FO2 Mechanics Overhaul Mod
- Thread starter JimTheDinosaur
- Start date
Another new update brings another big potentially controversial and therefore optional change (I've slowed down my version naming a bit; otherwise I'd be at version 10 in a month).
This time I've decided to change around the critical hit/failure system. Let me start with critical hits.
The current system works like this: if you score a hit, this has a chance of being upgraded to a critical hit according to the following metric:
CRITCHANCE being the modifier of Luck + better criticals perks + finesse, and an extra roll being made if you have the Sniper or Slayer perk.
The one thing I don't agree with in this system is the fact that the to hit chance still plays a roll: why should a lucky shot to the eye have more of a chance of causing extra damage than a skill-driven one? Maybe this would make sense with the Living Anatomy perk, but that would be a future project. In my system, skill plays no role in getting critical hits.
The other thing is the way the Slayer and Sniper perks work. I know, I know, everyone loves them in spite of the balancing issues, but my main gripe with them isn't even the balancing aspect, but how boring they are. For instance, the first time I heard something about the almighty Sniper perk, I assumed it would have something to do with, you know, sniping.
Anyway, in my system they're still pretty damn powerful, only now they correspond a bit better with their titles/vault boy images. I've made the Slayer perk into the Conan the Barbarian type dealy it looks like from the image, meaning that your critical hit change rises bases on the number of men, women and children you've heard the lamentations of before killing them (divided by 10, natch). The sniper perk now increases the critical hit chance based on the distance of the target (so, with a sniper rifle at max distance, it gives +50 critical hit chance).
Other than these changes I've kept things more or less the same (I wasn't exactly sure what the original body part mods were, so I just did more or less the original penalties; i.e. eyes give +60% to critical hit chance, head +40%, etc.).
With critical misses, a miss gets upgraded to a critical miss in the current system like so:
The biggest problem with this in my view is that only misses can become critical failures, while many of the critical failures involve events like faulty ammo or defective weapons: a potential hit or miss should be irrelevant to such events. So, in my system, every shot/blow can potentially turn into a critical failure (in accordance with this I've raised the max possible to hit chance from the arbitrary 95% to 100%).
My other problem with the current system is the exact opposite of the one I had with critical hits: with critical misses skill should play a role, while it doesn't (i.e. whether or not you drop your spear in a frantic thrust should depend on your melee skill). I'll just use an example to show how the new system works:
So there's now two rolls; the first checks against the players relevant skills and stats (in the example it's the repair skill needed to keep weapons and ammo in working condition, the perception needed to notice problems before it's too late and of course the skill of handling a fire arm; I've tried basing these required stats on the five possible failures per weapon type); the second roll checks against luck (another thing the current system inexplicably didn't do yet). Theoretically it is possible to avoid critical failures from being possible, but in practice it isn't (e.g. with Energy Weapons you would need 300 Science, 300 Repair, 300 Energy weapons skill and 10 PE).
I've found a stimpack abuse solution using the useobjon hookscript (never even noticed it before). Now, if you use a stimpak, super stimpak or psycho on an unsuspecting bystander (i.e. not yourself or a party member) they react like anyone would if you tried to forcibly inject them with a dangerous substance: they attack. I actually like this system better than the sfall Super Stim fix.
Do note that the Drug mod (which, you'll remember, not only changes the stimpaks/super stims/ psycho, but also the Healing Rate based on First Aid skill) isn't as yet compatible with the Supply and Demand Mod (but only that one). For some reason global scripts tend to not like each other...
I don't really like eliminating stuff from the game, though you did give me an idea for a script that randomizes gear in containers and inventories on first entering a map. Shouldn't be too hard and would enhance the whole scavenging theme.
This time I've decided to change around the critical hit/failure system. Let me start with critical hits.
The current system works like this: if you score a hit, this has a chance of being upgraded to a critical hit according to the following metric:
Code:
(CRITCHANCE + ((TOHIT−RND(1,100))/10))%CRITCHANCE being the modifier of Luck + better criticals perks + finesse, and an extra roll being made if you have the Sniper or Slayer perk.
The one thing I don't agree with in this system is the fact that the to hit chance still plays a roll: why should a lucky shot to the eye have more of a chance of causing extra damage than a skill-driven one? Maybe this would make sense with the Living Anatomy perk, but that would be a future project. In my system, skill plays no role in getting critical hits.
The other thing is the way the Slayer and Sniper perks work. I know, I know, everyone loves them in spite of the balancing issues, but my main gripe with them isn't even the balancing aspect, but how boring they are. For instance, the first time I heard something about the almighty Sniper perk, I assumed it would have something to do with, you know, sniping.
Anyway, in my system they're still pretty damn powerful, only now they correspond a bit better with their titles/vault boy images. I've made the Slayer perk into the Conan the Barbarian type dealy it looks like from the image, meaning that your critical hit change rises bases on the number of men, women and children you've heard the lamentations of before killing them (divided by 10, natch). The sniper perk now increases the critical hit chance based on the distance of the target (so, with a sniper rifle at max distance, it gives +50 critical hit chance).
Other than these changes I've kept things more or less the same (I wasn't exactly sure what the original body part mods were, so I just did more or less the original penalties; i.e. eyes give +60% to critical hit chance, head +40%, etc.).
With critical misses, a miss gets upgraded to a critical miss in the current system like so:
Code:
(CRITCHANCE + ((TOHIT−RND(1,100))/10))%The biggest problem with this in my view is that only misses can become critical failures, while many of the critical failures involve events like faulty ammo or defective weapons: a potential hit or miss should be irrelevant to such events. So, in my system, every shot/blow can potentially turn into a critical failure (in accordance with this I've raised the max possible to hit chance from the arbitrary 95% to 100%).
