creature possession

[xorbaxian]

once again, this subject raises its sticky ugly head...

does anyone know what the state of development is for nwnx possession routines on linux ? apparently, axs was working on such a project, but i can't find any sort of finished release for this. i know both baaleos and shadooow were working on possession, but in the windoze domain.

here's my problem in a nutshell. i'd like to rework familiars to allow the use of custom feats & skills, level progression [if possible], and allow a certain level of customisation by the player. the standard bioware system fails for me for because
- there's no way to circumvent dismissal of the familiar at player level-up
- there's currently no handler to catch the player-initiated 'dismiss familiar' event
- custom feats aren't working correctly [even when they are in the 'henchman' version, see below]
- creating 40 new templates per familiar is tedious and error-prone

this is an easy thing to do by summoning familiars as henchmen and writing a few packages for level-up. this approach works fine for animal companions, but fails for familiars because familiars then can't be possessed.

the whole SummonFamiliar() thing is too much of a black box. if no extension is currently available in nwnx, could anyone tell me what actually goes on inside that black box ? i.e., which specific parts of the code determine template choice, set up the familiar radial menu, set up possession, etc. ? and, more importantly, if there could be some way to 'break it down' into smaller pieces, or make parts of it accessible via nwscript ?