I would like to vanish and be able to auto-follow a suspicious player as he moves around. After I issue the command, I can sit back and watch as my player moves to match another player's movement.

Commands:
/vanish follow
/vanish unfollow

We would need a permission:

• vanish.follow

And config.yml settings:

if true, then if no player is specified, then follow the nearest player; if false, then a player must be specified on the command line

follow-nearest-player: true

default following distance if not specified

follow-distance: 10

as long as our distance to the followed player is +/- the threshold, just stand still to prevent excessive relocation

follow-threshold: 3

if follower specifies a distance smaller than this minimum, use this instead

minimum-follow-distance 3

if true, then rotate the follower to face the followed player (adjust the facing direction every couple of seconds to face the followed player as he moves to the side)

always-face-followed-player: true

announce following to others who have the follow permission

announce-to-other-followers: true

Note:

• set x,y,z to a safe place so you don't end up in a tree or a hill
• confirmation announcement says " is now following "
• confirmation announcement says " is no longer following "

I'd be happy to be an alpha tester of this for you.

This would be great, maybe hook into BigBrother?

well, rather LogBlock from DiddiZ since BB is dead
I pretty much wrote the specs for you, mbax, so you coding it might not be too difficult

No need, that wouuld cause allot of tug on the server when you could use a plugin called 'spectate' go check it out: http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/admn-spectate-watch-what-other-players-are-doing-in-first-person-1-1-r3.56880/

This is like a full separate plugin request. I won't have time for at least a week to work on this

I certainly understand. And wouldn't this feature be like icing on top of your delicious Vanish cupcake? :)

Thanks for giving it some serious thought. A "follow" plugin is kind of pointless without being able to vanish first, so that's why I thought it might be a good add-on to yours, which I love, btw.

You could also use VoxelSniper, which is like a mix of WorldEdit and Photoshop, but also includes a misc feature for "riding" on any entity the same way you ride on pigs. see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWtg4ckNyNA

You can set the vanished player to be the rider of the other player as a vehicle, but this has issues (namely being stuck in the ceiling or otherwise not getting a good view). If visible to the client, you'd also push the player around, but as the player is invisible, this won't be an issue.

The main issue I can see with your suggested plugin is writing it so that it places the spectator in a "safe" place.

Safe teleporting isn't rocket science. Pick an xyz, check to see if you have air in y, y+1 and if so, teleport, if not, set y=y+2 and try again until you finally hit an air pocket.

Anyway, riding is no good. You want to be able to sit back in your chair and watch the player from a distance of 6-10 blocks.

Lastly, it wouldn't cause a lot of tug on the server if you implement the threshold, as I mentioned.

Maybe you could record the last few moves of the targeted player, then
"replay" those moves with delay on the player using the command.

This delay would be dependent on the targeted player, a delay measured in
blocks, not seconds.

A little out there, but possible.

I didn't say it is rocket science, but making it actually useful could be challenging - line of sight, non-damaging blocks, etc.

Implemented the Follow plugin.
http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/follow/