My other problem with the current system is the exact opposite of the one I had with critical hits: with critical misses skill should play a role, while it doesn't (i.e. whether or not you drop your spear in a frantic thrust should depend on your melee skill). I'll just use an example to show how the new system works:
Code:
if (get_sfall_global_int("weaponty") == small_arms_type) then begin
if random(1,1000) > (get_critter_stat(attacker, STAT_pe)*10) + (has_skill(attacker, SKILL_REPAIR)) + (has_skill(attacker, SKILL_SMALL_GUNS)*2) then begin
if random(1,100) > 65 + (get_critter_stat(attacker, STAT_lu)*3) then begin
hit:=0;
end
end
endSo there's now two rolls; the first checks against the players relevant skills and stats (in the example it's the repair skill needed to keep weapons and ammo in working condition, the perception needed to notice problems before it's too late and of course the skill of handling a fire arm; I've tried basing these required stats on the five possible failures per weapon type); the second roll checks against luck (another thing the current system inexplicably didn't do yet). Theoretically it is possible to avoid critical failures from being possible, but in practice it isn't (e.g. with Energy Weapons you would need 300 Science, 300 Repair, 300 Energy weapons skill and 10 PE).
UniversalWolf said:
I've found a stimpack abuse solution using the useobjon hookscript (never even noticed it before). Now, if you use a stimpak, super stimpak or psycho on an unsuspecting bystander (i.e. not yourself or a party member) they react like anyone would if you tried to forcibly inject them with a dangerous substance: they attack. I actually like this system better than the sfall Super Stim fix.
Do note that the Drug mod (which, you'll remember, not only changes the stimpaks/super stims/ psycho, but also the Healing Rate based on First Aid skill) isn't as yet compatible with the Supply and Demand Mod (but only that one). For some reason global scripts tend to not like each other...
I don't really like eliminating stuff from the game, though you did give me an idea for a script that randomizes gear in containers and inventories on first entering a map. Shouldn't be too hard and would enhance the whole scavenging theme.
You would need to be very careful with this idea; while it could potentially increase the desire to replay the game, you could drastically unbalance areas by allowing certain weapons to show up to early in the game (player might not have the skill for the weapon but the value of the weapon might offer money to the player that was not available previously) or weapons you need later to not show up at all, and you would have to be sure items necessary to quest lines were all accounted for (I'm not sure I could handle not being able to complete a quest because the item I need still didn't show up on my third entry to a map).JimTheDinosaur said:
Just some words of warning.
Glovz said:You would need to be very careful with this idea; while it could potentially increase the desire to replay the game, you could drastically unbalance areas by allowing certain weapons to show up to early in the game (player might not have the skill for the weapon but the value of the weapon might offer money to the player that was not available previously) or weapons you need later to not show up at all, and you would have to be sure items necessary to quest lines were all accounted for (I'm not sure I could handle not being able to complete a quest because the item I need still didn't show up on my third entry to a map).
Just some words of warning.
I don't know; the quest items I think are already more or less grouped together (though I'd have to check the itempid.h), and I was already planning on doing the randomizing based on critter pid (or fid) and map; so a Leather Armor critter in Klamath would necessarily have lower level gear than a metal armor critter in Vault City (in fact, you'd have to do it on a critter fid by critter fid basis anyway to avoid mismatched weapon animations). Also, just to be clear, the randomizing would only take place on the first entry to the map. I think that a bigger problem is the global script incompatibility issue I mentioned; I just don't feel like making any new global scripts until I'm sure they'll work.
It's really annoying; I've tried having them start later in the map through timed events because I suspect the reason is that they just eat up all the memory on map entry, but no luck. The most annoying thing is that the problems (endless loading screens every fifth or so map entry) don't show up in debug mode. I also tried fiddling with all the sfall settings. Does anybody have an idea?
Well, because I've managed to solve the global scripts problem, I've made another update. Here's the new additions (all optional, though if you want to use the armor repair system you you'll probably want the drug mod as well to avoid Psycho from becoming useless):
FIXED MAX HITPOINTS
In my opinion the biggest contributor to mid-/late-game boringness other than the to hit problems already addressed is becoming a complete bullet sponge. It's completely absurd that even a low endurance character will be able to absorb more punishment by the end-game than a Super Mutant. Needless to say, fixing the max hitpoints (I've done so at 20+strength+endurance*5) creates potentially huge balancing issues. Up to now I've found a way to address these in part by making a script that brings the max hitpoints of human critters down to this formula (so no more ridiculous 150 hitpoint enclave soldiers). What this doesn't address is non-humans, making death claws and super mutants a tougher fight in all likelihood. This I don't mind (I always felt the big baddies were a bit tame in Fallout 2); what I do mind is that I haven't yet found a way to have human max hitpoints brought up to the formula, meaning that early baddies may well be made too easy. The reason for this problem is that when you raise the max hitpoints, you also have to raise the current hitpoints to avoid them starting out wounded, but that in turn would mean that every time you leave after a battle and return to the map everyone there will have been miraculously healed. If anybody has an idea for a solution, I'd love to hear it.
(PASSIVE) ARMOR REPAIR
With this the armor's damage resistances (so not thresholds) get adjusted based on the wearer's skills. Here is the system I use:
This formula then gets multiplied based on how heavy the armor is (leather*1, metal*2, etc.); meaning that if a critter has 50 traps skill and 50 repair skill and is wearing metal armor, his explosive damage resistance gets changed by (-5+1+1)*2= -6%. There's still a lot more I need to do with this, mainly to reflect the fact that places like the Enclave have specialists for armor maintanence and the like.
DRUG/HEALTH SYSTEM CHANGES
This was already in the last version, but given that it's now finally working properly, I might as well sum up the changes:
- (Super-)stimpaks are now combat stimulants rather than health potions, they heal only minor wounds (4 for regular, 10 for super), and mainly serve as a temporary measure (16 temp hp for regular, 40 temp hp + 10 extra temp max hitpoints for super), which means that taking more than your endurance allows will be deadly. To avoid exploitation, injecting someone other than a party member with a stimpak causes him to attack (which makes sense).
