Increase encumbrance of player when you have a bearer thrall following you.
Higher level thrall => More capacity for the player.
I think this is a viable solution that shouldn’t require that much development.
Then in the future the purpose of the thrall can be refined perhaps.
All bearer thralls really need is their inventory slots increased. ‘x’ number per tier I +5, II +10, III +15, IV + 20, or something like that. Thats a much easier fix than what you’re suggesting.
Well I don’t have the insight to the code that you apparently have.
I don’t think your suggestion is ideal either since having amount of slots dictate how much the thrall can carry goes against how it currently works for the player.
The inventory will expand and shrink independent of how much stuff weighs.
So I definitely think the bearer thrall inventory should work like the player and rather have a +X encumbrance based on their level, and not amount of slots. E.g you can carry a whole lot of feathers!
You would have to take an object that isn’t the player character, specifically link that object to to the pc to give a bonus similar to an aura or a buff, and then be able to remove that link on the fly. Possibly they could piggyback the mechanic off the fact that the thrall is on follow, if the code allows. Programming can be finicky like that. Essentially, it’s more moving parts so to speak, so more things that can go wrong in a game that already has plenty of bugs and glitches.
On the other hand, a thrall is a mobile object in the game, and object that is specifically intended to carry things for the player, it has attributes. Inventory space would likely be one such attribute, that, while it’s still possible for things to go wrong, I would assume, should be as simple as changing a value.
That’s simplifying it a little, as it gets trickier when spawning various levels of quality and all that, but in a base sense… It would make more sense to alter the thrall itself rather than attempt to create new buff specifically for bearer thralls that doesn’t really even make sense in terms of realism or practical function.
I agree 100% with this!
Believe me, I know it’s finicky, I’m a developer myself.
But I don’t think extra slots alone would suffice as bonus/reason to take the thrall with you.
Unless the inventory expands like it does for the player.
I’d say all thralls should behave this way, and then have their encumbrance dictate how much they can carry.
Just like it is for the player.
And then the bearer thrall would have an encumbrance based on their level.