only while he still carries a weapon he can fight with.
• What you drop on the ground is fair game. A follower may pick up an item you dropped, like any other loose item.
• A museum relic you give a follower is never shipped. MFO remembers each relic you hand over or put on him in the trade or gift menu, until he no longer carries it. A relic you gave him stays in his hand. The record is kept in the save, so it survives a reload. Ordinary items you give him are fair game and are not recorded.
• A follower carrying lots of potions keeps MFO's spell control. Before, too many potions switched off MFO's say over which spells he picks in combat. Now he keeps the best potion of each kind for his own combat drinking and the control stays on.
• Bow users stop buying and looting bolts. Arrows and bolts are told apart correctly again without the ItemCatalog patcher.
• A follower who is losing now runs back to you. Confidence watches how fast he is losing health. A duel he is losing badly sends him back well before he is nearly dead.
• Strong enemies count for more, weak ones for less. A dragon weighs about four times a mudcrab. A pack of mudcrabs no longer sends a healthy follower running.
• A crowd alone no longer forces a retreat at full health. Five even enemies keep him fighting while he holds his own. If the pack starts hurting him, he falls back.
• Engage on sight needs a margin. A follower only starts a fight he could keep fighting after the first hits. At full health that is about five even enemies.
• The combat log line shows the new inputs. The [sense] line now reads his own combat state, the weighted enemy load, his health loss per second and the trend factor.
• Followers pick locks on chests. A follower out looting walks to a locked chest, picks it with the lock picking animation and then loots it. His odds come from his own Lockpicking skill and perks, worked out the way the game's own lock picking works. Picks he breaks come out of his own pack.
• He never starts a lock he would fail. If the lock needs more picks than he carries, he leaves it alone and spends nothing. He tries again once he carries more picks or his skill goes up.
• Owned chests stay off limits. A follower never picks a lock that would be a crime.
• It needs Harbinger 0.9.10 (API v17). Without it, or with an older Harbinger, followers skip locked chests. They no longer loot through a lock.
• Followers pick locked doors that block a loot trip. When a locked door stops a follower on his way to an item, he walks to it, picks it with the same animation and odds, and carries on to the item. Owned doors, and doors into houses, shops, inns or other lived-in places, are left alone.
• New option: Legacy of the Dragonborn awareness. Off by default, and only shown when LOTD is installed. Turn it on and followers know what your museum still needs. LOTD's own shipping message shows once when you turn it on.
• New loot gambit: Loot museum items. It appears on the board while the option is on. A follower takes the relics the museum still needs and nothing it already has, counting what you and the other followers carry and what is already on its way.
• Followers ship museum items for you. A follower with that gambit, carrying needed relics, walks to a nearby Museum Shipments crate, hands them over with a proper give animation and puts them in. LOTD delivers them to the museum as usual. It needs Harbinger 0.9.10 (API v17). Without it the gambit does nothing.
• A relic the museum needs is never sold or dropped. Selling, making room for better gear and trading up ammo all leave it alone. Relics you gave a follower are never shipped.
• The walk-to-loot gait setting works on Harbinger's travel road. With Harbinger 0.9.8 or newer, a loot trip walks, jogs, runs or fast-walks as the setting says. A changed setting applies from the next trip leg. MFO's own travel packages (Harbinger absent) are unchanged until that road's gait is proven.
• Loot trips on Harbinger's road now listen to why a walk stopped. Arrived means loot now. A vanished target means the next item at once. Blocked by someone standing in the way means the item goes later in his list. Blocked by a gate means the item is skipped until the gate changes. MFO no longer runs its own blocked timer on that road.
• A follower sent back to the same item walks again. Before, a second trip to an item whose first walk had ended never started.
• The loot log says why each Harbinger trip leg ended, once per leg.
• Loot trips respect Automatic Follower Teleporter. When that mod is installed, MFO reads its distances and logs them. While your weapon is drawn, MFO never plans a loot trip past its teleport distance, and it ends a trip that drifts toward it. A trip that crosses it anyway can still be teleported. Sheathed, the normal leash returns.