- Because I'm not a big fan of the way the first aid skill works as an active skill, I've decided to make it a passive skill through its raising the Healing Rate. So now "resting" also accounts for medical treatment (which makes sense; who ever slept off a bullet wound?). So now instead of pumping everyone full of stims after a battle, taking a medical break will be necessary.
- Psycho is now also different: instead of the silly Damage Resistance mod (you can block bullets, but not lasers?) it now drastically raises you max hit points to represent the additional punishment you can take, but also has a harsh comedown.
One final note concerning the exploit blocking system; a lot of people dislike this in sfall because it takes away the only stealth kill that works. To fix this (though this is a longer term project) I want to make an assassination system through dialogue (that is, if you're in stealth mode when entering dialogue you'll get a range of options with relevant skill checks). I'm guessing this will allow us to do more fun stuff like have guards react and investigate, etc.
FIXED MAX HITPOINTS
In my opinion the biggest contributor to mid-/late-game boringness other than the to hit problems already addressed is becoming a complete bullet sponge. It's completely absurd that even a low endurance character will be able to absorb more punishment by the end-game than a Super Mutant. Needless to say, fixing the max hitpoints (I've done so at 20+strength+endurance*5) creates potentially huge balancing issues. Up to now I've found a way to address these in part by making a script that brings the max hitpoints of human critters down to this formula (so no more ridiculous 150 hitpoint enclave soldiers). What this doesn't address is non-humans, making death claws and super mutants a tougher fight in all likelihood. This I don't mind (I always felt the big baddies were a bit tame in Fallout 2); what I do mind is that I haven't yet found a way to have human max hitpoints brought up to the formula, meaning that early baddies may well be made too easy. The reason for this problem is that when you raise the max hitpoints, you also have to raise the current hitpoints to avoid them starting out wounded, but that in turn would mean that every time you leave after a battle and return to the map everyone there will have been miraculously healed. If anybody has an idea for a solution, I'd love to hear it.
(PASSIVE) ARMOR REPAIR
With this the armor's damage resistances (so not thresholds) get adjusted based on the wearer's skills. Here is the system I use:
Code:
#define normal(x) (-3 + (has_skill(x, SKILL_REPAIR)/50))
#define laser(x) (-5 + (has_skill(x, SKILL_REPAIR)/50) + (has_skill(x, SKILL_SCIENCE)/50))
#define plasma(x) (-5 + (has_skill(x, SKILL_REPAIR)/50) + (has_skill(x, SKILL_SCIENCE)/50))
#define explosion(x) (-5 + (has_skill(x, SKILL_REPAIR)/50) + (has_skill(x, SKILL_TRAPS)/50))
#define electrical(x) (-5 + (has_skill(x, SKILL_REPAIR)/50) + (has_skill(x, SKILL_SCIENCE)/50))
#define fire(x) (-5 + (has_skill(x, SKILL_REPAIR)/50) + (has_skill(x, SKILL_TRAPS)/50))This formula then gets multiplied based on how heavy the armor is (leather*1, metal*2, etc.); meaning that if a critter has 50 traps skill and 50 repair skill and is wearing metal armor, his explosive damage resistance gets changed by (-5+1+1)*2= -6%. There's still a lot more I need to do with this, mainly to reflect the fact that places like the Enclave have specialists for armor maintanence and the like.
DRUG/HEALTH SYSTEM CHANGES
This was already in the last version, but given that it's now finally working properly, I might as well sum up the changes:
- (Super-)stimpaks are now combat stimulants rather than health potions, they heal only minor wounds (4 for regular, 10 for super), and mainly serve as a temporary measure (16 temp hp for regular, 40 temp hp + 10 extra temp max hitpoints for super), which means that taking more than your endurance allows will be deadly. To avoid exploitation, injecting someone other than a party member with a stimpak causes him to attack (which makes sense).
- Because I'm not a big fan of the way the first aid skill works as an active skill, I've decided to make it a passive skill through its raising the Healing Rate. So now "resting" also accounts for medical treatment (which makes sense; who ever slept off a bullet wound?). So now instead of pumping everyone full of stims after a battle, taking a medical break will be necessary.
- Psycho is now also different: instead of the silly Damage Resistance mod (you can block bullets, but not lasers?) it now drastically raises you max hit points to represent the additional punishment you can take, but also has a harsh comedown.
One final note concerning the exploit blocking system; a lot of people dislike this in sfall because it takes away the only stealth kill that works. To fix this (though this is a longer term project) I want to make an assassination system through dialogue (that is, if you're in stealth mode when entering dialogue you'll get a range of options with relevant skill checks). I'm guessing this will allow us to do more fun stuff like have guards react and investigate, etc.
For version 0.63 I've fixed some problems with the to hit formula and introduced a movement system for it. That is to say, I've made a script that calculates the distance between your location at the last turn and the current turn (so the system isn't ideal: if you decide to run in a circle like an idiot, the system will calculate it as if you had stayed put).
I use this data in a couple of ways; first, running from A to B makes you harder to hit. For this purpose I've made a new calculation for the agility bonus (the old system I had was a bit silly). The formula is now:
So you start with the target's agility, substract 4 for bulky armor (metal armor and up) , substract an additional 6 for the bulkiest armor (power armor and up) , and then add the amount of hexes traversed (the unused STAT calculates that) and the various perks (hth evade now incorporates unarmed skill like in the original; I had overlooked this). The entireity is then doubled. Note that this means that the resulting value can be negative.
Second, the more you move the harder it becomes for you to hit someone, though the penalty is half that of the bonus to your evasion bonus. This might make it seem that the best tactic for a non-hardened combatant would be to simply run around frantically. But this isn't a good idea unless you've got a lot of endurance, because movement also increases the exhaustion penalty (the exhaustion system had some problems with it, which I've also fixed):
So when the amount of turns exceeds the target's (same system applies to the attacker's penalty to hit) endurance, he gets a penalty based on how much he's been moving around and what percentage of his max carry weight he's carrying.
Other than that, in this version I've left out the fixed max hitpoints system (I'll leave it for what it is until someone explains to me how to make the set_critter_stat work persistently.
I use this data in a couple of ways; first, running from A to B makes you harder to hit. For this purpose I've made a new calculation for the agility bonus (the old system I had was a bit silly). The formula is now:
Code:
agilitymod:=(((get_critter_stat(target, STAT_ag)) - ((get_critter_stat(target, STAT_dmg_thresh) ^ 4)*4) - ((get_critter_stat(target, STAT_dmg_thresh) ^ 12)*6) + (get_critter_extra_stat(target, STAT_unused)) + ((has_trait(TRAIT_PERK, target, PERK_dodger) > 0)*3) + ((has_trait(TRAIT_PERK, target, PERK_dodger) > 1)*3) + ((has_trait(TRAIT_PERK, target, PERK_dodger) > 2)*3) + (hthevade))*2);So you start with the target's agility, substract 4 for bulky armor (metal armor and up) , substract an additional 6 for the bulkiest armor (power armor and up) , and then add the amount of hexes traversed (the unused STAT calculates that) and the various perks (hth evade now incorporates unarmed skill like in the original; I had overlooked this). The entireity is then doubled. Note that this means that the resulting value can be negative.
Second, the more you move the harder it becomes for you to hit someone, though the penalty is half that of the bonus to your evasion bonus. This might make it seem that the best tactic for a non-hardened combatant would be to simply run around frantically. But this isn't a good idea unless you've got a lot of endurance, because movement also increases the exhaustion penalty (the exhaustion system had some problems with it, which I've also fixed):
Code:
targetexhaustion:=(get_sfall_global_int("combattu") - get_critter_stat(target, STAT_en))*((get_critter_extra_stat(target, STAT_unused)*0.5)+(weightmodtarget*0.5));So when the amount of turns exceeds the target's (same system applies to the attacker's penalty to hit) endurance, he gets a penalty based on how much he's been moving around and what percentage of his max carry weight he's carrying.
Other than that, in this version I've left out the fixed max hitpoints system (I'll leave it for what it is until someone explains to me how to make the set_critter_stat work persistently.
New version time.
The fixed hit point system is back, because I found a way to not only have humans adjust down to the formula, but also up. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out I must say (I even noticed recently that the Chinese soldiers in Frisco have 200 hitpoints; almost two Super Mutants wrapped in a single Asian package!).
On the other hand, because Jim's Mods is just a cruel carrousel, the movement system is already cut, because I wasn't satisfied with the way it works (maybe I'll whine to Timeslip for an option to track hexes moved, rather than just distance). Also, I wanted to free up the "unused" stat for a new addition I've been working on:
PLAYER MORALE SYSTEM
Full disclosure: I shamelessly stole the core of this idea from one of Surf Solar's threads over at the Codex.
I always felt it was a bit unfair how NPC's all have the wonderfully human characteristic of occasionally bursting into fits of abject fear, while the player can happily blast away while having half his body shot off.
Now, I'm sure a lot of you like the idea of being some kind of B-movie action hero (it's the same debate as always about Fallout whether you like it for the Reno sillyness or grave Mark Morgan-y graveness - the curse of a game which can't decide on what it wants to be I guess), but I like my heroes a bit more human. Don't worry, you won't be forced to run away, it's just that if you fail a morale check at the beginning of a turn you get one of three effects, each notified by a red lettered floater:
The first causes your movement to cost twice as many AP's; the second causes you to get a hefty 40% penalty to hit; and the third raises your attacking AP cost by two (unfortunately the numbers don't update immediately for this last one, but it does work).
The morale check itself works like this: you always start off with zero chance of morale failure, then as you kill more and more humans (especially children) it starts building up. It also rises when you're hurt, and goes back down when you're healed. You can bring down the morale failure chance by drinking alcoholic beverages.
To make things more interesting I've added some dialogue to Cameron in the Temple of Trials where you can change aspects of this morale system. The dialogue is this:
As you can see you'll have three options to change things up: (1) the "liquid resolve" options makes alcohol a more effective morale booster, while also making the stuff more addictive, (2) The "righteous" option makes increases in karma improve your morale, while the killing of humans more easily shakes your resolve, and (3) the selfish option makes killing humans not factor in at all, but makes getting hurt yourself far more demoralizing.
Do note that this addition requires a non-sfall global to work, so you'd have to override the vault13.gam.
The fixed hit point system is back, because I found a way to not only have humans adjust down to the formula, but also up. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out I must say (I even noticed recently that the Chinese soldiers in Frisco have 200 hitpoints; almost two Super Mutants wrapped in a single Asian package!).
On the other hand, because Jim's Mods is just a cruel carrousel, the movement system is already cut, because I wasn't satisfied with the way it works (maybe I'll whine to Timeslip for an option to track hexes moved, rather than just distance). Also, I wanted to free up the "unused" stat for a new addition I've been working on:
PLAYER MORALE SYSTEM
Full disclosure: I shamelessly stole the core of this idea from one of Surf Solar's threads over at the Codex.
I always felt it was a bit unfair how NPC's all have the wonderfully human characteristic of occasionally bursting into fits of abject fear, while the player can happily blast away while having half his body shot off.