• A follower moved mid-trip carries on cleanly, with or without a teleport mod. Fast travel, a door, a mod's teleport or any other sudden jump to your side ends the trip leg, and he picks the next item near him. The item is not marked as failed. Nothing changes unless he really jumps.
• New option: followers engage enemies on sight. Off by default. Turn it on and a follower who can see an enemy near you starts the fight with the nearest one, even in the middle of a loot run. His own gambits take over from there.
• It needs Harbinger 0.9.9 or newer. Without it the option does nothing.
• New slider: how far they react. Engage on sight range is the farthest a follower will spot and charge an enemy, measured from him. Default 2000 units, about 29 m. The leash from you still caps it.
• It only works while Auto-retreat is on. A follower who starts a fight can still fall back. He also holds off while his last retreat is cooling down or while he is too hurt for the enemies that would join the fight.
• He does not start fights while you sneak. A second option lets him.
• He never starts a fight with guards or townsfolk. Anyone whose attack would be a crime is left alone unless they are already fighting you or a follower. Your summons and thralls, and enemies who are tied up, bleeding out or scripted to ignore fights are left alone too.
• A follower you told to wait stays put. So does one whose gambit list has a Wait rule that is winning.
• No fights started in towns, inns, houses or other lived-in places. Unless you are already fighting, followers do not start a fight while you are in one, or with an enemy standing in one. A dungeon under a town still counts as a dungeon.
• No endless re-tries. If the game refuses the fight, or the fight ends with the enemy still around, he leaves that enemy alone until it dies, leaves, stops being hostile or is far from you.
• Followers swap up while looting and shopping, arrows and bolts included. Ammo is ranked by damage, then by value. Only the kind a follower shoots is judged: arrows for a bow, bolts for a crossbow. A follower keeps his best rounds up to his "arrows below" number, and never fewer than 50. Anything weaker than that is obsolete. The weakest goes first. Enchanted and elemental ammo, and ammo you gave him, is never dropped or sold.
• A follower drops obsolete arrows into the body when he loots better ones. He no longer picks up arrows he would drop straight back.
• A follower sells obsolete arrows and bolts at a vendor, and buys better ones. An archer with a stock of iron buys steel or better after his gear, with at most a quarter of what is left in his purse. The iron sells on the next visit.
• A follower with the Loot equipment gambit also takes better ammo of his kind from a body.
• A better weapon or armor piece that is too heavy to carry is still taken when dropping gear he already replaced makes room. This needs the economy on. The least valuable replaced gear goes back into the body first, and only once the new piece is in his pack. Nothing worth more than the new piece is dropped. Worn gear, enchanted gear, his own signature gear, quest items, gear you put on him, and gear that may hold gems are never dropped.
• With Harbinger's equip authority, an archer MFO holds on his bow gets his best arrows, when he has at least 20 of them. Arrows you hand him through the trade menu stay on. Before, he kept whatever arrows he last had equipped.
• A mage no longer sells the backup dagger he just looted.
• A retreating follower stays out of the fight on the way back. With Harbinger 0.9.10, the game cannot pull him back into combat while he walks to you. MFO takes him out of the fight once, the moment Harbinger holds the door shut. Enemies can still hit him on the way. Once he reaches you he fights again if the enemies come to him. Older Harbinger or none: the retreat works as before.
• Followers do not chase too far from you in a fight. With Harbinger 0.9.10, a follower who is farther from you than his confidence leash does not run after a foe that would take him farther still. A confident follower ranges wide. A hurt or outnumbered one stays close. He still fights whatever comes to him. Older Harbinger or none: no change.
• Not all of this has been played yet. Lockpicking, museum drop-offs, loose loot, engage on sight, retreat and the fight leash ran in a test session. The fixes made after it (downed followers, heal reach, flying foes, relic swaps, ammo sales, the new gambit labels) have not been tested in game yet.