Now, I'm sure a lot of you like the idea of being some kind of B-movie action hero (it's the same debate as always about Fallout whether you like it for the Reno sillyness or grave Mark Morgan-y graveness - the curse of a game which can't decide on what it wants to be I guess), but I like my heroes a bit more human. Don't worry, you won't be forced to run away, it's just that if you fail a morale check at the beginning of a turn you get one of three effects, each notified by a red lettered floater:
Code:
{142}{}{[Panic suddenly takes a hold of you, and your legs momentarily feel like they are made of lead.]}
{143}{}{[Panic suddenly hits you, and steadying your hands becomes almost impossible.]}
{144}{}{[You're suddenly overcome with fear of the enemy, and convincing yourself to attack would take more effort than ever.]}The first causes your movement to cost twice as many AP's; the second causes you to get a hefty 40% penalty to hit; and the third raises your attacking AP cost by two (unfortunately the numbers don't update immediately for this last one, but it does work).
The morale check itself works like this: you always start off with zero chance of morale failure, then as you kill more and more humans (especially children) it starts building up. It also rises when you're hurt, and goes back down when you're healed. You can bring down the morale failure chance by drinking alcoholic beverages.
To make things more interesting I've added some dialogue to Cameron in the Temple of Trials where you can change aspects of this morale system. The dialogue is this:
Code:
{313}{}{. I have the honor of being your final challenge. My task is to first test your resolve, then your physical prowess.}
{314}{}{Listen, me standing here covered in giant ant-entrails or whatever the hell this purple stuff is should be proof enough of my resolve, buddy, so you can just skip that part right away.}
{315}{}{How do you plan on testing my resolve?}
{316}{}{Re...solve?}
{317}{}{Just one simple question. This village has shielded you all your life from the horrors of the wasteland; but soon you will have to face these horrors head on. How do you plan on coping with this?}
{318}{}{I'll probably have some liquid resolve now and then to steady the nerves. But if the Elder asks, tell her I said something about the plight of the village, or whatever.}
{319}{}{My resolve will not falter because I will know that my cause is just.}
{320}{}{Let's just say that I'll make sure that these horrors befall others, not me.}
{321}{}{I'll cope just fine, now get to the last part already.}
{322}{}{[Your venomous breath tells Cameron all he needs to know.]}
{323}{}{Me know good.}
{324}{}{Maybe me horror.}
{326}{}{Muh. [You can't help but wonder whether you couldn't have been more eloquent there.]}
{325}{}{Very well. As to your final challenge, to continue in your quest you must defeat me in unarmed combat. Shall we begin?}As you can see you'll have three options to change things up: (1) the "liquid resolve" options makes alcohol a more effective morale booster, while also making the stuff more addictive, (2) The "righteous" option makes increases in karma improve your morale, while the killing of humans more easily shakes your resolve, and (3) the selfish option makes killing humans not factor in at all, but makes getting hurt yourself far more demoralizing.
Do note that this addition requires a non-sfall global to work, so you'd have to override the vault13.gam.
Wow !
Jim, your making unbelievable progress man !
All of the features you have implemented really hit home and sound so logical, fun and fresh.
Ive been playing fallout 2 ever since it was released( im 25 now so go figure) and im so accustomed to the flow of combat I have become a ingame fortune teller who knows the outcome of every battle... even sulik and grampy bone are impressed...
the system your creating adds many new factors based on skill or stats combined with a tiny bit of random luck at times.
These new layers make me have to approach things differently, combat,character builds,new roleplaying options and that bit of randomness which is welcome ( like the player morale system for example) making it all feel more immersive.
I have become addicted to the restoration project, is there a way to make this compatible with the Rp once the bear dude releases his ''final'' magnum opus master piece ?
To make along story short, THIS & the RP are what to me will complete the fallout 2 universe.
I wish all you guys would live closeby or i wouldv thrown a cool party and chillout but alas Holland is quite far...
I dont have allot of funds and my skills of coding or anything that could contribute to fallout modding are noneexisting. but after the final RP and hopefully the compatibilty of your mod i would like to donate just a lil something so i have at least in some way or form pitched in.
Im really curious as in to where your going with this mod, cause it has soo much potential !
Bye
Jim, your making unbelievable progress man !
All of the features you have implemented really hit home and sound so logical, fun and fresh.
Ive been playing fallout 2 ever since it was released( im 25 now so go figure) and im so accustomed to the flow of combat I have become a ingame fortune teller who knows the outcome of every battle... even sulik and grampy bone are impressed...
the system your creating adds many new factors based on skill or stats combined with a tiny bit of random luck at times.
These new layers make me have to approach things differently, combat,character builds,new roleplaying options and that bit of randomness which is welcome ( like the player morale system for example) making it all feel more immersive.
I have become addicted to the restoration project, is there a way to make this compatible with the Rp once the bear dude releases his ''final'' magnum opus master piece ?
To make along story short, THIS & the RP are what to me will complete the fallout 2 universe.
I wish all you guys would live closeby or i wouldv thrown a cool party and chillout but alas Holland is quite far...
I dont have allot of funds and my skills of coding or anything that could contribute to fallout modding are noneexisting. but after the final RP and hopefully the compatibilty of your mod i would like to donate just a lil something so i have at least in some way or form pitched in.
Im really curious as in to where your going with this mod, cause it has soo much potential !
Bye
Thanks, making it compatible would be very easy as soon as the source code comes out, just a minute of copy pasting and then it's done (personally, I'm never that big a fan of added content, especially to a game that's already as bloated as Fallout 2, but the fixes they're making to existing quests are very promising).
As for where I'm going, I started a thread over at the Codex where I'll be posting my ideas as they come (I'm hoping they'll be a bit more talkative there than over here ).
As for where I'm going, I started a thread over at the Codex where I'll be posting my ideas as they come (I'm hoping they'll be a bit more talkative there than over here
).That is great news Jim !
Yeah, the idear of an even bigger world with more to do can be a little overwhelming at first.
But because they stayed so true to the source and focused for the most part of restoring things that were left out due to time or money restriction it flows really well and feels more like connecting the dots.
Also through the years i have come to known almost every nook and cranny of the game so i tend to roleplay allot,To me the Rp opens up more content for chars who roleplay wise dont interact or dont accept the quests of some or many npc's - the most extreme example would be choosing so be a slaver or evil char in general - but i tend to roleplay with more story behind my char and his/her choices so its not as black and white like that but you get my point.
So now instead of it being one MASSIVE world with this huge checklist of quests and things to do making you play the game almost like you were suffering of a serious case of OCD, it just opens more paths or branches for my char - which is really cool ones you get into a bit of mental story or roleplaying behind your char.
(which will be inevitable if youv been playing for as long as i have- and i guess most of you have
)
Which is why i am so stoked about your mod.
I have bookmarked the link to your other thread, and will check and be more vocal - here and there.
It would be handy if there was a place with 1 list of all the changes already implement - just basic feature list.
Not that it is a huge problem to scroll through pages but having one place with just features implemented and coming idears list gives an instant overal view of what is up and makes it easier to give input.
I can make this feature list for you, send it to you- so you can post it somewhere.
Im gonna do this for myself anyway so this way i can give better input.
Keep it up man ! & tonight i will check the other thread - im really curious.
Bye !
-----------------------------------------------------
*edit : aaah i see, the other thread features this list ! perfect !
*edit2: Hey jim i was browsing through the forum and found this:
*edit3 feature list.
first quote is from ardent :
"I'm all for sneaky murders and the Sneak + one-shot kill rarely does the job IMO, so the stim murder is the only option left. In fact, I would love to see the "poison" item be made into a non-unique drug that drains hit points quickly, so you can use it on critters, if you want to kill them without bloodshed''
2nd quote is from Timeslip:
"If there was a skill check involved it would make a nice means of sneaky murder, but as it is it's a completely risk free and consequence free means to kill any non-agressive critter in the game. But the point that there's not really any alternatives for sneaky characters is a good one. Some sort of skillchecked poison item would be interesting (and relatively easy to code with the useobjon hook script,) but that's for another mod to consider"
What do you think about having a way for cloak&dagger/sneaky/(slightly evil)-diplomatic chars to assasinate a critter by using this poison. Mayby involving science&doctor skills due to having to ''understand'' the mentioned poison and where to stick it in the body for it to have the quickest and most lethal effect.
Of course sneak would be required to get close to said victim.
Also, could the ''shiv'' weapon play a role for its.. consealment.. propably easier to just keep it as a drug item right ?
This way there is a more tailored/dedicated way of sneak killing instead of the superstim way, giving chars who invest in some of the more passive skills and purposely choose or roleplayed a certain playstyle the option to use this - giving a sence of reward by being able to do this + having more superstims. (or would a superstim be required to craft this but making it do far more damage so in the end youd save superstims)
(here is the link to another topic in which i ask for input just in case you would like to see feedback later on :http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1014508#1014508
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Jim !
I noticed the first post on the other website shows much more features than your first post here... I think your project is awesome and deserves to be seen. Mayby you could add all the features on your first post here as well instead of being spread out through the pages, especially when the pages will inevitable grow.
Yeah, the idear of an even bigger world with more to do can be a little overwhelming at first.
But because they stayed so true to the source and focused for the most part of restoring things that were left out due to time or money restriction it flows really well and feels more like connecting the dots.
Also through the years i have come to known almost every nook and cranny of the game so i tend to roleplay allot,To me the Rp opens up more content for chars who roleplay wise dont interact or dont accept the quests of some or many npc's - the most extreme example would be choosing so be a slaver or evil char in general - but i tend to roleplay with more story behind my char and his/her choices so its not as black and white like that but you get my point.
So now instead of it being one MASSIVE world with this huge checklist of quests and things to do making you play the game almost like you were suffering of a serious case of OCD, it just opens more paths or branches for my char - which is really cool ones you get into a bit of mental story or roleplaying behind your char.
(which will be inevitable if youv been playing for as long as i have- and i guess most of you have
) Which is why i am so stoked about your mod.
I have bookmarked the link to your other thread, and will check and be more vocal - here and there.
It would be handy if there was a place with 1 list of all the changes already implement - just basic feature list.
Not that it is a huge problem to scroll through pages but having one place with just features implemented and coming idears list gives an instant overal view of what is up and makes it easier to give input.
I can make this feature list for you, send it to you- so you can post it somewhere.
Im gonna do this for myself anyway so this way i can give better input.
Keep it up man ! & tonight i will check the other thread - im really curious.
Bye !
-----------------------------------------------------
*edit : aaah i see, the other thread features this list ! perfect !
*edit2: Hey jim i was browsing through the forum and found this:
*edit3 feature list.
first quote is from ardent :
"I'm all for sneaky murders and the Sneak + one-shot kill rarely does the job IMO, so the stim murder is the only option left. In fact, I would love to see the "poison" item be made into a non-unique drug that drains hit points quickly, so you can use it on critters, if you want to kill them without bloodshed''
2nd quote is from Timeslip:
"If there was a skill check involved it would make a nice means of sneaky murder, but as it is it's a completely risk free and consequence free means to kill any non-agressive critter in the game. But the point that there's not really any alternatives for sneaky characters is a good one. Some sort of skillchecked poison item would be interesting (and relatively easy to code with the useobjon hook script,) but that's for another mod to consider"
What do you think about having a way for cloak&dagger/sneaky/(slightly evil)-diplomatic chars to assasinate a critter by using this poison. Mayby involving science&doctor skills due to having to ''understand'' the mentioned poison and where to stick it in the body for it to have the quickest and most lethal effect.
Of course sneak would be required to get close to said victim.
Also, could the ''shiv'' weapon play a role for its.. consealment.. propably easier to just keep it as a drug item right ?
This way there is a more tailored/dedicated way of sneak killing instead of the superstim way, giving chars who invest in some of the more passive skills and purposely choose or roleplayed a certain playstyle the option to use this - giving a sence of reward by being able to do this + having more superstims. (or would a superstim be required to craft this but making it do far more damage so in the end youd save superstims)
(here is the link to another topic in which i ask for input just in case you would like to see feedback later on :http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1014508#1014508
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Jim !
I noticed the first post on the other website shows much more features than your first post here... I think your project is awesome and deserves to be seen. Mayby you could add all the features on your first post here as well instead of being spread out through the pages, especially when the pages will inevitable grow.
Love your work Jim.
I'm going to throw some crazy ideas that were floating around Mutants Rising, can you tell me are any of these possible...
Is there any chance of playing around with the weight/size of objects, so the limit to what the PC, or any critter, can carry is slightly more realistic.
Stimpaks and money have an actual weight. For instance stimpaks = .2 Ib and coins = .02 Ib.
Every object has a size, eg: 10mm SMG = 3, while a spear = 4. So restricting players to a certain "carryable" amount shouldn't be too difficult.
One other thing - Stealing a weapon from a critter should also be extremely difficult - 100% steal could get you a pistol with a luck role, and ammo, but not much else - 150% a rifle - 200% anything your heart desires. So the steal skill is linked to the actual size of the object.
Does any of that make sense.
I'm going to throw some crazy ideas that were floating around Mutants Rising, can you tell me are any of these possible...
Is there any chance of playing around with the weight/size of objects, so the limit to what the PC, or any critter, can carry is slightly more realistic.
Stimpaks and money have an actual weight. For instance stimpaks = .2 Ib and coins = .02 Ib.
Every object has a size, eg: 10mm SMG = 3, while a spear = 4. So restricting players to a certain "carryable" amount shouldn't be too difficult.
One other thing - Stealing a weapon from a critter should also be extremely difficult - 100% steal could get you a pistol with a luck role, and ammo, but not much else - 150% a rifle - 200% anything your heart desires. So the steal skill is linked to the actual size of the object.
Could armor have hit points...lets say Leather armor had 300 hit points (armor points), and over time as you fight the various encounters your armor gets worn down (10% of actual damage), so eventually its a tattered rag - lets say at its worse it loses 80%+ of it defensive qualities. It would mean players have to source new armors during the game, or die - very Arcanum.
For example -
Leather Armor -
Damage Resistance
100% = 300hp..........80% = 240hp..........60% = 180hp..........40% = 120hp.........20% = 60hp
NORM.....25...........NORM...20.............NORM....15............NORM....10.........NORM.....05
LAS .......20...........LAS...15................LAS....12...............LAS....08.............LAS.....03
FIRE.......20...........FIRE...15...............FIRE....12..............FIRE....08............FIRE.....03
PLAS .....10...........PLAS...08...............PLAS....06..............PLAS....04...........PLAS.....02
ELEC .....30...........ELEC...25...............ELEC...20..............ELEC....15...........ELEC.....10
EXPL .....20...........EXPL...15...............EXPL....12..............EXPL....08...........EXPL.....03
EMP ......500..........EMP ....500.............EMP ....500............EMP ....500.........EMP ......500
Naturally different armors would have difference armor points - all the sudden the repair skill becomes quite useful. Gather the right raw materials and repair your armor - the simple armors that is (leather + metal) - combat armor, and the two Power armors would be impossible to fix. The funny thing is I've already built the damage armor artwork for another project.
Each stage would require new protos...and some way of telling the player how damaged their armor is.
Does any of that make sense.
Not a big fan of this, but it's not that hard to do; just have a script constantly check the player's inventory for two or more weapons, and if that's the case, force him to drop one. I assume that you guys have at least 1 scripter working for you after 15 years, right
?Again, not that hard to work around, check the inventory for stims/cash, divide by 5/50 and lower 1 extra_stat, STAT_carry_amt. Not sure you should do this with cash though; I mean, I always thought the gold coins were just shorthand for a gold-backed currency that could also include paper money. But I must admit I never looked into it much.
Every object does have a size (to check how many fit in a container), but I'm not sure if any of the item editors out there let you change it (at least FIME doesn't). If you want to check/change what an item's size is, use get_proto_data(*your pid*, 112). Heck, you can even check for an items material (i.e. whether it's made of leather or steel or whatever), but you'd first have to finish the developers job of assigning these consistently.
You can find more stuff you can check for here.
Not sure if making it affect such a small value like AP is a good idea (you'd constantly be checking that your weight was exactly one above the threshold between max AP and -1 AP). That's why in my system it affects to hit (but only after exhaustion kicks in).
Good idea, I already put in a request with Timeslip that would make this easier.
Great idea, though I'm pretty sure this would really need the kind of "critter uses skill on critter" hookscript I'm requesting Timeslip.
For this you'd need another request I put in at Sfall, namely persistent object pointers; right now, if the map reloads, you lose all info on which item is which, so you can't differentiate between particular sets of leather armor.
Damn Pixote, you really took it to another level !
I like your train of thought, proposed idears really allow for skills and or perks that are normally worthless or just give nothing much in return compared to the other choices to make a comeback. For example, the how many weapons one can carry, or how encumburance influences ap or another stat could be positively affected by a vanilla perk like ''packrat''.
Also, the rate of how much armor now degenerates or mechanical weapons being more prone to failure could also be influenced
the repair skill.
I like the idear of fleshing out first aid, first aid = hitpoints and doctor is more for broken limbs.
i never was really into stealing but yes , stealing a critters belongings or only means of survival should be a little more difficult and challenging.
All of these mechanics really add a deeper layer to fallout, it just comes down to how to balance it with what jim has done or has in mind.
I can understand why for expample weapon carry restriction could be a little too hardcore for some but i cant help too like that immersion and have to plan or sacrifice loot and focus more on survival (i hope at one point eating and drinking coudl somehow have a bigger role)
Good idears man !
I like your train of thought, proposed idears really allow for skills and or perks that are normally worthless or just give nothing much in return compared to the other choices to make a comeback. For example, the how many weapons one can carry, or how encumburance influences ap or another stat could be positively affected by a vanilla perk like ''packrat''.
Also, the rate of how much armor now degenerates or mechanical weapons being more prone to failure could also be influenced
the repair skill.
I like the idear of fleshing out first aid, first aid = hitpoints and doctor is more for broken limbs.
i never was really into stealing but yes , stealing a critters belongings or only means of survival should be a little more difficult and challenging.
All of these mechanics really add a deeper layer to fallout, it just comes down to how to balance it with what jim has done or has in mind.
I can understand why for expample weapon carry restriction could be a little too hardcore for some but i cant help too like that immersion and have to plan or sacrifice loot and focus more on survival (i hope at one point eating and drinking coudl somehow have a bigger role)
Good idears man !
@Jim
Modding any proto file can (and probably should) be dome through the mapper.
But there is always Cubik's tool:
http://cubik2k.w.interia.pl/en_index.htm
Modding any proto file can (and probably should) be dome through the mapper.
But there is always Cubik's tool:
http://cubik2k.w.interia.pl/en_index.htm
Glovz said:
Thanks, but I never mod proto files, I just use FIME sometimes to easily check something. The only reason I mentioned was because I was so surprised the guys at Mutants Rising didn't know items had a size (unless I misread .Pixote's comment), so I assumed proto editors chose not to display that value.
JimTheDinosaur said:
We Mutants understand that items have sizes, you only need to check with "f2wedit" to see the numbers. Having your steal skill capability related to the items size would dramatically alter the approach of players. No longer can the player just think that stealing something is a case of constant reloading until they finally succeed, if you don't have the numbers you will never succeed at stealing.
JimTheDinosaur said:
In fact, we (I) know full well that items have size. It's a stat visible as well in the Mapper, as in Cubik's tool. I'm sure Pixote also knew about it, he just phrased his sentence in a way that could have been confusing.
As for some of the other ideas:
Timeslip already introduced the possibility to limit the player's inventory by size, so it's not difficult at all to introduce something like this.
Also, your chance of stealing an item depends on its size - it's hardcoded in the core engine, so the only thing you might want to do is to change the impact of size on your chance to steal. Also, you can decrease the player's chance to steal an item by increasing the target critter's Steal skill. I've done that on most major critters in MR, but Pixote hasn't played it yet, so he might not know about it
The guns mod as proposed by Pixote is very unjust. Why can't you carry five guns, if you want to sell them? I can pack my bag full of pistols and it will be heavy, sure, but not impossible to carry around. Arbitrary limits like suggested by Pixote diminish your options as a player and that's a bad thing. If Fallout was some tactical game, then maybe this would have made sense (because you would have a whole bunch of characters to control and each could have a different loadout), but in an RPG - it doesn't, IMO. In Fallout you're often faced with varying challenges and not being prepared for them means you die.
AP penalty for carry weight - meh. There's a certain amount of items that you have to carry around, if you want to succeed in this game: stimpaks, weapons, armor, quest items. I imagine carry weight as a maximum amount of stuff you can carry without getting slowed down. You could argue that although you can carry 20 kilo on your back without problem, it slows you down nonetheless, and you will be of course right, but we're making a game and not a life simulator, and limitations like decreased AP due to amount carried would be IMO a nuisance, adding little to the game, but frustration.
In MR, we already decreased your overall carry weight by about 50%. Stimpaks and most other drugs have weight and ammo comes in decreased clips (but with the same weight), so it really forces you to manage your equipment wisely. Pixote hasn't played the game yet, so he doesn't know...
Armor degradation - The concept sounds cool, but IMO it could only work for a longer game or a game with less types of armor in it. I think we already have too many types of armor in MR, so adding their degraded versions would mean you find a suit of armor every five minutes of the game, which is stupid.
First aid mod - already in MR, and enhanced way beyond what Pixote proposed. You get bleeding wounds that deal damage over time, you can neutralize the effect with First Aid, but it doesn't heal your lost HitPoints, you actually have to use Doctor to do that. That's in the essence what it's about. There are many interdependencies and additional features connected with that too. We're still tweaking the system and honestly, it's generating a number of weird and random bugs. I am probably going to rescript it from scratch, when I get a couple of days free of work.
BTW, Jim, don't your many changes to engine calculations and such influence the reliability of your playthroughs? I've made two large systems so far (food system for my mod and first aid/doctor system for MR), adding new features and stuff, and it always messes something up, and it is rarely clear what the problem is.
I don't mean to undermine your expertise or skill, but have you tested your game with all these changes applied? Sometimes problems emerge only after several hours into the game, after you've saved a lot and reloaded a couple of times etc.
Just curious, really.
Hehe, "undermine my expertise", I've been modding for two months or something for god's sake (I mean, I have been doing so obsessively, but still). My testing consists of a couple of steps, first checking if it works, then I used to check if the game doesn't melt after 15 or so map entries (this was necessary when I still used the "always on" global script type), then travel to Klamath and the Den and see how it works there.
I'm not sure how it would become a problem after a couple of hours/reloads because up to now, nothing new gets saved. Everything happens on an ad hoc basis in each new map, so ostensively, things should be the same on first load as in the last. I mean, I didn't test this, but it should in theory work just as well over any existing savefile you have as over any new game. Though of course I might be mistaken; how did your food/first aid systems work generally?
Also, sorry to you and Pixote for that mistake. I've just completely lost track of which of the things I know are common knowledge and which aren't.[/i]